Banned from Calculus Class - for being white

[TomCollins]

Student Tries to Sign up for Calculus Class, not allowed since spots reserved for minorities. (http://www.dailyemerald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/05/12/4282f635b5b71)

[Greg J]

I generally support a school setting its own affirmative action policy in higher education, but that is a bit extreme. Once you get in, it should be a free for all.

[lehighguy]

What makes thier policy wrong but you affirmitive action policy right?

[TomCollins]

Racist policies like this are one thing on their own, but we are talking about a University that gets a great deal of its funding from the state of Oregon (correct me if I'm wrong here). Racist policies are bad in general. Racist policies by a state agency are even worse.

[elwoodblues]

Someone who is more knowledgable than myself might know better, but my understanding was the strict quotas/hold-outs have been unconstitutional since Bakke.

[lehighguy]

Indeed. However, they could keep this by simply changing the wording and effectively keeping policy the same. For instance, if they "interviewed" each student, then choose the black students first they would not be working on a "strict quota". Something the more astute members of the supreme court realized and put in thier recent dissents.

[TheIrishThug]

the problem with affirmative action is that it works off racism. it says that certian individuals r not equal to others and need hand-outs in order to reach equality. to accept affirmative action is to accept the fact that u r not equal in the first place.

[HeroInBlack]

Yeah, keeping someone out of the school because of their race is fine, but keeping them out of calculus for one semester because of their race is just wrong.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Hi,
Maybe a bit hijacking, but I do not know so much about that Affirmative Action-thing. The logic behind it is that minorities has been discriminated by society, and thus their children have need for special support, right? Why can't it be organized in a non-racial way by finding better criterias (poor parents etc)? Does it not fuel racism among youth?

[lehighguy]

Affirmitive action has very little to do with finding the best way to help the poor and disenfrachised and a lot more to do with revenege.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
to accept affirmative action is to accept the fact that u r not equal in the first place.

[/ QUOTE ]

Affirmative action says nothing about the inherent abilities. Rather, it is to accept the fact that you aren't treated equally and, therefore, aren't on equal footing. Big difference.

[[censored]]

Being from Oregon and familar with the wack job ultra hippies that run Eugene and the University this is not a surpise. This is what happens when liberalism goes unchecked.

[Jakesta]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi,
Maybe a bit hijacking, but I do not know so much about that Affirmative Action-thing. The logic behind it is that minorities has been discriminated by society, and thus their children have need for special support, right? Why can't it be organized in a non-racial way by finding better criterias (poor parents etc)? Does it not fuel racism among youth?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because the black race pimps like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jack-sun don't care about poor white kids. They just care about black people, rich or poor. They're going to fight for Denzel Washington's kid's right to leapfrog over smarter white students in the college admission process, but they don't give a [censored] about the poor white coalminer's son from West Virginia.

Affirmative action should be socioeconomically based and not based on race. People who went to shitty, underfunded schools are at an inherent disadvantage and should be given special treatment in the college admissions process, regardless of their race.

I'll also add that poor Asian students spend far more time studying than either poor Hispanic or poor black students, and this is why they are overrepresented in most colleges. They study a lot in school and put in lots of effort, instead of gangbanging.

[lehighguy]

I'm reading Freakonomics right now, Sharpton reminds me of a crack-cocaine kingpin. In a crack gang the very top leaders make tons of money but the average crack dealer on the street makes like $3.50/hr. They do it because they dream of becomming a kingpin just as someone dreams of becommming a football star. The gangs leaders sell dreams that will probably never materialize so they can enrich themselves at the communities expense, then try to rationalize it with bullcrap arguements based on disenfranchisement. Sharpton does the same thing peddling hate and convincing people that legislation, rather then actualy making the changes needed to thier behavoir like Asians did. And of course he gets rich in the process.

[nanoCRUSHER]

Now I agree affirmative action is wrong, but I think some may have not looked at the entire article.

She can still take the class in the "normal" 125 student setting. If she feels that she absolutely needs to get into this special 18 student class, she can petition to get into the class, and the advisor/lecturer can assess whether that would be allowed or not.

As for the origin of Affirmative Action, it started out as a temporary solution for minorities to get into the jobs/schools/classes they wanted. I couldn't imagine being a black person in 1966 (applying to / attending) the the University of Alabama. Fortunately, most if not all of the nation thinks a person should get a fair shake on whether or not they should attend school or get a job somewhere. Unfortunately, quotas still are in use by many public and private institutions. End it now.

Not to hijack the thread, but it's somewhat absurd to fill huge lecture halls teaching calculus. I was fortunate enough to take AP Calculus in high school and get credit for that in a 35 student environment, as opposed to the standard university 150-200 person lecture halls. I'm sure this helped me understand calculus I so much better than others taking it the first time at the college level.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
Sharpton reminds me of a crack-cocaine kingpin. In a crack gang the very top leaders make tons of money but the average crack dealer on the street makes like $3.50/hr. They do it because they dream of becomming a kingpin just as someone dreams of becommming a football star. The gangs leaders sell dreams that will probably never materialize so they can enrich themselves at the communities expense, then try to rationalize it with bullcrap arguements based on disenfranchisement

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm curious if anyone thinks this analogy would have been made if Sharpton were white. Assuming your accusations about Sharpton are right...how is this different than rich white legislators who push laws that favor themselves. Somehow, I doubt you would have thought of them as a crack dealer.

[ACPlayer]

Revenge?? Hardly.

Most affirmative programs have been passed while the govt has been white and not after the power has moved to the oppressed party.

You can ascribe it to guilt, but not revenge.

[lehighguy]

The KKK works exactly the same. Its even described as such in the book. David Duke and Sharpton are very similair people.

[lehighguy]

Guilt is what its about for white people. For minorities its revenge.

[ACPlayer]

They can want revenge. They cant get revenge. All they can get is a handout from the guilt ridden parts of the establishment.

Anyway, quotas are not a good thing, either way.

But I dont have enough info to judge this particular caswe.

[Greg J]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, keeping someone out of the school because of their race is fine, but keeping them out of calculus for one semester because of their race is just wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]
Who said that? No one should be held out of college b.c of race. A college should be able to admit who it wants in general. I don't hear many of you complaining about legacy based affirmative action -- which I also don't have a problem with.

There is a general misconception about race based affirmative action that it is based on giving minority students a heads up on white students. This is not true. A school may feel that a person that comes from a certain cultural background may enrich the overall acedemic environment. Contrary to popular beleif, dumb asses don't benefit. If you play the violin this adds something to the school and increases yr liklihood of being admitted. If you play sports, same deal. If you are the fourth generation, that adds a tradition. If you are (God forbid) black at a mostly white school, this adds something to the educational experience for everyone, making a more diverse educational environment.

Affirmative action is good. Otherwise Harvard would mainly admit Jews and Asians. Not very diverse is it?

There are plenty of logical arguments against affirmative action, but I don't buy this right wing Fox News broken record BS. Make an intelligent argument please.

[Jakesta]

Either you sling crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot. Those are the two prized jobs in the black community.

[ACPlayer]

You forgot the penchant for eating watermelon and fried chicken.

[lehighguy]

As much as you might joke, that is the steryotype widely embraced in black communities and popular culture. All sorts of types that gain from this, such as rappers, gain leaders, and certain politicians propogate the myth for their own personal gain and do irreperable damage to thier community.

[ACPlayer]

I was not joking and found nothing amusing in the crack about crack and hoops.

[ QUOTE ]
such as rappers, gain leaders, and certain politicians propogate the myth for their own personal gain and do irreperable damage to thier community.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your statement begs the question as to why you made it. Leaders and politicians of all shades propogate various myths entirely for their own gain at the expense of their communities.

[lehighguy]

I thought you did. Voice inflection is a bit hard over the internet.

Such things are not confined to any one group.

[lastchance]

Replace revenge with self-interest. For whites, it's about guilt. Always good when other people have guilt.

Oh, and Asians didn't change their cultural thinking. Hard work is as traditional to Chinese in particular (confucius) as God is to white Christians.

[xniNja]

As a minority student, I have three things to say:

1) I'm against Affirmative action.
2) Affirmative action hurt me and other students like me, more than it helped.
3) Merit based achievement is the only just selection method.

[wmspringer]

[ QUOTE ]
Affirmative action says nothing about the inherent abilities. Rather, it is to accept the fact that you aren't treated equally and, therefore, aren't on equal footing. Big difference.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately, affirmative action is now one of the big reasons that people aren't treated equally :-p

I tell my minority students that if they can get preference on a scholarship or whatever due to race, go for it; you have to take every advantage you can get. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

[BadBoyBenny]

What does the skin color of the government have to do with it? They know white people will whine but it won't change their vote while minorities will vote based on this stuff. Just like old people will always vote for Social Security.

[BadBoyBenny]

Leave it to an outsider (of the US) to state the obvious common sense here.

Basing things like this on income, or the quality of the student's high school would be a better way to help those who need it, and would still be more likely to help minorities porportionally to their social disadvantage. It would also alleviate a lot of the tension around these kind of debates and the us versus them mentality. That said, I have no problem with what they are doing in general... Using some type of program (not necessarily race based) to give children who have equal potential but have been burdened with poor surroundings in the past an opportunity to catch up by offering more attention is good for the country as it makes us more of a meritocracy.

[wmspringer]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm curious if anyone thinks this analogy would have been made if Sharpton were white. Assuming your accusations about Sharpton are right...how is this different than rich white legislators who push laws that favor themselves. Somehow, I doubt you would have thought of them as a crack dealer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like, say, rich senators voting for tax cuts favoring the rich?

[DuceTrey23]

Interesting that it was low-level math classes that were being slotted for minorities, I guess the diversity exists in the higher-level math classes...seriously, I got a Minority scholorship to attend a 'Historically Black' University...I was one of 4 white dudes at this university. It drove people ape$hit when they found out I was getting a free ride...what was even better was when I 'broke the curve' (got excluded from the grading bell-curve) in a few classes...I was good enough to be a 'token white', but too good to be calculated into the grading system....go figure...

[QuadsOverQuads]

A related question:

If affirmative action for minorities is a Bad Thing, then what does that say about the affirmative action practiced by members of the fraternity system once they graduate and move on into the business community? Or how about "legacy" consideration by university admission committees (particularly when the parents of the applicant in question benefitted from discrimination against minority applicants)?

Seems to me that, if anything, "affirmative action" has quite a long and celebrated history in white upper-middle-class quarters. And I certainly don't hear any of the right-wing posters here clamoring for the elimination of those affirmative action networks and policies.

Food for thought, anyway.


q/q

[TomCollins]

I have a dream that... they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I am not right-wing by any means, but I am equally against racism and nepotism.

[beta1607]

[ QUOTE ]
then what does that say about the affirmative action practiced by members of the fraternity system once they graduate and move on into the business community?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not exactly sure what this means, but the fraternity system as a whole is open to anybody regardless of race and many fraternities are more diverse then the overall campus population. This is of course overall, and doesn't include all organizations and their chapters - just as it doesn't include explicitly minority or homosexual greek letter organizations.

As far as legacy situations in college admissions go - the reason is that those families tend to have 'school pride' and will potentially donate large sums of money. I am not saying this is right (it isn't) but that is the difference between legacy admissions and affirmative action. For what its worth - it actually counts against you if your parents are highly educated or are financially successfuly in many college admissions processes which is also wrong.

[ripdog]

[ QUOTE ]
Because the black race pimps like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jack-sun don't care about poor white kids. They just care about black people, rich or poor.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your Limbaughisms are showing, Jake-sta.

[ QUOTE ]
They study a lot in school and put in lots of effort, instead of gangbanging.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nuff' said here.

[HeroInBlack]

When you are able to discuss a point maturely, I will respond to you.

[lehighguy]

Hardvard is all Asian and Jew if you eliminate extremely wealthy white kids.

Dumb asses sure benefit from affirmitive action. I've had to work and go to school with tons of kids that are unqualified, stupid, and obviously there because they were minority. I don't care what race you are, unqualified is unqualified.

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
Hardvard is all Asian and Jew if you eliminate extremely wealthy white kids.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you being sarcastic, or do you really think it is true?

Affirmative Action is one of the issues on which I agree with conservatives.

But there is a difference between choosing equally qualified candidates who add diversity to an institution and choosing lesser qualified candidates based on race. Harvard does the former, unfortunately the latter still exists in some places today.

-ptmusic

[slamdunkpro]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm curious if anyone thinks this analogy would have been made if Sharpton were white.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK how about....

A : Sharpton reminds me of the head of the United Way. In the United Way the very top leaders make tons of money but the average staffers on the street makes like $5.50/hr, or are volunteers who do it for nothing. They do it because they dream saving the world just as someone dreams of becoming a football star. The leaders sell dreams that will probably never materialize so they can enrich themselves at the community’s expense, and then try to rationalize it with bullcrap arguments based on disenfranchisement

Or…

B: Sharpton reminds me of the head of the United Nations. In the United Nations the very top leaders steal tons of money but the average staffers on the street makes like $1.50/hr, or are volunteers who do it for nothing. They do it because they dream of evolving world peace just as someone dreams of becoming a football star. The leaders sell dreams that will probably never materialize so they can enrich themselves at the community’s expense, and then try to rationalize it with bullcrap arguments based on disenfranchisement

Or…

C: Sharpton reminds me of the head of General Motors. At General Motors the very top leaders make tons of money but the average worker in the plant makes like $21.50/hr. They do it because they dream of becoming an executive just as someone dreams of becoming a football star. The leaders sell dreams that will probably never materialize so they can enrich themselves at the stockholder’s expense, and then try to rationalize it with bullcrap arguments

Depending on your Ideology pick A, B, or C..

/images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]

A related question:

If affirmative action for minorities is a Bad Thing, then what does that say about the affirmative action practiced by members of the fraternity system once they graduate and move on into the business community? Or how about "legacy" consideration by university admission committees (particularly when the parents of the applicant in question benefitted from discrimination against minority applicants)?

Seems to me that, if anything, "affirmative action" has quite a long and celebrated history in white upper-middle-class quarters. And I certainly don't hear any of the right-wing posters here clamoring for the elimination of those affirmative action networks and policies.

Food for thought, anyway.


q/q

[/ QUOTE ]

If a fraternity has unfair admissions policies, then the benefits its members get after graduation are unfair too. Otherwise, we're talking about friends networking with friends after college, and there's nothing wrong with that.

-ptmusic

[slamdunkpro]

[ QUOTE ]
Like, say, rich senators voting for tax cuts favoring the rich?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sigh......here we go again with this same old "tax cuts only favor the rich" crap. Try to follow along.

The reason that most of the tax cuts go to the upper income groups is because the top 20% of the wage earners pay 78% of the taxes (Congressional Budget Office Report from this year). If you have a tax cut of course it’s going to mostly go to the wealthy since they pay most of the taxes.

In other words
of course the upper income people (The superrich if you like) got a bigger dollar amount tax break – THEY PAY MOST OF THE TAXES – GET IT?

If I make $50,000 a year, pay $5,000 in taxes and get a 20% tax cut I get a $1,000 refund. If Buffett makes $10,000,000 a year, pays $1,000,000 in taxes and gets a 1% tax cut he gets a $10,000 refund. Is my tax cut percentage larger? Yes. Is his dollar amount larger? Yes. Can I get a $10,000 refund like buffet? No. BECAUSE I DIDN’T PAY THAT MUCH INTO THE SYSTEM
If someone at a minimum wage job makes $12,000 and because of deductions pays $0 Income Tax should they get a tax cut? No. THEY DIDN’T PAY ANY TAXES TO START

Get it?

[lehighguy]

I don't know about Hardvard specifically, but Asians and Jews make up a large share of the college population relative to thier populations. My high school was a very exclusive charter school and it was split 50/50 between Asians and Jews, with a few Indian and Russians mixed in. I was one of the five token white kids.

It's funny, our superintendent, who's Hispanic, was accussed of not having a diverse enough student population. He responded that there were like 2 Hispanic kids in the whole school, so he must be doing a pretty shitty job at discriminating.

[Abednego]

Is there a way a can get a better and enhanced view of the picture you a use for your posts?