race should not be a factor for college admission

Being Con I will oppose the resolution "Race should not be a factor for college admission. "Before presenting my main argument of the first round and a rebuttal of Pro's arguments, I want to explicitly point out that I accept this debate with the definition that Pro himself stated for race only being a minor factor when it comes to college admissions. Also, as Pro used an example of a hypothetical college with 70 percent of students being of Asian ethnicity, this debate will not only focus on US colleges, but on the general procedure of college admissions in all countries with educational systems similar to the United States. (A1) Argument 1: Race should be a factor for college admissions to counteract racism If we lived in a perfect world, in which racism wouldn't be an issue, I would fully agree with Pro's position. This is however not the case. Looking at the average US American classrooms, over 83 percent of all teachers belong to the white ethnic majority [1]. This can be detrimental for the grading of students from ethnic minorities, even independent of their actual capabilities. Even if direct and conscious racism was totally absent among teachers - which can surely not be assumed [2] - then numerous studies have demonstrated that humans tend to favor members of their own race when judging on their performances or characteristics. This well-studied phenomenon, called ethnic nepotism [3], can lead to teachers in western societies giving different grades to white and non-white students for equal performances, even when unintentional and without being aware of it. This has actually been observed in several experiments in different countries. In a study performed in 2009, German teachers were presented with a number of essays, of which there were several doubles that only differed in that one had a typical German name as the author, while the other one claimed to be authored by a student with a Turkish name. Despite being the exactly same essays, 13.6 percent of all teachers gave worse grades to the student with the Turkish name. Contrary, and most remarkable, no teacher gave a worse grade to the essay of the 'German' student [4]. Similar results can be found for teachers in many other countries [5][6]. Therefore, students belonging to ethnic minorities are often graded worse despite showing the same performances as their peers. While the level as to which that happens can be discussed about, the effect can not be negated: A white candidate applicating for a college admission in the US is thus often exactly as qualified as a competing peer with different ethnicity and a bit worse grades. Race should be a factor for college admissions in a way that colleges should prefer ethnic minorities to the degree, which exactlycancels the distortion of grades due to racism both direct and indirect present in the imperfect school system. Refutation of Pro's arguments Pro presented three arguments to support his position. I will now go on to refute them. (R1) "Everyone should have the same chance. " - Pro. Pro stated that it wouldn't be fair to make race a factor for college admissions, as everyone should have the same chance. As I clearly showed in my argument (A 1), to be really fair a college must make race a minor factor. Otherwise non-white students would for example be handicapped by an unjust and not race-blind grading system in high school. If Pro demands fairness, then he must accept race being a factor for college admissions. (R2) "Allowing race to be weighed [. .. ] is simply illogical because no student has control over his or her ethnicity and no race should be held to a higher standard than another" - Pro. If nothing a student can't influence should play a role in the admission procedure, then academic achievements shouldn't either as intelligence has a genetic factor that students cannot control to begin with. But even if I accepted the argument to be valid, then it is basically equivalent to Pro's 'fairness' argument. If all students should only be judged based on their true academic capabilities and performances, race must be a minor factor due to (A 1). (R 3) "The problems would be that the college is way above their [students from ethnic minorities favored over those belonging to a majority] abilities" - Pro. Pro claimed that those, who got a college admission over a competitor belonging to the ethnic majority, will have a hard time in college and that they will maybe even fail. This is a highly tenuous argument. Not only is it again refuted by (A 1), as their actual qualifications match those of their competitors with slightly better grades, but it is nowhere evident that for example a black student with almost similar grades as his white competitor will fail college, whereas the white student would not. Especially if race is only a minor factor, as Pro made clear, then both applicants should be very similar in their level of qualification, and both would be equally likely to fail. Thus, Pro in explicitly mentioning a 'minor factor' in his resolution refutes his own argument. Conclusion Pro's entire argument can be broken down to a statement which contradicts his original definition of the topic (R3), and to the issue of fairness, which I have extensively demonstrated to be only achieved by making race a factor for college admissions. Sources [1] . http://nces.ed.gov...[2] . http://www.education.com...[3] . http://en.wikipedia.org...[4] . http://ftp.zew.de...[5] . http://bthinnerich.se...[6] . http://www.hks.harvard.edu...