If one looks at what is happening beyond the sound bites, no.

Is using one form of injustice to make equity for a long term injustice genuinely right?

Given most meet the standards, there is no injustice.

Affirmative Action has made everyone much more conscious of their hiring criteria. That being said, the success of a candidate does not justify the policy. The success or failure of Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State is not going to be the final determinant of whether hiring an African-American to coach at an SEC school is good policy(of course it is, there are great African-American coaches out there). He got the job because he was the best candidate. And his consideration as a candidate shows how far we have come since the clamoring for A-A began.

Two questions to think about:
IF affirmative action is a good policy, are we at a point of diminishing returns?
Is using one form of injustice to make equity for a long term injustice genuinely right?

I’ll be avidly waiting for the responses.

What I said was “In a situation of uncertainty about whether an individual is really qualified, other individuals without such questions are going to look better.” I think this can fairly be interpreted as applying when two people in question have similar other charateristics, or when other qualifications are scant. In absolutely no circumstance can this possibly be interpreted as meaning all recipients will be judged below all non-recipients, except possibly to someone whose sole argument is attributing racist intent to anyone whose opinion differs from theirs.

In any case, this is a discussion about the effects of policy on perception, not about the actual qualifications of anyone. I have in no case said what a person does while at a university is irrelevant, only that the taint of racial preferences effects everyone who could possibly receive them. In addition, I gave the example of Thomas Sowell who has stated on several occasions that this has actually happened to him even though he could not possibly have been a beneficiary of race preferences. If this is not fact but rather my racism, why don’t you send him a note and tell him it didn’t really happen?

You may question my commitment to equal treatment by smear and innuendo, but you expicitly deny MLK’s “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” line every time you defend race preferences. The idea that lower standards lead to lower achievement is hardly unique to race relations. Yet somehow this principle routinely applied to a myriad of circumstances becomes racist when applied in a case involving race.

Your need to believe anyone who thinks differently than you is a racist is a sickness.

You never said anything about Black laziness. You expressed an opinion that people who are accepted into institutions without affirmative action policies will always be viewed as more qualified than those persons who are viewed as matriculating into institutions with the use of affirmative action policies, whether or not that is actually the case. (”Blacks graduating from universities with race preferenced admissions policies will all suffer regardless of whether they actually received preferenced admissions.” – MJ) I find that notion repugnant, because it presupposes that the actions a person commits while involved in an institution are meaningless. Only how one gets into the institution is important to you, MJ. Your opinion on this subject gives this African American more reason to remember that while conservatives love to invoke Dr. King’s “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” line, few conservatives actually believe it.

Whether or not a African American enters an institution of higher learning through affirmative action policies or not, once they graduate, their should be no question concerning their abilities. Case closed. The reluctance to give educated African American graduates the chance to prove themselves because of general unspoken fears that affirmative action has allowed unqualified Negroes to secure meaningless educational credentials while further raising the academic credibility of those perceived not to benefit from affirmative action policies is, in my opinion, the modern permutation of the tired old Black mental inferiority stereotype. Whether or not you continue to believe in this, MJ, is entirely up to you.

Nowhere did I state nor do I believe blacks are mentally inferior. Maybe you should read again.

I said (a) blacks disproportionately have other priorities, and (b) blacks disproportionately suffer from the effects of lousy schools.

My comments about the effects of race preferences are not racial, they are mathematical and logical. To the extent admissions requirements are deemed important, those who were forced to meet higher standards will be deemed more worthy. This has nothing to do with race. While these standards don’t mean everything, if they mean nothing why are they used for university admissions?

Your inference that my position is blacks are “mentally inferior” and “lazy” is nothing but a smear. Perhaps people who can’t express opinions without implying anyone who holds other opinions are racist should avoid all discussions.

LaShawn- my apologies for the length of the rant. It is so hard to stop when I get so excited about intellectual engagement.

Read it and I’ll generate a response when I have time.

I’m coding, and compiling and testing and…

[ From memory ]

The Hopwood vs Texas Law School case was an interesting “anti-affirmative action” case. In the end, Hopwood got compensation of $1. “The Right” looked at it as a verification of “reverse discrimination.” But here’s the details that people over looked:

1. Hopwood would have still been denied because her undergrad school was not an accredited school which was the requirement for entrance to the law school.

2. Whites with lower test scores than her scores were accepted to the school.

3. The lawyers for Hopwood didn’t prove that she was denied entrance because of her race. There were other entrance requirements that she did not meet.

Linda Chavez’s CEO does “reviews” of schools to see if they are discriminating against white students. They reviewed the University of Virginia, and based on the reviews, “determined” that Black students were getting in who weren’t qualified. The problem with her analysis, is that the Black student’s graduation rate matched those of white students.

What lowered standards?

Perhaps you’ll also be interested in my current post, “The Immorality of Race Preferences.”

Darkstar makes sense. Lots of sense.

My only real beef with those whole believe that race-based affirmative action policies should be eliminated stems from their easy rhetorical slide from “affirmative action discriminates against people” to “affirmative action allows undeserving Black people to pursue education and fail openly” to “affirmative action students and professionals can never be as skilled, as knowledgeable, or as useful as white people”. I do not wish to be unfairly cynical, but it’s like conservatives are simply masking their disdain for minority achievement in the Fourteenth Amendment, and calling it the promotion of equality under the law. I don’t believe that’s racist, in any sense, just disingenuous.

Again, I’m not trying to be unfairly cynical, but take this quote:

“African-Americans miss the fact that hard work and determination is enough. The fact they get poor schooling is due to lack of parent involvement, and the belief that politicians that truly DON’’T CARE will fix their problems for them. Lowered standards should be DEMEANING. I don’’t want anybody lowering standards for me. Let me rise or fall on my own doing. I did not need nor want someone’’s help in my education. People need to quit making excuses to be lazy and call it “racism.” – Chris Roberts

From there it moves to this:

“Blacks graduating from universities with race preferenced admissions policies will all suffer regardless of whether they actually received preferenced admissions. … This is a natural human reaction. In a situation of uncertainty about whether an individual is really qualified, other individuals without such questions are going to look better…. When you lower standards, achieving them is devalued. When you lower them only for certain groups the value to those groups is devalued.” – mj

Now, Mr. Roberts works in education, so while I’d never tell him or MJ what I believe their response to Black academic achievement should be, I would like to promote the idea that holding and justifying the widespread public belief in Black mental inferiority, an old and useless stereotype, only serves to further disenfranchise and separate Black people from not only the American political system, but also other American financial and social centers of influence. One can express distaste with affirmative action policies without calling Black people lazy. One can justify ending affirmative action policies without condemning all African American graduates of higher education attending universities in the post-Bakke world to second-class skill and knowledge levels without testing their productive values in the real world. Chris, MJ, no disrespect, but maybe you guys should try again.

The blanket statements concerning Black mental inferiority are not necessary, and only serve to promote the Black liberal view that opponents of affirmative action policies really only wish to see Black people poor, uneducated, and without political and economic self-determination, brute labor for American corporate elites. I honestly do not believe that; I think conservatives are more bothered by the La Shawn’s premise that redistribution of wealth or the opportunity for wealth by the Left is wrong. Lowering standards for racial minorities to achieve the redistribution is even more immoral, if I understand her correctly. However, especially in higher education, no one lowers standards for African American achievement. Cornell University, my alma mater, is both known and feared for its rigorous, strenuous academic curriculum. No one gained undue advantage over other students that was not garnered through hard work, determined study, and reading. Much, much reading.

Being Black never helped me at Cornell. Being determined to achieve never hurt me there. If people can’t disagree with affirmative action without hating Black achievement, then maybe affirmative action is a topic they should leave alone.

Sorry for the lengthy post.

Yawn.

Darkstar wants to know why blacks are “tainted” by association while Bush isn’t. Well, George Bush couldn’t possibly have received race preferences.

If a Black person graduated from college with a C average, there is no way none of you would have defended that Black person as being intellegent as people do for George W. Bush.

Blacks are underrepresented in elite universities because they are disproportionately unprepared.

You will never see or read me argue using proportional representation. Blacks don’t attend elite universities, even when “qualified,” because of cost. Black students rely on loans in far greater proportion than white students rely on loans.

Blacks “drop out” of college in much greater proportion because of funding issues than do white students.