President Bush finally has a point. It is time to stand up against affirmative action — at least in its current form.
The current argument is that the University of Michigan gives an unfair advantage to minorities.
Law school applicants are rated using a system in which they are given points for each portion of their application. Applicants with the highest point totals are admitted.
Why should an applicant receive more points for being black than for having a perfect score on the LSAT?
It’s completely legitimate for students who were not admitted to cry foul, because receiving extra points for race looks like discrimination under the guise of affirmative action.
When the system was developed, there was a dire need to give minorities an opportunity to compete.
The creators of affirmative action probably did not foresee a viable black middle class or that the system would accomplish some goals as swiftly as it did.
No plan was set into motion to decrease the benefits and limit affirmative action once it reached a certain point.
Here’s a scenario: Billy Joe Bob lives in backwater Kentucky and his family’s annual income is $8,000. Billy wants to go to college. His GPA is 1.8 and SAT score is 890. He applies to the Big University and gets rejected.
Joe Smith lives in a Louisville suburb and has an annual family income of $300,000 and wants to go to college. His GPA is 1.8 and SAT score is 890. He applies to the Big University and is accepted.
Why does Joe Smith get accepted and Billy Joe Bob does not? Joe Smith checked ‘Black/African-American’ in the race box.
When a middle class is allowed to benefit from a program meant to aid minorities that are unable to achieve success because of discrimination, then we definitely have an abuse of the system.
It’s no longer right to claim affirmative action as a cure-all for our problems. The time has come to be weaned from a system that is unfair.
It’s time to stop using racism and past injustices as a crutch for our own unfair practices.
Affirmative action has to be changed to heal old racial wounds and prevent a new generation from developing them.
We need a system that uses race as a factor but socioeconomic status as the larger issue.
Jason E. Hutchins, 18, is a freshman business student from Athens, GA. He can be reached at je_hutchins@hotmail.com.