Ok people, In todays headlines, the State of Wisconsin appears to be mired in a law suit. My question for you is.....

Should RACE, Religion or Sex be used as the basis for admission to State funded higher education institutions (Colleges and Universities)

Say for example..Should John Doe (caucasian male) with a GPA of 3.98 be denied entry, while Jane Smith (asian female) with a GPA of 2.75
just because there is a shortage of asian women enrolled at this school?

I personally think all people should be judged on their merits and not their demographics.

[ 05-15-2002, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Well, here at IW forums, I'm the token Mexican ! http://www.colute.net/cwm/contrib/ru...grinbandit.gif

[ 05-15-2002, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: RudeDawg ]

Personally I believe that they should take the one who they believe will be better for the job and go by what they got, not where they come from.
What really annoys me is the people always harping on about equal rights (I don't mean I get annoyed with equal rights of course) but they then turn around and give prefrence to someone not as suited for the job just because they might not have many people from an ethnic minority in there.
Don't they realise that by doing that it is no longer equal rights, it's preferential treatment.... the thing they are supposed to be against.

The case you cite is one among many, and the explanation its hard to see at first glance...

IF the society where blind to race, religion or sex, having any sort of law that promote preferences will be not just unfair, but also useless.

IF the society its still struggling for equal rights for the different races, religions and sexual preferences, the laws will need ways to ensure not just the equality in the present, but specially in the future.

Minorities biggest problem was, and in some instances still is, the lack of opportunities, and to insure those opportunities some artificial improvement is needed, think of it as a way to promote a leveling.

This of course its not perfect or without faults, but its still one of the best ways I have seen or read about.

Think about the example you give, Jane Smith was given the 'upper hand' thinking in the handicap generated of years of desegregation, the schools she was able to attend where not as good as the ones John Doe had access to, this is done to allow the sons of Mr. Doe and Ms. Smith to get in the university in equal ground, without consideration of race, religion or sex.

The biggest problem with this kind of laws its to keep them in balance, how much should one group be benefit or not, or for how long, for those answers I just fall short, the amount of study needed, and the responsibilities that they will take are beyond any message board [img]smile.gif[/img]

I agree with Yack, your example ignores a lot MagiK. How do you explain the fact that proportionally much smaller numbers of women and ethnic minorities get good educations and good jobs compared to white men? Are women and ethnic minorities naturally stupid, or lazy? No, the problem is that they don't get the same opportunities. Often they don't apply for these kind of things as it is made clear by the simple appearance of todays student, or employee, that they are not welcome. So this is also done to encourage people to actually apply in the first place.

Basically, yes, positive discrimination contradicts the theory of equality, but it is very necessary to keep the same theory in practice. It shouldn't be needed, and it seems unfair on the individual level, but long term and on a macro scale this is necessary.

<font color = lightgreen>Demographics should never be a consideration for either hiring practices or entry into an institution of higher learning. The longer that demographic preferences are in place, the longer people will want them because they "promote equality", even past the point when equality has been acheived (at that point it will be "we've always done it like that"). If you really want to promote equality then make all applications blind--key them by applicant number and nothing else.</font>

Indeed, and a perfect reason to have equal opportunities in schooling for ethnic minorities, which we now have, but the two are different roblems, now that we have equal opportunities in education doesn't mean that people should hire a certain amount of people if they wouldn't be quite as sutied to the job just to make up for unfairness in the past.

In Denmark these days there are more female then male students at university level - does this mean that we should give preferential treatment to the male? (and can you imagine the reaction? ;) )

We also have had the discusion about how large a percentage of public employees were from a differnt ethnic background - and there were suggestions that the government should be forced to hire 'new-danes' (the current PC-term) until their percentage in work equaled their perventage of the population.

Luckily our new government has rejected this idea.

I believe it's far worse in NZ atm, over here if you're a maori than you are not only gaurunteed entry to certain Tertiary institutions but some university courses are free [img]graemlins/saywhat.gif[/img]

Say I wanted to become a primary school teacher, because I'm a Whitey I'd have to pay approx $30,000 over the space of three years for course related costs. If I was a maori than that would be another $30,000 that I could put towards buying a house (or a really nice car :D )

No, I don't think it's fair, but I spose if they are needing more maori primary school teachers than they are going the right way about it.

well i think they oughta just admit anyone who applies to a university and if they fail then kick them out and still take their money :D it's a great system if you ask me [img]smile.gif[/img]