Affirmative Action Faces a New Wave of Anger
By JACQUES STEINBERG - Source from The New York Times, Week in Review

In 1995, when Jennifer Gratz applied to the University of Michigan's flagship Ann Arbor campus, she wanted to become a doctor. When she was rejected, she said she abandoned that ambition.

"I thought that if the University of Michigan didn't think I was good enough, I wasn't," Ms. Gratz, now 25 and working at a computer company in San Diego, said in an interview last year. "I think my life would be significantly different if I had been admitted."

Ms. Gratz's sense that her life would have been different, and better, underlies much of the opposition to the affirmative action at many colleges and universities. And that opposition, in the form of white applicants like Ms. Gratz who argue that their rightful places at the top schools are being given to black and Hispanic students of lesser ability, has been gaining momentum once again.

Their anxiety - that not getting into an elite academic institution will lead to a less prosperous and happy life - is at the heart of the constitutional challenge to the admissions policies of the University of Michigan that the Supreme Court recently decided to hear.

"I sense that the anger is rising," said James O. Freedman, president emeritus of Dartmouth and author of "Liberal Education and the Public Interest" (University of Iowa Press, 2003). "I sense that people whose children go today to a school that's not one of the Top 25 in the U.S. News poll feel defensive, that they have to explain it to friends. It's like a failure."

Afro Interpretation

What in hypocrisy-hell are these people thinking? "Their anxiety - that not getting into an elite academic institution will lead to a less prosperous and happy life."

At last, whites know what it feels like to fight forces that lead to a less prosperous and happy life. If they feel that not getting into an "elite academic institution" leads to a less prosperous and happy life, then what is their explanation for the entire existence of Blacks in America when it comes to just about any area of American opportunity that could lead to a prosperous and happy life?

Article continued
Like other selective universities, Michigan aids minority applicants for two main reasons: to level the playing field and to enrich the educational experiences of whites and nonwhites alike. But had Ann Arbor not given a statistical boost to applicants whose test scores and grades may have been lower than hers, Ms. Gratz contends, she would have had a better chance of getting in. "They clearly discriminate based on the color of your skin," she said.

Afro Interepretation
"They clearly discriminate based on the color of your skin,"

If this is not hypocrisy what is. Blacks have suffered this same treatment for hundreds of years and yet when this case comes up for a white person it is tried in the US Supreme court in less than 5 years.

Article continued
To Professor Hacker, those whites who are most up in arms are those who indeed may be at the biggest disadvantage - those in the lower and middle classes. Upper-class whites, he said, can still afford to attend the top high schools, whether private ones or public schools in the wealthiest suburbs, that place a disproportionate number of their graduates at marquee colleges.

Afro Interpretation
Whites just cannot bear to be given any type of second-rate opportunity, but when it comes to Blacks, we should take advantage of the supposed opportunities America gives us. And if we do not then we are lazy and shiftless. And what about the Blacks in the lower and middle class, hell, what about the Blacks at the poverty level. Does this sound like blatant arrogance or what?

Article continues
At highly selective private and public colleges, admissions officers acknowledge that they generally demand white applicants with well-educated parents to have the highest SAT scores, often at least a 1400 score on a 1600 scale. [Blatant classism]

A black applicant with similar grades, particularly one whose parents did not go to college, might get in with an 1150 score. The colleges' reasoning is that children of better-educated parents are exposed to the vocabulary and advanced problem-solving skills that yield higher SAT scores. [More blatant classism]

Fearing that they will be held to a higher standard, those well-to-do whites (and Asian-Americans, who are not considered minorities at many institutions) may spend thousands of dollars on tutors to help their children raise their SAT scores or to enlist the services of for-hire guidance counselors, who help students hone their applications, and then lobby colleges on their behalf. One such service in Manhattan, known as Ivy Wise, charges $29,000 for its top junior-senior package. (The company also counsels several minority applicants without charge.)

Afro Interpretation
(And Asian-Americans, who are not considered minorities at many institutions)
Wait a minute. This says that your IQ and SAT scores determine whether or not you are considered a minority. What kind of elitist-egomaniacal crap-thinking is this? What about a Black person whose IQ and test scores are higher than a white's, are they considered minorities? No doubt they are. You know all Blacks are Blacks regardless.

Article continues
For those families that came to see a Harvard education as a birthright passed from one generation to the next, the idea that a so-called legacy applicant may be rejected in favor of an affirmative-action one can be a source of outrage. So, too, for a white applicant with near-perfect scores and grades who is passed over in favor of a minority applicant at the same high school with lower scores and grades.

Afro Interpretation
This statement takes the whole cake, the plates it was served on, and the pans it was baked in. For a "birthright" family to get up in arms about being passed up for the choice of a minority totally, if not perfectly proves beyond a doubt that race and classism based on race exist to the fullest in this country of supposed equality.

This article does nothing more than affirms the FACT that "white rule" is strong in this country. The audacity of some white people to claim discrimination when they were the ones practicing discrimination and even worst forms of racism for years. Furthermore, all so subtly does this article attempt to subconsciously imply that it is natural that Blacks are intellectually inferior to whites. This is so racist and bigoted it is pathetic.

The fact that institutions of higher learning and the news media can get away with claiming and reporting such crap shows the strong racial and classist mentality that will destroy this nation once and for all. And this country wonder why the world hates them.

© 2003 by AfroStaff