Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

I had made comments over gay rights in the last blog.  I will devote this blog on the affirmative action issue ruled by the Supreme Court.  The court issued a narrow ruling, basically punting back to lower court to decide if Texas had gone too far with using race.  So nothing is really decided.  I said that affirmative action based on race should be banned.  I only meant it to be for college admissions.  Certainly there are instances where affirmative action is needed and should be implemented.  For example, in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods, it is absolutely necessary to recruit as many qualified Hispanic police officers as possible.  The trust of the community and the ability to communicate effectively with the people is way more important than any written test.  Having said that, I think college admissions are different and that colleges often use race based affirmative action to make their "numbers" look better only.

Colleges use "diversity" to justify the need to have race consideration.  I did not realize everybody in the same race think the same and act the same.  I have never seen any study where it shows that student become better people having been in a "diverse" college.  If diversity is so important then you would think that historically black colleges and women colleges would give an inferior education.  Nobody have come up with that conclusion for sure.  I can't believe that Harvard gets more diversity by admitting a black doctor's son over an Asian immigrant's son.  Yet Harvard will take the black kid over the Asian kid if their stats are similar for sure.

I believe that using socio-economic background for affirmative action is much more fair.  A black doctor's child will likely go to a better high school and can take SAT study courses.  A poor white child will not have such access.  But by using socio-economic background as a guide, there will still be more blacks and Latinos admitted than based on grades and test scores alone.  In the Texas case, the top 10 % from each high school can get into a U-T school.  In California top 12.5% can get into a UC school.  Of course it does not guarantee one gets into the most popular campus such as Berekeley or UCLA.  But getting into any of the UCs would be fine in terms of future employment, assuming one do well and graduate.  But again the colleges want to admit the rich minority student rather than the poor white student because it makes their stats look better and they can get the full tuition from the rich kid as well.

In reality the argument over affirmative action for undergrads is really not that important.  Like I said above, not getting into Berkeley or UCLA is not that big of a deal.  Other UCs are still good schools.  The woman who filed the lawsuit against Texas is now graduating from LSU.  She will do well even without going to U-T.  There are no shortage of college spots in the country.  It is what you do after you get there that is important, not where you went.  The problem is different in medical school.  In California the spots in medical schools are way too few for the population of the state.  California depends on doctors who graduated from other states to come and work here.  The problem for prospective Asian medical students are enormous.  In Berkeley and UCLA Asians make up 40% of undergraduates.  Yet despite better grades and MCAT scores than whites, Asian only make up about 25% of UCLA and UCSF medical schools' enrollment.  Overall in the nation, Asians have the lowest admission percent of any race group in medical school even though they have the best grades and MCAT scores.  Unlike undergrad where if you don't get in your choice school, there is always another school that will take you, that is not the case here.  If you don't get into an American school, your dream of becoming a doctor is gone, unless you go to a foreign school.  But you will have a hard time getting a residency when you come back if you go to a foreign school.

Using socio-economic background will help the deserving minority student as well.  There is a stigma of a minority having gone to a prestige school that he got there due to his race.  This is a stigma even for justices Thomas and Sotomayor.  It is even a stigma for Obama.  But if they got into Harvard Law partly because of poor economic status, that is not a stigma but a badge of honor.