Resolved: Affirmative action should be practiced in college admissions.

==Rebuttal== "Con attempts to make the case that students are not chosen based on intellect. This is simply not true. I agree that standardized tests are not the best barometer on the intelligence of a person, but if a person is a bad test taker or blanks out, then would the university not want to take someone that doesn't fold under pressure like the aforementioned person does? !Once again affirmative action doesn't really apply to the case you're trying to make since you're assuming one person did well on the ACT/SAT and another did poorly. Looking at the scores, one is better than the other and that has nothing to do with race. " Firstly, I agree that intelligence is not too heavily a factor, especially in a tie-breaker situation. However, some of the greatest minds can buckle under pressure when they are not in their comfort zone. A person brilliant at accounting could do it flawlessly in an office, however in a room packed with students, his future dependent on it and the clock ticking, he could do sub-par, and then be level with someone who is average at accounting. If affirmative action were to apply then, he could be left out because of the matter of race. Through this comment my opponent has agreed that: - Standardized tests do not accurately measure someone's intelligence ---> Tie-breakers may not be true tie-breakers with factors such as pressure ---> Affirmative Action is not fair in situations of tie-breakers. "In his second argument he tries to make the case that most colleges have 2-3 dominant ethnic groups. He finds this to be problematic for minority groups; however AA would help them in this case. If a college is largely of a certain group, AA guarantees that minorities are represented. " In this case I meant the smaller ethnic groups. For example, in an area predominantly populated b African Americans and Hispanics, Caucasians and Asians would be minorities, and therefore be subjected to bullying As for the bullied part, this is not a debate about how people will fit into college. It is highly unlikely that racism occurs in extreme forms like that on college campuses these days anyway and the person that is subjected to "bullying" made the decision to go there in the first place. If bullying were to happen then the applicant probably wouldn't have applied there. At the end of this argument he says, " Bullying is often common up until and including college. Adding dominant ethnic groups can make the case worse for smaller minorities. Although racism is nowhere as bad as it was years ago, you must agree that young students on college campus can be easily persuaded into racism. " "Although other process's don't stamp [AA] out, it is not as bad. " He just said AA is not as bad so I'm not really following his case. I'm assuming he meant something else and it just didn't come out right. " I was not referring to Affirmative action. The context of the sentence was saying racism. The sentence meant: "Although other process's don't stamp [racism] out, it is not as bad. " "Apparently you haven't been to college. If you're behind and doing poorly in the class, the professor will fail you and not feel sorry about it. Colleges are collecting your money so they don't care about your grades. It's not like high school where the teachers are subjected to teaching down to the lowest level of intelligence in the classroom. Professors teach what they want and you either understand it or you don't, but it is not their problem. Also AA doesn't take a person of inferior intellect and allow them entrance over a smarter person. AA applies with people of similar intellect meaning if a person were to struggle or do well in a class, then so would've the person that did not get in to the school. " From this comment, it would suggest more students are likely to fail college. Given certain circumstances as aforementioned, students with lower intellect can get into through the system and therefore cause higher failure rates, which reflects badly on the college rather than the teachers. "My opponent concedes AA makes things fairer. This isn't a debate about what's best for the college, but whether AA should be practice and if it makes things fair, then by all means AA should be practiced. I will humor him however and say that AA is not bad for colleges. Earlier he states, "[AA] is also a lazy process" AA makes the admissions job easier and also saves time and money by not forcing tons of interviews upon the college. He calls that "lazy". It's more of a dollars and cents deal and it allows the college to save money, which does not make things worse for the college, but rather makes things better. None of that matters since it's not what we're debating, I was just pointing out the flaw in con's thinking. Since con basically conceded the debate by saying AA makes things fairer there is no real reason to go on, however I will continue to pick his case apart. " Firstly, I said may make things better. This is an indefinite verb, rather than a positive or negative. Whilst the debate may be concerning AA, it is also concerning the colleges. If it makes things worse for a college, why would they allow such a system. PRO has said that AA saves time and money, and is not lazy, however when compared to the interviewing process it is. It is a short cut compared to other process's. It allows people to get in based on race (in a tie breaker) rather than a formal meeting face to face. "That is not a reason for it to not be implemented. This is like saying, "Well, I don't use pens very often so I don't think I'll get one. " It may not be used often because you have a laptop, but when there's a test or writing assignment in class it is very useful to have and you'd be screwed without one. So the occurrence of usage is not grounds to dispel its implementation. !" Firstly, I do not see how pen usage can be compared to the usage of AA. Whereas a pen is needed at any random moment, Affirmative action would be used on an annual basis. To continue, my point was the interviewing process can be used for everyone, whereas if used for everyone, AA is racist at best. "My opponent calls AA racist. He previously stated AA makes things fairer and therefore cannot be racist. " I said it may make things fairer, not fully conceding the debate. My opponent has not addressed the point, therefore it stand that AA is racist. I would like to finally thank Nok for the debate and Johnicle for setting it up.