[456] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: In Defense of Affirmative Action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (matt)
Wed May 2 10:24:52 2001
To: Thomas G Cadwell <tcadwell@MIT.EDU>
Cc: Chris Rezek <crezek@alum.mit.edu>, mit-talk@MIT.EDU
From: matt <deberg@xennahtron.com>
Date: 02 May 2001 10:24:37 -0400
In-Reply-To: Thomas G Cadwell's message of "Wed, 02 May 2001 02:23:46 -0400"
Message-ID: <knhae4vg76i.fsf@chamomile.xennahtron.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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tom,
1. nobody has claimed that MIT admits underqualified minorities instead
of qualified majorities. the affirmative action policy is
specifically built on the tenant that there are a great many
undistinguishable candidates. one of the two (more like 9 of the
10) in a bucket are going to lose, no matter who MIT picks.
2. it is important to view AA at a macroscopic level, not on a
case-by-case basis. you will always rathole if you insist on
comparing one particular guy against another. the purpose of the
program is to give an entire slighted race a boost back to equality,
hence it must be viewed at a higher level.
3. affirmative action is designed to rectify centuries of white
supremacy. it is not intended to make everyone equal in terms of
the situation they were born into. there are programs that try to
do that along other axes as well, but not addressing every injustice
is not reason to ignore all of them.
matt
