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Yes, this has been brewing for a while.  He's actually just going to file a brief with the Supreme Court.  I'm curious to see what it says.

So if you're not part of a minority you have to earn 100 points or more to in, but if you are part of a minority group you only have to earn 80 points or more.  Gee that sounds real fair. 

Of course it's fair.  Well, that is, if you happen to believe that minorities are for whatever reason unable to earn 100 points.

You always hear about the preferential treatment on admissions but, once in doesn't that stop? Poor grades after admission should get a student bounced out I would think or am I wrong? Has that changed too?
Might be interesting to know what the eventual graduation rate of AA students are compared to non.

The next sacred crow the Court may soon have to rule on is Legacy Admissions-- one of the longest standing college affirmative action programs in place for white people.

You'll be quite happy to know that this is already happening without the courts.  My very white friend was denied admission to Holy Cross, destroying the chance for triple legacy.  His uncle even met with the Dean and tore up a substantial donation check in his office.

He's now a successful lawyer in NC.  I'm not sure why the didn't admit him, he met al he academic requirements, perhaps there was a very good group of applicants that year, and the bar was raised.

I applaud schools that do this.  It holds up the integrity of the school, which, IMO is far important than the student body's compoosition statistically.

Tom Daschle is a moron calling the whole thing "watershed".  what a jacka-- political move.  trying to woo over the minorities by playing on what Bush is trying to fix.  very sad.

in education, people should progress to various levels based on their grades and test scores.  not because they only have 2 blacks enrolled and they need at least 3.

I wouldn't mind seeing the legacy thing nixed as well as AA.

A lot of my colleagues in academia would be shocked to see me say this, but I wouldn't either. Since by weight of history the majority of USA college graduates in the 19th and 20th centuries were white, the lion's share of legacy admissions perks have gone to white students.     

But it's not the racial element of legacies that make me frown on the practice.

In too many cases it has been a perfectly acceptable way of providing an unearned edge to students who otherwise do not meet the academic qualifications for admission to college. It is the family jewel of class warfare-- the Old Boy (and in some cases, Old Girl) Network. The notion that family association is more important than merit and hard work.

Don't expect it to go down without a fight-- especially from elite colleges such as the Ivies. Anywhere from 25-35% of every entering class at Harvard is legacies. According to the Times article, legacies at Penn can be as much as 41% of a class. I'm sure comparable numbers can be found at Yale, Stanford, Duke, etc. And it does translate into big development bucks for those schools.

The elite colleges will probably make the argument that since they are private and tuition-driven they have the right to admit and give entrance advantages to anyone they damn well please-- and they may win some concessions on that point. Public colleges, who often rely on gifts from legcay families to survive, may not be as successful.

Another interesting facet of the legacy perk is that in the last 10 years increasing numbers of minority alumni of elite schools have begun to take advantage of it too. So this will be one to watch very closely.

Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, has authored several books on exactly that point. His findings indicate that in institutions with successful AA/diversity programs, graduation rates for the so-called AA students and their white counterparts are comparable, and in many cases, nearly equal.

He also notes important return on investment data. For example, Affirmative Action graduates have been shown to have a greater level of volunteer service and civic activism in their local communities than their fellow white alumni. That includes both minorities and women-- the other side of the AA equation.

Pop in his name as a keyword and you should get his bibliography. Then go to your local public library or bookstore. Happy hunting!

While in med school, I received a stipend for my minority status each semester (which I did not ask for).  I was also required to perform community service, both as a requirement for receiving the stipend, and out of my own voluntary efforts.  I was also required to attend study sessions with other minority students. 

Questions:  do other institutions have these requirements? And if so, was this taken into consideration when Mr. Bok presented his data?

Interesting thing about this, I will have to find the article again, but there was a report that was just introduced into the public about the score testings of NY.

NY spends roughly 12,000/student for school each year in the inner city, yet they have some of the poorest scores...

Yet in the same area, the Religious schools of the same area, are near the top for scores in NY all together, and in the upper percentile throughout the entire US... but yet they get less than $12,000 for each student from the state, more like $5,000 to $8,000.

Then why are the religious schools doing better than the public schools who get more funding from the state? (in the same area)

I can tell you the answer, at least by my indications, but I want to see what you think.

Cyberpawz

But the misapplication of AA doesn't make the original INTENT wrong or unworthy of action. So let's fix it or put something in its place that woks better and more fairly. What bothers me is that I never hear suggestions from my conservative colleagues in the Forum on what to put in place instead of AA.

What would you suggest?

Guess what, Cyberpawz? I agree with you!

Very few public institutions or public agencies have implemented AA according to its original intent. That's been my point  for some time. I would submit that in a lot of cases that was done deliberately, to foment angry backlash among white males and give the GOP a tangible, political effigy to use for gaining votes.

But the misapplication of AA doesn't make the original INTENT wrong or unworthy of action. So let's fix it or put something in its place that woks better and more fairly. What bothers me is that I never hear suggestions from my conservative colleagues in the Forum on what to put in place instead of AA.

Actually I have suggested:

Strip it off the books, and revamp it to do what it was meant to and nothing more...by being race and gender blind upon receipt of an applicant for a position which resides in the US, either it be Public, or Private district.

Remove the Racial Quotas from schools and government positions. This will seem to be favoring a certain group, I am sure, but because of the first paragraph, it would not, because the person would be hired upon experience and qualifications alone, for race, and gender would not be known till the applicant enters the building for the interview.

This would Allow job opportunities to anyone that applies to the position by excluding gender, and race from any test, or questionnaire. The applicant would be tested upon actual knowledge, and experience, and not be favored for race or gender.

How's this for a start?

Cyberpawz

Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, has authored several books on exactly that point. His findings indicate that in institutions with successful AA/diversity programs, graduation rates for the so-called AA students and their white counterparts are comparable, and in many cases, nearly equal.

He also notes important return on investment data. For example, Affirmative Action graduates have been shown to have a greater level of volunteer service and civic activism in their local communities than their fellow white alumni. That includes both minorities and women-- the other side of the AA equation.

Pop in his name as a keyword and you should get his bibliography. Then go to your local public library or bookstore. Happy hunting!

While in med school, I received a stipend for my minority status each semester (which I did not ask for).  I was also required to perform community service, both as a requirement for receiving the stipend, and out of my own voluntary efforts.  I was also required to attend study sessions with other minority students. 

Questions:  do other institutions have these requirements? And if so, was this taken into consideration when Mr. Bok presented his data?

If your medical education was supported by money from the National Health Service Corps, a federal program, performing community service in medically underserved areas is part of the required payback.

The trend at the graduate and professional schools in the Ivy League is to mandate a certain amount of "hours" of commununity service as a requirement for the degree.  At Harvard, the schools of law, medicine, design, education, government, public health, and of course divinity all have the requirement. Ironically, at the Business School it is voluntary.

I haven't read Bok's book yet. But his successor, Neil Rudenstine enacted a policy that actually gave the schools funds for faciliatating community service programs. Other Ivy and Ivy Plus schools-- Brown, Yale, Penn, Standford-- have similar policies.

How do I know this.  After nearly a year of studying the topic for him, I co-authored the policy that President Rudenstine put into place.

The interesting thing is that they pursued me as a candidate for this stipend after I was accepted into medical school- I didn't apply as a minority.  I am 12.5% Native American, and apparently this counts on their books as minority status.  I felt uncomfortable attending extra study sessions- I didn't think it was fair  to the rest of the folks in school.  After all, we're all there to learn the same stuff, right?

1. A core standard of minimum admissions requirements, which would include college entrance scores, GPA, class rank, and an official high school transcript.

I agree with this idea.  However I would put forth that class rank in and of itself is not necessarily a good statistic to use in admission processes because it is just so variable across schools.  For example: at my high school, if you took honors classes, and received an "A" in them it counted as a 5, not a 4 towards the GPA.  Thus, when I graduated, the #1 in the class had a 4.35 GPA (class ranking was determined by GPA rank).  Now, the problem with this was, there were some crazy honors courses which were way too easy.  Honors PASCAL and Honors home Ec comes to mind as two obvious cases.  People would take these courses just to boost their class rank and GPA.  Whats more is the school was too damn concerned with getting money to fund their expansion project to give a damn about the curriculum.  With a (cummulative) GPA of 4.15 I graduated 22nd in my class.  22nd.  I talk to my fellow Notre Dame students out here sometimes and most of them were in the top 15 of their class, and I ask what their GPA's were, and most of them were under a 4.0 because their schools did not do the extra point for an honors class thing.

I just think that transcript, recommendations, essay, GPA, SAT scores are the important part of admissions.