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"Diversity"

"Not everything that is ethical is painless, or fair, nor will it make everyone happy."

Because that is true doesn't mean anything that is painful or unfair is ethical - it can be unethical too, as is "diversity". It's quite illogical to justify creating NEW unfairness because some unfairness exists in the world - we aspire to decrease the unfairness - for everybody.

"Attempting to address old inequities by tilting the playing field has, as shown, the potential to cause friction between different minorities...but leaving things exactly as they are and waiting for a more ethical system to evolve on its own is likely to take until the next Ice Age..."

A false dichotomy - the choice shouldn't be (and isn't) between old discrimination and new discrimination, but the third, correct choice of enforcing the existing law that is in fact in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause, but just ignored by the liberal/left judiciary.

The inertia inherent in the relationsip between superordinates and subordinates is substantial, and just waving a Constitutional Amendment around and chanting 'everybody is equal' won't get it.

"just waving a Constitutional Amendment"??? Do you have the slightest grasp of the constitution?? The constitution is not something that is just "waved around" but that which seperates us from dictatorships and banana republics - places like saddam's Iraq! "Inertia"?? That sounds vague. People can and do sue for discrimination and win. Implementing anti-white discrimination policies to overcome supposed "inertia" (whatever that is) can't be view as ethical, constitutional, or rational. It's like there is a hole in your yard, and you "solve" it by digging another hole to fill up the first one.


"Without a system along the lines of AA, how long do weu think it would have taken for there to be minority alumni at Harvard, so that their children could start to enjoy the perks of being a 'legacy'? Some of the vestiges of the old system had to be dismanteld, and unfortunatley it got 'fixed' in a clumsy and imperfect manner.

This is a standard red herring "AA" advocates like to bring up. The perhaps few thousands of students who benefit by such systems are vastly, overwhelmingly outnumbered by the millions of minority students who get a free boost for having the "correct" skin color - essentially every minority who applies. Leave alone the issue that the latter is based on racial discrimination, not the former.
 
Ethnicity is just one factor taken into account beyond your scores and GPA.

Why should ethnicity be a "factor" at all?
 
Patrick said:
Ethnicity is just one factor taken into account beyond your scores and GPA.

Why should ethnicity be a "factor" at all?

Why shouldn't it?
 
TragicMonkey said:
To be fair, only factors that you can control should be considered. Essay, interview, extra-curricular activities, and scholarships do testify to ability, or at least activity. Ethnicity and your parents' education are factors utterly outside of your control--how is it fair to use them to judge you?

It's only fair if you're willing to assign value to inherited characteristics.

You do not have a choice as to where your parents went to school, but you can capitolize on it.

The list I gave was not diffinitive, just off the top of my head.

Admissions are looking for any factor that differentiates one candidate from the next. I am a white man and I am not offended that a University, looking after the fruits of its own student body, its reputation, and character (not to be confused with moral character) would want to diversify it's population.

I think that's fair.

FWIW, I also don't think PC runs as rampant as cartoons like King of the Hill or South Park paint it out to be.
 
c0rbin said:
Why shouldn't it?

Because it has no bearing on how good of a person/student/citizen you are. And it's really no-one's business.
 
Tony said:
Because it has no bearing on how good of a person/student/citizen you are. And it's really no-one's business.

It has a bearing on the kind of student body a university can boast--which is the point of college admissions.
 
c0rbin said:
FWIW, I also don't think PC runs as rampant as cartoons like King of the Hill or South Park paint it out to be.

I agree that the horror stories about affirmative action are grossly inflated. We're not facing a crisis of anti-"majority" discrimination at the moment.

But it is a matter of principle--it's either acceptable to discriminate when you like, unacceptable to discriminate at all, or acceptable for some and not for others. Implementation of a quota system necessitates judging a lot of things that don't need to be judged, and reducing people to demographic statistics. And does affirmative action go far enough? Is skin color more important to diversity than economic background? What about sexual orientation, religion, physical disabilities, age, and disease status? What happens when different races look alike? Is a white Berber from Africa the same as a white Anglo-Saxon? What about being biracial or multiracial? Does a Ghanaian African count the same as an African-American? Does a quadriplegic Hispanic lesbian outweigh a blind Inuit conjoined twin? The idea of diversity is very nice, but the practical application is problematic.
 
c0rbin said:
It has a bearing on the kind of student body a university can boast--which is the point of college admissions.

So it's purpose it to appeal to racists and people who wish to be around "their own kind". Is that a good thing?
 
Tony said:
So it's purpose it to appeal to racists and people who wish to be around "their own kind". Is that a good thing?

Or the exact opposite, appeal to people by pointing out that everyone there already is not one "kind".
 
TragicMonkey said:
I agree that the horror stories about affirmative action are grossly inflated. We're not facing a crisis of anti-"majority" discrimination at the moment.

But it is a matter of principle--it's either acceptable to discriminate when you like, unacceptable to discriminate at all, or acceptable for some and not for others. Implementation of a quota system necessitates judging a lot of things that don't need to be judged, and reducing people to demographic statistics. And does affirmative action go far enough? Is skin color more important to diversity than economic background? What about sexual orientation, religion, physical disabilities, age, and disease status? What happens when different races look alike? Is a white Berber from Africa the same as a white Anglo-Saxon? What about being biracial or multiracial? Does a Ghanaian African count the same as an African-American? Does a quadriplegic Hispanic lesbian outweigh a blind Inuit conjoined twin? The idea of diversity is very nice, but the practical application is problematic.

Come on, capitolists, let the buyer beware!

Seriously, though, I think one can sometimes elect to disclose their ethnicity. In the case of the white Berber, I'd check "other" and fill in the blank--especially if I thought it would give me an edge.
 
c0rbin said:
Seriously, though, I think one can sometimes elect to disclose their ethnicity. In the case of the white Berber, I'd check "other" and fill in the blank--especially if I thought it would give me an edge.

Which is an entirely different principle than diversity.
 
Tony said:
So it's purpose it to appeal to racists and people who wish to be around "their own kind". Is that a good thing?

Well, some people think that being around people from diverse backgrounds is an enriching expirience.

Thankfully, people who want to be around "their own kind" tend to stay home in Jasper and not bother with universities.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Which is an entirely different principle than diversity.

Which is? Getting into college? Or using your ethnicity to your advantage?
 
c0rbin said:
Well, some people think that being around people from diverse backgrounds is an enriching expirience.

Thankfully, people who want to be around "their own kind" tend to stay home in Jasper and not bother with universities.

Which makes it even more depressing to arrive at a diverse campus and note the immediate self-imposed racial groupings that occur. Not all of them do it, but plenty of people end up associating only with their own race anyway. Still, at least they can be slightly more exposed to each other.
 
c0rbin said:
Which is? Getting into college? Or using your ethnicity to your advantage?

Doing what it takes to get ahead, regardless of whether the system is fair or not. Realistic, and undoubtedly popular, but that doesn't make it right.
 
Why shouldn't it?

The burden of justification is on those who include it to say why.
 
Patrick said:
"Not everything that is ethical is painless, or fair, nor will it make everyone happy."

Because that is true doesn't mean anything that is painful or unfair is ethical - it can be unethical too, as is "diversity". It's quite illogical to justify creating NEW unfairness because some unfairness exists in the world - we aspire to decrease the unfairness - for everybody.

"Attempting to address old inequities by tilting the playing field has, as shown, the potential to cause friction between different minorities...but leaving things exactly as they are and waiting for a more ethical system to evolve on its own is likely to take until the next Ice Age..."

A false dichotomy - the choice shouldn't be (and isn't) between old discrimination and new discrimination, but the third, correct choice of enforcing the existing law that is in fact in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause, but just ignored by the liberal/left judiciary.

The inertia inherent in the relationsip between superordinates and subordinates is substantial, and just waving a Constitutional Amendment around and chanting 'everybody is equal' won't get it.

"just waving a Constitutional Amendment"??? Do you have the slightest grasp of the constitution?? The constitution is not something that is just "waved around" but that which seperates us from dictatorships and banana republics - places like saddam's Iraq! "Inertia"?? That sounds vague. People can and do sue for discrimination and win. Implementing anti-white discrimination policies to overcome supposed "inertia" (whatever that is) can't be view as ethical, constitutional, or rational. It's like there is a hole in your yard, and you "solve" it by digging another hole to fill up the first one.


"Without a system along the lines of AA, how long do weu think it would have taken for there to be minority alumni at Harvard, so that their children could start to enjoy the perks of being a 'legacy'? Some of the vestiges of the old system had to be dismanteld, and unfortunatley it got 'fixed' in a clumsy and imperfect manner.

This is a standard red herring "AA" advocates like to bring up. The perhaps few thousands of students who benefit by such systems are vastly, overwhelmingly outnumbered by the millions of minority students who get a free boost for having the "correct" skin color - essentially every minority who applies. Leave alone the issue that the latter is based on racial discrimination, not the former.

OK, just checking to see if you had any grasp of the subject at hand ( or any desire for rational discourse), or if you would devolve into the standard trollage of ad homs and forgery of other people's positions for them, after parroting a few glib catch phrases...

Sorry to interrupt you with an attempt to address the issue, I won't be making that mistake in your case again.
 
Admissions are looking for any factor that differentiates one candidate from the next. I am a white man and I am not offended that a University, looking after the fruits of its own student body, its reputation, and character (not to be confused with moral character) would want to diversify it's population.

Mentioning "reputation" and "character" in the same breath as a euphemism for anti-white discrimination! -- you get the Chutzpah Award for this month!

Are you a white man who has safely made it though college and/or professional school? Easy to countenance discrimination when it's not YOU who is going to pay. Just like with the tenured WMs who are on the U of M admissions committees - it goes a long way to aid in the sanguine support of racial discrimination when it's not YOU getting the door unfairly slammed in your face, right?
 
It has a bearing on the kind of student body a university can boast--which is the point of college admissions.

A student body that is the product of racial discrimination is something to BOAST about????
 

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