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