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Affirmative action can be defined as action taken to compensate for past
unfairness in the education of minorities. The current system of affirmative
action allows universities to admit applicants from certain ethnic and minority
groups with lower credentials.
The main purpose of affirmative action is to
produce a diverse campus population that is comparable to today's society. The
use of race as a facto by which someone is admitted to college in the long run
will compromise the quality of the university. Implicating affirmative action to
solve the problem of diversity on today's campuses has lead to the creation of
problems.
The discrimination against Caucasian and Asian American students a
long with the toleration of lower quality work produced by African American
students and other minority students is an example of the problems caused by
Affirmative Action.
Although affirmative action intends to do good, lowering the
standards by which certain racial groups are admitted to college is not the way
to solve the problem of diversity in America's universities. The condition of
America's public schools is directly responsible for the poor academic
achievement of minority children.
Instead of addressing educational
discrepancies caused by poverty and discrimination, we are merely covering them
up and pretending they do not exist, and allowing ourselves to avoid what it
takes to make a dent in them--augmenting Head Start, improving high schools and
spending more equally among schools (Jacoby 36).
The implication of racial
preference has given high schools permission to replace the tradition of
achievement with a culture of entitlement. The feeling of the absence of
enthusiasm for achievement is illustrated by John O'Sulllivan editor of the
National Review hen he said, Restoring high standards in high school will take
time; but it will not even begin until the corrupting influence of racial
preference is removed.
By not admitting under qualified minority students to
America's premier universities, for example Stanford, hey have not been sent to
exile. There are an enormous amount of top quality schools which they can attend
and still achieve their dreams. Students admitted under the affirmative action
plan are accepted with SAT scores 200 to 300 points lower than that of their
Asian American and Caucasian competitors.
The undergraduate admission process at
the university of California at Los Angles is based on two standards. These
standards are academic rating which are test scores and grades second are the
supplemental ratings. These sees the students socioeconomic or educational
disadvantages.
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