[266] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Affirmative action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kenneth Lu)
Sat Apr 28 01:20:27 2001
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Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 01:19:30 -0400
To: Victoria K Anderson <vkanders@MIT.EDU>
From: Kenneth Lu <kenlu@MIT.EDU>
Cc: Michael E Rolish <merolish@MIT.EDU>, mit-talk@MIT.EDU
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At 0:48 -0400 4/28/01, Victoria K Anderson wrote:
>Think of it in terms of costs and benefits (sorry, I grade 14.01). The cost
>to the community of not admitting a student who might be marginally more
>academically qualified is low. The benefit to the community of admitting a
>student who can bring a different perspective to the student body is high.
You're leaving out some costs: any system which advocates racial
discrimination is harmful to specific individuals and, in the long
run, harmful to the community as a whole due to the precedent that it
sets and the potential for abuse.
Of course, as in what you said, this is a factor, and you may or may
not believe that hte benefit to the community in terms of diversity
is worth this cost, but I just wanted to point out that the
community's loss of a student who's marginally more qualified is NOT
the primary cost. In fact, we all seem to agree that everyone
admitted is qualified, so the community's loss of a slightly more
qualified student is not really a loss at all! It's the harm to
individuals and the setting of a racial discrimination precedent that
are the true costs that you'll need to weigh against hte benefits.
-ToastyKen
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| Kenneth Lu - kenlu@mit.edu - http://www.mit.edu/~kenlu/ |
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| "Life is far too important to be taken seriously." |
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| -- Oscar Wilde |
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