Bad Michigan! This ruling makes being a white male a second class citizen when it comes to college admissions. Race and gender are *not* reasons to get into college. Personal merit alone should be the deciding factor. I hope the US Supreme Court accepts this one and overturns it, setting a final decision that "Affirmative Action" is actually "Racism in Action".

+1 Draugnar

Yes, +1 Draugnar. The only thing that should determine what college you get into is how smart you are.

Skin color is like eye color.

Really? You're comparing the racial economic disparity in this country to eye color?

And the U-M student sounded like an idiot:

"I actually think it's a good thing," she said today in Ann Arbor. "I think it's just another window of opportunity for others. I think there are so many other scholarships and awards aimed toward other groups, why not affirmative action?

Exactly! If I'm a working-class kid and worked my ass off to earn a prestigious award to help me afford college, why shouldn't someone else get in because their eyes are shaped differently?

The PC police and own-foot-shooting groups complain about how fewer minority students were admitted after the law was passed. Faced with two possibilities, that admissions people are racist or that urban schools don't prepare their students for college, they go with the former. Maybe if minority admission rates drop low enough, people might finally feel guilty enough to pay attention to the problem.

If you want to help poor people, help poor people. Don't infer it by their skin color.

You had your day, whitey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

Affirmative action is a tough one. On the one hand it is important to attempt to correct for centuries of oppression in the present, on the other hand it is unfair to punish someone for the sins of the father.

I say leave it up to the courts. The courts have spoken - it's legal.

Although yes AlexNesta I would agree that income is perhaps a better measuring stick than the ever-so-vacuous "race"

Are people really arguing there aren't racial barriers to getting an education or an employment, that they're all subsumed by income?

No, I'm not anyway Putin but I think that it is a lot harder for a poor person to afford a good education than it is for a rich one, black or white.

That's all I'm saying. If you had to pick one measuring stick to give non-meritorious scholarships to, I'd say do it by income, not race.

But I agree with you that race is still an institutionalized mode of oppression, which is what I think you're saying?

As a student in Michigan I am not thrilled with this. I am sorry for what happened to minority groups in the past, but I was not responsible for what happened. Why should I be punished to make the sad excuse for a Michigan government look better? I have plenty of minority friends and they have all been able to secure college funding without affirmative action laws. The reason the affirmative action is not required is because there are programs in all Michigan schools to help minority groups in their elementary/middle/and high school education. The state allows tests to be taken with the aid of a translator and assistance is provided to any minority group that needs it. I understand having either affirmative action or help in secondary education but not in both.

To the extent that you're being punished, it's principally a matter that the tie goes against you if you're white rather than for you as it would have during at least 170 of the Republic's 222 years. As to why you should be punished for the sins of the Republic before you were born, you gain from the advantages of those same sins. You just have difficulty perceiving those advantages as a fish has trouble perceiving the water in which it swims.

Basically, if you are a rich black student living in Bloomfield Hills, you get preferential treatment to the underprivileged white student who lives in the ghetto so that the UoM can pretend to be diverse.

And for those that doubt this is true, I have a friend to whom this happened at a university in Michigan. He was denied entry into a program in favor of a black female student with whom he was very familiar. His academic record was undoubtedly superior, as were his list of activities (including President of the MSU Democrats)...but diversity beat out quality. Ironic that it happened to a Democrat. Today, he is a staunch Conservative, having lived and learned the lying hypocrisy of the left.

Oh my, a program aimed at leveling the playing field of opportunity in America isn't perfect. Clearly, it should be scrapped.

+1 Bob

Unaccountable anecdotal evidence is always used to justify this sort of thought.

From your analogy Bob, you would have just as much difficulty seeing any "advantage" as I do. I will also point out that the statement I made about being punished was not the focus of my argument, the idea that affirmative action is not necessary was. I am curious how long any affirmative action can last when census predictions point to a rapidly approaching time when white's will be a minority group in the united states. I would also point out that in several parts of Michigan white males are in the minority. If more then 50% of the candidates to a school have an advantage to gaining admission it would in fact disadvantage the other candidates. Do not get me wrong, I am not a raciest, I simply see no need for affirmative action to be reinstated. Perhaps I am wrong but unless I see some very compelling arguments in support of affirmative action in Michigan instead of statements discouraging "Unaccountable anecdotal evidence" that is not going to happen.

I would state that affirmative action can be justified as long as black people in America have substantively different economic outcomes from white people.

Unemployment for African Americans is 16%, for whites it is 8%.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/graduation-rates-by-state-and-race/

The freshman graduation rate (people who graduated within 4 years) for African Americans is 62%, for whites it is 81%.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72

When you exclude nonresidents of the US, the percentage of masters and doctoral degrees awarded to whites is disproportionate to its percentage of the population.

The percentage of blacks and 'hispanics' getting professional degrees is 11.5% - *combined*. The percentage of blacks and hispanics getting doctorate degrees is 9.7% *combined*. The percentage getting bachelors degrees is 17.7% combined.

"His academic record was undoubtedly superior" - undoubtedly... after all, he was a white man and she was a black woman. I have no doubt what-so-ever on the point. /sarcasm. And going from President of a Democratic organization to a staunch Conservative? How come that sounds completely like a sock puppet? Besides - one third hand anecdote hardly argues the point. And there are countless thousands of deserving students that *don't* get into programs simply because there isn't enough room. ...and you can thank your Corporatist leaders for that... for gutting education.

So *what* is the problem with tying it to economic standing instead of race?

No one's saying there isn't a problem. The complaint is that the solution addresses the wrong facet.

I should say the latter percentages are the percentages even without excluding nonresident aliens.

So how about affirmative action for whites versus Asians? Financially speaking, Asians do better than their Caucasian counterparts. Shouldn't we whites get a heads up over the jaundiced looking Asians?

"you gain from the advantages of those same sins"

truth in fact. QFT

Because there are racial barriers above and apart from class barriers.

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/mullainathan/files/emilygreg.pdf

@Putin - Maybe more African Americans should finish high school and quit going to jail. Then more of them would be more attractive to be hired. It is a choice to join a gang, drop of of school, etc. It isn't the faulty of the white guy down the street. Nice statistic...it is meaningless without the data behind it.

As for my anecdotal evidence....it ins't anecdotal. After all, the whole aim of the program is to increase "diversity", so you tacitly admit that the program will use race as the source of a decision. So, while I cite anecdotal evidence, you are making the case that you want EXACTLY the thing I describe to take place. You should CHEER my evidence that racial selection processes work! My story IS YOUR CAUSE, you moron.

The data on Asian Americans is skewed because their population is small, only professional/highly educated immigrants from Asia have managed to come to this country due to immigration restrictions, and because a much higher % of the population is in the workforce.

However, when you look at income of Asians and whites with the same education, Asians make slightly less.
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010015/indicator7_29.asp

And I should add that some categories of Asian Americans have very high poverty levels, namely Southeast Asians.

But Asians are not the beneficiaries of affirmative action.

I shouldn't say *only* professional/highly educated but rather a disproportionate amount, especially compared to Latinos and blacks.