🚀 go-pugleaf

Craig K. Gowens (Commissioner of the SWC) wrote:
> 
> Tracey Levin <tracey12@swbell.net> wrote:
> >
> > Erik, that professor was not terminated,
> 
> He never said he was. He said that some legislators considered it.
> 
> > but he helped to point to problems caused
> > byAffirmative Action
> 
> Affirmative Action has been one of the most progressive programs ever under-
> taken by our government. Has it grown too big? Probably. Should it be totally
> scraped? No way. By removing Affirmative Action, UT is back in a racist
> criteria of addmission of its Law School. Perhaps the BIGGEST flaw in the
> 5th Circuit's ruling is that it let UT keep its "legacy" policy of giving
> favoritism to the siblings or other close relatives of UT Law School grads.
> Suppose you have two candidates of equal scoring through all addmissions
> criteria and you can only choose one of the two. One is the grandson of
> a Law School grad, the other is not. Who gets chosen? The grandson of the
> Law School grad. The other candidate, if black, has been discriminated
> against since the other "white" candidate has received the benefit of past
> discrimination. When the candidates grandfather went to UT, it was segregated.
> Blacks couldn't get into the Law School, yet this past discrimination lives
> through the use of legacies. Very few stop to consider such ramifications.
> Affirmative Action is responsible for removing such extra benefits to whites
> over persons of other races.

As a UT Law graduate and an opponent of affirmative action, I think the
"legacy" issue is a good point. Wipe it out. One question: how many
admissions are affected by the legacy issue?

Yes, UT Law has had some problems (mainly publicity-related) in
attracting qualified minority applicants lately, but the overall effect
nationally of dropping race-based preferences in law school admissions
has been negligible, according to figures I've seen. There was a big
drop in the immediate year following Hopwood, then figures came back up.
I think it's a great idea to give preferential treatment based on
factors other than pure test scores: most particularly, economic
circumstances. But, in the extreme sense, to prefer an affluent black
applicant over a disadvantaged white applicant makes no sense to me. To
me, affirmative action proponents are essentially stating that two
wrongs make a right.
-- 
Mike Koenecke
to reply, change "nowhere" to "cyberramp"