Scalia Criticized For Comments About Black Students
63 replies, posted
[quote]Justice Antonin Scalia continues to come under fire from civil rights attorneys and black lawmakers for his comments suggesting African American students might fare better in a "slower-track school" rather than more competitive colleges.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case about race-based admissions, a controversial case centered on practices at the University of Texas. Scalia questioned whether some minority students are hurt by the policy because it helped them gain admittance to schools where they might not be able to academically compete.
"[B]There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well,[/B]" Scalia said referencing an amicus brief.[/quote]
[url=http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/justice-scalia-under-fire-comments-about-black-students-n478681]Source[/url]
I think Scalia is right, and he's being misinterpreted. I don't think he was saying that All black students would do poorly at UT, but that if you lower the standards for black students specifically to fill a quota, then the lower testing students who are only in the school for a diversity thing are being hurt because they're at a school that they might not be academically prepared for. Some schools have lower SAT requirements for black and latino students and higher SAT requirements for White and Asian students, which I think is doing a disservice to black students by lowering the standards of learning taught at predominantly black highschools in predominantly black neighborhoods.
I'm not a fan of Scalia (he voted against marriage equality), but it would be a miscarriage of justice to let him be misinterpreted
This is hardly surprising. The media constantly goes out of its way to misrepresent what Scalia says. If you actually listen to him for any significant length of time you'll realize he's not the reactionary boogeyman that people make him out to be.
That's blatantly racist.
[QUOTE=Melkor;49307170]This is hardly surprising. The media constantly goes out of its way to misrepresent what Scalia says. If you actually listen to him for any significant length of time you'll realize he's not the reactionary boogeyman that people make him out to be.[/QUOTE]
It's not so much that he's being misrepresented, I don't think. He has a valid(ish) point, but he made it in the worst way possible.
If you get the point, then what's with the outrage? Truth hurts, I know, but it's just the way it is.
[QUOTE=MrHeadHopper;49307547]If you get the point, then what's with the outrage? Truth hurts, I know, but it's just the way it is.[/QUOTE]
Feels before reals, in a sense.
What people do not understand is that he's not implying that black students are less capable than any other race due to the color of their skin, but rather he's saying that these individual students who applied to University of Texas were not individually capable of meeting UoT standards and would be better off being in a college that was less rigorous. His point is that these black students who are admitted to UoT are admitted due to their race and not their qualifications which ends up hurting them in the long run when they have said lack of qualification. It's insane how people are misconstruing his citation of a brief to be racism.
Another important point people fail to understand that these are not Scalia's words, but that they are from his citation of an amicus brief made by someone else.
[QUOTE=Melkor;49307170]This is hardly surprising. The media constantly goes out of its way to misrepresent what Scalia says. If you actually listen to him for any significant length of time you'll realize he's not the reactionary boogeyman that people make him out to be.[/QUOTE]
You know you're drinking too much of the anti-ESS JAY DOUBLEYA koolaid if you can read Scalia's dissent in Lawrence v. Texas or Obergefell v. Hodges and still claim he's not a bigoted reactionary.
[QUOTE=SPESSMEHREN;49308613]You know you're drinking too much of the anti-ESS JAY DOUBLEYA koolaid if you can read Scalia's dissent in Lawrence v. Texas or Obergefell v. Hodges and still claim he's not a bigoted reactionary.[/QUOTE]
Did anyone mention the SJWs? No.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;49306853]Affirmative action in education is bullshit.
[/QUOTE]
Affirmative action is [b][i]always[/i][/b] bullshit. There is no conceivable situation where it isn't.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;49306853]Affirmative action in education is bullshit.
Educational instituitons should hold all potential candidates equally, by success, not color or background.
[editline]13th December 2015[/editline]
How about making education free or just cost less, how about raising the standards of high schools, how about raise the standards of people of "handicapped" background instead of a bullshit Top ten percent law?[/QUOTE]
That or just get rid of some of the stupid tricks prep schools do, my highschool had a 4.0 system, you got all a's you got a 4.0 not a 5.0 not a fudged up system, you got the grades that fit the system, a lot of prep schools do stupid stuff to create the sense of impressive students
[editline]13th December 2015[/editline]
Also it's funny this is what scalea gets people pissed about? This guy called marriage equality jittery applesauce and obamacare legal arglebargle, he has a bad way of saying things in the worst possible way
You should go to a community college if you can't get into a big uni. Hell, you should anyway. There's no point in going to a big uni that you're going to struggle at because you don't meet the requirements, and where you'll pay out the ass to probably suffer through years of anxiety and academic struggle. Go to a community college, get your grades up, knock out some core classes, mature as an adult, pay way less. Transfer to a uni later. You're not doing anyone a favor by letting them into a school they don't qualify for. Except the administrators and book companies that will suck you dry till the day you decide to drop out because it's too difficult and expensive.
[QUOTE=OvB;49309023]You should go to a community college if you can't get into a big uni. Hell, you should anyway. There's no point in going to a big uni that you're going to struggle at because you don't meet the requirements, and where you'll pay out the ass to probably suffer through years of anxiety and academic struggle. Go to a community college, get your grades up, knock out some core classes, mature as an adult, pay way less. Transfer to a uni later. You're not doing anyone a favor by letting them into a school they don't qualify for. Except the administrators and book companies that will suck you dry till the day you decide to drop out because it's too difficult and expensive.[/QUOTE]
That's great but like my field, you couldn't do it differently, from your sophomore year on its a race to get the classes done in the right order.
There is also something to be said about being independent. If the financial risk wasn't so great these days it would still be worth learning on your feet but the way scholarships and financial aid work today its a bitch if you screw up
[QUOTE=Sableye;49309204]That's great but like my field, you couldn't do it differently, from your sophomore year on its a race to get the classes done in the right order.
There is also something to be said about being independent. If the financial risk wasn't so great these days it would still be worth learning on your feet but the way scholarships and financial aid work today its a bitch if you screw up[/QUOTE]
What was your degree? What degree doesn't require at least a years worth of basic math, science, polisci, history, and English/communication? I know any Bachelor of Science degree could definitely knock out some courses at community college.
Hell, I've had my big uni advisors recommend going to community college while I'm also going to uni to knock out things like stats and calc.
Community colleges are useful.
[editline]13th December 2015[/editline]
And if you don't meet the minimum requirements to get into a uni anyway, the mid-degree, pre-req rat race is your last concern as you'll be in remedial classes before you even see your freshmen level classes. By the time you make it to sophomore year you'll hopefully be caught up academically and know what you're doing.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;49307349]It's not so much that he's being misrepresented, I don't think. He has a valid(ish) point, but he made it in the worst way possible.[/QUOTE]
I don't think you can make point "smoothly", you are going to get called racist anyway at those politically correct times.
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;49306853]
Affirmative action in education is bullshit.
Educational instituitons should hold all potential candidates equally, by success, not color or background.[/quote]
Academic success in high school is not unrelated to race. White students generally perform better in high school because their families and schools generally have more resources than minority communities do.
That minority communities tend to also be poor communities is no coincidence. The minority population of the US, particularly Blacks and Latinos, been actively disenfranchised by both private and public entities for over a century. You cannot use success in high school as the sole metric for college admissions because that metric is already stacked against minority students. And even if we equalized the quality of high school education for all students, that still wouldn't prevent college admissions boards from acting in a racially discriminatory way.
Affirmative Action isn't just about reparations for past offenses; it's trying to counteract the effects racism has on enrollments right now. Quotas are an inelegant solution, but in this instance, they're better than nothing.
[quote]How about making education free or just cost less, how about raising the standards of high schools, how about raise the standards of people of "handicapped" background instead of a bullshit Top ten percent law?[/QUOTE]
Making college free doesn't mean colleges wouldn't be selective in their admissions process. Improving the quality of our high schools might indirectly help two decades from now if we started today, and again, that "fix" doesn't really address the racial aspect of the problem. Your last point might be on to something, if I'm interpreting it correctly, but "raising the standards" (improving quality of life? creating environments more conducive to success?) of minority communities would entail finding avenues to combat institutional racism, which Affirmative Action was designed to do.
tl;dr: Racism still exists. Academic success is tied to socioeconomic status and so is not unrelated to racism. Affirmative Action may not be the best solution, but we can't eliminate it and do nothing just because the majority incorrectly believes that nothing would be more "fair."
affirmative action doesn't really combat institutional racism as it does counterbalance it. so long as people are treated as unequal, there is institutional racism, and affirmative action does just that. it is fine to have a counterbalance, especially when working to truly defeat institutional racism, but we shouldn't grow complacent with it.
Scalia is an [I]enormous [/I]piece of shit but this particular quote is taken wildly out of context in an immature and disingenious attempt to make someone sound racist when it's not about skin color at all.
[QUOTE=TestECull;49308815]Affirmative action is [b][i]always[/i][/b] bullshit. There is no conceivable situation where it isn't.[/QUOTE]
Why?
[QUOTE=Raidyr;49313349]Scalia is an [I]enormous [/I]piece of shit but this particular quote is taken wildly out of context in an immature and disingenious attempt to make someone sound racist when it's not about skin color at all.
Why?[/QUOTE]
Why? Because it pushes pepole who aren't qualified into positions they really shouldn't have, and it also pushes places to hire more minority/women employees otherwise they would look bad or some shit.
[QUOTE=Tmaxx;49313814]Why? Because it pushes pepole who aren't qualified into positions they really shouldn't have, and it also pushes places to hire more minority/women employees otherwise they would look bad or some shit.[/QUOTE]
What you just described isn't affirmative action.
[editline]14th December 2015[/editline]
I don't know how universities work but in the workplace, affirmative action as it was established in the 60's and 70's is effectively nonexistent and utterly unenforced.
[QUOTE]
"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well," Scalia said referencing an amicus brief.[/QUOTE]
I don't get it, I'd have to read his entire statement for context, because it's pretty obvious he's citing somebody else. Does he actually agree with the sentiment? Because then I get why people are angry - while the citation has some logic behind it, it shouls be referencing financial class and not race.
As much as I don't think affirmative action in the workplace is defensible, and that most colleges half ass their affirmative action attempts. I do have to defend its intentions in certain cases when it comes to higher education.
Imagine two students: One grew up in a well off area. Their high school was one of the best in the state and their teachers were all pretty good. This school's students tend to do very well on the SAT's, averaging 1300's. The student that went to this school got exactly a 1300 on the SAT's. This student is average.
The other student grew up in a poor area. Their high school was one of the worst in the state. Their teachers were exhausted and not effective. Students at this school tend to do very poorly on the SAT's, averaging 900's. The student that went to this high school got a 1200. This student is well above average.
Do you see why the second student should be accepted to a college over the first?
This example doesn't include other factors that may separate them. Being from a poor family likely means the second student had less educated parents, more responsibilities and other factors that might have made it more difficult for them to learn, but they still managed to come out above average.
This example doesn't include race or gender. I agree that accepting people based on their skin color or genitals is stupid, but giving students who came from shit tier schools and poor backgrounds a leg up in admissions does make sense.
Once you're out of college I don't think employers should be doing any kind of affirmative action. The rebalancing should come in college. Once you're done there you're on your own.
Affrimitive action can work. It should work.
But it doesn't, not because of the system itself but because of the lack of cultural and structural support before college.
Most of the kids going into big unis are not prepared as their inner city or predominantly black schools do not prepare them for such usually because of a lack of funding and a lack of good support to prepare these students for college.
That's the issue.
[editline]14th December 2015[/editline]
Its also why I'm against quotas in general, if you speak to Right and Moderate Europeans the quota systems in government aren't actually popular but they realize they need them.
That's not a good thing, that's a band-aid fix on cultural issues they have yet to actually take control of.
[QUOTE=CG-105;49313131]White students generally perform better in high school because their families and schools generally have more resources than minority communities do.
[/QUOTE]
It also tends to help an enormous amount to actually have a family. The majority of black children are raised by single mom's, and that puts them at an enormous disadvantage when it comes to even shit like basic literacy.
[URL]http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/29/don-lemon/cnns-don-lemon-says-more-72-percent-african-americ/[/URL]
[QUOTE=Swilly;49314979]Affrimitive action can work. It should work.
But it doesn't, not because of the system itself but because of the lack of cultural and structural support before college.
Most of the kids going into big unis are not prepared as their inner city or predominantly black schools do not prepare them for such usually because of a lack of funding and a lack of good support to prepare these students for college.
That's the issue.
[editline]14th December 2015[/editline]
Its also why I'm against quotas in general, if you speak to Right and Moderate Europeans the quota systems in government aren't actually popular but they realize they need them.
That's not a good thing, that's a band-aid fix on cultural issues they have yet to actually take control of.[/QUOTE]
It would be preferable to address the issues directly, but affirmative action and quotas are preferable to nothing at all. The alternative isn't "let's either fix poverty and racism completely or just put in quotas," it's "let's put in quotas or do pretty much nothing."
Something is preferable to nothing. I'd rather have quotas than leave disadvantaged minorities in the dust completely, or try to help them through experimental social programs that gain and lose funding every 8 years between different congresses with different philosophies without providing quotas. The issues need to be addressed, but giving disadvantaged minorities the opportunity to dig themselves out of that disadvantage is a slow-healing process that is demonstrably better than doing nothing.
[QUOTE=OvB;49309023]You should go to a community college if you can't get into a big uni. Hell, you should anyway. There's no point in going to a big uni that you're going to struggle at because you don't meet the requirements, and where you'll pay out the ass to probably suffer through years of anxiety and academic struggle. Go to a community college, get your grades up, knock out some core classes, mature as an adult, pay way less. Transfer to a uni later. You're not doing anyone a favor by letting them into a school they don't qualify for. Except the administrators and book companies that will suck you dry till the day you decide to drop out because it's too difficult and expensive.[/QUOTE]
This is what I'm doing, minus plans for uni I'm just doing remedial math right now to fix my messed up math grades from high school , I'd love to do something related to CS or IT if I find myself with the opportunity. It serves as a refresher, and I was a very slow learner throughout middle school and high school so I'm finally able to grasp what I'm being shown rather then being completely lost. I matured slow compared to my peers and should've been held back. :v:
[QUOTE=.Isak.;49316804]It would be preferable to address the issues directly, but affirmative action and quotas are preferable to nothing at all. The alternative isn't "let's either fix poverty and racism completely or just put in quotas," it's "let's put in quotas or do pretty much nothing."
Something is preferable to nothing. I'd rather have quotas than leave disadvantaged minorities in the dust completely, or try to help them through experimental social programs that gain and lose funding every 8 years between different congresses with different philosophies without providing quotas. The issues need to be addressed, but giving disadvantaged minorities the opportunity to dig themselves out of that disadvantage is a slow-healing process that is demonstrably better than doing nothing.[/QUOTE]
But its a bandaid on a gaping chest wound. Doing nothing isn't ideal either but I would rather leaders and people with influence push toward a better future using the people themselves versus force feeding a solution.
[QUOTE=CG-105;49313131]Academic success in high school is not unrelated to race. White students generally perform better in high school because their families and schools generally have more resources than minority communities do.[/QUOTE]
What about the white students that don't do well because of poverty, shit teachers, discrimination, etc? Affirmitive action effectively takes a general problem (students being bright and wanting to succeed but not being in an environment where they can demonstrate they can) and selectively interprets that problem as being some form of institutional racism in regards towards students that belong to a minority group. The sentiment of wanting to have more minority groups in higher education is admirable, but you can't simply admit more over students of racial groups popularly considered to be more privileged and successful without being incredibly unfair. Furthermore, I would argue that you actually increase negative feelings towards affected minority groups, as students who do not benifit from such systems will feel as though that those individuals are getting a free and easy ride.
[QUOTE=.Isak.;49316804]Something is preferable to nothing. I'd rather have quotas than leave disadvantaged minorities in the dust completely[/QUOTE]
Encourage them to attend community college? That was my plan if I didn't get accepted into any of the colleges I applied to. I was going to transfer from that to a larger college where I would actually get my degree. Is there some unknown factor I'm not seeing here?
[QUOTE=SashaWolf;49322284]What about the white students that don't do well because of poverty, shit teachers, discrimination, etc? [/QUOTE]
Statistically blacks have the highest rate of families in poverty, followed by hispanics, Asians, and whites.
[QUOTE=Raidyr;49323586]Statistically blacks have the highest rate of families in poverty, followed by hispanics, Asians, and whites.[/QUOTE]
Nobody asked you for statistic generalizations. There are white students in the same positions. What about them?
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