Affirmative Action Should be Disallowed

Thanks for accepting Con. I hope to have an excited and intellectual debate.Examining DiscriminationAdvocates for affirmative action (AA) use the presumption of discrimination toward minorities as their main reason for AA. They claim that minorities have less opportunity and that by installing AA we are opening up convenience for them. Is this a valid assertion?Let's consider the following scenarios: 1) A white guy and a black guy apply for a position. The black guy is better qualified; the white guy gets the position.2) A white guy and a black guy apply for a position. The white guy is better qualified; the black guy gets the position.I don't see any opposition to discrimination here. In fact, all I see here are two new instances of racial discrimination. Instead of fighting prejudice, it is being created. By using race (something that one cannot control) over merit (something that one can control), an unfair system is being created.To add, there is no evidence that black or Hispanic students have been admitted preferentially over the last few decades have suffered discrimination. Neither have white or Asian American students who have been rejected (even though they have received higher test scores, better grades, and more extracurricular participation) have discriminated against anyone else.The issue with AA is that by allowing less qualified students in, you are pushing more qualified students out. By giving a seat to a black or Hispanic student you are kicking a white or Asian student out of their seat, all in the name of "racial inequality". You can't raise the floor for someone without lowering the ceiling for someone else - it is mathematically impossible.Basketball AnalogyDespite America being 12% black, the NBA is over 75% African American. Yet no one is saying that we need to institute racial preferences to allow more Koreans and Pakistanis play. The qualifying factor in making the NBA is how good you can shoot a basketball, how close to the rim you can make it, etc. The only way to get into the NBA is by merit. By applying the logic of AA, we need to eliminate merit as a prime factor and let underprivileged groups make the team! If merit is the qualification of making the NBA, why should merit not also be the eligibility of getting accepted into college?Hurts MinoritiesAA does more harm than good by ensuring that the people who benefit from it are often viewed as not being successful on their own. For someone who has had an AA success story, people can look at that person and say, "the only way they got to where they are now is because of AA. They didn't actually earn that spot" regardless of whether it is true or not.Also, beneficiaries of AA who support it are admitting that they want to cheat their way through life. Let's say a black student is accepted into a community college because of racial preference. Do they want a preference to go to a university too? And another one to go to Harvard? And another one to get a job? And another one to get a promotion? And another one to get a government contract? That is simply unfair. The fact that they got a break should show them that they should be willing to compete by merit, not be carried all the way through life just because of their skin color.Blacks and Hispanics should be able to show that they are intellectually able to make it to the harder schools. AA sends a message to everyone saying "this group is incapable of making in on its own." These kind of preferences devalue minority achievement and act as if blacks are intellectually inferior and need a crutch to get through life.But aren't they intellectually inferior? Some may argue that studies prove this - however there are other factors that could explain why African Americans don't do as well, which are: high crime rates[1], illegitimacy[2], etc. The way to solve this problem is by addressing cultural breakdown, not installing racial preferences. By instituting AA, it is making blacks less willing to work hard and achieve the level where they can successfully compete with whites and other ethnic groups.In summary, the AA is hurtful not only to whites and Asians but to blacks and Hispanics too. AA uses ethnicity over merit, something that is discrimination by definition. I contend that because of the unfair way AA works, it should be abolished so that students can compete by merit, not race.Sources1. http://en.wikipedia.org...2. http://www.nationalreview.com...