Debate Against Racial Preference in College Admissions Affirmative Action

Racial Profiling

Drachman, Edward R., Robert Langran, and Alan Shank. "Case 4: Race-Based Affirmative

Action in College Admissions: Keep It, Mend It, or End It?" You Decide: Controversial cases in American Politics. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. 47-67. Print.

"Colleges have given three main justifications for affirmative action policies that would aid certain minority applicants, especially African-Americans and Hispanics: to compensate for long-standing practices of discrimination; to achieve diversity of the student body; and to overcome 'underrepresentation' of historically disadvantaged groups" (47).

"In California in 1995, the Board of Regents decided to stop race-based admissions, and the next year voters passed Proposition 209, which ended racial preferences in all public-sector state programs including college admissions; and laws were soon enacted in Washington State and Florida prohibiting state universities from using race-based admissions policies" (48).

"Critics of racial preference in college admission argue that:

The U.S. Constitution, especially the Fourth Amendment, protects individuals, not groups

The Constitution calls for equal protection under the law, and so should our laws

College admissions should be based mainly on merit as determined by grade point average and standardized test scores

Affirmative action penalizes applicants who themselves were never guilty of discrimination

Colleges at various times discriminated against unprotected groups such as Jews and Asians

By opening college doors wider to historically disadvantaged and underrepresented groups, other groups, especially white males and more recently Asian-Americans, are discriminated against

Affirmative Action benefits immigrant groups that have not been seriously discriminated against in this country

Affirmative action programs that are designed to be temporary remedies for injustice seek to achieve 'equality as a result,' a phenomenon that seems to be continuing indefinitely

Affirmative action in admissions often promotes racial friction and discord rather than harmony and understanding" (48-49).

Hall, Matthew Eric Kane. "Affirmative Action in College Admissions." The Nature of Supreme

Court Power. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. 113-18. Print.

"In 1973, Allan Bakke applied to the University of California, Davis, Medical School. At the time, the school used a dual admissions process, in which regular applicants were considered separately from those who identified themselves as 'economically and/or educationally disadvantaged' applicants or members of a 'minority group.' Regular applicants were required to have a minimum undergraduate grade point average of 2.5 or higher, but applicants in the special admission program were not. These special applicants were not ranked against candidates in the general admissions process and instead competed among themselves for sixteen of the one hundred seats in the entering class. During a four-year period, no whites were admitted through the special admissions program, although many applied" (113).

"The Davis program was constitutionally problematic because it used a quota system in which a 'specified percentage of the student body is in effect guaranteed to be members of selected ethnic groups" (113).

University of Michigan: "Under the undergraduate admission system, applicants from 'underrepresented' racial groups, including African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans, received and automatic 20-point bonus out of 100 points needed for admission" (114).

Moore, Jamillah. Race and College Admissions: a Case for Affirmative Action. Jefferson, NC:

Mcfarland, 2005. Print.

"Education is the gateway to opportunity, and many students compete to gain admission to selective and elite institutions every year throughout the United States. As the population increases and access to resources, employment and education become increasingly limited, competitive policies like that of affirmative action will continue to come under attack" (1-2).

The Moores report: UC Regent John Moores looked at the SAT scores of accepted students given the necessary diversity quota. Of the "36,472 applicants, 374 applicants were admitted to Berkeley with SATs under 1000 while 3,218 applicants with 1400+ SAT scores were denied admission" (16).

"The reality is that well-qualified students from all backgrounds get rejected every year by their institution of first choice; it does not mean they were excluded based upon their race" (20).

Zamani-Gallaher, Eboni M. The Case for Affirmative Action on Campus: Concepts of Equity,

Considerations for Practice. Sterling, VA: Stylus Pub., 2009. Print.

Affirmative action was "meant to restore the victim to the place he or she would have occupied, but for discrimination. Affirmative action was and is primarily about restorative justice" (xiv).

"The Supreme Court under its new chief justice decided the Meredith v. Jefferson County case, involving the Louisville, Kentucky, public schools, and a companion case involving the public schools of Seattle, Washington, it outlawed the use of race or diversity for any purpose -- benign as well as punitive, inclusionary, or exclusionary. The court found there is no compelling state interest that would justify acknowledgement of group characteristics in public education or the value of diversity" (xv-xvi).