The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which is scheduled to appear on the November 2006 ballot, would ban racial preferences in Michigan. Jennifer Gratz, executive director of MCRI, explains that “People will then be treated without regard to their skin color in public employment, contracting and education.”
And what do those who oppose MCRI and support racial preferences say? Well, let’s take a look at what they said at a recent rally.
More than 600 people from all over Michigan, chanted “They say Jim Crow, we say hell no” as they marched toward the Capitol on Wednesday protesting against the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, or MCRI.
So, outlawing discrimination on the basis of race is now “Jim Crow”?
Included in the protesters were students such as 15-year-old Anthony Bluford, from Cass Technical High School in Detroit, who said the initiative that might affect affirmative action could take away their future opportunities.
“Because of affirmative action, that’s going to determine my future because I want to go to college someday,” [Bluford said.
In other words, young Mr. Bluford’s “future opportunities” depend on his being given preferences based on his race. Have the people who’ve told him that done him a favor?
“Affirmative action should be supported and should stay,” said Zahra Jassim, a 14-year-old student at Ann Arbor Huron High School. “I’m planning on going to the University of Michigan, and without affirmative action, I might have less of a chance getting in.”
I suppose she might, but her chance of getting in should not be affected by the color of her skin. No one’s should be.
If the University of Michigan-Dearborn was good enough for a white student with good grades like Ms. Gratz then why is it not good enough for a a black student with lower grades like
Mr. Bluford or Ms. Jassim?
I bet the pro-AA crowd won’t even try to answer such a question?
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>If the University of Michigan-Dearborn was good enough for a white student with good grades like Ms. Gratz then why is it not good enough for a a black student with lower grades like
Mr. Bluford or Ms. Jassim?’
Supe, where in the article does it say that Bluford and Jassim have “lower grades” than Jennifer Gratz? I don’t see grade point averages listed anywhere.
–Cobra
I think superdestroyer is being kind enough to assume that their grades must be lower, hence their assumption that they need AA. It would be really, really stupid to have good grades and test scores, etc., and still think you need AA.
Laura writes:
>>>It would be really, really stupid to have good grades and test scores, etc., and still think you need AA.”
That’s not the way the system works. There is a limited number of spots at U of M. People with “good grades and test scores” are turned away regardless of the system in place. The system didn’t work in Jennifer Gratz’ favor in the past, so she is trying to change it now, to the detriment of underrepresented minorities.
Again, it really all depends on whose ox is being gored.
–Cobra
cobra:
Again, it really all depends on whose ox is being gored..
Again, no, it doesn’t. At least not if “it” means something like whether or not one regards racial preferences as fair. If that is what “it means, then fairness requires all applicants — whether ox, pigs, cows, sheep, etc. — to be gored according to the same standard. A black ox should get no special treatment, either favorable or unfavorable.
Of course, “it” means something else entirely to anyone who believes discrimination against the other guy is justified — say, to make up for historical injustice, provide “diversity,” or whatever — while discrimination against me or people like me is a travesty of justice.
Thus young Mr. Bluford and young Ms. Jassim should have precisely the same odds of success in the lottery of U of M admissions as all other applicants with similar grades and other credentials. And anyone, or any organization, telling them they deserve more than that, and are victims if they don’t get it, don’t get it.
cobra,
Let me remind you that the Supreme Court ruled that Ms Gratz’s civil rights were violated by the blatantly raced based, separate-and-unequal admission program that UM used.
Remember, what the State of Michigan did, in Ms. Gratz case, was tell her that if she was black then she was good enough for UM but since she was white, then UM-Dearborn was good enough.
Now, the question, I have is why should black college attendees, even if they are from rich families and the children of white collar parents, get to jump over white children of blue collar parents.
Like I said originally, I am still waiting for you to explain why UM-Dearborn is not good enough for Mr. Bluford or Ms. Jassim? Just because some other African-American was discriminated at some other time in history is just not a good enough answer.
“That’s not the way the system works. There is a limited number of spots at U of M. People with ‘good grades and test scores’ are turned away regardless of the system in place.”
Sure. But if X black student and Y white student both have decent grades and test scores, please tell me why X can’t just take his chances like everyone else?
Laura writes:
>>>Sure. But if X black student and Y white student both have decent grades and test scores, please tell me why X can’t just take his chances like everyone else?”
I’m still waiting for Jennifer Gratz (Y white student) to answer that question.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>Let me remind you that the Supreme Court ruled that Ms Gratz’s civil rights were violated by the blatantly raced based, separate-and-unequal admission program that UM used.”
No. 1–that’s only one opinion of the Supreme Court. Shall I remind you of their decision on Grutter that ruled race CAN BE USED AS A FACTOR in admissions?
>>>Now, the question, I have is why should black college attendees, even if they are from rich families and the children of white collar parents, get to jump over white children of blue collar parents.”
Is it just that they’re black, or the fact that they’re rich that bothers you? White, white collar children from influencial parents jump over ALL groups, yet I don’t see your complaints posted on this blog.
John writes:
>>>Thus young Mr. Bluford and young Ms. Jassim should have precisely the same odds of success in the lottery of U of M admissions as all other applicants with similar grades and other credentials.”
Actually, you’ve made it point many times on this blog that you don’t care what OTHER criteria colleges use to admit students, just as long as it isn’t race, ethnicity or religion. This above statement wouldn’t be consistant with your previous ones, because “evening the odds” to my reading of your collective points, has never been a priority with you. Perhaps you can point me to a post where it is.
–Cobra
“I’m still waiting for Jennifer Gratz (Y white student) to answer that question.”
(a) you aren’t talking to Jennifer Gratz here, and
(b) as long as black students get race preferences, she isn’t able to take her chances like everyone else.
Cobra,
The problem was with Mr. Gratz taking her chances is that the State of Michigan had made race much more important than academic achievement. Mr. Gratz did take her chances but it wa in a separate-and-unequal admission system that 25 years earlier the Supreme Court had ruled unconstituional in the Bakke decision.
Now, why can’t Mr. Bluford or Ms. Jassim just take a seat at UM-Dearborn just like the racist who run the State of Michigan asked Ms. Gratz to do?
John writes:
Actually, you’ve made it point many times on this blog that you don’t care what OTHER criteria colleges use to admit students, just as long as it isn’t race, ethnicity or religion. This above statement wouldn’t be consistant with your previous ones, because “evening the odds” to my reading of your collective points, has never been a priority with you. Perhaps you can point me to a post where it is.
cobra – Either I’ve been mis-writing for about three years, or you’ve been mis-reading.
It’s not precisely true that I’ve said that I don’t care what other admissions criteria colleges use so long as they don’t use race, ethnicity, or religion, but you’re close enough for blog work. What I’ve said is not that I don’t care — I rather like traditional notions of merit — but that colleges have the discretion not to use them if they so choose.
Nothing I’ve said about ” young Mr. Bluford and young Ms. Jassim” is inconsistent with this view. To the extent the U of M relies on grades and test scores, Mr. B and Ms. J should have exactly the same chance of winning the admissions lottery as other applicants with similar grades and scores. Same with any other non-grade/score criteria.
My point here really isn’t difficult to understand (although apparently it is difficult for some to accept): all applicants should be evaluated according to the same criteria, with no advantage or disadvantage based on race, religion, ethnicity.
Laura asked: if X black student and Y white student both have decent grades and test scores, please tell me why X can’t just take his chances like everyone else?” and cobra replied:
I’m still waiting for Jennifer Gratz (Y white student) to answer that question.
But she DID answer it very convincingly, convincingly enough even to persuade a majority of this Supreme Court. Her answer is that the admissions game she was forced by UM to play was not fair. The deck was stacked against her; all minority applicants were give an arbitrary 20 point advantage over her. Thus, because of this hard and concrete racial preference, she did not have the same chance of admission as applicants with her same grades and test scores.
I understand your disagreeing with this view. I don’t understand your not understanding it.
Laura & Superdestroyer,
Your statements both presume that a white student like Jennifer Gratz had an “unfair” chance at getting accepted to the University of Michigan, when the FACTS are that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of students accepted the year she applied were WHITE. Maybe there’s some chapter in the anti-affirmative action type handbook that explains white entitlement, but in the real world, NOT EVERY underrepresented minority that applied to the U of M that year was accepted, and there were white students with LOWER grades and/or test scores than Gratz that were (including three time Super Bowl champion QB Tom Brady).
Like I said before, with 5,000 spots and 25,000 applicants, 20,000 people go home unhappy. Strike all minorities from the application pool, and 15,000 white kids STILL GET REJECTED.
The message I’m getting from this thread is as follows:
If Bluford and Jassim don’t get what they want within the system, that’s just the way it is, and they need to get over it. If Jennifer Gratz doesn’t get what she wants in the system, the system must be changed to her benefit.
What’s the difference between Bluford, Jassim and Gratz?
–Cobra
cobra,
The difference between Ms. Gratz, as a test case, and Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim, is that if Ms. Gratz would have just chekced the box, African-American, or Hispanic, or Native American, she would have been accepted, but since she checked the white, non-hispanic box, the State of Michigan told her that UM-Dearborn was good enough for her.
Now my question is, Why isn’t UM-Dearborn or Wayne State, or Michigan Tech good enough for Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim? Why in the life experience of Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim makes them believe that should be allowed to cut in line at UM ahead of white students with higher grades, higher SAT’s, and a more demanding high school classes.
Why can’t Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim, if they want to go to UM, just take the advanced science, math, and foreign language, an history classes classes that the white students are expect to take? Why can’t Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim take the SAT prep classes like the white and asian student do? Why can’t Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim do volunteer work and captain the debate team like the white students are expected?
No, Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim both expect a discount of the achievement expected of them because they get to check a different box of the application than Ms. Gratz checked.
cobra – To put what everyone has been saying a slightly different way: Yes, it’s true that admission to UM is a crap shoot for everyone. For every student of whatever color who was rejected, you find one — probably more than one, probably more than several — applicant with lower grades/test scores who was admitted.
BUT … and it is a big BUT, one’s chances of admission can be, in fact were, worked out very carefully for every combination of grades/test scores, and the chance of a white student were astronomically lower than the chances of a minority student with the same grades and test scores. Another result: there were very, very few white students who were admitted with lower grades/test scores than any minority students. Another result: virtually all minority applicants with high grades/test scores were admitted; only a small percentage of white students with the same high scores were.
Race, in short, was not a finger but a brick on the fairness scale. That’s not fair.
And to repeat, just for your benefit: Michigan was under no obligation to base its admissions to any degree on grades and test scores, but it chose to do so. Having done so, it should have weighed grades/test scores the same for all applicants regardless of race.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>Why can’t Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim, if they want to go to UM, just take the advanced science, math, and foreign language, an history classes classes that the white students are expect to take? Why can’t Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim take the SAT prep classes like the white and asian student do? Why can’t Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim do volunteer work and captain the debate team like the white students are expected?”
My friend, you don’t KNOW ANYTHING about what Bluford and Jassim academic careers have been. You simply read the SAME ARTICLE I did. Why do you ASSUME that Bluford and Jassim don’t do ANY of the things you mention?
It couldn’t be because of RACE, right?
John writes:
>>>Another result: there were very, very few white students who were admitted with lower grades/test scores than any minority students. Another result: virtually all minority applicants with high grades/test scores were admitted; only a small percentage of white students with the same high scores were.
Race, in short, was not a finger but a brick on the fairness scale. That’s not fair.”
Now, brace yourself…your argument makes SENSE. If we were to view life through the singular prism of the U of M admissions policies–grades and SAT scores ONLY, I would cease and desist, and concede the point to you.
HOWEVER…
As you clearly state for my benefit in your last paragraph…the U of M did not do that.
I won’t data dump here, or re-post the myriad of admissions criteria used in the Gratz case by Michigan that had NOTHING to do with grades and test scores, but I will refute Superdestroyer’s claim that race was the ONLY factor in determining Gratz rejection, as opposed to geography, economic status, essay quality, athletic prowess, alumni membership and ACT scores.
Much of my point comes from Gratz’ mouth herself.
>>>”Gratz said, “I knew of people accepted to Ann Arbor who were less qualified, and my first reaction when I was rejected was, ‘Let’s sue.’ ”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41620-2002Apr12?language=printer
Pure, unadulterated white entitlement.
It didn’t matter to her that WHITE KIDS with lower grades or test scores were accepted like 3 time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady. It didn’t matter to her that WHITE KIDS with lower grades or test scores
living 15 miles north of her lilly white Southgate, MI suburb had a statistical advantage in admissions. It didn’t matter that WHITE KIDS with lower grades or test scores living in a trailer park in the Upper Penninsula had a statistical advantage in admissions. This is without any prior knowlege of Michigan’s admission’s criteria.
Gratz’ first saw “RED” in anger, and then “BLACK” as the skin to blame, and eagerly embraced pro-white think-tank sponsored lawyers, who ride in ready to save the country, ala some cheesy, D.W. Griffith “Birth of a Nation” remake.
That’s my beef with Gratz.
I can SEE your point of view, however John. On PAPER, without looking at ANY OTHER MITIGATING FACTORS, your belief that everybody, regardless of race, should have a “fair chance” is a GOOD THING.
In a “fair” America, we wouldn’t have any disagreement at all.
We both know the answer to that one, John.
–Cobra
Cobra,
You misrepresent my position and your comments lead me to believe that you obviously know nothing about what led me to believe that something was wrong with the UM system.
First, was the fact that parents, teachers, and even administrators at my high school talked about the UM system and the fact that race was a factor — a huge factor. Before my experience, I didn’t really believe it — I didn’t think that in 1994/95 our government really used race as a factor, boy was I ever wrong. However, when a student that sat next to me in most of my classes but got slightly lower grades, had a lower test score and wasn’t as active in school or the community, and who happens to be part of what the UM considers to be an “under-represented minority” automatically gets accepted (no wait-list or anything) and I first receive a wait list letter and then a rejection letter all of the comments of the parents (and I’m not talking specifically about my parents), teachers and administrators all started to make a little more sense.
I’ll repeat what I’ve said in the past — when I applied the point system was NOT in place. It was a grid system — a 2 grid system — and the only factor that separated the 2 grids was race. Race was the determining factor.
As for your last point to John about living in a fair America — we cannot ever expect people, society, not to view race as a factor as long as our government, not only relies on race as a factor, but talks about how important it is to use it as a determining factor.
Jen
“>>>Why can’t Mr. Bluford and Ms. Jassim, if they want to go to UM, just take the advanced science, math, and foreign language, an history classes classes that the white students are expect to take? …
“My friend, you don’t KNOW ANYTHING about what Bluford and Jassim academic careers have been. You simply read the SAME ARTICLE I did. Why do you ASSUME that Bluford and Jassim don’t do ANY of the things you mention?”
Once again, Cobra, we assume this because Bluford and Jassim ASSUME that without racial preferences they don’t have a chance. Either (1) the assumptions about their grades and so forth are correct, or (2) they’ve bought into the philosophy that you and others are preaching, that no matter what black folks do, they can never measure up without extra help. And that is a TRAGEDY. I’d much rather believe (1).
Laura writes:
“Once again, Cobra, we assume this because Bluford and Jassim ASSUME that without racial preferences they don’t have a chance. Either (1) the assumptions about their grades and so forth are correct, or (2) they’ve bought into the philosophy that you and others are preaching, that no matter what black folks do, they can never measure up without extra help. And that is a TRAGEDY. I’d much rather believe (1).”
Laura, I agree with you that it’s a tragedy. Perhaps their life experiences in segregated Detroit has led them to not to blindly trust that America, especially White America is going to be “fair” in dealing with them. Let’s take Anthony Bluford for example. He attends Cass Technical High School in Detroit. Compare and contrast the demographics, average class size, and economic levels his high school with that of, oh..say…Southgate Anderson High School in Southgate, MI.
Cass Technical High School
http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/other/mi/1073
Southgate Anderson High School
http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/other/mi/3269
One of the funny things about statistics is that sometimes it reveals INTERESTING facts that don’t often get mentioned in the MSM. Take for example, the fact that although Cass Technical is 96% Black, and Southgate Anderson is 90% White, Cass Technical, according to the MEAP scores provided is the MORE competitive school, with both reading and writing scores above the Michigan state average, and FAR eclipsing that of Southgate Anderson.
Speaking of Southgate…
Jennifer Gratz writes:
>>>You misrepresent my position and your comments lead me to believe that you obviously know nothing about what led me to believe that something was wrong with the UM system.”
How can I misrepresent your position when I’m simply quoting you verbatim from any host of on-the-record media sources?
>>>”That’s how upset and embarrassed I was. I didn’t know how to handle it, so I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t lie, but I made it look like I chose to go to Dearborn,” she said. “When they saw it in the newspapers, they were like, ‘What happened?’ I had to explain to them that I was never accepted.”
On that April afternoon when the rejection letter fell through her mail slot, a hurt and angry Gratz turned to her father.
“Dad,” she said. “Can we sue them?”
http://www.detnews.com/2000/schools/0011/12/a01-147225.htm
>>>Ms. GRATZ: I remember the day like–like it was yesterday. I came home from practice, cheerleading practice, and grabbed the mail. And it was a thin envelope. And then I opened it and I–I–I read probably the first three lines at that point and started crying. I was mad and I didn’t understand why and I didn’t want to tell anyone. But right away, I definitely knew that there was something wrong.
BRADLEY: Why?
Ms. GRATZ: Well, it–it–common knowledge. They make it know that they use RACE and that there is a double standard.”
–Interview with Ed Bradley–CBS “60 Minutes”
http://www.cir-usa.org/cases/michigan_60minutes.html
Trust me, I could post FAR more quotes, but what’s the point? You’ve stated on more than one occasion that you were ticked off about being put on a waiting list, you were fired up to sue because you thought you were being discriminated against due to race. Tell me how I “misrepresented” your position based upon your quotes?
Even in your response to me HERE, on THIS THREAD, you write:
>>>However, when a student that sat next to me in most of my classes but got slightly lower grades, had a lower test score and wasn’t as active in school or the community, and who happens to be part of what the UM considers to be an “under-represented minority” automatically gets accepted (no wait-list or anything) and I first receive a wait list letter and then a rejection letter all of the comments of the parents (and I’m not talking specifically about my parents), teachers and administrators all started to make a little more sense.”
Hello? You’re saying you received a waiting list letter, but you knew of a
person who sat next to you in some classes “who happens to be part of what the UM considers to be an “under-represented minority” (read: NOT WHITE LIKE YOU) who was accepted. Reinforcement from the Southgate, MI (citing racial demographics circa 1995 ) parents, teachers and administrators only makes my theory on your position seem STRONGER. Tom Brady was in the SAME position (slightly lower grades) as the “underrepresented minority student” who sat next to you. Why wasn’t Tom Brady’s acceptance “unfair” to you? And if it WAS, I didn’t hear his name in any of your legal procedings, now did I?
>>>I’ll repeat what I’ve said in the past — when I applied the point system was NOT in place. It was a grid system — a 2 grid system — and the only factor that separated the 2 grids was race. RACE was the determining factor.”
Of course you believe that, Jen. Which means you believe that if ALL underrepresented minorities had been rejected who applied to UM that year, you would’ve been accepted, correct?
>>>Take 1995, the year Gratz was turned down: minorities comprised just 11% of the applicants. Even if all of them had been rejected, the percentage of white students accepted would have risen only from 25% to 30%.
The truth, says the university, is that Gratz would not have got in, anyway – not because she is white or because she was not smart, but because, given the stiff competition, she was simply not smart enough. “People don’t get in for a lot of reasons,” says Peterson. “It’s a myth to say, ‘But for that minority student, I would have got in.’ It’s mathematically ridiculous. Race is a very emotional subject in our country. People have very strong feelings about it, and they are not always grounded in fact.”
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,9959,983273,00.html
That 5% gap must be the “brick on the fairness scale” John referred to in his response above.
>>>As for your last point to John about living in a fair America — we cannot ever expect people, society, not to view race as a factor as long as our government, not only relies on race as a factor, but talks about how important it is to use it as a determining factor.”
As I’ve said to John many times before, eliminating Affirmative Action ONLY makes the GOVERNMENT’s use of race as a factor illegal. Even if, God forbid, you’re successful in your scheme, American society and the American people still will have no motivation, or hesitation to do ANYTHING other than what they’ve done since the enception of this nation–which is to use RACE as a factor.
We already know that throughout the history of America, which preceded the history of Affirmative Action by centuries, race was used as a factor that by and large, benefitted Whites (YOUR GROUP).
Which RACIAL GROUP will benefit most under a system WITHOUT Affirmative Action?
Isn’t hard to figure out, is it, Jen?
–Cobra
“Take for example, the fact that although Cass Technical is 96% Black, and Southgate Anderson is 90% White, Cass Technical, according to the MEAP scores provided is the MORE competitive school, with both reading and writing scores above the Michigan state average, and FAR eclipsing that of Southgate Anderson.”
Then I truly don’t understand why Bluford thinks he needs AA.
Cobra, do you really think that Bluford is justified if he thinks white Americans are out to keep black people down? All white Americans? White Americans he has never met and doesn’t know? Who’s the racist here?
Cobra,
Herein lies the central problem with Gratz’s allegation that she was rejected because she is white. The number of African-American, native American and Hispanic students who apply to the university is very small, so they have only a negligible effect on the odds of white students being accepted. Take 1995, the year Gratz was turned down: minorities comprised just 11% of the applicants. Even if all of them had been rejected, the percentage of white students accepted would have risen only from 25% to 30%.
Once again, let’s play “spot the missing category.” What are “minorities” for the Guardian’s purposes? If the author really thinks that anyone who is not black, Hispanic, or Native American is therefore necessarily white, some major cluelessness-dispersion’s in order.
Michelle writes:
>>”Once again, let’s play “spot the missing category.” What are “minorities” for the Guardian’s purposes? If the author really thinks that anyone who is not black, Hispanic, or Native American is therefore necessarily white, some major cluelessness-dispersion’s in order.”
Well, this is how the UNDISPUTED FACTS put into evidence in the ACTUAL CASE, read.
>>>D. The Data Illustrate the Admissions Process.
The LS&A admissions data in the record paint a picture of how the admissions process works and the role that an applicant
Cobra, you’re deliberately missing my point. Am I really supposed to believe that every student at UMich is either (a) white; (b) black; (c) Hispanic; or (d) Native American? The text you quote slides easily from “minority” in the third sentence to “underrepresented minority” in the fourth. I don’t think the difference between the two concepts ought to be elided as easily as that.
To rephrase: If a student is not either black, Hispanic, or Native American, can we therefore conclude that she is white?
cobra:
The truth, says the university, is that Gratz would not have got in, anyway – not because she is white or because she was not smart, but because, given the stiff competition, she was simply not smart enough.
Even if we assume for the sake of argument that this is true, it is irrelevant to the issue of discrimination. Surely you don’t mean to argue that a college that intentionally refused admission to a large number of blacks because of their race is guilty of discriminating only against the excluded students who would have been admitted but for the discrimination. Or maybe you do, since that is exactly what you’ve just argued.
Michelle:
Your problem in all the examples is that both the writer of the Guardian article and the legal brief on behalf of the University of Michigan didn’t say “underrepresented” as a modifier to “minority” EVERY SINGLE TIME. The plaintiffs representing Gratz vs. Bollinger case didn’t dispute the point, nor did they dispute the findings of the statistics. In this case, the minorities IN QUESTION were African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans. I understand your point about clarity, and agree with you that more care should have been exhibited in phrasing, but if the Supreme Court Justices didn’t have a problem with it, I guess it’s moot.
John writes:
>>>Even if we assume for the sake of argument that this is true, it is irrelevant to the issue of discrimination. Surely you don’t mean to argue that a college that intentionally refused admission to a large number of blacks because of their race is guilty of discriminating only against the excluded students who would have been admitted but for the discrimination. Or maybe you do, since that is exactly what you’ve just argued.”
First of all, those weren’t my words you posted, but that of the author of the Guardian piece, while quoting from a representative of UM. My argument was never that Jennifer Gratz wasn’t “smart enough” to go to college. My argument has been that she felt ENTITLED to go UM, and when didn’t get what she wanted, she cried racism and sued.
Second, as you posted quite correctly before, acceptance to UM is a “crapshoot”. We are haggling over the odds. You feel the scales leaned too much on the side of underrepresented minorities. That’s a legitimate view. I
believe that the differences were statistically irrelevant given the vast number of applicants, and I’ve provided undisputed evidence that tends to support my view, so it too is legitimate.
Laura writes:
>>>Cobra, do you really think that Bluford is justified if he thinks white Americans are out to keep black people down? All white Americans? White Americans he has never met and doesn’t know? Who’s the racist here?”
You pose the toughest questions of all, because I know you come from a position of fairness. I honestly believe you come to these threads with the best of intentions for all Americans, regardless of race, creed or ethnicity.
Again, I don’t know the exact mindset of Bluford. But I will reiterate what I said before about segregated environments. If you don’t have alot of interaction with different groups of people, you’re more likely to believe what you’re told from people you view as authority figures…especially at a young age. Jennifer Gratz herself posted here that…
“First, was the fact that parents, teachers, and even administrators at my high school talked about the UM system and the fact that race was a factor — a huge factor. ”
So if the authority figures around Gratz were telling her “your race might hurt your chances.”
It probably planted a seed in her mind, but that’s for her to say.
She admits that she didn’t believe it, but obviously it was at the forefront of her mind when she received her letter from UM.
Conversely, though I don’t know for certain, I can only wonder what messages young Mr. Bluford hears from parents, teachers and administrators attending school in 96% black school only 13.4 miles away from 90% white Southgate Anderson High, but based upon those demographics, there probably aren’t a whole lot of positive white figures in his environment to balance his perspective. I’m still moved by the posts you made referring to the African American doctor you visited, and how her being in your life made
all the negative vitriol tossed around about black doctors seem silly.
One of the things I’m thankful about regarding my upbringing is that I saw all sides of the racial dynamic personally, so I could make up my own mind, and not rely on word of mouth.
–Cobra
Cobra,
Since every complaint about a non-raced based admission programs complains that blacks and hispanic students do not do as well as whites and asians on the SAT, do not take AP classes, and do not have as high the extra-cirriculars the it is fairly same to assumed that any individual black student is not as competatives.
If you will not let me assumed anything about black student who are not admitted, then please shut up with your assumptions about white students.
Also, I am still waiting for your justification of why a black student with a certain level of performance should be almost automatically admitted to UM but a white or asian student with the same or even higher level of achievement should be satisfied with UM-Dearborn. Since you will not answer, I can only assume that your support such a system out of your hatred for white and your enjoyment of a government run system that your punatively punish whites just for being white.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>Also, I am still waiting for your justification of why a black student with a certain level of performance should be almost automatically admitted to UM but a white or asian student with the same or even higher level of achievement should be satisfied with UM-Dearborn. ”
I will say again, what UM administrators have said under oath to the Supreme Court. Admission criteria was MORE than just grades and test scores. An economically disadvantaged WHITE STUDENT, or one from the rural north, or one that can throw a football received a statistical advantage over another WHITE STUDENT without those criteria. The fact that you’re outraged over just BLACK STUDENTS receiving a statistical advantage in one of the most segregated states in America tells more about your motivation than mine. Second, a student at Cass Technical High School in Detroit would have received a bonus based on race OR for going to school in a economically disadvantaged area, not both. The system at the time didn’t allow for 20 point bonus criteria to accumulate. That means that the WHITE STUDENTS at Cass Technical, albeit only 2%, would’ve been qualified for the SAME AMOUNT of bonus points as their Black classmates.
>>>Since every complaint about a non-raced based admission programs complains that blacks and hispanic students do not do as well as whites and asians on the SAT, do not take AP classes, and do not have as high the extra-cirriculars the it is fairly same to assumed that any individual black student is not as competatives.”
That’s your OWN theory. I simply provided a comparison between two high schools. Cass Technical, which is 96% Black, and Southgate Anderson, which is 90% white. If you choose to ignore the results of standardized tests, (something viewed with biblical reverance here on Discriminations) that’s your issue, and not mine.
–Cobra
cobra:
My argument has been that [Jennifer Gratz] felt ENTITLED to go UM, and when didn’t get what she wanted, she cried racism and sued.
I’m not sure how you know what Ms. Gratz “felt,” since I’ve read the statements you quoted, and others, and it’s my sense (I don’t have access to her feelings either) that what she felt entitled to — justifiably, in my opinion — was a chance at admission that would not be handicapped by her race. She did not receive that, which is why she won her case.
I believe that the differences were statistically irrelevant given the vast number of applicants, and I’ve provided undisputed evidence that tends to support my view, so it too is legitimate.
First, let me say that I’ve never doubted that your view is “legitimate.” It is entirely legitimate; it’s just unpersuasive, to me and those who agree with me.
Second, by not responding you’ve implicitly accepted the point in my question to you: that a college that intentionally engaged in racial discrimination would be guilty, in your view, of discriminating only against the applicants who could prove they would have been accepted in the absence of the discrimination, and that such discrimination is no big deal so long as it’s not “statistically relevant,” whatever that means.
Third, you’re fooling yourself if you think the defendant’s statistics that you’re reported are “undisputed.” Here, for example, is one way they’ve been disputed: a table, based on UM data, that shows the probabilities of admission by race of applicants with the same grades and test scores. At the very top of the scale nearly all applicants of all races are accepted, but look at the bottom half. At the 50th percentile rank, 100% of the black and Hispanic applicants were admitted vs. 90% of the whites and 88% of the Asians. Oh well, you might think, no biggie. Keep reading:
40th percentile: 100% of the B/H vs. 73% of whites, 68% of Asians
30th percentile: 100% of the B/H vs. 9% of whites, 7% of Asians
10th percentile: 88% of blacks, 84% of Hispanics, 4% of whites, 3% of Asians.
And here is another dramatic way to present the same statistics. The Center for Equal Opportunity has an online calculator that provides the probability of admission to the University of Michigan by race for students with the given SAT scores and grades. I put in 550 Math/550 Verbal for the sample SAT scores and a 3.0 average for grades. The probability of admission for applicants of different races with those scores was:
Asian: 17.257%
White: 21.347%
Black: 97.923%
Hispanic: 97.269%
There are many ways to describe the weight of the racial thumb on the admissions scale, but “light” isn’t one of them.
Depressing
It’s really sad to see that these kids have been taught that they can’t get anywhere without racial preferences. I’d add additional commentary on affirmative action and throw in some snarky responses to their quotes, but I just find it…
Cobra,
look up what PBS says about race differences and applications
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/etc/gap.html
The question that you just refuse to answer is why can’t a black student with a 1000 SAT just attend UM-Dearborn, Wayne State, Michigan Tech, etc along with the white kids who score 1000 on the SAT.
Also, don’t you think it ironic that it is progressives and black organizations that, 50 years after Brown V Board of Eduation, want a separate and equal education experiencde based upon race.
Also, Why do you keep talking about Tom Brady being admitted when the entire Fab Five were admitted with lower academic performance than Brady and were taking huge sums of money from street thugs and drug dealers while complaining how poor they were?
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>Also, Why do you keep talking about Tom Brady being admitted when the entire Fab Five were admitted with lower academic performance than Brady and were taking huge sums of money from street thugs and drug dealers while complaining how poor they were?”
You’re making my argument for me. I mentioned world famous sports hero Tom Brady because he is proof POSITIVE that someone with lower grades than Gratz was accepted to UM without anything having to do with RACE. Jennifer Gratz has NO idea who among the 4000+ accepted to UM that year took the “spot she felt entitled to”, and immediately referenced a non-white classmate(her own words). In theory, Tom Brady or any other varsity scholarship athlete with lower grades than Gratz could be questioned as well, but that’s not a “popular” argument.
And if you think the Alumni of UM want the Athletic Director and coaches to consider grades and test scores FIRST instead of TALENT before recruiting Wolverine basketball players, I’ve got a bridge to sell you a little south of Queens.
>>>Second, by not responding you’ve implicitly accepted the point in my question to you: that a college that intentionally engaged in racial discrimination would be guilty, in your view, of discriminating only against the applicants who could prove they would have been accepted in the absence of the discrimination, and that such discrimination is no big deal so long as it’s not “statistically relevant,” whatever that means.”
John, I only concede that the system in place was based upon discrimination. Discrimination of economic status, athletic ability, location whether in state, up state, inner city, or foreign. Discrimination of talent, essay writing, or RECOMMENDATION LETTERS. Discrimination of family name or alumni status. And YES…a discrimination based upon the status of under-represented minorities.
I don’t argue with you facts you provided on test scores and grades. What you don’t address in those figures are how those who applied are stratified demographically by race, economic status, location and the other criteria for evaluation. You also don’t provide the number of applicants per racial group, only percentages. There are far more white applicants than available total spots for the freshman class at UM. If every white applicant had perfect grades and SATs, it STILL wouldn’t produce a 100% acceptance rate, because there simply ISN’T ENOUGH ROOM FOR ALL OF THEM. And for that matter, what criteria would you use for discrimination in that “bright-white” scenario? Economics? Location? Extracurriculars?
The Center for Individual Rights, the lawyers who saddled up with Gratz, didn’t dispute Michigan’s data either. My point with you is that you CANNOT STATE UNEQUIVOCALLY that Jennifer Gratz gets accepted into UM in 1995 even if every underrepresented minority group was rejected. The math doesn’t compute. Now if your argument is that the system prevented SOME white students who MAY have gotten in otherwise, that’s a different point. I already pointed out the 5% gap. 5% to the 2000 or so white kids accepted that year means about a hundred more white kids get in, but more than likely, those white kids would be discriminated through the OTHER CRITERIA FILTERS that didn’t apply to Jennifer Gratz.
You understand this already, John. It’s a crap shoot. Tearing up America over five percent of white children not getting their FIRST choice of college?
That’s what this whole debate has come down to? Compare that to American history and current society in regards to non-whites, and you begin to see why I’m so passionate in my posts here.
–Cobra
I appreciate your acknowledgement of my good intentions, Cobra. Now look at my argument.
If a white kid is raised away from black people, and the white people in that kid’s life tells him that black people are lazy and stupid and have criminal tendencies; and as soon as that white kid gets out of college he goes to work in the next cubicle over from yours, what are the odds that you and he will have a good working relationship? Slim to none, right? How does it help anybody if black kids are told that they have to have AA or Whitey will stick it to them every chance he gets? Wouldn’t it be much better, much healthier, for those kids at that good high school you wrote about, to tell them that black people have opportunities like never before in this country and that the American dream is in their reach? I’m not saying they’ll never run up against racism. I’ve run up against sexism and it didn’t stop me. People have all kinds of obstacles they have to face, that’s life on planet Earth. I’m saying it’s wrong to set a kid up to expect to be treated in an immoral way by a whole class of people that he’ll have to deal with someday. If we quit expecting racism everywhere we look, and perpetuating it by the way we deal with our expectations, maybe eventually it will go away.
My point with you is that you CANNOT STATE UNEQUIVOCALLY that Jennifer Gratz gets accepted into UM in 1995 even if every underrepresented minority group was rejected. The math doesn’t compute.
And, you will note (especially since this is about the third time I’ve said it), I did not attempt to argue that she definitely would have been admitted because that is not relevant to the question of whether her chances of admission were diminished because of her race.
Now if your argument is that the system prevented SOME white students who MAY have gotten in otherwise, that’s a different point. I already pointed out the 5% gap. 5% to the 2000 or so white kids accepted that year means about a hundred more white kids get in, but more than likely, those white kids would be discriminated through the OTHER CRITERIA FILTERS that didn’t apply to Jennifer Gratz.
You understand this already, John. It’s a crap shoot. Tearing up America over five percent of white children not getting their FIRST choice of college?
cobra, you keep coming back to this asserted “5% gap,” which I haven’t verified by checking the sources you cite, but you also keep avoiding the drastic, mind-boggling difference in the probability of admission that is caused by the racial thumb on the scale. As I cited in my discussion way back here, the relative odds favoring black over white applicants with the same grades and test scores at the University of Michigan were 177 to 1. By comparison, I continued, quoting a summary of the report that calculated these odds, “the relative odds that a smoker compared to a non-smoker will develop lung cancer are 14 to 1.”
But let’s look at the drum you keep beating, i.e., that there was not enough discrimination to get worked up over. This, too, is wrong. I discussed this argument at length here, and I encourage anyone who has the fortitude to stick with it this long to go take a look at that entire post. Here’s an excerpt:
Keep in mind that these numbers are much, much smaller than those involved in undergraduate admissions at Michigan. In order to evaluate cobra’s dismissive attitude regarding those numbers, your assignment is, first, to read my old post cited above, then read this one, which I will quote from below.
William Bowen and Derek Bok estimate in their influential (but highly misleading) book, The Shape of the River, argue, as cited by the University of Michigan in a Q & A about the effect of their discriminatory policies, “that even if all selective universities used a race-blind admissions system, the probability of being admitted for a white student would go only from 25 percent to 26.2 percent.” I cited a long review essay by Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom in the UCLA Law Review demonstrating that B&B’s numbers were unreliable, but leave that aside. Quoting now from the second of my old posts cited above:
Finally, even if Bowen/Bok/cobra were right about the (to them) pitifully small number of minority applicants who actually benefit from racial preferences, the obvious question might well be cobra’s: why sacrifice the principle that individuals (not groups) have a right to be free from discrimination based on race, thus engendering the waves of resentment against minorities for seeking special treatment, since so few actually benefit from it?
John,
We can play “dueling statistics” all day long, but I don’t wish to, and I certainly don’t want to data dump when there’s obviously no set of figures that will satisfy either of us. What you said in two instances in your last post is very poignant, however.
>>>Finally, even if Bowen/Bok/cobra were right about the (to them) pitifully small number of minority applicants who actually benefit from racial preferences, the obvious question might well be cobra’s: why sacrifice the principle that individuals (not groups) have a right to be free from discrimination based on race, thus engendering the waves of resentment against minorities for seeking special treatment, since so few actually benefit from it?”
Couple that with this:
>>>Applying those numbers to Michigan’s 25,000 applicants every year to its freshman class, Michigan rejects 300 applicants a year based exclusively on race or ethnicity.”
BY THE MATH
By your own testimony, 1.2% of all applicants are rejected under that system based upon race. 98.8% of all applicants would be UNAFFECTED. The converse of that statistic would mean only 1.2% of all applicants would BENEFIT from eliminating race as a factor, yet you’re accusing ME and those who think like me of endorsing a program that “so few” benefit from?
The core of argument between my side and your side resides in the wisdom of Laura:
>>>People have all kinds of obstacles they have to face, that’s life on planet Earth.”
When Jennifer Gratz faced what she perceived to be an “obstacle”, she chose to fight it out all the way to the Supreme Court. Anthony Bluford now sees Jennifer Gratz and the MCRI about to place what he perceives as an “obstacle” in front of him, and he has chosen to fight, via protest and rallies.
Why is Jennifer’s perception more valid that Anthony’s, when by the MATH, it seems they’re both fighting over the same 1.2% of freshman admissions to UM?
–Cobra
People have all kinds of obstacles they have to face, that’s life on planet Earth.
Yes, but many of us believe that government-sponsored racial discrimination should not be one of those obstacles.
What is the obstacle that Anthony Bluford has to overcome? That UM-Dearborn or Wayne state is not good enough for a black man with a mediocre SAT score but that is good enough for a white woman with a mediocre SAT score?
Cobra, for the fifth time, I am asking for you to explain why UM-Dearborn is not good enough for black student but is good enough for white students?
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>Cobra, for the fifth time, I am asking for you to explain why UM-Dearborn is not good enough for black student but is good enough for white students?”
I would think the answer to your question would be self-evident. But I will give you what I always give in here–the facts.
University of Michigan-Dearborn, 2003
>>>9,022 students
6,646 undergraduates
2,376 graduate students
49% men
51% women
94% Michigan residents
18% students of color
3% international students ”
http://www.umd.umich.edu/about/profile.html
Michelle, before you open fire, this is STRAIGHT from the website, so “people of color” is NOT my personal description, but Supe, apparently there ARE some non-white folks who do find Dearborn “good enough.”
The person you REALLY need to ask this question to, is Jennifer Gratz.
>>>Gratz eventually opted for U-M Dearborn, with the hope of transferring later to the main campus. She never applied to transfer, saying she got too caught up with classes and a part-time job.
She’s satisfied with her college education, but feels she missed out on the college experience.
“Being at home is different from campus. You can’t wake up and go to a football game,” she said. “I had looked forward to being away, meeting new people, living in a dorm and starting something new…”
…Although she enjoys her job, she says there was limited career advice at Dearborn and fewer companies interviewing students. She found her first job by searching the Internet.
“U-M Ann Arbor makes bigger companies more accessible. I’ve heard about the job fairs. It’s a lot more limited at Dearborn,” Gratz said.
http://www.detnews.com/2000/schools/0011/12/a01-147225.htm
Now, given the on-the-record statements of Gratz, why is it WRONG for Anthony Bluford to want the same things? The campus experience? Better job placement opportunities? Football Saturdays?
Apparently, the dream of this experience was so important to Gratz, that she literally made a “federal case” out of it, and tenaciously seeks to destroy any vestiges of what she perceives kept her from that dream to this day. Why should Anthony Bluford’s dream and tenacity be any less indefatigable?
–Cobra
With AA, Bluford has an advantage over a white person with equal grades and scores due to their skin color.
Without AA, Bluford and that hypothetical white person each have an equal chance.
You’re saying that the lack of AA presents an obstacle to Bluford. I’m just not seeing it. I think the obstacle here is that Bluford has bought into the idea that as a black person, he can’t cut it without AA.
Cobra,
You still did not say why Mr. Bluford should be satisfied with UM-Dearborn but you did create a reason why 300 white and asian students with better grades than the AA admissions to UM would not want to go there.
The biggest problem is the Mr Bluford wants to get into UM on a “racial discourt” so that he can get at the job fairs and the campus life without putting in the academic work to actually earn a spot.
Cobra,
[sorry all; this is from way up-thread]
Your problem in all the examples is that both the writer of the Guardian article and the legal brief on behalf of the University of Michigan didn’t say “underrepresented” as a modifier to “minority” EVERY SINGLE TIME. The plaintiffs representing Gratz vs. Bollinger case didn’t dispute the point, nor did they dispute the findings of the statistics. In this case, the minorities IN QUESTION were African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans. I understand your point about clarity, and agree with you that more care should have been exhibited in phrasing, but if the Supreme Court Justices didn’t have a problem with it, I guess it’s moot.
It is not “moot,” because this error is both extremely common and wildly confusing.
Suppose you read that at the University of California’s “flagship” school, Berkeley, only about one in six of the entering undergraduates last Fall who declared a race at all were “minorities”? Wouldn’t most people assume that it was a WASP bastion tastefully decorated with spots of color?
But what if you were to look up the stats?
[NB: I think they must mean “Southeast Asian,” Lao/Vietnamese/Cambodian/Thai, or something of the kind, because the next item is:]
[Which continent do they think Pakistan is on?]
Exclude the 12.1% of that class whose race we don’t and can’t know, and of the remainder (as fractions of the 20119 whose races are given), I get
Sorry, but the difference between a campus that’s “16.8% minority” and one that’s “16.8% underrepresented minority” [using the minority groups you singled out in the Michigan case] appears in Berkeley’s case to be the difference between 16.8% and 65.3%. Think that might possibly cause people to perceive the case differently?
Michelle,
Point taken. I agree with you. There needed to be far more clarity and attention to detail.
-Cobra
I had better say before someone else does that the above stats are for total undergraduate enrollment at UCB as of Fall 2004, not just the freshman class. Berkeley’s a pretty hard place for people to find housing in as it is, and nearly 23,000 freshmen would have been rather an event.
Cobra,
Based on several comments on this thread, I gather that you really don’t like Jennifer Gratz, implying that she was just a pampered white girl crying “racism” when she didn’t get her entitlement.
But then, what would you do if someone rejected you from the college you dreamed of attending, and you found out that you were placed at a disadvantage (however great or small) because you were black (or “white students were preferentially admitted in order to maintain a critical mass of non-black students”)? What if you found out that 300 other black students were rejected because of their race (well, actually about 40, if we assume a 12% black population and want to be proportional)? I think you probably would make of “federal case” out of it.
I would think you’ll probably answer this with something like “that happens every day in our system that pervasively discriminates against blacks”, but then, can you honestly say that you think U of M is creating a “statistical advantage” of admission for white students? This makes no sense at all, since U of M goes out of its way to give a statistical advantage to “underrepresented minority” students? Do you think U of M (which has gone out of it’s way to defend AA and do everything it can to use race preferences without getting in trouble for violating Gratz) would suddenly start denying black students because of their race?
And your arguments about Tom Brady and the rest are a non sequitur. There will always be students admitted for sports whose scores might be rather suspect, but even then, I would hope a black student and a white student with similar athletic skills would have a similar chance of acceptance. You might say that letting in a dumb jock is no different from admitting based on race, but I think there is a fundamental difference: athleticism, like academic ability, is a measure of individual merit, earned through dedication and training. Both are partially genetic, but even someone from the shallower end of the gene pool can achieve both given the right amount of hard work and perseverance. I don’t have a problem with that. I also don’t have a problem with preferring based on economics, since the quality of schooling is very much based on the ability of good schools, which are distressingly bad in poorer areas.
But race (and gender, for that matter) is different; race is a function only of who your parents are, determined at the moment of your conception and completely beyond your control. To say that one skin color should be preffered is to say that a person’s personal worth is automatically determined based on the rather arbitrary factor of melanin production. And that, like all forms of racism, goes against everything that America is supposed to represent.
I think that is where you and many of the other posters on this site differ. To you, it’s apparently possible to infallibly judge a person based purely on the color of their skin: you can tell their income, the relative amount of struggles they’ve had to go through in life, and their level of deservedness for higher education. Infallibly, all based purely on skin color. I hope you don’t actually believe this, but then how else could you support a system that presumes to make just such a judgement? How else could you be complicit with a system that says, “your skin color is X, therefore I know that, all else being equal, you are more deserving than the person with skin color Y”?
And I’m a little worried that you seem more than willing to gore the ox of the white kid down the street just because his grandpappy gored your grandpappy’s ox, or because the oxen of white kids get to live in statistically nicer pastures.
Cobra, do you fundamentally believe, in your heart of hearts, that the color of one’s skin doesn’t determine one’s worth? That your opportunities shouldn’t be determined by how much sun lotion you have to apply? If you do, then how can you support a system that explicitly works on the opposite assumptions?
Garrick writes:
>>>Cobra, do you fundamentally believe, in your heart of hearts, that the color of one’s skin doesn’t determine one’s worth? That your opportunities shouldn’t be determined by how much sun lotion you have to apply? If you do, then how can you support a system that explicitly works on the opposite assumptions?”
What I “believe in” and what HAPPENS in America are two different things. Jennifer Gratz and the pro-white think tanks and foundations that finance her can tear down every Affirmative Action program in America. What will it accomplish? The government will not be allowed to use race as a factor. America will CONTINUE to use race as a factor because that is in it’s documented history and current statistics. And by the statistics, Garrick, you know it’s a FAR better thing to be white in America, than to be an “underrepresented minority.”
As agreed to by all posters, all you’d be doing at UM is shifting 1.2% of Freshman class applicants.
>>>I also don’t have a problem with preferring based on economics, since the quality of schooling is very much based on the ability of good schools, which are distressingly bad in poorer areas.”
Those same pro-white think tanks and foundations that fund Gratz also have a problem with poor people. They can’t wait to “reform” (euphemism for get rid of incrementally) government programs like social security, AFDC, Head Start, Medicaid and others. Come on Garrick, don’t you read the philosophy of the movement? “Government programs are socialism?” Surely, you aware that this movement isn’t going to be satisfied with ending Affirmative Action. Did Connerly stop in California with Prop 209? Oh no.
>>>Based on several comments on this thread, I gather that you really don’t like Jennifer Gratz, implying that she was just a pampered white girl crying “racism” when she didn’t get her entitlement.”
Jennifer Gratz has made herself a public figure, and has decided on her own accord to spearhead a drive to destroy Affirmative Action in the state of Michigan (Executive Director of the MCRI, no less.)She has, of her own free will, opened herself up to public scrutiny, especially involving her on the record statements to media. To be
quite honest, my posts have been a heckuva lot more fair and balanced towards her than some of the other accusations flying around.
>>>And your arguments about Tom Brady and the rest are a non sequitur. There will always be students admitted for sports whose scores might be rather suspect, but even then, I would hope a black student and a white student with similar athletic skills would have a similar chance of acceptance.”
Nonsense. There are plenty of colleges that don’t overvalue athletic skills. UM make MILLIONS of more dollars off of their athletic programs, primarily football and basketball, as opposed to, Brown University. The decision to not to use Brown’s standards of athletic recruitment is obvious.
>>>But race (and gender, for that matter) is different; race is a function only of who your parents are, determined at the moment of your conception and completely beyond your control. To say that one skin color should be preffered is to say that a person’s personal worth is automatically determined based on the rather arbitrary factor of melanin production. And that, like all forms of racism, goes against everything that America is supposed to represent.”
The key word there is “supposed.” How many times do you have to be shown the segregated demographics of Greater Detroit before you realize that race has been and continues to be a reality in America that eliminating Affirmative Action will do NOTHING to abate.
–Cobra
“America will CONTINUE to use race as a factor because that is in it’s documented history and current statistics.”
I don’t think you can complain about race being a factor in America as long as you support AA. I realize that Detroit is segregated. As you pointed out, AA will not desegregate Detroit. Are you going to insist that the other side gains perfection before you do your part to end racism?
cobra,
In regards to UM make MILLIONS of more dollars off of their athletic programs, primarily football and basketball, as opposed to, Brown University. The decision to not to use Brown’s standards of athletic recruitment is obvious. Actually the athletes make money for the athletic association which is a separate corporation from the university. Actually, most student end up subsidizing the athletes through their student fees.
Thus, the white and asian kids in the Engineering Department pay student fees so fund the scholarhsips of the basketball and football team.
Your statements both presume that a white student like Jennifer Gratz had an “unfair” chance at getting accepted to the University of Michigan, when the FACTS are that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of students accepted the year she applied were WHITE.
Your problem, Cobra, is that you’re a racist. I don’t necessarily mean that you hate people for their race — but you accept the same underlying premise as those who do. That is, you view people by their race. Jennifer Gratz was not “white,” except to racists. Gratz was Gratz. An individual. She is not “represented” by other white people. Whether another white person being admitted has no bearing on Gratz at all. The issue is whether Gratz was treated fairly, not whether a white person got in.
Maybe there’s some chapter in the anti-affirmative action type handbook that explains white entitlement, but in the real world, NOT EVERY underrepresented minority that applied to the U of M that year was accepted, and there were white students with LOWER grades and/or test scores than Gratz that were (including three time Super Bowl champion QB Tom Brady).
Which means that there are things considered other than grades and test scores. The fact that UM may also consider athletic prowess doesn’t really have much of anything to do with the topic of racial discrimination. Your argument, stripped of the RANDOM capital WORDS, is this: “If UM considers musical ability, it’s okay for UM to also consider skin color.” The nonsensical nature of that argument should be readily apparent.
Like I said before, with 5,000 spots and 25,000 applicants, 20,000 people go home unhappy. Strike all minorities from the application pool, and 15,000 white kids STILL GET REJECTED.
The message I’m getting from this thread is as follows:
If Bluford and Jassim don’t get what they want within the system, that’s just the way it is, and they need to get over it. If Jennifer Gratz doesn’t get what she wants in the system, the system must be changed to her benefit.
What’s the difference between Bluford, Jassim and Gratz?
Gratz was being discriminated against by racists. Bluford and Jassim aren’t. (If UM continues to operate as it has been, they will be experience discrimination *in favor* of their admissions by racists.)
In a “fair” America, we wouldn’t have any disagreement at all.
We both know the answer to that one, John.
Yeah: your argument is that you’re going to deliberately make America unfair, and then claim that this unfairness justifies itself.
My argument has been that she felt ENTITLED to go UM, and when didn’t get what she wanted, she cried racism and sued.
Your argument is wrong. She felt entitled NOT TO BE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST BY RACISTS. She “cried racism” because it was racism. Had she been black, she would have been accepted. There’s no dispute about that.
Tearing up America over five percent of white children not getting their FIRST choice of college?
It’s not “five percent” of “white children.” It’s *hundreds of thousands* of INDIVIDUALS. Each one is an independent act of discrimination; each one is independently wrong. One act of discrimination is wrong. It’s not a defense to a charge of racism to claim that most of the time you’re not racist, or to claim that only a few people are affected.
I am *individually* entitled not to be discriminated against based on race. It doesn’t matter how many other white people got in. I am not one of those people. There is no group benefit I receive from one or all of them being admitted.
Generally, I marvel that people on this site continue to debate “Cobra.” If futility were a verb, this would be it. However, David’s last post was well worth the discomfort of scanning past the silly serpent’s drivel. Very well said.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>Thus, the white and asian kids in the Engineering Department pay student fees so fund the scholarhsips of the basketball and football team.”
So in addition to sending Gratz Super Bowl Tickets, Tom Brady should be mass mailing his UM School of Science Alumni pals, too?
StuarT writes:
>>>Generally, I marvel that people on this site continue to debate “Cobra.” If futility were a verb, this would be it. However, David’s last post was well worth the discomfort of scanning past the silly serpent’s drivel. Very well said.”
Come on, Stu. You know you miss our little chats! If you, or any other poster ever believed for a second that I’d be struck by an epiphany and be reborn anew as anti-affirmative action type, well…that’s just not going to happen. But I do learn things all the time in these discussions. Where in the world, outside of politics and academia do people have long, detailed, engaged conversations anymore? Especially ones that are archived and available for all the world to see?
David does make some very interesting points. There’s an obvious direction I can go in response to them, but under my pledge of abstaining from posting volumes of data on the irrefutable existance of racism against underrepresented minorities in America (Cobra’s Argument #1) I’m going to go a different route. I want to get to the red meat of this issue.
David writes:
>>>Your problem, Cobra, is that you’re a racist. I don’t necessarily mean that you hate people for their race — but you accept the same underlying premise as those who do. That is, you view people by their race. Jennifer Gratz was not “white,” except to racists. Gratz was Gratz. An individual.”
Hmmmmm….interesting. I have a question for you, David. But, let’s look at a few statements first:
>>>”If the University of Michigan-Dearborn was good enough for a WHITE student with good grades like Ms. Gratz then why is it not good enough for a a BLACK student with lower grades like
Mr. Bluford or Ms. Jassim?”
Posted by superdestroyer May 28, 2005 08:46 AM
>>>Sure. But if X BLACK student and Y
WHITE student both have decent grades and test scores, please tell me why X can’t just take his chances like everyone else?
Posted by Laura May 28, 2005 10:56 PM
>>> Another result: there were very, very few WHITE students who were admitted with lower grades/test scores than any MINORITY students. Another result: virtually all MINORITY applicants with high grades/test scores were admitted; only a small percentage of WHITE students with the same high scores were.”
Posted by John Rosenberg May 29, 2005 01:24 PM
>>>”I didn’t think that in 1994/95 our government really used RACE as a factor, boy was I ever wrong. However, when a student that sat next to me in most of my classes but got slightly lower grades, had a lower test score and wasn’t as active in school or the community, and who happens to be part of what the UM considers to be an “UNDER
-REPRESENTED MINORITY” automatically gets accepted (no wait-list or anything) and I first receive a wait list letter and then a rejection letter all of the comments of the parents (and I’m not talking specifically about my parents), teachers and administrators all started to make a little more sense.”
Posted by Jennifer Gratz May 29, 2005 03:48 PM
>>>Exclude the 12.1% of that class whose RACE we don’t and can’t know, and of the remainder (as fractions of the 20119 whose RACES are given), I get
16.8% AFRICAN-AMERICAN,
, CHICANO/LATINO,& NATIVE AMERICAN…
Posted by Michelle Dulak Thomson May 30, 2005 08:11 PM
>>>And I’m a little worried that you seem more than willing to gore the ox of the WHITE kid down the street just because his grandpappy gored your grandpappy’s ox, or because the oxen of WHITE kids get to live in statistically nicer pastures.”
Posted by Garrick Williams May 31, 2005 01:51 AM
>>> She is not “represented” by other WHITE people. Whether another WHITE
person being admitted has no bearing on Gratz at all. The issue is whether Gratz was treated fairly, not whether a WHITE person got in.”
Posted by David Nieporent May 31, 2005 03:50 PM
My question Dave:
Wouldn’t ALL the people quoted above be classified as “racists” under the SAME definition you used for ME?
“That is, you view people by your race.”
–Cobra
Cobra,
I suppose denouncing Jim Crow pre-60s was also “racist,” in that it would have involved saying “white” and “colored” (or N*gro — the asterisk is there only because I don’t know exactly what John’s site is going to reject).
There are a lot of us that really do think official racial classification should just go away. Either that, or let some enterprising individual go ahead and codify it. If your father is Black and your mother is Chinese-American, which bin do you get to inhabit? Will it make a difference if it was your father who was Chinese-American and your mother Black, so that rather than being Maurice Johnston you are now Maurice Chang?
Write it up, by all means. I’d be curious to see the results.
Cobra,
No, honestly I don’t miss our chats. In fact, it was the crushing tedium of your posts, and others tireless (though always vain) attempts to respond to them that drove me from this site to begin with—an exile I shall return to shortly.
But first, let me state these opinions: Your pseudo-jovial veneer aside, I think you are a bad person. And that’s not Michael Jackson bad, either. I think you are Robert Mugabe without the personality, looks, or 10,000 machete-wielding black racists. I think you could (and with great alacrity would) cite your insane bill of particulars as justification for any harm against whites, including physical. I think I am very glad that your charisma and intelligence are far inferior to your ego. But mostly I think, with great sadness, that you are a dime a dozen: an underemployed black man full of malice for the one country on Earth where you have every opportunity to make it, but don’t.
I am letting the prior comment stand, but only because it is such a good example of what I will simply delete in the future. Stuart, what you think of cobra, or anyone else, as “a person” (bad or otherwise) simply isn’t relevant here. Think what you will, but restrict your comments to arguments people make. What kind of people they are is off limits here.
Wouldn’t ALL the people quoted above be classified as “racists” under the SAME definition you used for ME?
That depends whether they’re endorsing the policies you endorse, or are criticizing them. It’s not the use of the _words_ “white” and “black” that is at issue, but the treatment of people as “white” and “black” that is.
John,
Thank you for the gentle rebuke. I understood fully that my opinion of “Cobra” was no more relevant to him than to any other reader. I simply failed to resist the urge to offer it. In hindsight, I should have couched my insults in the style to which you have apparently become accustomed: that is, an indictment of him personally through his immutable membership in a racial group. In any event, I can promise that my commentary will never again breach your standards of decorum.
David writes:
>>>That depends whether they’re endorsing the policies you endorse, or are criticizing them. It’s not the use of the _words_ “white” and “black” that is at issue, but the treatment of people as “white” and “black” that is.”
This is interesting. Both sides of an argument use racial terms, yet only one is “racist” in your opinion–the side you happen to disagree with. Very convenient.
One more question, given your definition…would you consider “racist” people who use terms “white” “black”, (etc), as a preferential modifier under ANY circumstance? This is an extremely important question in regards to the current society of the State of Michigan.
Michelle writes:
>>>There are a lot of us that really do think official racial classification should just go away.”
Well, your statement coincides somewhat with the question I asked David. The “immutability” of American Society in regards to race is beyond terminology, I fear.
I can easily change the position of the hands on my wall clock. Doing so, however, will not alter time, I’m sorry to say.
John:
Well handled. Nothing more needs to be said on the matter.
–Cobra