yohan

Thu, Oct 15, 2009 : 3:13 a.m.

Almond, you write "President John Kennedy first used the term, affirmative action, in 1961. He required that all federal contractors "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." And then you spend the rest of your essay trying to justify why we should take a persons race into account when hiring. What gives? Are you saying Kennedy was wrong?

David Briegel

Wed, Oct 14, 2009 : 8:54 p.m.

Not one voice against the most pervasive of all affirmative action. The Republican approved affirmative action for the semi-literate offspring of rich white guys. The last two Republican Presidential candidates would never have been admitted anywhere! Look where that has gotten us. Imagine if qualified applicants were admmitted instead.

Tort Reform

Wed, Oct 14, 2009 : 10:04 a.m.

Nowadays, diversity is just another word for bigotry. The US Declaration of Independence and Constitution guarantee the liberty and equality of individuals. No further consideration is needed, welcome, or legal, from the government, or any public institution. Pitting one group against another is a long abused "progressive" tactic, with the goal of giving the liberals in government influence over those they are supposedly "empowering", while handing government ever increasing Unconstitutional power, in general. Michigan, look around yourselves and see where this has gotten us.

catfishrisin

Wed, Oct 14, 2009 : 9:55 a.m.

I think Almond cut and pasted his black studies term paper. Sorry, but it gets an F.

Tom

Wed, Oct 14, 2009 : 8:17 a.m.

This story is confusing- it states " minority applications - those from African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans - rose 3.7 percent, and offers of admission increased 8.2 percent." yet "11 percent drop in minority enrollment this fall". So these applicants are going elsewhere. That is actully good news. They are getting better packages and are on the road to success- just somewhere else where they want to be. Don't worry, be happy.

A2G

Wed, Oct 14, 2009 : 7:16 a.m.

If affirmative action works, then after more than 40 years, why is this even a point of discussion?

braggslaw

Wed, Oct 14, 2009 : 7:11 a.m.

Almond, I call BS. There are more poor white people than black people in America. Why don't we look at poverty as a factor and not race? By the way my parents immigrated here.

Almond Mitchell

Wed, Oct 14, 2009 : 2:31 a.m.

Affirmative Action is a solution to the growing disparity of economic inequality between blacks and whites. Simply put, it is essentially a lawsuit, atonement of the transgressions of white slave owners, which have greatly contributed to this economic disparity. I have never benefited from affirmative action myself nor do, I know of anyone who has as well. However, I am aware that white women have benefited the most from this federal program. Nevertheless, I do not think affirmative action is sufficient in terms of retribution, but it is essential and it is a start. Civil rights programs, during the reconstruction era, helped African Americans become full citizens of the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery. Emancipated slaves searched for families and jobs, most former slaves, without land or resources, became laborers. Freed slaves were making progress-building schools, teachers trained and black politicians elected to office. However, these gains vanquished after southern whites took back political power. The Black Codes of 1865 was a unique attempt for white southerners to maintain the way of life prior to the civil war. Meaning that while slaves were free, they were restricted and opportunities limited. The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal protection under the law, which also meant to protect the rights of newly freed slaves in the South, limit the participation of ex-Confederate leaders in government, and guarantee the payment of debt. President Abraham Lincoln promised the freed slaves 40 acres and a mule. Nevertheless, President Andrew Johnson revoked that promise. The Fifteenth Amendment forbids racial discrimination in access to voting. The 1866 Civil Rights Act guarantees every citizen the same right to make and enforce contractsas is enjoyed by white citizens The Ku Klux Klan was a white underground terrorist group, which created a wave of terror. Threaten violence, bullying, lynching, setting fire to buildings and murdering blacks. The KKK would not accept black people as equals. Their beliefs were that whites were superior to blacks and as a result, many blacks did not register to vote and kept away from white areas. Blacks were entitled to receive the same public services as mandated by the separate but equal doctrine. In June of 1892, blacks were required to sit in a black-only railroad car. Homer Plessy arrested and thrown in a New Orleans jail, a black man, for sitting in a whites-only car. In one of the most shameful decisions ever issued by the United States Supreme Court, PLESSY V. FERGUSON. Segregation was insult enough, but the suggestion that such an oppressive policy was, in part, meant for an oppressed race benefit was galling in its dishonesty. Therefore, Homer Plessy lost his petition in the courts; Plessy would not receive equal treatment with whites in America. President John Kennedy first used the term, affirmative action, in 1961. He required that all federal contractors "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." President Lyndon Johnson reinforced this obligation by Executive Order in 1965 by requiring goals and timetables. However, political pressure forced Johnson to retract this demand. Nevertheless, in 1969, President Richard Nixon revived the idea in the "Philadelphia Order" aimed at increasing minority membership in the city's construction trades, and in 1970, he extended the requirement to all private companies with a federal government contract. Meanwhile, the courts were turning to the use of quotas in order to break racial barriers when other methods proved ineffective. For example, in 1970 Alabama State Troopers did not employ a single black trooper. A federal court ordered the state agency to develop a plan for the recruitment and hiring of African Americans. After Eighteen-months (18), still there were no black troopers. Therefore, the court ordered the hiring of one African American for every white trooper hired until blacks constituted 25% of the force. Families pass their wealth down to their children. In turn, their hope is that their children will be successful and can pass wealth down to the next generation, and so on. The black unemployment rate continues to hover at twice that among whites, being the first to rise at the start of recessions. Some white people understand the complexities of black people struggles in that racism manifests itself on many levels. Black people know that the system is compromising them in ways that they could never imagine. In an effort to right a wrong of the past treatment of blacks, various policies were enacted or created. The thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth amendments and other civil rights policies were to make blacks whole again. Conservatives voice opposition to civil rights legislation to avoid costly litigation associated with Affirmative Action, employers will inevitably resort to a hiring quota for women and minorities. Affirmative action is a test of character. Minority preference is the meagerness recompense for centuries of unrelieved oppression. In America, many marginally competent or flatly incompetent whites gain employment every day, some because their white skin suits the conscious or unconscious racial preference of their employers. Worse, white incompetence is always an individual matter, but for blacks it is often confirmation of ugly stereotypes. Given that unfairness cuts both ways, does it not only balance the scales of history, does this repay, in a small way, the systematic denial under which African-American ancestors lived out their days? In theory, affirmative action certainly has all the moral symmetry that fairness requires. It is reformist and corrective, even repentant and redemptive. The idea that affirmative action violates the rights of white citizens confuses a right with an expectation. We all have a right to be seriously and fairly considered for a job or a position. In the past, blacks were not even considered for a job had their rights violated; in the present, whites are seriously and fairly considered, yet still not selected. However, their rights are not violated, but rather had their expectations frustrated. If affirmative action disappears from the American scene, many blacks will continue to excel and succeed. However, that will be the signal that would prove to be lethal for our country. That is, white supremacy now has one less constraint and black people have one more reason to lose trust in the promise of American democracy. Advocates of affirmative action say that the playing field is not yet leveled and that granting modest advantages to minorities and women is more than fair, given hundreds of years of discrimination that benefited whites and men. My own view is that the case against affirmative action is weak, resting, as it does so heavily, on myth and misunderstanding. The arguments favoring affirmative action and the arguments opposing it have considerable appeal, with the ultimate persuasiveness of those arguments being a function of the analytical perspective that one adopt when evaluating them. Each set of arguments can be framed in a manner that makes it seem consistent with general principles of equality and race neutrality. If one views equality as a concept that is to be measured against an ideal or aspiration baseline, race-conscious affirmative action seems necessary to equalize imbalances caused by slavery and segregation. The myth, that affirmative action undermines standards and that it is unfair to white males. Affirmative action's legitimacy reveal both distorted notions of how affirmative action works and an insidious values hierarchy that puts expectations of white males over the rights and expectations of members of other groups. Affirmative action's viability for the future may depend upon a proponents' strategy that responds vigorously to these criticisms. Affirmative action does not undermine merit selection and the use of qualification criteria is perhaps the most repeated, and least substantiated, criticism. One way to examine this assertion is to evaluate what has happened at the nation's most competitive colleges and universities. If affirmative action in fact lowers standards, then increased numbers of minorities and white women at highly competitive schools should coincide with demonstrable declines in academic excellence among those student populations. Yet no one, not even affirmative action's harshest critics has suggested that the nation's most academically competitive colleges and universities have increased the diversity of their student bodies at the expense of their overall excellence. Affirmative action's critics focus instead on evidence that blacks and Latinos have, at some schools, lower average GPAs and standardized test scores. They also point to lower graduation rates among those groups as evidence of academic inadequacy. While such data may justify attention to the particular educational and social needs of minority students, there are at least two reasons why they are a poor basis on which to judge affirmative action. First, since blacks and Latino students are more likely than whites to come from weaker academic backgrounds, their relative under-performance is not surprising. Second, minority group status brings special challenges to the college experience, even at the most welcoming institutions. Therefore, the performance and graduation rate data may reveal as much about these challenges as they do about academics. Affirmative action underwent a remarkable escalation of its mission from simple anti-discrimination enforcement to social engineering by means of quotas, goals, time-tables, set-asides and other forms of preferential treatment. When affirmative action grew into social engineering, diversity became a golden word. Diversity is a term that applies democratic principles to races and cultures rather than to citizens, despite the fact that there is nothing to indicate that real diversity is the same thing as proportionate representation. Democracy demands obligation of its citizens, however democracy has to be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

John Galt

Tue, Oct 13, 2009 : 11:06 p.m.

Agree that admissions should be based upon academic achievement, not the race of the applicant. Reverse discrimination is still discrimination. Now that we have the the first Black President, when can we stop playing all the games?

braggslaw

Tue, Oct 13, 2009 : 6:54 p.m.

I would ask UM to focus on fairness. Diversity will happen naturally. No person's ethnic or racial background should be used against him when applying for admission to UM. Rather a person should be judge on objective criteria. FYI there are more poor white people than poor underrepresented minorities in America. Let's get past skin color.