[256] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: MIT admissions system [was: Re: extropians]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Liana Lareau)
Fri Apr 27 19:44:04 2001
Message-Id: <200104272340.TAA26405@multics.mit.edu>
To: "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
cc: "Jimmy_B,MajMoola,MechWarrior,etc._Chien-ta Wu" <jimmbswu@MIT.EDU>,
mit-talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 27 Apr 2001 19:20:57 EDT."
<200104272320.TAA14162@Press-Your-Luck.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 19:40:25 -0400
From: Liana Lareau <fyfer@MIT.EDU>
I was told the same thing, about affirmative recruiting but
not affirmative action for women. I've always thought that
was a fairly reasonable approach - if you assume that there
are still societal gender biases towards choice of field, it
may be helpful to convince people to go against the bias.
I've always sort of been in favor of affirmative action, in
part because I think that there is inherent benefit to being
in a diverse setting. However, after reading Jimmy's mail I
spend quite a while thinking very hard about how I'd feel if
I knew I had that much of an advantage to getting in just
because of my (mostly unwanted) X chromosomes, even if I knew
that all the applicants who did get in were quite qualified.
I'm still not sure what I think about it, but it definitely
helped me understand the arguments against affirmative action.
On the other hand, all other things being equal, I do believe
that everyone who gets into MIT is presumed to be qualified.
Liana
ps - but anyway, MIT doesn't admit people like me anymore, right?
pps - are any of the rest of you original *-talk people starting
to feel old seeing the same debates year after year?
ppps - but I graduated, so why do I care?
