[338] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
affirmative action and admissions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (asarahm)
Mon Apr 30 12:05:47 2001
Message-Id: <200104301605.MAA15128@cephiro.mit.edu>
To: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 12:05:07 EDT
From: asarahm <asarahm@MIT.EDU>
standard disclaimer : these are my opinions. i think everything i say
in here will be subjective, so take it with the appropriate amount of
salt.
i've been reading this thread with interest, and i thought i would
post because in my view the oposing sides seem to be in agreement
(or at least, the arguments they are making do not, to me, seem to
be in conflict).
to me, affirmative action is based on three main principles :
1. diversity of thought and experience is a good thing, especially in
groups that make decisions and policy (one of the reasons everyone
(including the administration) pushes so hard to have undergraduates
on institute committees).
2. in any applicant pool, there is a diversity of priviledge, based
on many factors, including economic background and blatant or subtle
forms of racism and sexism. this diversity can lead to the
diversity of thought and experience mentioned above.
3. when choosing from your applicants, you should be aware of your
own biases and keep the above two ideas in mind.
someone argued that it would be nice to get rid of "affirmative
action" and have the admissions readers take diversity of the class
into account. others have argued that taking person a over person
b because person a is black and person b is asian (for example)
is racist.
in my mind, the first argument is not to "get rid of" affirmative
action, but to actually implement it. and the second argument
isn't affirmative action, i would agree that it is racism.
i know that the principle of affirmative action was historically
based on the concept of making up for past wrongs. but i think
that what it does instead is encourage diversity of thought and
makes those of us who make decisions assess our own biases.
those of us who have been the only one of their kind in a meeting/
class/social situation (where "kind" could be race, gender, economic
background, dorm, department, etc) know how strange you can feel..
but on the other hand, the best discussions i have had occur when
there are lots of diverse opinions. a discussion on university
academic policy can be much more interesting with my high school
friends (who all went to different colleges) than here, where we share
experiences and thought, if not solutions.
take care all,
-sarah
______________
Sarah McDougal
Environmental Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
asarahm@mit.edu
