Racially-Based Affirmative Action in College Admissions Should be Abolished

To give ample background, I have not actually applied to any colleges yet, so I am doing this to go on a soapbox about how I got rejected from my dream school and an under-qualified minority applicant probably ended up in my spot (which I know has an extremely ow chance of actually happening). My qualms are with AA existing period. I believe that with a rise in applicants at many prestigious schools, AA proves to be a hindrance towards allowing the most qualified applicants in. It is a form of "reverse racism", in that it ends up hurting the minorities it claims to help the most. These points will be substantiated in my ensuing arguments, but beforehand I feel it is necessary to state that AA is defined as "positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded". I have no problems with this concept, as it is a noble goal. However, AA has ultimately devolved into a discriminatory practice filled with unwarranted preferential treatment. When I refer to AA, I mean everything that the government and universities have done to try and artificially increase this representation - be it preferences, quotas, etc. I look forward to a good debate, and with no further ado my opening arguments: 1. Affirmative action ends up putting minority applicants into places they aren't qualified for. This problem accentuates when talking about law/med school. Take the work of Richard Sander, a UCLA professor who gathered data about studens who entered law school in 1995. [1] Without affirmative action, 14 percent less black applicants would be admitted. However, if it were abolished, the percentage of successful black students would rise. Consider the following: -Blacks were six times as likely to fail the bar exam, but the pass rate would have likely been 22% higher without those "preferential" applicants -Starting with the law school Class of 1995, 48% of blacks graduated and passed their bar exam on the first try, compared to a 78% rate for white applicants. Without the AA-admitted black applicants, that rate would likely have been around 74% - almost exactly equal to the white pass rate. As can be seen, AA ends up hurting the applicants it claims to help. If they aren't academically qualifed to get in to a particular law school, they shouldn't be getting in no matter what race they are. 2. Affirmative action entails that a black applicant from a wealthy family still gets a racial preference over a white applicant from a poor one. Why should children of Michael Jordan, Barack Obama, etc. get a racial preference on the supposed grounds of "trying to equalize the admissions process" while the white male living in the projects doesn't get that same benefit? 3. Affirmative action is essentially just creating a collective sense of white guilt, and is discriminatory against whites and Asians. Yet apparently racism isn't racism when directed at white people, because it's "justification" for the injustices that black people suffered a long time ago. Beyond the fact that two wrongs don't make a right, none of the college-bound seniors of today had any involvement in the enslavement of blacks or the discrimination in the 50's and 60's. Not to mention that Asians had no role in that said injustice, but they also feel the effect of AA when they are deemed an "over-represented minority". So if today's college bound applicants of the over-represented minorities had no role, why should they face a disadvantage in the admissions process. And it's undeniable that race does provide that significant disadvantage. Look at UVA's college board profile, under the Admissions tab. [2] Among the "very important" factors: the usual grades, rigor of classes, recommendations. .. and racial/ethnic status. Why someone being black or Hispanic, an intangible factor, should eve be in the same category of weight as a high GPA which someone worked hard for is beyond me. And yes, I'll admit that this is a bit atypical of situation, but a great deal of universities still consider it to some extent. 4. The 14th amendment does not protect AA like many courts like to stipulate, if anything it should prohibit it. Most recently, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a constitutional amendment in Michigan banning AA violates the 14th amendment. [3] If anything, having AA around is the true transgressor of the equal protection clause, since whites and Asians do not have the benefit of their race as a preferential factor in college admissions. But once again, it seem that racism towards white people isn't actually racism, because the actions of less than 5% of the entire Southern population 200 years ago justify it. That aside, AA clearly disadvantages white and Asian students in the application process. If a college which has a "deficiency" of Hispanics has one spot left, and it's between and Asian and Hispanic applicant who have identical applications (let's assume a hypothetical situation), you can bet any money they'll take the Hispanic applicant solely because of his race. Now how is that not discrimination? 5. It's not like it would be impossible for URMs to go to college if AA didn't exist. There are 105 historically black colleges, which have a considerably large black majority in terms of students. [4] That doesn't mean that blacks will be limited to those schools. Like I said before, I firmly believe that (putting economics aside, that's beyond the scope of this debate) a racially-blind application process will result in the fairest system for all applicants at any school. Merit alone will serve as the determining factor. Plus, there will be no detraction from the feeling of acceptance for these minorities. Unfortunately, AA leads to racial profiling of accepted URMs at top universities, in which it is incorrectly assumed that they got in because of their race. Without AA, URMs and most of their fellow students would have no doubts that they are academic equals who deserve to be at the school. In short, AA is a form of disguised racism, and it boggles my mind as to how it can be considered constitutional. I hope that my opponent will consider what I have stated and realize that AA rests on shaky ground, as even members of the black and Hispanic communities consider it to be nothing more than a discriminatory measure for both sides. The question of "Cui bono? " - who benefits - begs to be asked with AA, and I believe that I have sufficiently proved that the answer to that question is neither side.