Affirmative Action in College Admission Process

Tyrone Jackson has a 3.75 GPA and got a 29 on his ACT. He really wants to attend Stanford University, which is a very prestigious school and also very exclusive. Wyatt Johnson also wants to attend Stanford. He has a 3.9 GPA and a 34 ACT. Wyatt Johnson seems like the more qualified candidate to get accepted, but the requirement is not always based on qualification. College admissions would rather take an underrepresented minority rather than someone who is more qualified, which causes many flaws in the system. The blame can be put on affirmative action. Affirmative action has been in practice since 1961. John F Kennedy used it as a method to reduce discrimination among the workforce and even out the playing field for systematically advantaged and disadvantaged people alike. Although affirmative action helps minorities out in some cases, affirmative action does not benefit the people that it intends, and should be replaced with a more practical system of comparison such as socioeconomic status rather than race.

Most people believe that affirmative action has benefited minorities on a large scale in retrospect to college admissions; Affirmative action downplays the intelligence of minority groups as it implies that they need help because of their “academic inferiority.” This has been supported by Critical Race Theory, and how racial discrimination shows up in ways that many people tend to oversee because it is just another part of the system. This policy offers bigotry and is counterproductive in solving racial discrimination. Unrepresented minorities are only getting accepted because of discrimination and pity. This created a generalization that minorities need handouts and that people of color are needy, poor, and can only depend on favors of the white man to survive. “Students should be judged solely on their academic and personal qualifications, critics argue, and not on their racial background.” (Opponents Argue: Affirmative Action Encourages Reverse Discrimination 4) Most people would argue that this is true; one shouldn’t be judged based on the color of their skin regardless of any kind of occupation they seek to work or the school they want to attend. Affirmative action is a synonym for mediocrity. Affirmative action turns people into tools to make their college or their job more diverse, but it can be costly because of this yearning for diversity. Someone may not be as qualified as another, but since others are systematically disadvantaged, they get a boost. This is thought-provoking because it seems as if they’re saying, “If you’re not qualified, it’s okay! At least you are an underrepresented minority.”

Do colleges really want URM’s attending the school or job and lowing the requirements, or is it just another way to use minorities to make the college or businesses to look good? This is an example of inclusiveness, which is also an exemplary part of critical race theory. Many believe that colleges actually want to diversify their schools, but in reality, they are just trying to fill the quota that they present to the general public. Not only that, but affirmative action hasn’t done anything significant to close the gap between whites and minorities. “Even after decades of affirmative action, black and Hispanic students are more underrepresented at the nation’s top colleges and universities than they were 35 years ago, according to a New York Times analysis.” (Ashkenas, Park, Pearce 1) In addition, that can cause complications in the work-force and schools. Minorities are granted with admission or job position, but may not be qualified enough to do the task at their best ability. This lack of skill and poor performance in the work field and school influences one to slack; this can ultimately trigger academic probation or greater consequences such as expulsion. The practice of affirmative action reduces the initiative to be better, as it lowers the standards and has no incentives to motivate the individual. This decreases the aspect of meritocracy that our society places on a pedestal. This reinforces some stereotypes such as minorities are lazy or stupid and aren’t qualified to do any type of job at a high level. (Lipset 5)

This is definitely prevalent in college admissions. “The world of college admissions is a fixed pie.” (Bret 1) It’s very true for the simple fact that many people get declined for not being an underrepresented minority, but this begins to get even more complicated when certain job fields have a certain amount of people working that job. Harvard has said that its affirmative action process has allowed for diversity and gives URMs a better chance of attending the school. The problem is if you give one group an advantage, that always exploits another group and allows for disadvantages. Asian Americans don’t have an issue being represented in schools, but the rate at which they get accepted is extremely low due to the representation that they have in the said work field or school. They are still unrepresented minorities in the US population but since they happen to have a little bit of representation, they’re automatically deemed a majority. Just because they’re good at school does not mean that they aren’t minorities. The main focus of affirmative action was to benefit African Americans, but that, in turn, created a disadvantage for Asian Americans.

This Harvard issue has posed many questions about how they categorize race in these admissions to schools and jobs. The confusion of race and ethnicity is seen in these issues as most college and job applications mix the two and that created a common error in the application. Currently, there are only three races in the world: White, Black, and Asian. These races are not the same as ethnicities such as Latino, North Africans, or Middle Easterners, which are commonly referred to as race in these school and job applications. This common misconception has grouped certain ethnicities to be represented, and others to not be represented. Middle Easterners and North Africans are almost always grouped in as white, while Latinos get their own separate checkbox. This causes an inconsistency as it says that some unrepresented minorities are not going to be represented while others will. This is also a big flaw in affirmative action because now, some minorities are not getting the representation they deserve and it doesn’t benefit those who are seeking to get jobs or get admitted to schools.

The most appropriate means in solving injustices in the work and school field is by asking applicants their socioeconomic class, rather than their race. The advantages given based on the socioeconomic class would be more beneficial to minorities, considering that they are more prone to be in a lower socioeconomic class as opposed to their white counterparts. Elements of racism and discrimination would become uncommon and would make college and job applications blind to race and gender and focus solely on who is qualified and what their socioeconomic standing is. Affirmative action stigmatizes individuals, hence it should be dismantled and abolished from consideration of practice.