Affirm

I'm sorry, but I had to read that article at least twice to get a comprehension of the author's message: repeal of race-blind admissions will hurt Asian-Americans.

These guys need to write an abstract, or put a thesis towards the front or something.

As for the article, I don't believe prop 209 will pass. I don't believe affirmative action will ever come back to the UC system. The entire issue quickly devolves into the worst of all conversations, but I believe what we have now, this is closer to a social equilibrium than the previous solution, although still flawed.

My own opinion: I believe race has a been played up to a too great an extent. I for one am not for a categorical most-merited admissions to college. I do believe candidates should be screened for some geographical-income characteristics; if not the city, then from the school. Given how income disparity in the US grown so much to geographically separate people regarding economic class, I feel that geographic location should be accounted for.

My own history: I'm an Asian-American. I go to a UC school. I felt absolutely horrible starting out not only because I was woefully unprepared for college, rather I was maybe the 4-5 kids went to my university out of past 10 years. I felt lonely, separate, unable to connect with my peers, and just unable to communicate my difficulties. Why? My parents are working class. Not many university kids came from working class households.

My high school was terrible. It didn't matter if my college peers were white, asian, black, or hispanic, they all appeared to come from the three suburb regions of San Jose, Orange County, or the nice parts of the San Fernando Valley. Race didn't matter for me -- not even one bit. It didn't matter to me that he might have spoken my mother tongue, the difference between a 18 yr old who grew in a mansion and a 18 yr old who grew up in a 964 sq ft home are far too large. The lonely isolation that might be felt by students underrepresented in university echoed in my own sentiments of being from a working class neighborhood. To what extent do they compare?

I went to high school as one of the four chinese males for my class of 260 students. The other two were my closest friends. Filipinos outnumbered the rest of the East Asians 2:1 (and I can tell you Filipino culture is not similar at all to Chinese culture); with over 75% of the school being Hispanic. I know that feeling of isolation regarding race. Did I get harassed by cholos for being different? Yeah. And I learned how to accommodate. It was still a bad experience I recommend no one to but I was within my own class. For every dickhead, there were 4-5 people who were genuine decent and I could trust. People were aware of the monetary constraints, regardless of race. I could relate. The stories of poor father-child relationships? That occurred for nearly everyone, regardless of race.

My own opinion: I left high school with decent qualifications. They weren't the absolute best, but they rivaled the top of my non-Chinese peers. Instead of winning scholarships, getting to the nice private schools, I went to a public school. I do feel that private universities provide a one-way private channels for a specific type of group of people. They could have worse grades, worse test scores, less rigorous course load, but still cut through all the bureaucratic mess and land in. I don't believe that's fair, no. I worked as hard as the few of them in high school and received little to no recognition, not from my parents, not from teachers, not from the Ivy-League admissions, only a few words of congratulation from my high school counselor in private before I walked the podium of graduation.

I don't believe that race based affirmative action works works out at all. Incentivizing the economic ladder for specific groups, in hopes that the few would then enter back into their communities to ameliorate the rest of them. No. That's false. There would be no dire crisis after the first 40 years of affirmative action if this worked out. This didn't work out. Ask how many who entered that private one-way channel, how many times they tried to distance themselves from their own group's herd mentality? Why would they ever want to go back? Some people embrace education as a form of protest against their own community. The entire culture can be changed by engaging with the entire community.

If universities wanted to help specific groups of people, they should broaden the approach beyond a few individuals and target the whole community. They've only recently done this. Videotaped lectures posted online. The ease of finding pirated textbooks. The interactive software online. Let everyone participate from that underprivileged minority. Let everyone the chance to learn well or become inspiring. Concentrating all the energies on the selected talented few will not work.

This race based affirmative action needs to be forgotten when there's more modern technologies that level the playing field, for everyone. Must there be some moderation at least before declaring categorically that only the best deserve matriculation? Yes, make that geographical-economic class influenced, because blindly focusing on race neglects the most hurt.