Race Based Affirmative Action in Universities

While it is true that a majority of insular minority groups fall into lower socioeconomic status, it is no reason to ignore the fact that there is an intrinsic level of racism among society in America. The simple truth is that insular minorities are not represented as well as the majority. This can first easily be seen by the percentage of different racial/ethnic amounts in the 113th congress (which my following data will refer to). African American members of congress make up 8.3% of congress, Hispanic/Latino make up 6.9% and Asian / Pacific Islander American members make up 2.4% while American Indians / Native Americans make up 2, not 2%, but 2 members of congress (data gathered from http://fas.org...). This leaves White/Caucasian members representing approximately 80% of congress. Putting this into perspective, (in 2014) The population demographics were as follows: White alone, percent, 77.4% Black or African American alone, 13.2% American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 1.2% Asian alone, percent definition and source info Asian alone, 5.4% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, 0.2% Hispanic or Latino, 17.4% (Data from http://quickfacts.census.gov...) It can clearly be seen how whites are over-represented, and all other races (with an exception to Asian) are underrepresented. While this data does not directly point to there being intrinsic racism among America, it does represent that certain racial groups are indeed underrepresented in this country. Certain methods, such as gerrymandering, allow for this under representation to indeed occur. This lack of representation for these groups has its roots in two reasons: the concept that there is intrinsic racism among America, and the hardships created for these groups by past oppression. There are two main reasons that Affirmative Action is important: Firstly, it allows for these racial groups, whom have been previously oppressed and who have lower socioeconomic status than the majority group, to be better represented. Secondly, it negates much of the racism that is possibly encountered during the college application process. To elaborate on the first point, it has been seen that people, who have received at least some college are more likely to be voters (data from http://www.census.gov...). With that said, to be better represented, one must vote from someone who will represent them, in this case, minority groups will be better represented legally and politically when they are educated. Therefore, in order to be represented equally in this nation, minority groups should have a similar level of education as Whites/Caucasians do. In order to provide this equal chance, covert quotas shall be made to insure that colleges represent the population of their region. By doing so, it will ensure that minority groups do indeed become better represented politically, legally, and economically. To elaborate on the second point, it can easily be noticed that racism still exists within America. This can be seen by states attempting to create difficulties for minority voters (such as poll hours and gerrymandering). Moreover, these minority groups have been previously disadvantaged, making them discreet and insular minorities, and therefore to counteract this inequality, they must be given the current advantage received from Affirmative Action. Colleges currently do look at the economic status of applicants, which indeed has a larger impact as a percentage of applicants on minority groups. However, it does rid of the possibility that the college application readers may be racist, either consciously or intrinsically, and therefore may wish to accept a white student over a minority or giving the white student an advantage. To prevent this from occurring Affirmative Action works with little harm to other applicants. It is rarely a case where covert racial quotas cause minority students to be accepted over white students who have better test scores, grades, etc. In fact, the method by which colleges tend to accept students and fill the quotas is by accepting the best from each racial/ethnic group (of course including other factors, such as socioeconomic status) which will have a tendency to not reject a White or Asian applicant solely because they were of such race/ethnicity, but rather because an applicant with almost, if not the same, level of education (and other application factors) was of minority race/ethnicity. Moreover, the fact that there are applicants of minority race that have perhaps slightly lower ranking factors of a college application only shows that they are indeed disadvantaged and in order to be better represented socially, legally, politically, and economically, affirmative action should be used by colleges in the application process. I wish my opponent luck in their next round. I do have a suggestion, I believe the next round should be used for cross-examination (I shall ask you questions following this suggestion, and you shall answer next round, then in your round, you shall ask questions and I shall answer in my next round). In the final round, we shall rebut answers to said questions and naturally conclude. If you so wish to debate in such manner, please answer the following questions and ask me questions in the next round, which I will answer in the next round. Questions for Con (please elaborate a bit for each answer): 1. Would you agree that some methods, such as gerrymandering and creating difficulties for voting at polls, are used in some cases to prevent minority groups from being represented as equally as Whites in the political spectrum? 2. Would you agree that minority groups, especially the African American minority, has faced oppression by the majority racial/ethnic group in the past? 3. Would you agree that past oppression has placed these minority groups at a disadvantage in the educational field when compared to the White/Caucasian group (answer as if affirmative action were not in place)? 4. Would you agree that racial/ethnic minorities should get representation politically as directly correlated to their demographic percentage of the national population?