My Thoughts on Affirmative Action

As someone who works in an admissions office, I feel like I now have a new understand of affirmative action. Sometimes we will hear the argument that affirmative action is just trying to "make up" for the wrongs of our past, Trust me when I say that giving someone a slightly better chance to get into college does not absolve us of our wrongs. It is better to focus on the racism and sexism that we see in our present day society and think of the ways we can improve that and believe it or not that's what affirmative action is about.

Now some people may say that it is unfair to practice affirmative action but these people are forgetting how we all will benefit from these policies. If a young white male goes to college to immigration law and no one in his class immigrated here, this young man is going to receive a faulty education. Education isn't just about what the teacher can tell you but it's about the other people you're exposed to. Even staying within the US, someone who learned history in Texas is going to believe something different from people in California. Now you may say, "Well none of that has to do with race!" Exactly!! Affirmative action is just about making sure we have diverse opinions present at the college level. It just so happens that we still live in a society were the way a black man grows up is different from the way a white man grows up. Both opinions are important and should be included to make for good discussions.

It is also good to note that standardized testing has a long history of showing preference to the way a white male thinks. Women, especially, are better at expressing their abilities in an essay. Affirmative action hopes to make up for that loss. After all, it's like Einstein said: