http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/scalia-race-affirmative-actionReferencing an unidentified amicus brief, Scalia said that there were people who would contend "that it does not benefit African-Americans" who don't do well in the schools that accept them under affirmative action, and that those students would be better off in the less advanced schools that they would have otherwise gone to.
He argued that "most of the black scientists in this country do not come from the most advanced schools" and that they benefit from a "slower track."
"They're being pushed into schools that are too advanced for them," Scalia said of minority students accepted under affirmative action programs.
What an embarrassment that asshole is to the nation. I'm sure Thomas agrees.
"More advanced schools" is so ambiguously defined that it makes it difficult to fact check the statement. Looks like it's true for some but probably less so the further in "advanced" schools you go since black graduation rates seem to be higher at the Ivy League than most state schools:
Graduation rates can't tell the whole story because they don't distinguish between applicants that would have been admitted based on qualifications regardless of affirmative action and those that wouldn't have.
It would be interesting to evaluate whether schools with the larger differences in white/black graduation rates are also those that rely more on affirmative action.
Exactly, if anybody gets into a school while having lower ability they will fail. Doesn't matter if they are black, white, or purple.In other words Affirmative Action selects people based on the color of their skin and not their qualifications.
Pretty sure Thomas' stance is ""I earned mine; the rest of you earn yours too." Just because Bush had to appoint a black jurist doesn't mean that Thomas didn't earn his spot, it just means that he did so within a narrower field.Clarence Thomas benefitted from affirmative action. His stance today is "I got mine. Fuck the rest of you motherfuckers"
"More advanced schools" is so ambiguously defined that it makes it difficult to fact check the statement. Looks like it's true for some but probably less so the further in "advanced" schools you go since black graduation rates seem to be higher at the Ivy League than most state schools:
Racial preferences in law-school admissions put many minorities on the failure track. At selective law schools, 51 percent of African-American first-year students admitted with racial preferences had grades in the bottom 10 percent of their class, compared with only 5 percent of white students.
Its one thing to be at the bottom of the class, but, Heriot explains, It is quite another for an African-American student to find himself toward the bottom of the class and to find half of his African-American friends and acquaintances there too. It stokes bitterness and feelings of injustice.
I know right? being non-pc grates your balls doesnt it.
In 2008, the year Fisher sent in her application, competition to get into the crown jewel of the Texas university system was stiff. Students entering through the university's Top 10 program a mechanism that granted automatic admission to any teen who graduated in the upper 10 percent of his or her high school class claimed 92 percent of the in-state spots.
...
She and other applicants who did not make the cut were evaluated based on two scores. One allotted points for grades and test scores. The other, called a personal achievement index, awarded points for two required essays, leadership, activities, service and "special circumstances." Those included socioeconomic status of the student or the student's school, coming from a home with a single parent or one where English wasn't spoken. And race.
Those two scores, combined, determine admission.
Even among those students, Fisher did not particularly stand out. Court records show her grade point average (3.59) and SAT scores (1180 out of 1600) were good but not great for the highly selective flagship university. The school's rejection rate that year for the remaining 841 openings was higher than the turn-down rate for students trying to get into Harvard.
As a result, university officials claim in court filings that even if Fisher received points for her race and every other personal achievement factor, the letter she received in the mail still would have said no.
It's true that the university, for whatever reason, offered provisional admission to some students with lower test scores and grades than Fisher. Five of those students were black or Latino. Forty-two were white.
Neither Fisher nor Blum mentioned those 42 applicants in interviews. Nor did they acknowledge the 168 black and Latino students with grades as good as or better than Fisher's who were also denied entry into the university that year. Also left unsaid is the fact that Fisher turned down a standard UT offer under which she could have gone to the university her sophomore year if she earned a 3.2 GPA at another Texas university school in her freshman year.
Affirmative action is merely a short cut to fixing generations of discrimination. It's extremely difficult to bring blacks up to white standards because (on average) they lack the same educational and financial background. By allocating some educational opportunities and even jobs to blacks who don't objectively deserve them, we ensure that their kids and grandkids start out on a level playing field. Thus we do in one or two generations what might otherwise take a century or two. (Obviously this still takes decades because only a small number of blacks can benefit from affirmative action each generation.) Sure, it's not fair to those discriminated against (who are mostly Asian, not Caucasian) but life isn't fair. It's also not fair that some kids are born to parents who are poor and uneducated because that was official government policy. Having been denied the right to even apply for a job due to my skin color, I can tell you absolutely that is the side of the equation I want to be on even with that minor setback.That guy is an asshole though as a liberal, I do not agree with affirmative action. Affirmative action is racism itself, distributing station based not on merit but on sex/skin color. As if to say that jobs and colleges simply can't help being racist, so we'll artificially pump in some more racism but going in the opposite direction to "balance" things out.
Better question, why are Blacks still not receiving an education that would meet the competitive requirements for these "advanced schools"?
LOL, University of Texas is an advanced school?