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Guynemer
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From CNN
quote:
Bush criticizes university 'quota system'
Debate on affirmative action heats up
Wednesday, January 15, 2003 Posted: 5:28 PM EST (2228 GMT)
President Bush: "All races must be treated equally under the law."
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Calling it "fundamentally flawed," President Bush announced Wednesday his opposition to an affirmative action program at the University of Michigan that targets minority students and said his administration will challenge it as the Supreme Court tackles the issue.
"I strongly support diversity of all kinds, including racial diversity in higher education," Bush said at the White House. "But the method used by the University of Michigan to achieve this important goal is fundamentally flawed."
Bush called it "a quota system" that rejects or accepts students "based solely on race."
The president said his administration would file a brief Thursday outlining its opposition to the university's affirmative action program, which helps African-American, Hispanic and Native American students. The administration is expected to file a friend-of-the court brief, but it is not a plaintiff in the matter.
"Our Constitution makes it clear that people of all races must be treated equally under the law," Bush said.
Bush's action immerses the administration in a politically and socially charged subject at a time when Republicans are trying to recover from a racially tinged firestorm in the Senate and reach out to minority voters.
'A watershed moment'
The move by the administration was closely watched on Capitol Hill by Democrats who say Republicans have failed to encourage racial diversity. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, called it "a watershed moment" for Republicans.
Former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt -- who has announced his candidacy for the White House in 2004 -- said he would file a court brief in support of the university's affirmative action program. Gephardt, D-Missouri, graduated from the University of Michigan Law School.
In the University of Michigan case, white students opposed to the program filed suits against the school. One lawsuit challenged the affirmative action program at the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, and another lawsuit challenged admissions policies using race at the law school.
The undergraduate admission process involves a point system where African-American, Hispanic and Native American applicants earn 20 points on the basis of race out of a 150-point system.
The Supreme Court's decision will be key in defining the role of affirmative action in America.
Conservatives have been arguing that it is important for the administration to take a stand against racial preferences.
Bush made clear his opposition to any such system.
"Quota systems that use race to include or exclude people from higher education and the opportunities it offers are divisive, unfair and impossible to square with the Constitution," Bush said.
But it is a politically sensitive issue for the president and Republicans who have been trying to reach out to minorities, especially in the wake of the controversy surrounding Sen. Trent Lott's comments praising Sen. Strom Thurmond's segregationist 1948 presidential bid.
Many civil rights activists also have been angered by the president's judicial nominees, most recently that of Charles Pickering, a Mississippi judge renominated to a federal appeals court. They've described Pickering as racially insensitive and questioned his commitment to civil rights.
The White House does not have to file a friend-of-the-court brief, but it is common practice in high-profile cases.
Daschle suggested the administration's actions did not match its stated support for diversity.
"I think the burden of proof will be on the administration, I think the burden of proof will be on Republicans to show us how they can be for diversity and yet be against the laws that promulgate diversity," Daschle said. "That, I think, is a hard case to make, but I look forward to their response."
At a White House briefing, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer highlighted a program Bush spearheaded as governor of Texas.
Bush opposed racial preferences at state universities, opting instead for a program he calls "affirmative access," under which the top 10 percent of all high school students are eligible for admission.
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There are NO QUOTAS. None! Moreover, to say that decisions are based solely on race... my god, it's just so stupid! It's just such a bald-faced lie!
The question is will any Democrat, particularly one who is running for President, have the balls to call him out on it? My guess--hell no.
A bit hypocritical, isn't it, considering that Bush himself benefited from affirmative action in higher education?
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Guynemer
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Look, you can argue with affirmative action if you want, I have no problem with that. Just don't LIE about it. Christ, just because he's an idiot he thinks the rest of us are too.
(Obviously, that wasn't directed at you, Orange.) Orange, I know your idea is for AA based solely on economic class. I think that's a fine and wonderful idea, worthy of pursuing. However, it ignores the fact that racism continues to exist throughout all economic classes. Just look at that study that came out a few days ago, which showed that applicants with "white" names got 50% more job offers than similar applicants with "black" names. Once we can honestly say that racism is on its way out in out nation, then I will be 100% behind your proposition, without any reservations. Until that time, however, I must support race-based AA, even if it is philosophically flawed on a fundamental level.
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Dr Strangelove
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Weren't minority scholarships abolished a few years ago? I thougth that back in the 1990s there was a Federal Court decision that ruled scholarships for minorities to be a form of discrimination.
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Guynemer
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Shi--
Couple things here. What you are talking about is the Law School case. A bit of a different creature than the LS&A (undergraduate) case. Frankly, I can not speak to the Law School case; I am not nearly as familiar with it as I am the LS&A case. However, considering that the CIR is the entity behind the lawsuits, you'll have to find another source for me to buy that data.
Secondly, that chart is hardly proof. More white applicants than black got accepted with those grades/test scores, 8 to 3. Perhaps if 93 black applicants had those numbers, and 93 got in, you'd have a case. I'd have to see the actual Law School admitting criteria to make some sort of reasoned argument; statistics from a biased source aren't gonna cut it, my friend.
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:25
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To play devil's advocate for a second (I don't necessarily agree with either of these, but they are points that have been brought up):
1) Yale, Harvard, et al are private universities, whereas the University of Michigan is public - meaning that one set doesn't receive any government funding while the other does.
2) Just because Bush or anyone else had advantages based on a system in the past, why can't they call the system unfair and call for reforms today? Despite how unlikely it is that Bush could actually draw this conclusion, maybe he realized that they way he got through was wrong.
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intrigue
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I would like to see any politician with a respectable amount of political prestige' stand against actions like what this university currently follows.
IMO most AA based rules, regulations and procedures are predjudice against whites, and more specifically white males.
I have no problem with grants and scholarships aimed at specific groups or types of people - free money can be dispursed as seen fit by those that have it to give away.
But acceptance into universities should be based soley on merit and potential. Not skin, gender or anything of the like. Especially universities that are partially funded by the nation's tax revenue.
In my view, Affirmative Action is a huge irony... Limit the possibilities for a specific type of people because the possibilities for another were limited in the past. This is NOT equality... and I am glad to see our president stand against this issue. Perhaps it is the beginning of a change over time for a flawed and predjudice system.
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ravagon
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Australia
Sep 1999
time: 13:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Guynemer
Secondly, that chart is hardly proof. More white applicants than black got accepted with those grades/test scores, 8 to 3. Perhaps if 93 black applicants had those numbers, and 93 got in, you'd have a case. I'd have to see the actual Law School admitting criteria to make some sort of reasoned argument; statistics from a biased source aren't gonna cut it, my friend. |
This doesn't really mean very much unless the ethnic ratio of Caucasian:African applicants is also 8:3 (or greater). I would suspect that isn't the case...
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orange
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It doesn't matter what your name is!
Feb 2000
time: 00:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Guynemer
Look, you can argue with affirmative action if you want, I have no problem with that. Just don't LIE about it. Christ, just because he's an idiot he thinks the rest of us are too.
(Obviously, that wasn't directed at you, Orange.) Orange, I know your idea is for AA based solely on economic class. I think that's a fine and wonderful idea, worthy of pursuing. However, it ignores the fact that racism continues to exist throughout all economic classes. Just look at that study that came out a few days ago, which showed that applicants with "white" names got 50% more job offers than similar applicants with "black" names. Once we can honestly say that racism is on its way out in out nation, then I will be 100% behind your proposition, without any reservations. Until that time, however, I must support race-based AA, even if it is philosophically flawed on a fundamental level. |
Wow. I didn't think anyone actually listened to my thoughts. You're wonderful, Guy 
That study was actually discussed tonight on Hardball...definitely a problem...but that doesn't, in my opinion, mean anything for AA in Universities. If Unis begin to not admit students accept for merit, it will be shunned...
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Shi Huangdi
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Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 1999
time: 00:25
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Lawerence of Arabia:
"Universities take people who they think will make their student body the best possible. Grades arn't the only things that they are looking at. If a university feels that people of african american heritage will bring more to their student body then a white person with the same academic scores, then that is up to them
The government should not get involved."
So what if say, the University of Alabama decided their student body would be best if it did not have black students?
For one thing many of these universities are either state universities(such as U. Michigan) or recieve government funding in some way. Also in matters of racial discrimination their is precedent for the government to step into the affiars privately owned businesses to stop discrimination.
Guynemer:
"However, considering that the CIR is the entity behind the lawsuits, you'll have to find another source for me to buy that data."
Are you saying they made that info up? CNN also quoted CIR statistics on their page, so apparently the source can't be that non-credible.
"Secondly, that chart is hardly proof. More white applicants than black got accepted with those grades/test scores, 8 to 3. Perhaps if 93 black applicants had those numbers, and 93 got in, you'd have a case."
Thats because there were more white applicans with those stats. All the blacks with those stats were admitted, few white students with those stats were. The graph clearly shows there are much lower standards for African Americans then there are for Whites. Take a look at say, a gpa of 3.5-3.74 and a LSAT of 159-160. 3 of 3 African Americans got in, 2 out of 65 white students were.
As for whether it is a quota or not, whether you designate a certain number of spots for minorities to get a certain percent of them, or you lower the bar for them so that the same amount of them get admitted, you are still doing the same thing, you are just having two different ways of doing it. So in a sense all Affirmative Action programs are quotas.
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Rufus T. Firefly
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is one way of saying it, though I prefer "mensch"
Sep 2000
time: 07:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Kontiki
To play devil's advocate for a second (I don't necessarily agree with either of these, but they are points that have been brought up):
1) Yale, Harvard, et al are private universities, whereas the University of Michigan is public - meaning that one set doesn't receive any government funding while the other does.
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I've no time to sink into the AA quagmire today (for the record, I basically agree with orange), but I must correct this misconception. Private universities get a great deal of money from the government, generally in the form of grants (rather than the direct taxpayer support that public universities get). And the government can, and sometimes does, tie such money to demanding specific behaviors/policies on the part of the university. The private/public distinction doesn't wash here.
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Chris 62
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But I'm feeling MUCH better now
Jan 2001
time: 00:25
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Just to add more to this, when I was working on my engineering degree, my freshmen class had 5 whites, 21 blacks, 4 hispanics and two asians.
Of the Black students, only TWO of them understood BASIC algebra, NONE understood trig (which was REQUIRED for the course tract).
Myself and three of the white people, and both Asians did understand them.
The school tried to give them softer requirements, remedial courses, any number of extras, including IMMENSE finacial aid, yet all the white students were paying tution, NOT ONE of the black of Spaish students in the class were.
Two of the whites, and myself, three of the Spanish, one of the asians and two of the black students got their degrees.
All those "helped" NEVER made it.
Affirative action and quotas DON'T work, and giving "points" to admission IS a quota, after a fashion, so Bush wasn't lying.
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:25
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Zkribbler, young people who got passed over for admission to a college that took quota people instead will be pleased with the end of this biased system because their kids won't have to go through it.
If something isn't earned it isn't respected, so the freeloaders don't try. Those that earned and failed to get in won't forget, and will vote their experience.
Barbra Striesand and her crew will be up in arms as usual, but who cares? Her type would never have voted Republican anyway.
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16-01-2003 04:09
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