Good post Doug. However I'll reiterate anytime race is a factor it's racism
in one of it's many forms and only serves to perpetuate the problem. This
is not the only form of bias but it is, without doubt, the worst one.

As long as any form of racism is practiced in any form by an person or any
group it will continue to be a festering sore in our nation. Changing the
target audience does not rid us of racism. It just eventually breeds yet
one more group imbued with hatred.

A good example is the continued exclusion of a fairly large portion of our
population from full citizenship. No not women and the draft this time
although that change is long overdue. Rather I refer to our long term
apartheid system.
Equality will never get a chance to 'long endure' until it exists. It won't
exist until those created equal are no longer made unequal by acts of law,
no matter how well disguised. Equality won't exist until 'decent, caring'
people cease to support it any way, shape, or form and find efforts to the
contrary 'offensive and unacceptable.'

We've come a long way baby . . .but we ain't there yet!

M.



"DSK" wrote in message
...
Michael wrote:

Racism is racism is racism. It matters not what direction or what
circumstance. I see no difference between those who would put a person
in
school based on their being 'the right color' than one who would keep a
person out based on their being 'the wrong color'.

Well, you just aren't looking at the situation realistically. It is not
racism
at all, it is rationing.

Fact- there are only so many places for students at colleges.
Fact- students vary *widely* in brainpower, athletic skill, and other
achievements.
Fact- getting a degree is a big step up in future prospects

So, how does one decide which students get in and which ones don't? It
might be
fun to simply dump all prospective college applicants into a big pit and
let
them fight it out... the survivors get into school. But that would not
pick the
smartest, would it?

In the past, colleges have been entirely composed of rich WASP males
(except for
the Jewish & Catholic colleges). The main requirement was the ability to
pay.

Our society recognizes that people outside this limited circle can make
great
contributions, so we like to try and let in students that have some
prospect of
making advances in the sciences. Smart & motivated kids, in other words.

Now factor in that all high schools are not created equal, and you might
see the
picture... let in kid A who is from a poor school but has great grades,
fine
recommendations, and mediocre test scores; or kid B from a whitebread
suburban
high school with equally good grades, recommendations slanted by family
connections, and test scores that are the product of a high-dollar seminar
on
'How To Maximize Your SAT'? Or should we dump both kids and go with kids C
& D
who are both dumb as stumps but are scions of politically powerful &
wealthy
families?

There is no level playing field. Some kids are going to get left out. It
has
been proven beyond a doubt that without some type of affirmative action
programs, minority students get left out no matter how promising they
are...
unless they are football or basketball stars...


It's just another case
of supporting a pesonal definition 'lesser evil' and is, therefore,
simply a
case of perpetuating evil

Another illogical and unsupportable statement. Where do you get this
stuff?

Higher education is a valuable resource. We have to determine a rational &
positive means of distributing that asset. Nothing "evil" about it... just
an
attempt to be fair, but as always, the ones left out are crying foul.

Regards- Doug King

Michael wrote:

....However I'll reiterate anytime race is a factor it's racism
in one of it's many forms

Can't argue with that... tautology.

... and only serves to perpetuate the problem.

Not so IMHO. The problem (with respect to college admissions) is
people's attitudes about the way race is scored on the big card. It's a
matter of perception.

.... This
is not the only form of bias but it is, without doubt, the worst one.

The worst one? Surely there are worse situations... I'd suggest that all
my grandfather's factory-owning buddies who smugly said (but never in
mixed company) that they would never hire a black or an asian, and that
the gov't could never force them to, was a much worse situation. BTW
this was in New England in the 1970s, not the south in the pre civil
rights era.



As long as any form of racism is practiced in any form by an person or any
group it will continue to be a festering sore in our nation.

Agreed, but it could be worse. Even with the talk about 'hate crime'
lynching is at an all-time low. And we don't have the caste system
(although I suspect that the Bush/Cheney team would enact one if they
could).


.... Changing the
target audience does not rid us of racism. It just eventually breeds yet
one more group imbued with hatred.

Well, since it is a question of allocating a scarce resource (admission
to higher education), the question of 'hatred' is really just a matter
of the losers insisting that it's not fair (fair being defined as 'when
their side wins').



A good example is the continued exclusion of a fairly large portion of our
population from full citizenship. No not women and the draft this time
although that change is long overdue. Rather I refer to our long term
apartheid system.
Equality will never get a chance to 'long endure' until it exists. It won't
exist until those created equal are no longer made unequal by acts of law,
no matter how well disguised. Equality won't exist until 'decent, caring'
people cease to support it any way, shape, or form and find efforts to the
contrary 'offensive and unacceptable.'

We've come a long way baby . . .but we ain't there yet!

Human nature being what it is, I suspect we will never be there.

Having been peripherally involved in admissions committee work for
graduate programs (in a field where a higher degree is a REALLY good
meal ticket, almost a guarantee of $100K year + start), I have seen
first hand that trying to be fair is very difficult... and justifying it
to the losers is pointless. They are going to be mad because they are
left out, no matter what method was used.

DSK