Resolved: Affirmative action should be practiced in college admissions.

My opponent's first rebuttal is not a rebuttal at all. He promotes a different definition of affirmative action that the one he put in his first post. He defined it as: The term affirmative action refers to policies that take sex, race, or ethnicity into account in an attempt to promote equal opportunity In Grutter's case, they took race into account. They took into account the fact that she wasn't part of the minority and rejected her unfairly. >>> That is how affirmative action SHOULD be used (see debate resolution). And thus, the example provided by my opponent fails. <<< my opponent has missed the meaning of the resolution. We are talking about whether affirmative action, in the way it is currently being used, should be used. Not whether we should use an unrealistic, idealized form of affirmative action in which everyone loves everyone and there are no problems or lawsuits. . http://www.studyworld.com... "In May 1994, 22 faculty members were fired, all were male. The president of the university was very blunt about his motive, to protect the small number of women on the university staff" This is another case of reverse discrimination Next I will address this: >>> Firstly, how is it unconstitutional? <<< This was such an issue that it got all the way to the Supreme Court. . http://www.businessweek.com... . http://www.law.umkc.edu... In this source we see that the government can't use race as a detriment but can it use it as a benefit? Seems racist and unconstitutional to me, especially since I'm a white male. >>> Secondly, I would like to point out that whether or not it is "constitutional" or not is also largely a red herring. A debate with the word "should" in the resolution as used in this debate directly implies change the possibility for change of the current system, depending on the outcome of the debate. <<< Obviously, if something is illegal it shouldn't be done. Any police officer will tell you that. . http://www.cbsnews.com... This is one case proving that affirmative action only creates a wider rift between the races. Now I'm going to introduce a new idea before rebutting my opponent's other arguments. Affirmative action doesn't increase minority college-representation. It merely redistributes it from less-selective colleges to more highly selective colleges. . http://www.cato.org... Only 20% of blacks and 16% of Hispanics leave High School College ready. Of those, almost all graduate. So, then, the problem is not discrimination in colleges, it's the public high-schools' failure to properly educate these children. So affirmative action does nothing. To further prove my point, only about 30% of colleges take race into account at all. Most colleges don't have a vast amount of applicants compared to the amount of open spaces. These colleges go generally only on the individual merits of an individual. There is only this minority of colleges that even have the opportunity to consider race. This means that the minority members who would have otherwise went to less selective colleges just get moved up to more selective colleges. Thus there is no net gain of minority college students and the law is rendered almost completely ineffective. >>> How often an event may occur is irrelevant, as long as it remains possible. Given that it is possible for two or more extremely similar candidates to apply to college, the argument still stands. Granted, this is statistically more probable at larger state universities, for example because of the larger yield of students applying for spots. <<< So you're saying this law has a low chance of effectiveness but a lot of chance for controversies? Sounds like a good law to me. Affirmative action addresses the wrong part of the problem. The government should be focused on making these minority members smarter in the first place and more driven in high school instead of trying to pawn them off to colleges.