Use of affirmative action encourages admissions discrimination

By Jessica Wu
Circulation Editor

Standardized test scores, grades and extra-curricular activities are not the only things taken into account when colleges view the applications of thousands of high school students nationwide. Race and ethnicity are often deciding factors due to colleges’ heinous use of affirmative action.

Affirmative action is the practice of giving preferential treatment to applicants that are typically underrepresented in universities, places of employment, and other selective institutions.

Colleges use race as its primary criterion when choosing which students reap the benefits of affirmative action. This view of candidates based on race does not take into account the fact that there are minorities in well-to-do situations.

Also, affirmative action does not help applicants who are not minorities and face adverse socioeconomic conditions.
This failure to recognize the difference between race and socioeconomic standing is not only offensive because it implies that all minorities are disadvantaged, but it is harmful for prospective students of  “privileged” races.

Not only does affirmative action ignore socioeconomic conditions of each applicant, it lowers the academic standard of a university as a whole. For example, in 2001 16,000 Asian Americans scored over 700 on the SAT math section compared to about 700 African-Americans. In these situations, colleges may be forced to accept minority students that are not as qualified.

In addition, affirmative action fails to address one of its other primary goals: having diverse- minded people within a student body. Affirmative action does not ensure that different opinions and viewpoints are being inducted into the learning environment.

Some may also argue that affirmative action is a good way of helping minorities overcome their existing social conditions. This is based off of absolutist assumptions that assume all minorities live in less-than-privileged conditions due to their race. Upper-class minority applicants do not need affirmative action to succeed and, as a result, are given an unfair advantage over others that may suffer from harsher living conditions.

Affirmative action perpetuates exactly what it is trying to combat: racism. It is racist to allow a certain ethnic group to have an easier time getting admitted into universities based off of race alone.

If colleges really wanted to aid the people who have had a harder time getting through school, they should base their assistance off of socioeconomic status instead of race. According to Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman, minorities are underrepresented in universities because of their socioeconomic conditions, not discrimination.

Affirmative action in colleges has done little to improve the economic gains of minorities and should try to improve education for minorities at a young age so affirmative action is not necessary.

At the moment, affirmative action is detrimental to the education system and needs to be abolished or greatly modified so that it does not reflect racial stereotypes that are not always true. While affirmative action was created with good intentions, it is poorly developed and fails to help many of the people that are actually in need of the additional aid.