Affirmative Action has now ended in the United States.
Equality v equity.
Do you want every to be given the exact same resources at the start? Or do you want everyone to be able to reach the same outcome?
The state legislated racism - kneecapped a swathe of the population’s ability to access education and prosper. So how could the state possibly provide restitution for this without addressing the population it did this to?
From the majority’s opinion
nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university. Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice
Sounds like schools can still look at specific circumstances of a person’s life; just can’t make a blanket assumption that because they look a certain way they must have had things hard or easy.
If the goal is to provide restitution to people who have been impacted by government policies, evaluating whether or not they were actually affected, and to what extent, seems reasonable to me.
The issue here is exactly the issue affirmative action aims to help resolve - if you leave it so universities can if they so choose look at how someone’s experience of race has impacted on them, many of them won’t, because of structural racism and how ingrained it is. This decision is not requiring universities to consider their admission practices and what barriers might be in place - and many won’t.
It’d be great if they did, and in an ideal world we wouldn’t need requirements like this because universities and other organisations would proactively consider how their processes and decisions might be creating or removing barriers for all their students. Currently, that isn’t happening.
Because available spots in colleges are limited in order to give to one group you have to take away from another, it’s a zero sum game. I don’t know what the right answer is but I know that treating asian kids worse because they are asian isn’t one. I also don’t belive that kids should suffer for the sins of their grandparents.
Like I said I don’t know what the right answer is but I think offering scholarships to talented, hardworking kids who can’t afford to pay for school, regardless of race is a better solution than race based preferential treatment.
You have to take a step back and look at it on a bigger scale. The state caused generational harm. Kids are in worse positions because of what the state stole from their grandparents. I can’t look up stats on my phone, but it is a thing that is measurable.
I definitely believe the poor need more resources, but it’s a different discussion from affirmative action.
If kids shouldn’t suffer for the sins of their grandparents then why should other kids suffer for the sins committed against their grandparents?
You can’t starve one man while feeding another for years, then give them both equal food for a few months and assume they’ll be even. You by necessity have to give the starving man more, and regardless of the fed man’s complaints it isn’t unfair for him to get less - he’s literally been getting more the whole time and is perfectly healthy.
