I know NO such thing, as you have failed completely to address my points

I do wish that universities would use socioeconomic status instead of race. Frankly, and unfortunately, they correspond well enough for the intended purpose of lifting the disadvantaged.

I don't think changing it would be exceptionally more efficient though. It would be, but not to a substantial extent, due to the enormous overlap.

While race based affirmative action may be a somewhat crude and imperfect policy tool, it is still very necessary and beneficial for the following two reasons:

1. White people at all socioeconomic levels benefit from institutional privilege. Thus, test scores, resumes, grades and essays are not sufficient to identify the most 'deserving' or intelligent candidates.

2. All students benefit from being exposed to educators and peers who have diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Thus, if a university's goal is to provide the best possible education, it must strive to foster a diverse student body and faculty.

I could not -1 Frank enough if we had -1 capabilities. Reverse racism is still racism.

I would hazard a guess that socioeconomic privilege substantially outweighs racial privilege when it comes to academic success -- a black student whose parents make $100K/yr between them will be in a much more advantaged position than a white student whose parents make $30K/yr between them.

And while I agree that more diverse backgrounds and perspectives improve the educational experience, I think it's a gross oversimplification (to the point of speciousness) to lump all students' experiences together by race. Geographic origin and socioeconomic status, again, would be better indicators of cultural diversity and perspective; while a rich black student from New Haven, CT at Yale will probably have different experiences from a rich white student from New Haven, CT at Yale, I'd submit that sending middle-class me from Baton Rouge, LA up there would lend at least comparable diversity, just along different lines of examination.

All that said, Frank, I think you already addressed these concerns implicitly by acknowledging that race-based AA is "somewhat crude and imperfect" -- and I think I agree with your larger point here

@Draugnar: "Reverse racism" is not racism, nor does it exist. Happy to help!

@Eden: I agree that class is probably the largest driver of success, academic or otherwise. Addressing inequality would solve many of these problems and I of course would support economic affirmative action as well. In the absence of such programs though, race based affirmative action is a decent alternative. Probably some sort of combination of the two would be ideal.

Your example of 100k vs. 30k sounds reasonable, although its difficult to quantify the effects of systemic and institutional racism. I just meant that at any given income level, white students will in general enjoy systemic advantages over many minority groups.

I also agree that diversity is more than just race. Religious, geographic, political diversity, etc. are all also important. But race is one (important) component of diversity and the one is relevant to a discussion of affirmative active.

Frank - Reverse Racism doesn't exist? LOL.

Also, Eden, as an aside, New Haven is not a place of wealth and privilege:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/opinion/CTcurfew.html

@Chaqa: Yes. The perception that attempts to reduce the power of priviliged groups like white men are somehow racist or sexist is ridiculous. Racism and sexism aren't zero sum games that whites are now losing.

Read this Stanley Fish article: www.son.washington.edu/diversity/docs/SPCG-ReverseRacism.pd

the ending should be .pdf, sorry

I wonder what the proponents of racial diversity think of the fact that UCLA undergrads are 38% Asian, even though Asians only constitute about 12% of the population of California? In contrast, African(-American)s are only 4% of UCLA undergrads, but 8% of the total population of California. "White" students are 18% of UCLA undergrads, but 42% of the state's population. Are UCLA admissions gatekeepers racist? Is the diversity-experience Asian students contribute to university life worth six times as much as that provided by African(-American) and "White" students? Or is there a need to balance the deep anti-Asian racism that is so prevalent in America, which must be an order of magnitude greater than that experienced by any other racial group?

I'm not sure what your point is. I assume Asians in California have stronger than average admission profiles. UCLA is prevented by law from practicing affirmative action but it does follow a holistic admissions process.

'I would hazard a guess that socioeconomic privilege substantially outweighs racial privilege when it comes to academic success '

Probably, but i'd hazard that there is a coorelation between the two. Socioeconomic priviledge and race are linked.

That said, getting rid of that link could result in less rascism, it will not reduce the rich/poor divide (or should that be the super-rich/poverty line divide)

I wouldn't say that whites are losing. Maybe say that they are not winning quite as much and others aren't losing as often.

I think the solution would be to look towards "equal opportunity" where those with less opportunity (due to parent's income, abuse, etc.) get a boost to level the playing field.

The OP img really amazes me. Does anyone know of a university where white is a minority?

"I assume Asians in California have stronger than average admission profiles."

Fascinating... 40 (or even 30) years ago whites had "stronger than average admission profiles", which was largely responsible for white dominance in UC admissions. This was cited as proof positive of "white privilege" once upon a time. The solution was "Affirmative Action". Once "AA" was repealed by California voters, Asians - not whites - almost instantly dominated new university admissions. Does that mean that today in California, there is a pervasive and pernicious "Asian Privilege" problem that needs to be addressed with some measures designed to make things more fair for everyone else? Or is this simply natural selection, reflecting some inherent Asian racial superiority?

No person was born hating so if you find yourself feeling that way now ask yourself the question, "who taught me to hate and why did they do it ?"

Before you can find a solution to your bigotry it helps to understand the cause, that should help you to get over yourself, hate consumes the vessel that contains it..

Generally the cause is when one group is given a perceived unfair advantage over another. One thing that seems shared by humanity is an instinct that what is fair is right, and whilst people tend not to complain too loudly when the balance swings in their favour, it causes genuine resentment when it swings against them.

That is why things such as affirmative action are part of the problem. The harm it causes is far greater than any of the gains it may provide.

"I would hazard a guess that socioeconomic privilege substantially outweighs racial privilege when it comes to academic success -- "

That's not entirely true. If we scrapped race-based AA, as the (surprise surprise) largely white forum here wants to do, then black people would be completely closed out of elite universities.

E.g. 153,000+ black Americans took the SATs in 2005 (10.4% of all test-takers), but only 244 scored 750 on the math portion of the SATs, while only 363 scored 750 or better on the verbal.

Considering the average score for elite universities is 750 on each portion, that effectively shuts out all by a tiny group of African Americans.

"The harm it causes is far greater than any of the gains it may provide."

Sorry but the harm it causes to the psyche of people who don't even know what the policy is does not compare to the incalculable gains we have made in getting women and underrepresented ethnic, racial, and economic groups into higher education.

Just want to weigh in on this one as a current Uni student.

but first @Frank: you're right, there is no such thing as reverse-racism, as reverse-racism is just racism and separating the issue into two concepts is just silly.

Now onto this issue of affirmative action, before arriving at Uni, I would have agreed with the notion that socioeconomic factors are more a more accurate way of dividing and judging a student body than race. However, now through making the friends I have made and interacting with the students at my school I have come to realize that the racism in this nation is so deeply rooted that even people from identical socioeconomic and geographical locations who are of different races still have ENTIRELY different life experiences. I wasn't sure how I felt about affirmative action before my arrival, but I am now a full supporter. In practice today, judging people by their race will indeed yield the greatest diversity in a student body. This is unfortunate, but it's true as far as I have seen.

Secondly, I don't think any of you understand exactly how colleges and universities choose their students. From the start, they have VERY specific brackets they are trying to fill. These brackets are based on geography, annual income, type of high school attended, legacy, skill set, and when they can be, race.

finally @Tolstoy: Asian race superiority? really? I recall reading a Time? (maybe NatGeo, or even Scientific American) article a few years back that attributed the concept of "Asians have higher IQ", an argument I'm assuming your "Asian racial superiority" factors into, if not predicates, to a harder work ethic in general. They weren't superior genetically but achieved more with what they were given. You could still attribute that to race, but its sounds like social construct to me.

gender, I forgot to throw gender in there

"I wonder what the proponents of racial diversity think of the fact that UCLA undergrads are 38% Asian, even though Asians only constitute about 12% of the population of California?"

So are you calling yourself an opponent of racial diversity? Why on earth would anyone oppose racial diversity? I'd like an answer to that.

Second what do I think? I think you're comparing apples & oranges. Is the recent wave of Asian immigrants to the US have the same distribution of income and educational attainment prior to immigration that other groups have had? Or is this group more professional and more educated to begin with, and, as only the relatively prosperous and educated can afford to jump through all the hoops of immigrating to the USA from Asia, there's a significant selection bias issue here. So to compare this with the fact that white Americans have had over a century of privileged access to elite institutions, while blacks and Latinos have been closed out, is beyond absurd.

Asians' relative socioeconomic prosperity to other minorities is my greatest confirmation that the main barrier is socioeconomic -- but that said, a lot of the socioeconomic disparities are the direct result of a racist legacy that most Asians haven't had to fight as much. Not that Asians don't have any racial discrimination to deal with, but their better starting point softens the blow relative to other minorities, like Putin said (I think? sorry if that phrasing implies something different from what you meant)

And to be clear I'm not saying yank racial AA and replace with nothing. I think it's obvious that socioeconomic status is a great influence on educational attainment and performance and so adjusting for that seems to be the answer. This would consequently still address the academic plight of underprivileged black youth, but would do it by attacking what I believe to be the more pertinent, direct problem in admissions: the skew created by giving one kid a better education budget than another. I see the primary purpose of AA as being to adjust for variance in educational performances that do not directly relate to the compared students' effort and innate abilities. Race is a factor, socioeconomics moreso. Diversity is another one but that's not really my place to comment on.

The best unies in the UK have an increasingly large proportion of Asian students. With the Southern Asian students this is, at least partially, due to efforts at recruitment from the state rather than private educational sector- very commendable in my view. With other Asians, in particular the Chinese, this is often the result of educational tourism. Rich parents from mainland China, Hong Kong etc. pay up exorbitant fees and the deal is sealed. Is there an element of that in the USA too?

No, it would not still address it. A startling statistic is the fact that whites from families who who make less than $10,000 per year average an SAT score of 993, a full 129 higher than the average for all black test takers.

Another startling statistic is that whites from households of $10,000 or less had a mean SAT score that was 61 higher than the average for black households making between $80-100,000 per year.

Income does not subsume race.

http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html

I am extremely doubtful about the whole SATS regime as an unbiased measure of ability. We have over here a verbal reasoning test, for example. It seems to me that all this actually monitors is "acceptable" vocabulary. Then there is the whole can of worms of test preparation, tutoring etc.

My solution, inadequate as it is, but it the best I can find, is to add 20 % to your score if you come from a state-funded school. A little bit of social engineering too on the side, when middle-class parents might actually take an interest in the state sector. Win, win?

Honestly I wonder if this system isn't doing white students a huge favor by *keeping out* students who are just barely, barely over the threshold of being able to succeed in an elite university. Switching majors a bunch of times and getting sidetracked by random shit are much more recoverable mistakes when you're going to, say, a good public university in your state, rather than Yale, where the pressure to get it done in 4 years might actually limit your flexibility.

With affirmative action, if you're white, and you get accepted at the university, it's more likely that you're over-the-line by enough that you'll actually succeed at the university you got into, in the major that interests you.