Reply to Affirmative Action should be income-based, not race-based

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]About 30 years ago, Howard was so eager to create more black lawyers that they shaved off the requirements for law school graduation - eliminating five courses that were standard at law schools throughout the country. They figured just get them a J.D. behind their name, even if their educational preparation was lacking.

It quickly backfired. Wiser minds realized that by doing this, they were making a Howard J.D. a "second-class" degree, and the institution would suffer a significant hit to their reputation. They quickly reversed course, and the remaining five courses were put back in as a requirement for graduation.

I bring up this story because, similarly, that is what happens when you have "second-class" admissions standards for blacks. It causes a hit to the reputation of blacks who would have been admitted without the benefit of racial preferences. So in the Harvard example in the post above, a black student who scored a 1400 on his SAT and would have gotten in anyway is likely to have a cloud follow him: Did he get into Harvard by his own merit, or was he one of the blacks for whom an 1100 SAT was deemed enough (given his skin color). [/quote]

Test scores are not the only criteria used. An applicant with 1100 SAT may have other skills/intelligences that are desirable within a college cohort.

Test scores become meaningless when you take into consideration the biases that feed into the whole testing/educational system. In fact, many schools are making SAT/ACT scores optional.

[/quote]
But the problem is that it's 1100 for blacks, and almost 1400 for Asian males. I'm sure the Asian males have other skills/intelligence as well, but they need to start from a much higher jumping-off point.

And the math test is biased? English comprehension is biased? The reason many schools are making SAT/ACT scores optional is that it will be easier to defend admitting black students with test scores so much lower than white students IF THEY OMIT THE TEST ENTIRELY. It's meant to hide the discrepancy between lower- and higher-achieving groups.

(I remember during the Obama administration, there was a push to eliminate standardized testing at the pre-college level, too, and for the same reason. Blacks and Latinos were scoring lower, and that doesn't "look good." So.....abolish the test, and voila, problem solved!)[/quote]

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