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Affirmative action as seen on the college campus

“ Affirmative action has a negative effect on our society when it means counting us like so many beans and dividing us into separate piles” (John Kasich).

What John Kasich was trying to say here is that affirmative action does nothing but tear the society apart. It allows for people to be judged on their race rather than their merits and they are being accepted for all of the wrong reasons. Affirmative action is the practice, mainly used by institutions, that gives preferential treatment to minorities, those of different races, and women when deciding who gets the job, who receives the award, or even deciding whom to admit. Many universities across the United States have welcomed the movements of affirmative action with open arms. That being said, there are two sides to the story. Is it good or bad for the college campus? There are three negative outcomes of affirmative action; people earning their spot in their selected college solely based on who they are rather than what they have achieved, affirmative action does not achieve its goal of helping minority groups, and affirmative action does not lead to a truly diverse community within the Universities walls. According to the book written by Dinesh D’Souza, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus, a student with the name of Yat-pang Au received a rejection letter from the University of California at Berkeley. Yat-pang was more than qualified for the school.

He was a varsity letter winner for both cross country and track, ran a Junior Achievement company and was elected to the student council as well as the school’s Supreme Court. Along with his achievements from school, he won seven scholarships and other numerous awards. Yat-pang assumed that he was not admitted because he wasn’t good enough and the university had standards that were too high. Soon enough, Yat-pang figured out that students with credentials not as high as his were admitted to the same college. “ Yat-pang Au was indeed refused admission to Berkley on the grounds of his race. University officials admit this denial is regrettable but argue that the Au family should understand that Berkeley is attempting a grand project to secure racial justice and multicultural diversity in America” (D’Souza, 26). In this case, the student got rejected solely because of his race whereas students of different races were admitted. When colleges are admitting students; grades, extra-curricular activities, and test scores should all be taken into account.

The student’s race should not play a part in the selection process because that is something that is completely out of the student’s control. This form of stereotyping preserves the indifferences that affirmative action strives to rule out. As written in the Los Angeles Times newspaper, “ Data from across the country suggests to some researchers that when law students attend schools where their credentials are much lower than the median at the school, they actually learn less, are less likely to graduate and are nearly twice as likely to fail the bar exam than they would have been had they gone to less elite schools” (Amar, Vikram and Sander, Richard). As one can understand from the quote, affirmative action isn’t helping minority students because they are being thrown into something that they aren’t used too and they are having much more expected out of them than ever before. Also stated in the L. A. Times was that research shows that 50% of black law students end up in the bottom tenth of their class, more than twice as likely to drop out as white students, and only one in three black students who start law school graduate and pass the bar exam on their first try. The fact that those of different race are receiving preferential treatment is only making matters worse for said person.

A lot of the time, the applicant is being set up for failure when there could have been someone else who would have done just as well and was much more qualified for the position in the class. In order to have true diversity, people cannot be forced together. Take a city for instance. Those living in the city chose to live there. It doesn’t matter what race they are or where they come from, and there is not any certain quota that the city has to reach. With universities now, the people admitting the students into the school are picking and choosing who they want attending classes there. Virtually, the people who are in charge of admissions are the ones in charge overall because they have complete control over whoever is accepted. This isn’t creating true diversity because all of the students are almost being forced together; there is not a single ounce of fate involved.

In the academic world, diversity shouldn’t be based off of the color of a person’s skin, it should be based off of the intellectual opinions of the students. That is where the real diversity comes into play because during a student’s college years, he or she finds themselves and figures out what they truly believe in. If people are looking for a truly diverse campus, they will find one where affirmative action doesn’t play a role in its selection process. Affirmative action has three negative outcomes. Those negative outcomes are; people earning their spot in their selected college solely based on who they are rather than what they have achieved, affirmative action does not achieve its goal of helping minority groups, and affirmative action does not lead to a truly diverse community within the Universities walls. Affirmative action doesn’t do anybody good because it is taking away the dreams of deserving student to one that is not as deserving. The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s mission statement is, The mission of the University of Wisconsin System is to develop human resources, to discover and disseminate knowledge, to extend knowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of its campuses, and to serve and stimulate society by developing in students heightened intellectual, cultural, and humane sensitivities, scientific, professional and technological expertise, and a sense of purpose. Inherent in this broad mission are methods of instruction, research, extended training, and public service designed to educate people and improve the human condition.

Basic to every purpose of the UW System is the search for truth (The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin). There is not a single phrase speaking of racial diversity and creating a school with a larger ethnic background. The mission of a college has nothing to do with the color of one’s skin, the whole point of the mission statement is describing what the college plans on doing for the student not for what the student does for the college’s quotas.

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