Letters & Submissions
To the Editor:
It's always fun when I decide I have to write about
something and it never seems fair that some people don't
research subjects before they state subjective opinions.
Affirmative action is a subject few want to widely discuss
because it admits one truth, which people have become afraid
of speaking up about, the racial, gender, and ethnic
discrimination that is deep-rooted in America. I cannot
stress enough for everyone to look around themselves and the
history of the place that we live in (USA) before stating how
affirmative action allowed these "undeserving
minorities" to slide into the job, college or contract
market. Sometimes you have to break your personal pair of
rose-colored glasses, stomp them into pieces, spit on them
and realistically look at the facts, how affirmative action
was brought about, how does it affects us now and myths it
has inspired.
To even begin to comprehend affirmative action you have to
accept the undisputable fact that America has a history of
oppressing minority citizens and discriminating against them
for unjust reasons. Thus even a blind man could plainly
realize that America hadn't accomplished much on minority
rights despite the 13,15 and 19th Amendments, until the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and President Johnson's 1965 Executive
Order 11246 that granted "affirmative action."
I'm just so glad it only took the country 190 years, 188
for women to be covered under the Executive Order, but
who's counting besides those darn "undeserving
minorities" and women? I mean look at all the minorities
hiding out here at Elon; quality of the student body has
surely declined in the face of political correctness and the
affirmation of diversity that it is just so much of a problem
on this majority campus, dare I say "dem menorit's
tuk ar edukasion!"? With just modest information on
affirmative action one could evidently see that it clearly
states "anyone benefiting from affirmative action must
have relevant and valid job or educational
qualifications;" good thing ex-FEMA Chief Michael Brown
wasn't a minority because he would have failed on job
relevance but bias doesn't exist today.
I guess we minorities are just overzealous with all this
preferential treatment we receive, like when Elon sent me my
minority sarcasm check for this sentence (See Sarcastic Lie).
OK, that wasn't fair, affirmative action in its initial
inception did use quotas to accept minorities but was phased
out over the 1980s as true cases of reverse discrimination
were brought into court and quotas were deemed illegal.
In more recent history, out of the 91,000 cases of
Employment discrimination, less than 2 percent were actually
cases of reverse discrimination. Furthermore, without
affirmative action many minorities, such as women,
wouldn't be hired in today's job market because of
continuing racial, ethnical or gender bias that exists just
as much today as 41 years ago. Discrimination doesn't go
away when governments put up laws and then tries later to
dismantle the very laws they put up.
Louis Fletcher Jr. '08
To the Editor:
Despite many years of heartlessness and suffering,
discrimination is still prevalent today. People, like
Christine Fitzpatrick and Liesl Klotzbach, who cannot see
that discrimination of minorities still affects America, are
either blissfully ignorant and overall unaffected by it, or
have disillusioned themselves into thinking that complete and
total equality is achievable. While it's great to be
idealistic and hopeful, let's be pragmatic and think for
a moment: How many ethnic minorities do you see on campus on
an everyday basis? How many of those minorities do you think
would be at Elon, or even have their transcripts given a
second look without affirmative action? In her article, Liesl
said that affirmative action "denies jobs and positions
to the best qualified person." Who's to say that the
minority in that situation was not the "best qualified
person" to begin with?
Obviously the minority must have as many, if not more
qualifications for the job. That just seems like being a sore
loser, saying, "I didn't get the job, and the
minority did, so it must be due to affirmative action."
Later, Liesl mentioned U.S. colleges using affirmative
action during admission and Christine mentioned
"mediocre" students replacing
"outstanding" students due to the
"benefit" of their race. So it's OK for any
mediocre student to take the place of an outstanding student
just because they have the benefit of being the majority? I
worked very hard in high school and was the highest-ranked
African American at my school. Even if affirmative action
played a part in my acceptance to Elon, other qualifications
got me here, not the fact that my skin is dark and I can have
babies. And as far as someone feeling "ostracized by
others" because they "did not have to adhere to the
same qualifications and regulations as the rest of the
students,"
how would one even know if affirmative action was applied in
their case? That's a bigoted and prejudiced way of
thinking, assuming that every minority that is accepted into
a university is the product of affirmative action and not
their own credentials.
So what would happen if we abolished using affirmative
action when admitting students into college? Well let's
just take a look back in
1996 when California enacted a ban against affirmative
action. The results were quickly seen as the number of
African Americans and Latinos admitted into the top
universities plummeted dramatically. The original goal of
affirmative action was never "to have a utopian
society." Affirmative action was created in the 1960s so
that African Americans and other minority groups would be
compensated for segregation and past inequalities. Reversed
discrimination? More like a forced semblance of equality.
It's not "Well, they did it first," as much as
it's "Well, they're still doing it and don't
appear to be stopping, so how do we even the playing field
somewhat?"
Christine also talked about "an abundance of special
programs, forms and benefits for anyone who was not Caucasian
or middle-class." Well these "special
handouts" happen to help minorities get into
universities by combating the inevitable inequity they will
face.
Sorry to exclude you from the discrimination, favoritism,
racism, and overall bigotry. But the saddest thing about this
is that we need a written and enforced law just so that
things kind of even out.
Christine and Liesl, this is your first year in college, but
you need to know that this is the real world. Not the MTV
travesty, but reality. Utopia means "no place" in
Greek, because it does not exist and never will. So let's
get our heads out of the clouds and our feet on solid ground
and be thankful that we have affirmative action to make Lady
Justice's scales equal a little bit at a time.
Kristle Hailes '08
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