So I was just listening to NPR during lunch, and there was a report that the NAACP and ACLU were petitioning the (Michigan?) supreme court to allow affirmative action to be allowed in Michigan Colleges and University admissions.
I say that is BULLSHIT, and for many reasons.
1. Prop2 was Passed by a majority vote by Michigan voters.
2. There is a REASON we vote. Just because you may not like an amendment that passes doesn't mean you can force the laws how you like by using the courts. If the courts can overturn any voting outcome that someone dosen't like, then that'll mean that votes truly have no meaning. That anyone pushy enough to meddle with the laws via courts could alter the books to their liking.
3. The ACLU shouldn't even be against Prop2, since preferential treatment based on someone's race, NOT A CIVIL LIBERTY.
4. One of the arguments of the ACLU rep who was interviewed for the report was that students in educational institutions will gain from an (unnaturally) diverse student enrollment, which will result in better test scores.
BULLSHIT.
I graduated from a Michigan public university, and I'll testify right now that how well I did and how well I understood the material depended SOLELY on how much I applied myself and studied, and had NOTHING to do with diversity.
(FYI, I was in the minority as a showering social male in the Computer Science curriculum. The majority of other CS student's were unkempt, smelly guys or Asian/Indian, or a combination thereof.)
The race of the other students have NO bearing on how well I understood the material, or how well I did on tests & quizzes.
People have shown TIME and TIME AGAIN that how well someone can do in school does NOT depend on their RACE, so why (in the hell) would SOMEONE ELSE'S race effect how well someone does?!
It dosen't.
Having a diverse classroom isn't going to make it any easier for "little Johnny" to learn calculus. And even if Affirmative Action DID cause test scores to rise due to diversity, that alone should be a reason for the ACLU to oppose it. No one should be happy they are 'given a free ride' because of who else was in their class, or who they sat next to. That would mean that each student's scores and grades were artificially inflated by the 'diversity' of the classroom or student populous. Would you feel confident going into the workplace knowing that the only reason you may have passed was because of how many minority students were attending when you were enrolled?
Besides that, some majors are just naturally biased. Statistically speaking, males are MUCH more likely to enroll in Computer Science courses than females. So naturally, the majority of CS students are going to be male. Should the ACLU force CS departments to have a 50% female enrollment? Unfortunately there aren't an unlimited number of seats that are available so if the ACLU were to force departments to wait for enough females to enroll for a full count, then there would be huge number of male students that would be turned away.
It's possible that having a diverse student body would decrease the likelihood that bigoted or prejudicial ideas would be voiced on campus, but it DEFINITELY dosen't help student's learn.
The big problem I have with affirmative action is that it DOES give preferential treatment to minorities. It EXPLICITLY does this. Which is biased, and steps all over non-minorities' civil liberties. This means that the majority of the time, Affirmative Action is DOING exactly what it was put there to prevent. Prejudicial preferential treatment.
In Closing, I'll recap:
ALL DISCRIMINATION based on race, religion, gender etc is MORALLY WRONG.
Affirmative Action (aka "positive discrimination") is MORALLY WRONG.
The NAACP ("National Association for the Advancement of Colored People") is a PRO-prejudicial & PRO-discriminatory organization.
and finally...
How well students do in college depends on how much THAT student applies himself/herself, and had NOTHING to to with whoever else is enrolled at the time (let alone their race).
Articles:
Grrr! *Pisses on NAACP and the ACLU's pushy, meddling, prejudicial rep's shoes.*
