Appreciating Affirmative Action
November 11, 2009
Grace Armstrong, Community Editor
Filed under Features
White? Check. Female? Check. Affluent? Check. Harmed by affirmative action? Check.
Around this time each year, seniors at Presentation are applying to college. In the application, we are all forced to decide how we want to define our ethnicity. Many white females, like Pres students, are infuriated with “reverse discrimination” implemented through affirmative action, but I have a problem with this mindset.
On college applications, colleges are required to ask your ethnicity. However, you are not required to answer, as there is a “decline to state” option. If students are so worried about reverse discrimination, then why not omit ethnicity? As a white female, affirmative action tends to disadvantage me; but I do not feel the need to complain about this disadvantage if I can opt out of it.
The purpose of Affirmative action is to admit students who are at a structural disadvantage because of race. Presentation girls, for example, have a structural advantage because they do not have to worry about things like affording test prep classes or books as these materials are readily available to them via the Pres staff or library. In contrast, students that come from low-income neighborhoods are at a structural disadvantage, as they do not benefit from the same luxuries offered to Pres students.
Like all policies before it, affirmative action is not perfect. Being a relatively rich white girl, I understand that I am put at a disadvantage in direct consequence. Yet this small disadvantage doesn’t compare to the challenges faced by students in lower socioeconomic brackets. Affirmative action simply attempts to rectify over 200 years of binding discrimination.
To me, there is no reason to complain about something that you are not being forced to do. So to all those confronted by the wrath of “reverse discrimination,” why not decline to state?
Loading ...
Comments
Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!