Affirmative Action in Education
... students a chance to interact with people from other parts of the country” (Raza, 49). In other word, quota system was to be made by people who tent to correct the wrong of affirmative action, and to bring more minorities into the community of education. Therefore, as minorities apply to colleges they are turned away from their school of choice, and are forced to watch silently as less qualified persons took their spots. These students are not turned away because of their test scores, or not having good grades; nor were they pushed away from their dream college for lack of community service or extra-curricular activities. Instead, these students are denied the chance of a higher education because of their skin color. One may think that racial discrimination ended in the 1960’s with the Civil Rights Act. However, qualified students are being rejected by college admissions, time and time again, for students who are less qualified but are ethnically diverse. Affirmative action is often used on college campuses in order to maintain diversity among the student population, as well as to furnish opportunities of higher education for minorities who would have otherwise been unable to attend college. Many students believe that affirmative action has outlived its intended purpose, and has created criteria for people other than his or her own academic prosperity (Raza, 125). This form of affirmative action is reverse discrimination. Although some schools are slowly ridding themselves of this practice, affirmative action still exists in college requirements. Moreover, Caucasian students are being driven out of higher education. Law schools in California and Texas show an example of the decline in Caucasians enrollment. A major study reported that college enrollment among minorities rose across the nation in 1995 (Welch and Gurhl, 54,). In fact, affirmative action legalizes reverse discrimination. However, if this discrimination continues, racism in the United States may become worse. The American Council on Education found that college enrollment increased between 1994 and 1995 among Native Americans up by 3.1 percent, Asia Americans increased by 3 percent, while African Americans went up by 1.7 percent, and Hispanics went up by 4.6 percent (Ravitch and Diane, 58). The only group that showed a decline in enrollments were Caucasians. In contrast, people say affirmative action is okay, because it cures past discrimination (Bergmann, 149). For example, affirmative action has put Caucasians and African Americans together in learning environments. But discrimination still exist in society, and it was not acceptable when African Americans were the ones getting the short end of the stick. Therefore, it is not acceptable when Caucasians are discriminated against by other races. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Moreover, affirmative action does not make discrimination any better, just because it’s against Caucasians instead of African Americans or other ethnic races. Occasionally, affirmative action has also hurt the majority, and it can do so very easily. Roger Clegg showed this in his essay “Affirmative Action, It’s Counterproductive.” He shows this when he states, "Only ‘qualified’ applicants are given preferences. The issue is not whether the winning applicant is in some absolute sense ‘qualified.’ If you use race or sex to select a less qualified applicant… your discriminating" (Clegg, 8). What this basically means is when using race to get students into college instead of the student who is qualified, is not the way affirmative action intended equality to be. In other words, even if we in any way use race or sex to limit our choices then we are discriminating in some way. In addition, affirmative action in college is the most discriminating thing this country has ever face since “ The Jim Crow Laws” many years ago (Hamner, 41). This means that even though affirmative action is being used, it does not make any difference, because it seems as if we are still living under The Jim Crow Laws rules. At Ivy League College the median GPA of applicants is close to 4.0 and S.A.T.’s are close to 1300, where as minorities are let in with GPA’s less than 3.0 and S.A.T.’s less than 1000 (D’Souza, 231). This shows that minorities are essentially getting the lower scores from tests and courses. The only way for college to achieve ethnic proportional is to downplay or abandon merit criteria and to accept students from typically under represented groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians, over better qualified students among Caucasians and Asian Americans (D’ Souza, 231). Basically minorities with low test scored typically abandon on higher education, in order for them to accept into university. The university will have to restrain its merit criteria. Obviously, affirmative action is allowing undereducated citizens to get into college when the people that are qualified are not getting accepted when they should. When we passed the equal opportunities law, it did not mean to treat different races differently, it meant we should treat all people as equals. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said "A man should be judged by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin" (McWhirter, 24). Shouldn’t this apply to all races, including the Caucasian race? Moreover, most Americans have some specific opinion of affirmative action. People opposed to affirmative action argue that it is reversely discriminating and that minorities have been given an unfair advantage in their e...