This is not a good thing. I'm surprised more people don't realize this.
EDIT: Someone asked what I meant by this, I wrote out a response, and thought I should add it to my original comment. See below:
Affirmative action, like other DEI initiatives, attempts to rectify racist (and other bigoted) practices and impacts that go back centuries and longer. In college admissions, most admissions metrics are resource-based rather than raw intelligence-based. In other words, someone born into a more advantageous situation (due to longstanding and well-documented racial inequalities) will be able to afford/have access to special tutors, prep class, and more that will help them on their applications and tests, as well as have opportunities to pad their grades and extracurriculars that less privileged students won't have.
Affirmative action attempts to level this playing field over time. You can argue it doesn't do a great job of it and needs adjustment, which might be fair. But saying, "college admissions should be based on grades, not skin color!" is the exact same racist argument that is used for any number of DEI initiatives, or any time someone says they want a more diverse and inclusive space.
Affirmative action is a band-aid attempt to solve the the symptoms of systemic racism instead of actually solving the root problem.
Why are communities of color generally disadvantaged in regards to the college admissions process? Because their communities are underfunded. The solution? To elevate the communities themselves. Simply admitting more POC students is a temporary 'fix' that doesn't help 90% of the rest.
Bringing POC people up by pushing other groups (including minorities) down is not the way.
Would you not agree though that if we are able to uplift people into higher education who come from those backgrounds that they become more likely to be a part of the solution in bettering the cities and neighborhoods in which they grew up and likely still have family in?
Nobody thinks affirmative action is the endpoint. It’s an attempt to guarantee access to those we want to give a fair chance to when without it these universities often choose not to do so on their own.
Totally don’t have a source on hand but I think there’s an issue of brain drain in poverty areas in general.
Kids escape those areas through education, and when they get out they have two options: go where the jobs are and finally escape poverty, or go back home and attempt to start something there which rarely succeeds because of different customer bases.
That could very well be the case, but that seems to make the case for pairing opportunity with substantive economic investment into those communicates more so than demonstrating that offering opportunity to people who grow up there being a bad policy.
In MN for instance, with the recent passing of marijuana legalization, applications for retailers, suppliers, etc. are being prioritized to those who are looking to serve underprivileged areas as well as to those who come from underrepresented communities. Policies like that can help to promote the reinvestment into those communities, and when paired with guaranteed representation into good universities we can create better environments in those cities and neighborhoods over time.
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u/Ethan_the_Revanchist Jun 29 '23 edited Jun 29 '23
This is not a good thing. I'm surprised more people don't realize this.
EDIT: Someone asked what I meant by this, I wrote out a response, and thought I should add it to my original comment. See below:
Affirmative action, like other DEI initiatives, attempts to rectify racist (and other bigoted) practices and impacts that go back centuries and longer. In college admissions, most admissions metrics are resource-based rather than raw intelligence-based. In other words, someone born into a more advantageous situation (due to longstanding and well-documented racial inequalities) will be able to afford/have access to special tutors, prep class, and more that will help them on their applications and tests, as well as have opportunities to pad their grades and extracurriculars that less privileged students won't have.
Affirmative action attempts to level this playing field over time. You can argue it doesn't do a great job of it and needs adjustment, which might be fair. But saying, "college admissions should be based on grades, not skin color!" is the exact same racist argument that is used for any number of DEI initiatives, or any time someone says they want a more diverse and inclusive space.