Affirmative Action Case
Resolved: Affirmative action to promote equal opportunity in the US is justified. I will support this resolution with three main points: 1. Affirmative action only rectifies discrimination in society.
2. Affirmative action has been working.
3. Greater ethnic representation promoted by affirmative action is good for society. Starting from my first point
: Affirmative action rectifies discrimination in access to educational opportunities and job experiences. Measures of merit are biased toward currently empowered groups. For example, schools that are predominantly black often offer fewer AP classes.
According to a New York Times article, California’s best high schools offer many APs and honors classes which boost a student’s GPA with point multipliers.
This raises the average applicant GPA at UCLA, for example, to 4.2. Many of the largely black high schools around
Los Angeles, however, severely lack AP courses, making the highest possible GPA a 4.0.
Meanwhile, families in higher tier jobs can often provide their children with better internship and research opportunities via connections between colleagues that underrepresented races do not have. These research and internship opportunities create a distinct advantage for college applicants. Moreover, people in positions of power are more likely to hire from certain backgrounds regardless of popular principles, perpetuating this disparity. The white unemployment rate is 4.9 while the black or african american unemployment rate is 10.3
(asian rate is 4.0) in January 2015 according to a survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Similarly, Infoplease.com reports that as of 2013, black men earn only 75.1% of a white man’s wage.
Affirmative action allows the best to rise by addressing this exclusion and balancing the advantage. Moving on to my second point
: Affirmative action has been making progress since its creation in 1960.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human
2. Affirmative action has been working.
3. Greater ethnic representation promoted by affirmative action is good for society. Starting from my first point
: Affirmative action rectifies discrimination in access to educational opportunities and job experiences. Measures of merit are biased toward currently empowered groups. For example, schools that are predominantly black often offer fewer AP classes.
According to a New York Times article, California’s best high schools offer many APs and honors classes which boost a student’s GPA with point multipliers.
This raises the average applicant GPA at UCLA, for example, to 4.2. Many of the largely black high schools around
Los Angeles, however, severely lack AP courses, making the highest possible GPA a 4.0.
Meanwhile, families in higher tier jobs can often provide their children with better internship and research opportunities via connections between colleagues that underrepresented races do not have. These research and internship opportunities create a distinct advantage for college applicants. Moreover, people in positions of power are more likely to hire from certain backgrounds regardless of popular principles, perpetuating this disparity. The white unemployment rate is 4.9 while the black or african american unemployment rate is 10.3
(asian rate is 4.0) in January 2015 according to a survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Similarly, Infoplease.com reports that as of 2013, black men earn only 75.1% of a white man’s wage.
Affirmative action allows the best to rise by addressing this exclusion and balancing the advantage. Moving on to my second point
: Affirmative action has been making progress since its creation in 1960.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human