Affirmative Action

Affirmative action is a failure. Enforced by executive order 11246 affirmative action was intended as a temporary measure to level the playing field within education and the workplace for African Americans. After forty-eight years of biased and preferential treatment it is time for affirmative action, as we know it, to end. Affirmative action is outdated and in modern times only serves to create systemic problems within educational institutions, while causing long-lasting harm to individuals.
Affirmative action is a piece of outdated legislation and acts as an unfair weighing mechanism of potential students. Affirmative action had its place in history, it was created at a time when skin color was the greatest barrier to education and success.
However, in today’s society it’s important that we recognize that it is the poor, and not minorities alone, who are the most disadvantaged group when it comes to education and college admissions. The correlation between wealth and higher education is blatant, and wealth, even among minorities, usually indicates greater chances of continuing on to college. Affirmative action, in its current form, only serves to broaden the gulf between the rich and the poor within education. Moreover, it is wealthy minorities who benefit the most from the use of race in college admission, essentially affirmative action often times only helps the most privileged members of minority groups. For example, according to the New York Times, “ 86 percent of African-American students in highly selective colleges are middle or upper class. Race-conscious admissions tend to enhance such socioeconomic statistics.”(Source 1) Facts like these illustrate how affirmative action has failed in its most fundamental mission, to level the playing field for the most disadvantaged members of society. Affirmative action inherently fails as it just becomes a tool to funnel already advantaged, upper-class, minorities into universities, because of this affirmative action doesn’t level the playing field. Why should the son of wealthy black doctors intrinsically be considered a better applicant than the child of a refugee?
However, there are many arguments in favor of affirmative action.
It’s said that affirmative action is in place to reverse the negative effects of years of discrimination. Of course, this begs the question of why we use reverse discrimination to fix past discrimination. Also, the idea that affirmative action is not a remedy for disadvantage, but instead, an effort to promote “diversity” which creates a better learning environment. “This same push for "diversity" also has led Stanford to create racially segregated dormitories, racially segregated freshman orientation programs, racially segregated graduation ceremonies and curricular requirements in race theory and gender studies.” (Source 1) Moreover, minority students should be seen more as people and less as something to bring “flavor”, through diversity, to the classroom. Some go as far as to say, that without affirmative action women and minorities would not be represented at schools, however this argument is unintentionally insulting to the women and minorities, as it seems to imply that these people could not gain entrance to top universities without affirmative action.
Most of all, the idea that the most disadvantaged members of society are helped by affirmative action is a fallacy as minorities and women from lower classes aren't helped by affirmative action, only those individuals from privileged
backgrounds.

Affirmative action has lead to numerous issue with education. Skin color in no way makes one applicant naturally superior to another; therefore, it is not fair to pass over better qualified students because of their skin color. Unfortunately, this is happening at universities across the nation, under qualified students are being admitted over others simply based on skin color. There’s no better example than at Stanford, where there exists, on average, almost a two hundred point SAT score difference, according to data compiled by the Consortium on Financing Higher Education. Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray state in their book, The Bell Curve, “In reality, the average SAT disparity between Stanford's African-American and white admittees reached 171 points in 1992.” (Source 2)
Furthermore, using race within admissions carries on comparative race consciousness at universities and only serves to create further divisions. When we allow preferential treatment based on something as superficial as skin color we hurt the integrity and autonomy that are due to institutions of higher education and the applicants themselves. Moreover, race based programs led to heightened racial sensitivity. For example, affirmative action leads to thoughts such as, “Did they just get in because they’re not white?” This hurts the applicants and serves as rationale for some to write off the success of people of color within higher education. When schools are forced by the government to submit to regulations of their private admissions practices it creates tension between the autonomy of educational institutions and the government. Furthermore, when school admit underqualified applicants it in turn hurts the integrity of the schools admission practices, leading to widespread anger, discontent, and loss of confidence in higher education.
Furthermore, it’s unfair to the better prepared applicants passed over and also the country as a whole. Only a small number of spots are available at top universities, it’s only fair that these spots should go to applicants with the necessary foundation, skills, and prior, education. When the superior applicant is passed over, that student and the world are deprived of what they could have gained and accomplished at a top tier school. Unfortunately, when we follow this trend to its natural conclusion, the nation's global competitiveness suffers. When the United States funnels people into top universities without merit the integrity of American education and global standing are harmed. (Source 2)
However, above all it’s the students themselves who are most hurt by affirmative action. A poor student who gains admission to a university will have overcome the numerous obstacles poverty. It is the poor who are the least expected to attend college. “In 2004, rich kids were found to outnumber poor kids on selective campuses by 25 to 1.” (Source 3) The true diversity at college campuses that is missing is socio-economic diversity. Being the affluent child of minority professionals should not make you a more appealing applicant than a poor student who has has overcome poverty to gain their diploma. Furthermore, affirmative action places under prepared applicants into overly demanding colleges, leading to high dropout rates. Affirmative action is often unfair to the very students it is intended to help, called the "mismatch" theory, underrepresented minority students are more likely to leave science, math, engineering and technology, because as a result of affirmative action they attend colleges for which they are unprepared. The Stanford SAT score disparities mentioned earlier prove some applicants admitted would not have made the cut if they were not minorities. These original disparities display the shaky foundation some students attending notoriously competitive and demanding universities have. This leads to high dropout rates, unfortunately, when the applicants would have fit in better at less competitive universities and perhaps continued on to graduate. In addition, affirmative action underestimates the ability of minorities. It is an unfair advantage which acts as a slap in the face to minorities. For example the Hispanic National Merit Scholarship has significantly lower standards than other PSAT merit scholarships such as National Merit Scholar. These discrepancies create the idea that the very defenders of affirmative action are the ones who believe minorities are not as capable as their white counterparts. Also, it’s thoughts like these that lower expectations of minorities and decreases the incentives to work and achieve, while largely only serving to regulate minorities to a place beneath other applicants. Moreover, the idea that people of color need an advantage to achieve the same as other applicants is insulting. Skin color has nothing to do with intrinsic value and should not be used within admissions. Overall Affirmative action is inherently insulting, it tells minorities they can’t be expected to achieve the same as others because of their skin tone and furthers the victim mentality which hurts minority groups. By telling students of color they need special consideration to get a place in a university further perpetuates the idea of natural inequality. (Source 1) The alternative to the current affirmative action is the use of economic considerations in the place of racial ones, which serves the purpose of affirmative action without the flaws involved with it in the status quo. Economic considerations help people who need it the most, there is a correlation between minority status and poverty, so economic consideration carry out the original goals of affirmative action while leveling the playing field for the most disadvantaged group today. (Source 1) Furthermore, economic considerations logically make more sense than racial preferences, financial consideration takes into account the extra work needed by poor students to succeed within education. And as poverty is more difficult to overcome when it comes to education than skin color this noted bonus is well deserved. Poor students who graduate high school and are looking to free themselves from the cycle of systemic poverty deserve extra consideration financial based affirmative action would bring them. Poverty has stronger correlation to lack of higher education than race and the poor suffer the most, they are the most disadvantaged group within society today and deserve their own form of affirmative action. (Source 1) Moreover, economic considerations give the greatest chance possible for students to break the cycle of poverty. Awarding a place at a university to a poor student has a much higher chance of changing their lives and guaranteeing them a level playing field than giving the same place to some simply based upon skin color. Economic considerations serve the original goals of affirmative action, which were to help the most disadvantaged members of society, however, in modern times the most disadvantaged are no longer just people of color.
The poor experience the worst conditions within education and this should be taken into consideration during the application process. Race is not a meaningful weighing mechanism for an applicant, but escaping through hard work from poverty is something that should be considered in college
admissions.