Affirmative Action

In closing, I will defend my argument from Con's flawed responses and misunderstandings, followed by my responses to Con's closing arguments. 1. Con concedes I make a "good point." Con attempts to argue that the only qualification necessary for being a doctor is technical skill, but this is absolutely false. A doctor must be psychologically equipped to deal with the stress and pressure of the operating room, as well as the possibility of failure. Furthermore, consider patients who are terminally ill or with psychiatric problems; these people require a deeper understanding of humanity, as well as psychological toughness for dealing with these problems. Con's reduction of medical practice to pure technical skill is just that, reductive and an overly-simplistic view of medical practice and what qualifies on to be a doctor. (As a discrete aside, note that I am currently in medical school and am speaking from experience: if you don't have the required psychological/social skills, you will have a very tough time getting certified as a doctor). 2. Con falsely claims I am "missing the point" when it is in fact Con who has missed my point. Con insists that belonging to a particular group does not provide qualifications for someone, even though I have provided examples of jobs in which belonging to a particular gender or ethnicity does give one better qualifications. To say a man is equally qualified to work in a rape crisis center is insensitive to rape victims. In fact, not only is it insensitive to rape victims to say a man is equally qualified to work at rape crisis center, it is outright harmful to rape victims who find the courage to seek help. I urge Con and readers to speak with rape victims, ask them how they would respond if they went to a rape crisis center and the person working there was a man? It is a far cry from reality to say men are equally qualified as women to work in a rape crisis center, a far cry that is only possible by turning a blind eye to reality. 3. I forgot to cite my source [1] from Round 2. It was an honest mistake, and I am putting the source here: the peer-reviewed, academic book, Affirmative Action and the Meanings of Merit, by Bruce Lapenson. 4. Con argues that "SAT scores cant favor anyone." Why not? Physics examinations favor physicists, the bar exam favors people who have gone through law school, and the SAT favors people who have taken SAT prep. The amount of preparation one has to take a test has a direct effect on the results o taking the test. The fact that people who live in poverty tend to do worse on the SAT does not show that people living in poverty did worse because they are less qualified: it means that the SAT is a test designed to favor those who are not living in poverty. It would be just as easy to design a test that favors people who are living in poverty, or to design a test that favors the skills of Blacks and Hispanics. Then, would Whites would complain that the test was biased against Whites? A test is, by definition, designed to favor a particular group of people over others, namely, those with preparation. The SAT favors Whites and Asian-Americans over Blacks and Hispanics, and therefore, a Black who scores a 1400 has achieved roughly the equivalent of a White who scores 1500. Achievement and merit (the key word here is merit) is defined differently for different groups of people. Consider the following: if someone who studied Comparative Literature in college scores in the 90% on a graduate-level math exam, and a mathematician scores in the 95%, would you say the mathematician has more merit? I would say the Literature student is just as qualified to study math, the only difference being they don't have equal preparation as the mathematician and therefore scored lower. College admissions attempt to judge potential, and that must be weighed differently for different groups. 5. According to Con's bizarre logic, if a "single person in one of those poorer schools" is successful, then my argument is invalid. Con's thinking goes like this: if a single person person can excel within bad conditions, a single person from a poor background succeeding, then the bad conditions don't matter. Let me state it one more time, simple because I myself am still taking in how strange this logic is: if, from within group of people living in abject poverty, a single person is able to overcome the odds, then we should completely ignore the fact that the majority is performing worse than another group who is living in wealth. In other words, completely ignore poverty, ignore bad conditions, ignore hardship. Recall: Con is the one talking about equality of opportunity. According to Con, poverty has no relevance on equality of opportunity. The only thing that matters is how one performs, regardless of circumstances. This completely evacuates people from their context and personal situations. If someone grows up having to support their family with two jobs from the age of 13, and has no time to study or prepare for the SAT, is it reasonable to expect that person to perform as well as someone who had time to prepare? Is it reasonable to expect someone living in conditions where everyone around them is doing drugs and acting criminal to perform as well as someone who isn't? Is this equal opportunity? Affirmative action is a set of policies that are designed to create equal opportunity, not take it away. Con completely ignores social and economic context, as well as the reality of someone's personal opportunity, and instead only looks at results. Opportunity has nothing to do with results, it has to do with circumstances. Con's logic is bizarre on its face, and contradictory when investigated further. 6. Con states institutional sexism can be fixed without affirmative action. How? Con provides no solution. It is fixed by affirmative action by providing better opportunity for women to excel, thereby allowing them to get equal-paying jobs as men. Not sure what Con's argument against this is, since he hasn't really provided any. Now, onto Con's "facts showing the end of AA": 1. The fact that 5 states out of 50 have banned AA does not bode well for Con's case: that means the majority allows affirmative action, as well as the majority decision of the Supreme Court, who has deemed it constitutional. 2. As I said, the Supreme Court ruled as a majority that AA is constitutional and legal in college admissions. So why is Con bringing up a single dissenting Justice as a "big statement," if the majority of the Justices agree AA is beneficial? And, so what is a single Black person thinks AA is unjust. What is more important is that the White justices think it is justified, and that there are just as many Black academics who think AA is justified. And there are just as many Whites (myself) and Asian-Americans (my friends) who think AA is completely justified. Also, Con is appealing to an authority that was itself discredited in the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, so it's a flawed appeal to authority on multiple counts. 3. I'm not debating the technicalities of how affirmative action is applied. It could just as well be the 3/4 rule, saying it has to be the 1/16 rule is simply a weak attempt to try discrediting affirmative action. AA is overall beneficial to society, and saying it isn't because you don't know how to apply is, is simply saying you don't know all the facts. Once we know the facts, and we know who belongs to a particular group that could benefit from AA because they are unlawfully discriminated against, then AA is completely justified. Figuring out who is part of that group is a completely different debate, although I'd argue imposing a 1/16 rule is unnecessary, and there are better solutions to this problem. 4. Con claims it's a "giant rambling mess." Says who? Con. This is all Con's imaginative speculation, unsubstantiated by facts. The facts show us that AA is justified when institutional racism exists.