I'm sick of rich white kids whining about Affirmative Action
“Less capable minority students are stealing scholarships and spaces in good colleges from me.” I have heard multiple variations on this anti-affirmative action statement coming from many middle-class white kids. Implicit in this argument is that affirmative action is inherently not merit-based. I argue that affirmative action, giving a helping hand to people who have led disadvantaged lives, is, in fact, more greatly based on personal merit than the systems to which many middle-class white students wish to revert. Because of this, affirmative action should continue to be implemented in university admission and scholarship consideration. I admit, however, that the current methods of applying affirmative action are not living up to those aims, and need to take socio-economic background into greater consideration.
The goal of affirmative action has always been to make up for hardships imposed by society in order that people have opportunities to rise above the conditions in which they were born. However, due to the past successes of affirmative action, race is no longer the social determinant that it once was. Just being black (or Native American, or Hispanic, etc.), in itself, does not imply a complete lack of opportunity, because opportunity is closely related to income and millionaires now come from many backgrounds. The problem with affirmative action based primarily on race is that it helps people who don’t need it: the sons and daughters of rich minority families. These families are able to send their children to the best schools, to see that their children get tutoring when they need it, and do all the things that other rich families are able to do to help their children succeed. It doesn’t make sense to give these students greater opportunities to succeed, as they have already had many.
But rich minority students are not the norm. Black and Hispanic families still, on average, earn substantially less than their white counterparts. According to the 2004 US census, the median income for a white (non-Hispanic) household was about $49,000, while the median incomes for black and Hispanic households were $30,000 and $34,000, respectively. It makes sense then that many of the students helped by affirmative action should still be black or Hispanic. But these are the students complained about in the opening sentence. Rich minority students have access to tutors to study for the SAT, and to help them maintain high GPAs. They come from families rooted in success, and so they are pushed all the harder. It is poor minority students who have notably low standardized test scores and GPAs, which are the numbers most often invoked to “prove” that such students are less capable than other students. It is for this reason that affirmative action is seen as non-merit based.
Yet, merit is defined by an individual’s circumstances. No one thinks anything of a child born in Iran speaking fluent Persian. However, an adult from the US taking up Persian at the age of 25 and acquiring fluency is quite a feat. In a similar way, we need to take socio-economic level into account when deciding who has shown greater ability. According to highereducation.org, the National Center for Education Statistics found that high school GPA and SAT scores correlate to a student’s household income. If we want an objective measure of merit, it should not be impacted by uncontrollable circumstances, such as parental income. Therefore, if we wish to use GPA and SAT score as measurements of an individual’s ability, we must correct for differences based on parental income. This is essentially what is happening in current affirmative action. Less “well-off” minority students with lower grades and standardized test scores are being given opportunities over more affluent white students with higher grades and test scores. The problem with race-based affirmative action is that it doesn’t recognize that there are underprivileged non-minority children, and so such children continue to have few opportunities to rise above their economic level. It is because of this that I say that affirmative action should now rely more heavily on socio-economic status if it is to live up to its goal of giving opportunities for success to people who would otherwise have none.
Although I think that socio-economic level should start to play a larger role in determining who should reap the benefits of affirmative action, I believe that race must continue to be a consideration as well. The world is full of different groups of people with different cultures. For all our desire to make the world color-blind, it isn't. Race helps to define communities. It aids in outlining culture. And as long as this is true, race will have to be taken into consideration, because in order to improve the world, we have to improve all communities. If we leave a community (such as the black community) behind educationally, members will have trouble finding jobs and won’t feel like they're a part of the larger society. Outside of the larger society, community rebellion foments. Without job opportunities, crime becomes an issue for the whole community. It is for the good of the whole that all segments of the population progress. To progress, we need to foster leadership and community action in each group. A simple way of doing this is through affirmative action: taking the developing leaders of different communities and bringing them together to learn. If education does nothing else, it leads to greater job opportunities, which leads to greater wealth. And having the money to affect change is the first step to community improvement. Using race as a factor in affirmative action goes beyond just helping those who are currently impoverished. I am proposing preventative measures to keep a community from becoming collectively impoverished or accidentally cut off from mainstream society.
Arguments have been made, though, that low-income/minority students might not be able to function as well as their high-income/non-minority counterparts in a university setting, and that just giving them the opportunity to attend isn’t enough. David Leonhardt of the New York Times reported that “Only 41 percent of low-income students entering a four-year college managed to graduate within five years, the Department of Education found in a study last year, but 66 percent of high-income students did.” But, while the difference between low-income students and high-income students is significant, it could merely be due to a lack of funding that made higher education prohibitively expensive for low-income students. In any case, the difference in five-year graduation rates is not so great that it implies that low-income students have a drastically harder time functioning in college, so giving the opportunity to attend college (including the necessary funding) to those who would otherwise not be able to attend seems to be enough to ensure the success of many.
I believe that affirmative action, in enabling the American dream of rising above one’s humble beginnings, and in aiding uniform progress throughout US communities, must continue in determining university admission and scholarship consideration. If we can make educational opportunities available to the best members of society, regardless of income and background, and not make it seem like such availabilities are unfair or otherwise not tied to individual merit, we will go a long way in securing equality for all. Affirmative action is not about unfair advantages, after all. Affirmative action is about correcting them.
The goal of affirmative action has always been to make up for hardships imposed by society in order that people have opportunities to rise above the conditions in which they were born. However, due to the past successes of affirmative action, race is no longer the social determinant that it once was. Just being black (or Native American, or Hispanic, etc.), in itself, does not imply a complete lack of opportunity, because opportunity is closely related to income and millionaires now come from many backgrounds. The problem with affirmative action based primarily on race is that it helps people who don’t need it: the sons and daughters of rich minority families. These families are able to send their children to the best schools, to see that their children get tutoring when they need it, and do all the things that other rich families are able to do to help their children succeed. It doesn’t make sense to give these students greater opportunities to succeed, as they have already had many.
But rich minority students are not the norm. Black and Hispanic families still, on average, earn substantially less than their white counterparts. According to the 2004 US census, the median income for a white (non-Hispanic) household was about $49,000, while the median incomes for black and Hispanic households were $30,000 and $34,000, respectively. It makes sense then that many of the students helped by affirmative action should still be black or Hispanic. But these are the students complained about in the opening sentence. Rich minority students have access to tutors to study for the SAT, and to help them maintain high GPAs. They come from families rooted in success, and so they are pushed all the harder. It is poor minority students who have notably low standardized test scores and GPAs, which are the numbers most often invoked to “prove” that such students are less capable than other students. It is for this reason that affirmative action is seen as non-merit based.
Yet, merit is defined by an individual’s circumstances. No one thinks anything of a child born in Iran speaking fluent Persian. However, an adult from the US taking up Persian at the age of 25 and acquiring fluency is quite a feat. In a similar way, we need to take socio-economic level into account when deciding who has shown greater ability. According to highereducation.org, the National Center for Education Statistics found that high school GPA and SAT scores correlate to a student’s household income. If we want an objective measure of merit, it should not be impacted by uncontrollable circumstances, such as parental income. Therefore, if we wish to use GPA and SAT score as measurements of an individual’s ability, we must correct for differences based on parental income. This is essentially what is happening in current affirmative action. Less “well-off” minority students with lower grades and standardized test scores are being given opportunities over more affluent white students with higher grades and test scores. The problem with race-based affirmative action is that it doesn’t recognize that there are underprivileged non-minority children, and so such children continue to have few opportunities to rise above their economic level. It is because of this that I say that affirmative action should now rely more heavily on socio-economic status if it is to live up to its goal of giving opportunities for success to people who would otherwise have none.
Although I think that socio-economic level should start to play a larger role in determining who should reap the benefits of affirmative action, I believe that race must continue to be a consideration as well. The world is full of different groups of people with different cultures. For all our desire to make the world color-blind, it isn't. Race helps to define communities. It aids in outlining culture. And as long as this is true, race will have to be taken into consideration, because in order to improve the world, we have to improve all communities. If we leave a community (such as the black community) behind educationally, members will have trouble finding jobs and won’t feel like they're a part of the larger society. Outside of the larger society, community rebellion foments. Without job opportunities, crime becomes an issue for the whole community. It is for the good of the whole that all segments of the population progress. To progress, we need to foster leadership and community action in each group. A simple way of doing this is through affirmative action: taking the developing leaders of different communities and bringing them together to learn. If education does nothing else, it leads to greater job opportunities, which leads to greater wealth. And having the money to affect change is the first step to community improvement. Using race as a factor in affirmative action goes beyond just helping those who are currently impoverished. I am proposing preventative measures to keep a community from becoming collectively impoverished or accidentally cut off from mainstream society.
Arguments have been made, though, that low-income/minority students might not be able to function as well as their high-income/non-minority counterparts in a university setting, and that just giving them the opportunity to attend isn’t enough. David Leonhardt of the New York Times reported that “Only 41 percent of low-income students entering a four-year college managed to graduate within five years, the Department of Education found in a study last year, but 66 percent of high-income students did.” But, while the difference between low-income students and high-income students is significant, it could merely be due to a lack of funding that made higher education prohibitively expensive for low-income students. In any case, the difference in five-year graduation rates is not so great that it implies that low-income students have a drastically harder time functioning in college, so giving the opportunity to attend college (including the necessary funding) to those who would otherwise not be able to attend seems to be enough to ensure the success of many.
I believe that affirmative action, in enabling the American dream of rising above one’s humble beginnings, and in aiding uniform progress throughout US communities, must continue in determining university admission and scholarship consideration. If we can make educational opportunities available to the best members of society, regardless of income and background, and not make it seem like such availabilities are unfair or otherwise not tied to individual merit, we will go a long way in securing equality for all. Affirmative action is not about unfair advantages, after all. Affirmative action is about correcting them.