Do you suppose Trump got into Pennsylvania on his merits?
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The best universities in the country do just that. They have admissions committees that conduct extensive evaluations of the applicants in order to determine how to best make use of the limited resource of spaces in the freshman class. Those universities believe that a race-blind admissions process does not allow them to best determine how to put their resources to use.
The worst colleges in the country also admit solely on the basis of merit. They use a race-blind process. In this process merit is measured by your ability to pay for your courses. If you make payment, you are in. Your skin color, gender, nationality, race, religion, and so on donât matter. Merit is everything.
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One by one, team orange and their GOP enablers are checking off items from the conservative wet dream wishlist. And this one, whooboy! Affirmative action has long been a conservative outrage generator. Or rather, what they think affirmative action is has been an outrage generator. But it doesnât work the way the rubes have been programmed to think it does.
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Those deranged eyes:
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This is precisely correct. Diversity is intrinsically meritorious. It brings different viewpoints, different experiences, different skill sets. A diverse team of (such and such profession) is just better than a monochrome all-male one. Big business understands this, academia understands this, and anybody without blinders understands this. You hire (or recruit) to fill out a team, not based solely on a SAT score.
Revanchist Republicans donât want the free market of ideas to decide. Sad.
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He isnât being touted - he actually is the âcentristâ on a court that has shifted way to the right of the majority of Americans, like the rest of our government.
Sorry - somehow I managed to combine 2 replies into one - I know it does not make sense - not sure how to fix
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At the risk of being flamed, Iâve long been somewhat troubled by the use of race as the primary criterion to achieve diversity, and to break through some of the entrenched class barriers in this country. Based on my own experiences, socioeconomic status is more important.
I had classmates in college who came from very privileged backgrounds, and had just never mixed with the children of factory workers. Being tossed in with them in a freshman dorm was an eye-opener for them, and was an important part of their education. They finally got to see how other people live. And the more lowly among us managed to shed at least some of our preconceived ideas about ârich kids,â though some of those ideas were, admittedly, just reinforced!
In short, do the children of Will Smith need to be given a helping hand? And are they wildly different from the children of white celebreties? I think not. Kids who grew up in the rough part of town, however, regardless of their colorâŚ
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Pretty much sums it up.
Right wingers are having orgasms saying how much trump has done but in reality trump hasnât done shit. He has no real legislative accomplishments other than the Tax Scam. Other than that all heâs done is roll back what Pres. Obama did. It really doesnât take much to tear down as it does to actually build something.
But thatâs OK for now. Once a new administration comes in hopefully they can reverse the shit trump has done. And I donât ever want to hear this bullshit about thereâs no difference between the Parties and that it doesnât matter who sits in the White House. Because IT DOES MATTER, as we can clearly see.
FUCKTRUMP.
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Not all parents are Will Smiths. Youâre picking one of the few well off Black families and trying to compare them to the overall average amount of parents that are not well off and could use a helping hand?
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Sheâs always held people of color in contempt ⌠sheâs a stone racist, just like her orange, fantasy boyfriend.
Fair enough, Iâve already rolled back my definition of every Republican to VERMIN status.
If I had my druthers, it would be $50 per pelt.
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My point is simple: we seem to using race as a stand-in for socioeconomic status. Often, thatâs accurate. But why not go straight to the characteristic that actually matters, and skip over the politically charged, semi-useful substitute measure? The people who need help are poor. They may also be black, or Hispanic. But mostly what they are is poor.
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True, but you clean up Poor, give them a good set of clothes and some polish and VOILA!!! An executive trainee.
You can put a suit on a Ni@@er and a Sp!c and in the eyes of 75% of those doing the hiring, they are Sp*cs and Ni@@ers.
Nice try though âŚ
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But if thatâs true, sending them to an Ivy League school is also a complete waste. They can earn a degree from Harvard, and in the eyes of 75% of those doing the hiring⌠So they should attend Porter & Chester, and learn a trade.
I wonât flame you. Youâre entitled to whatever boneheaded opinion you might want to embrace. Right or wrong. I have plenty of those myself! 
I actually agree with the core premise. Iâm on the fence about race-based considerations in general (after all, nothing in this article says specifically that by considering race, these universities arenât actually blocking entry by minorities). I see their value in places where being ânot whiteâ is a sure barrier to entry, period. Iâm OK with finding a way to ensure that minorities have true equal opportunity. Not imposed, but assured? If that makes any senseâŚ
I think youâre correct that it has a lot to do with socio-economic issues as much as anything else. You donât need to be a celebrity like Will Smith to have risen above the entrenched poverty of the poor and working class. But rising above it does make a huge difference to the level of opportunity.
Thatâs one thing I think the newly elected president of Mexico has right. Focus on lifting the poor out of poverty first, and all the good things will follow. If we were able to enable and empower the poorer communities around the country, what a difference it would make to the minority communities. Itâs just a fact. People who have escaped poverty have far better outcomes with life in general, educational outcomes among them.
I think I just showed my mostly progressive/left-leaning colors here! 
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What about admission to this forum? Should it be âbased on meritâ?
Why? Or why not?
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Suppose there is a school whose student body is uniformly wealthy and exclusively âwhite.â
Does the school (that is to say, does its student body) benefit equally from adding (1) five students who are wealthy and not âwhiteâ and (2) five who are not wealthy and not âwhiteâ?
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Yes, but only if youâre capable of dancing on the head of a pin, or fitting through the eye of a needle.
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It constantly surprises me how so many otherwise intelligent people appear not to think so.
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Diversity probably means having a bit of each, without over-differentiating.
The problem with going the âmeritocracyâ route, is that it proves to be a barrier to entry for people who are challenged not by the quality of their character or minds, but by the institutional shortcomings of the environments where they were brought up. Growing up for a good chunk of my childhood in Los Angeles, I had opportunity to see different schools in vastly contrasting communities. From the perfectly manicured and funded white/rich areas to the wreckage of the underfunded inner city schools. The âmeritsâ that would be measured absolutely favor the former.
The question really becomes, how do we break the cycle of poverty, of being underserved by the institutions that were meant to enable and empower our shared futures? Iâm big on âenabling and empoweringâ. I think once that is accomplished, the concept of being a âland of opportunityâ takes on real meaning. What we have today only offers that to a few, and not to the many.
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