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Affirmative Action
7

Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action

(OP)
My initial experience with Affirmative Action policies occurred at the first place that I applied for work when I graduated from school with an M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Materials Science. I sent a resume to a prospective employer through a friend of mine who told me that they were looking for people with my background and credentials. My friend and I worked in the same lab in graduate school, and he thought that he could set up an interview for me with his employer, a major aluminum manufacturer. I don't remember his supervisor's name, so I'll refer to him throughout this thread as AL COA. He passed the resume on to AL COA, who informed him that I would not be interviewed because they were required to hire a minority for the position, and I didn't fit the profile.

The recent Supreme Court case involving Affirmative Action policies regarding college admission criteria will no doubt impact engineering programs for years to come. I'd like to know where engineers stand on this issue, and why. For each of you that responds, please include in your response an indication of whether or not you have directly benefitted from these policies. And has anyone else run into problems that are similar to the one that I describe above?


                                              Maui

RE: Affirmative Action

I have directly benefitted from a similar policy.  I was eliminated from the candidate pool due to my unsuitability as a "quota filler".  I had an inside view into the hiring by virtue of friends in the right places.  I knew the young woman who did get the job, and she was (is) competent and qualified.

I later learned what a hellhole this department was, and was grateful to have not been hired.

Score on for affirmative action.

Gravity is a harsh mistress.

RE: Affirmative Action

I have indirectly benefitted from these types of policies as my wife is also an engineer!

However, I'm not sure I agree with these types of hiring objectives.  If factors other than ability to perform the job duties are given priority in hiring then the logical consequence must be reduced overall competence of the workforce.

I suspect that there are financial reasons for these hiring policies such as tax breaks or favorable consideration when bidding government contracts.  Or perhaps public relations spin for the benefit of stock holders.  Will someone please elaborate on the real reasons many companies have these hiring objectives?

RE: Affirmative Action

I have never benefited nor (to my knowledge) been harmed by these hateful and damaging plans.  While I find excluding someone from consideration for irrelevant characteristics (such as gender, race, or religon) an unreasonable limiting of the talent pool, the government's "fix" is even more reprehensible.  I see affirmative action as a dumbing-down of the American workplace that has to lead to a trend towards inferior results.  My biggest fear is that the marginally qualified beneficiaries of afirmative action will sift their way to the top of organizations and not be up to the task - I don't want to be standing in the wrong place when they pull the critical dominoe to crush the entire U.S. economy.

RE: Affirmative Action

2
There is a myth that there is some objective measure of the quality of a student or worker.  IQ tests have shown that to be a complete falsehood.  

A high score on achievement tests is merely an indicator of your overall performance.  Studies have shown that test scores are weak indicators of performance in college.

Your score could easily shift 20 points depending on the day or the test.  If someone was actually bumped off by the adder applied to a minority, then the odds are that that statistical significance of the point difference was nil and that either applicant is equally qualified.

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

Funny thing about statistics - they can't apply to individuals.  Every company has its own criteria for selecting a candidate and some of them are quite silly.  When you overlay an arbitrary bias towards one group and away from another you shift silly into stupid or worse.  

We've all know people (white males) who have stories about the only graduates in their class at college who got job offers being individuals heaped with diversity points and those individuals who were properly plumbed or adequately hued getting multiple offers while monochrome outies couldn't get a second interview.  Maybe these stories are all just sour grapes, but I've known many people who's daughters have benefited from this bias.  

David

RE: Affirmative Action

Discrimination is discrimination.....period!

RE: Affirmative Action

Private companies can hire whomever they want - so can the government. It's when a policy of discrimination is verbalized or otherwise publicized that problems crop up.

In the case of a Ph.D. in materials, I'd think that if a company were looking for such, why on earth would the person's ethnicity even matter?

If you are told "there's a quota" regarding race hirings and such there is a good chance you could sue that company (or University...) - I'm not saying you'd win, but perhaps you've been discriminated against one way or another.

RE: Affirmative Action

(OP)
DaveViking, private companies as well as universities in the United States are required by the federal government to meet and strictly follow the current affirmative action guidelines in hiring new employees. And the criteria they set usually is interpreted in terms of a quota system where a specific percentage of the employees must belong to minority groups and/or be women.

In the case of a Ph.D. the person's ethnicity presents even more of a problem for employers because most Ph.D.'s that are currently employed are caucasian men. And the affirmative action guidelines stipulate that not only must each company hire a sufficiently diversified workforce, but the employees at each level in the company must also show evidence of this diversity.

It is true that I could bring a lawsuit against a company that has discriminated against me. But by filing such a lawsuit, I would accomplish very little. Because my friend is the source who told me about what had occurred, he would have to testify on my behalf. By doing so, he would risk losing his job, or more likely being forced out. I would not willingly subject him to such a fate. And in the end, even if I won the lawsuit, there is a good chance that I would be blackballed in the industry. Instead of subjecting myself and my friend to these potentiallly disastrous situations, I decided that it was better to simply apply for a job somewhere else. This is what I ended up doing.

RE: Affirmative Action

2
I can see this turning into a rather interesting thread.  While to my knowledge, the affirmative action laws do not stipulate "quotas", in fact the US government has a case before the Supreme Court vs. University of Michigan on their admissions policies favoring minorities (quotas), about the only way that an entity can appear to comply is in fact to create de-facto quotas.  Since there is no "standard for determining compliance", which would likely create quotas, any entity ends up appearing guilty until proven? innocent if someone complains.  We end up with a fine example of legislating the impossible.  The government at times seems very good at this.

Fact is we all discriminate constantly in every choice we make, we have to.  It is the way we make sense of our surroundings.  Legislation cannot remove intrinsic reaction.

To my knowledge, I have been neither helped nor harmed by affirmative action rules.  Yes, back in my college days it seemed that female and minority engineering graduates tended to get job offers from companies in the first semester of senior year while white males ended up with offers in the final semester.  Can I prove it, absolutely not.

I view the ideals of affirmative action as being on par with say the hippocratic oath for doctors or similar ethical standards.  They make sense for the common good but are not truly enforceable.

End of rant.   I am all quota'd out.  I am just glad this was not about political correctness.

RE: Affirmative Action

I beg to differ. What are these requirements? Are there Federal laws on the books that force companies to hire a certain percentage of this or that?

RE: Affirmative Action

I have not heard of any affirmative action laws.
There are anti-discrimination laws.  Many companies, colleges & government entities have affirmative action policies.  It is basically as PSE says.  Lawsuits have been successful against companies based on statistical data.  In order for companies to avoid getting sued & losing in court they basically have to have an affirmative action policy.
Although the affirmative action program does not have to be a quota system, almost always quotas have to be used "to get the numbers right".   This is the heart of the debate.

RE: Affirmative Action

rbcoulter,
You have it exactly right - the heart of the debate is the feeble-minded attempt by a segment of society (strongly supported in the government) to right the wrongs of the past.  This never works.  The market place would have eventually corrected the stupid anti-women, anti-minority policies of American companies.  

There are so few really competent, decision-making individuals qualified to be leaders that over time the exclusion policies would have led to competing businesses being started by the cream of the excluded crop.  These businesses don't need minority-preference laws to compete and often end up with the lion's share of the market simply because the best-and-brightest will find a way to succeed.

When you introduce affirmative action plans, it is just too easy for those being afirmed to slip into jobs beyond their abilities.  The exclusion policies were probably (slightly) more stupid than the actions to redress the wrongs, but dumb plus dumber equals dumbest.

RE: Affirmative Action

The case before the Supreme Court is specifically about the implementation of a previous Supreme Court ruling supporting affirmative action, with the stipulation that race not be the only or overriding factor.

The bonus points in question are part of a panoply of bonus points awarded for athletes, alumni offspring, etc.  As such, NONE of these are technically fair, but I don't see these people complaining about the points that clearly academically deficient athletes receive, or about the scholarships that these athletes receive.  

Again, the point that are lost is that it's not clear that the plaintiffs would have been accepted in any case, even if the bonus points were not given.  Additionally, if they were on the cusp to begin with, their test score advantages were not statistically significant.

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

IRstuff,
Living in the shadow of Ann Arbor as I do, there has been a lot press around the UM case.  I read an article awhile back on this, and the crux of the plaintiffs' case rides on the claim that the bonus points given for race were so extreme that they did have considerable statistical significance.

Don't take the following literally, it is intended to convey the point--the supposed points bonus given for certain minorities wasn't the subtle difference between a 3.6 GPA minority getting accepted vs. a 3.7 "white male"; it was more like a 3.0 getting accepted over the 3.7.  By any quantitative measure of future performance potential, there were clearly people harmed by this.

The really interesting aspect of the UM case is who originally uncovered this situation--it was a very liberal-leaning UM professor who initially wanted to understand why UM was so much more successful in recruiting "high-caliber" minorities to come (in the hopes of applying this success to other universities).  After being refused the details of the application process (which is not allowed under Freedom of Information Act for public institutions), he filed some legal papers and got the information.  He was appalled at what he viewed as a gross violation of principles of fairness, and pushed the university to review this policy.  When the university refused, he went to some organizations with his findings, and here we are.

I do tend to agree with you on your statistical statement.  Have I seen affirmative action policies affect people in the workplace? Yes.  I got a student assignment as an "errand-boy" in personnel, and I saw first-hand the actual decision-making done with hires.  There were shockingly-different criteria applied to white males vs. others. That opened my eyes quickly.

Have I been affected by them personally? In fact, yes, but not in an egregious fashion. I was delayed a promotion on two occassions partially because of such policies.  However, in one case I unequivocally would agree that it was a "photo-finish" which of us should get promoted, and as there was only one slot available, the other guy got it (and I don't know that I would've gotten it over him even if we were both white). In this case, IRstuff's statement about "statistics" definitely applies.

However, the system made it up to me--instead of a promotion, in each case I got a non-promotion merit raise which was as much or more than I probably would've gotten with the promotion. I don't think my bottom line has been affected by such policies. I am not bitter about it, but I understand how some could be.

The real sad part of it is the really-qualified minority who has to live with the question of his/her competence. In my example above, my friend who did get the promotion felt ostracized by others who also were not promoted. Again, I felt I was the number one choice, and I would've put him number two. I was big enough to let him know that I was happy to see him get the promotion, if I couldn't.  The other two employees weren't as generous as I, and he felt like the perception from others was that he was getting a free ride because of his skin.

Other friends, equally qualified, have expressed the same frustration. I don't know that scrapping the concept entirely is a good idea, but the current system in some ways causes more problems than it addresses.
Brad

RE: Affirmative Action

(OP)
To expand on bradh's example, I'll give you an idea of how different the acceptance criteria were at the University of Michigan. The U of M professor that he refers to in his thread used the following as an example of how unequal the admissions criteria are. Only 3% of the caucasian law school applicants were accepted into Michigan's Law program, while 100% of the minority applicants were accepted into the same program in the same year.

RE: Affirmative Action

Isn't affirmative action truly keeping minorities "down" by not requiring them to develop the neccessary skills to compete?  For example, to qualify for a competition, all white high jumpers have to clear 6 feet, but non-white athletes must only clear 5 feet 10 inches.  If the minimum requirements are too high, then shouldn't they be lowered for everyone?

RE: Affirmative Action

This is an interesting and highly controversial topic.

My own personal experience. I got a job at a large company through a contract agency. During this time I was painfully aware of who got hired full-time or who got converted from contract to full time for the company.

There was a period of maybe as much as 3 years in which no white male engineers were hired full-time (but interestingly enough several including myself were hired through the contract company. During this period every new hire for the company was either a woman or a minority. In fact I heard during one recruiting period every candidate interviewed was a woman.

Now I don't know about where you went to school, but I remember distinctly at my university that the incoming freshman class the year I entered consisted of 20% women. They were touting that as a positive, as it had typically been much lower!

In the end it is all sour grapes, my senior year I watched as the women and particularly one quite bright minority woman received several offers. I got several offers myself, but for a short while when we were going head to head on interviews (prior to her accepting a job) I knew I was at a disadvantage.

I think with the state of the economy the last couple of years this issue would probably be a bit more frustrating. When I graduated jobs were more plentiful. Now it could get downright discouraging.



RE: Affirmative Action

I know from my own experience that affirmative action policies are in place at many private companies.  They do this to protect themselves from lawsuits.  For this reason you will find CEOs of companies defending affirmative action policies.   A personnel manager of a company I worked for once told me that during the economic downturn of the late 80s - early 90s that they only considered women & minorities.  

RE: Affirmative Action

That's an amusing statistic regarding the Law School, but it's basically crock as far as the end numbers are concerned.  This is from the UM website:

>>>"  Q7. Are most law students members of minority groups?

A. The most recent entering class (2002) has 352. The following students reported being members of racial or ethnic minority groups: African American - 21 (6%); Asian American - 30 (9%); Latino - 24 (7%); Native American - 8 (2%); Total: 83 (24%).   "  <<<

So there 269 white students to 21 African American.  Which means that even all the black students were eliminated, only 21 slots would have been freed up.  

The bottom line is that there were nearly 10,000 white applicants compared to only 21 black applicants.  Given that the overall percentage of blacks in the general population is obviously higher than the 0.2% that got accepted and even assuming that there might be a lower percentage of blacks interested in law, there is clearly an imbalance.  So where is the real fairness?

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

IRStuff--
Good observations on the statistics.  This is largely (to my understanding) the defense which UM is making--that these steps are required to correct a societal imbalance.

Using these numbers (and I'm only using the numbers others have provided), if we presume that all African-American applicants are as equally-qualified as Caucasian, there would have only been a net gain of 20 positions for Caucasians over what there was. This would bring the acceptance rate for Caucasians from 3% to slightly more than 3%.  The likelihood of acceptance for the entire Caucasian group given this change to the rules is minor; however if you're one of those 20 that would've otherwise made it, this is very significant.

The crux of the case is do we promote (claimed) societal good (presumably through such quotas) at the expense of some individuals (in this case, the 20 whites who didn't get in). The plaintiff argument is that this approach is in violation of equal protection.

There is clearly a statistical difference that is nontrivial in the acceptance criteria. Even UM does not deny that.

Just so I don't sound like the stereotype White Angry Conservative--the real shame is that we are addressing the fundamental problem far too late. The fundamental problem is not "Why do African-Americans get accepted at a disproportionately higher rate to (fill in the blank)?", but rather "Why is it that only 0.2% of applicants to this law school are African-American, when African-Americans make up 10% of the population?".

This core problem will never get addressed by intervention at the University level and beyond; it needs to be addressed when children are in diapers.  HeadStart, engagement in poor urban schools, and a true concern to help disadvantaged children learn and love to learn is what is needed.  If 10% of all Engineers are African-American, and 52% are female (instead of 3% and 17% respectively), a diverse workplace will take care of itself. Until the diversity in engineering graduates comes somewhere close to representing the diversity in the general population, there will be issues.

Brad

RE: Affirmative Action

(OP)
This is an excerpt from the University of Michigan's website devoted to the lawsuits that it is currently immersed in. This statement was made by University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman:

“We do not have, and have never had, quotas or numerical targets in either the undergraduate or Law School admissions programs. Academic qualifications are the overwhelming consideration for admission to both programs.

“In our undergraduate admissions system, fully 110 points out of 150 are given for academic factors including grades, test scores and curriculum. We only count 12 points for test scores, but that is because we value high school grades to a much greater extent---they can earn up to 80 points. We consider many other factors as well. Race is one of those, but a student who is socioeconomically disadvantaged also can earn 20 points (students cannot earn 20 points for both factors, however). Geographic diversity is also important, and a student from Michigan’s upper peninsula, for example, earns 16 points. We also consider leadership, service, and life experiences, among other elements.

“In making admissions decisions to the Law School, we also carefully review individual experiences and interests in our highly competitive process. Everyone competes fairly for every seat."

If that is true, and everyone competes fairly for every seat in the law school program, then there should be no correlation between a student's ethnic background and whether or not they are accepted into the program. Let's see if that's true. Using the numbers provided by IRstuff, there were 10,000 causcasian applicants in 2002, 21 black applicants, and  62 applicants from other minority groups to U of M's law program. So there were approximately 10,083 applicants in total, and there were only 352 openings to fill. So that means that each student had a 3.5% chance of being accepted into the program, assuming that they competed on an equal basis.

The caucasian applicants were accepted at a rate of about 3%. The african american applicants were accepted at a rate of 100%. If ethnicity did not play any role in determining who was accepted then these numbers should be the same. They are not. The african american applicants were favored over the caucasian applicants by a huge margin. This is the reason why there is a lawsuit pending in the Supreme Court.

RE: Affirmative Action

That's simply an argument for maintaining the status quo.  Children grow up to be engineers, doctors and even lawyers because there are role models available to consider.  

As mentioned earlier, the 3% acceptance is out of a population of 10,000 applicants, while there was only a total of 21 black applicants.  That's 0.2% of the total applicant pool, while the total population has 10% blacks.  

The end result is that the system as a whole is biased against having black lawyers.  

To keep the system as is guarantees a perpetual lack of black laywers as role models, leaving pushers, gangster rappers and basketball players as the only role models.  So who's really discriminating here?

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

Yes, it's the white folks that actually studied and passed the tests that are too blame.  Let's punish the people that actually followed directions and did what they were told.  It is really any surprise that the easiest way to become successful, that you need to do well in school and not go to jail?

Some people gets penalized because of a riduclously politically correct set of rules!  THERE'S the discrimination!  I guess I don't understand how white people are responsible for their own actions, but minorities aren't.  Are you implying that minorities aren't capable of taking responsibility for themselves?

RE: Affirmative Action

IRstuff--
I'm not sure who your comment was directed at, but I presume it was me. Your statements:
"Children grow up to be engineers, doctors and even lawyers because there are role models available to consider. "
and
"The end result is that the system as a whole is biased against having black lawyers."

These statements agree with my point.

I'm not against affirmative action; I think it has done a fair amount of good.  However, after 30 years we still have the situation that (by your statistics) only 0.2% of applicants to a prestigious lawschool are African-American.

I liken the current approach to somebody ignoring a brain tumor for 15 years, then prescribing aspirin. The patient (in this case disadvantaged minorities) will continue to suffer, but the aspirin may appear at times to alleviate such suffering.  If a CAT-scan (early-school intervention) had been performed earlier and proper treatment done, the net effect would be a better patient and less cost overall.

As it is, we're making up for 18 years of neglect by giving a step up to the small percentage of students who are able to compete at all; rather than working to help the larger group compete.

Brad

RE: Affirmative Action

Hi there!

I'm not sure whether I am out of topic but let me relate my experiences.

Most of the graduate engineers in the company that I work for are girls. The ladies employed may be as competent or even better than the guys (in some ways).
But the feelings of reverse discrimination on the guys are evident. It is the young GUY graduates who suffer.

The younger generation of engineers (Gen X & Gen Y) do not feel the need of promoting engineering to girls due to the evolved equality between boys & girls; but the ladies in the baby boomers era feel that ladies are still being discriminated in the engineering field. (The senior ladies engineers do not get promoted as fast and as high as some senior guy engineers- *This is disputable since there are larger numbers of senior guys than ladies engineers.)

What can I say, discrimination occurs everywhere, even within the engineering disciplines.
No discrimination makes anyone feel good (unless they are THAT selfish.)

Cheers,
Luk

RE: Affirmative Action

The fact that you call them "girls" speaks volumes

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

IR-
TA (that would be "total agreement", just to avoid any confusion)
Brad

RE: Affirmative Action

IRstuff, please respond to the obvious implication that you have made....minorities are not as capable as caucassians and asians.

Affirmative action condems racism by using racism to punish people for racism that they never committed.  If that isn't the most absurd, convoluted thinking, I don't know what is!  Perhaps, we should simply suck it up, treat everyone EQUALLY, and stop treating certain groups in society as "special".  I can honestly say, that I have never performed a racist act.  So why am I guilty until proven innocent?  

Let's look at it another way, Hitler killed thousands of Jews.  Hitler was white, male, German, with a moustache.  Should we now kill an equal number of white, male, German men with moustaches?  (I hope that the answer is no).

Affirmative action only perpetuates sepratism (sorry, I'm a terrible speller).  Perhaps, it is not as blatant as it was 30 years ago, but it will always exist when you value one person over another based on their race / religion / socio-economic background / shoe size / hair color / size of their left index finger / etc..

Sorry for the rant, but I just can't believe that any rational person can support something that is so inherently flawed.  

RE: Affirmative Action

The issue to me is not whether affirmative action is flawed.  Given the history of women's rights as well as race relations history from Bosnia/Serb, Israel, etc., it's clear that one could not possibly grade affirmative action as "flawed" for at least 100+ years.  Women started from a higher position in society and yet, after 100 years of suffrage, they still make less money and are still dissuaded from technical fields and are still referred to as "girls."

In the meantime, it's pretty obvious to me that blacks are in an inherently poorer environment for success, due to drugs, inner city crime, lack of stable home life, too much competition for scarce resources, high unemployment, ad nauseum.  

Proclaiming that everything is now "color-blind" and that this will be better than affirmative action is to endorse the built-in biases, discrimination and oppression against blacks in society.  The way I see it, affirmative action is not a remedy for past injustice, it's the only thing that balances the inherent injustice that exists now.

Society as a whole always makes judgement calls and must balance the results for the good of all.  One critical question is whether the 21 blacks can provide more societal good by setting good examples as role models than replacing them with 21 whites.

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

The underlying facilitator for affirmative action is stereotyping.  While blacks (I WILL NOT use the offensive [to me] African-American term or any other hyphenated American term because those terms undermine this wonderful melting pot we call home - besides it is so incredibly inaccurate, ever looked at the skin color of Austrailian aborganies?, how about Brazilian?) make up 10% of the population and about 30% of the folks in the slums, the other 60% of folks "stuck" in poverty ain't black - yet we [society] continue to say dumb things like "In the meantime, it's pretty obvious to me that blacks are in an inherently poorer environment for success, due to drugs, inner city crime, lack of stable home life, too much competition for scarce resources, high unemployment, ad nauseum".  Benign racisism is still racisim.

What rot.  A significant (and growing) portion of the black community are suburban-middle-class-take-the-kids-to-soccer kind of folks.  Children from these families go to the same public schools, do as well on standardized tests, and have an excellent chance filling the middle-80% jobs in any level in any industry.  Affirmative Action plans get to treat these kids as special and "give them a leg up" while a white slum kid (believe it or not there are about as many of them as there are black slum kids) doesn't get that leg up.  

We talk about women being under paid relative to white men.  Look at those statistics very carefully.  My supervisor (hispanic female) makes a lot more money than I do and she should, she's earned it and being an Engineering Supervisor (the way she does it) is hard work and she is very good at it.  The statistics that say that women make less than men are just fun with numbers.  In the population labeled "female" there are a disproportionat number of individuals who's self image steers them away from education/training to improve their salary and thereby stick themselves in low-paying jobs for life.  That population drags the average salary sharply downward.  For the women who prepare themselves to succeed, there is no salary gap and in fact female graduates of engineering schools average slightly higher starting salaries than white males (because Affirmative Action has pushed up the demand faster than the supply has increased).

In trying to fix a problem that was already fixing itself we are creating a new problem that has the potential for damaging the population trying to do good (if you increase the quantity of white males below the poverty line, you "fix" the statistics and hurt the reality).  Take this to extremes and in a few dozen generations we will have Affirmative Action for oppressed and enslaved white males.  My wife fights daily to help stem this tide that makes is slightly more difficult for our sons to succeed.

RE: Affirmative Action

I am a first generation American.  My ancestors and I had nothing to do with slavery.  Yet, for some reason my lily-white skin is proof enough that somehow I am culpable for the troubles of dark-skinned people.

BTW I worked for a company owned by a black man (he refused to call himself African-American) who refused to use race as a factor in hiring.  He needed talent, no matter what color the wrapping.

note to IRstuff: one of the greatest fuels for bigotry is oversensitivity to terms.  I wasn't offended by the use of the word "boys" or "girls".  I recall a line from the original Star Trek, after a reincarnated Abe Lincoln apologized for referring to Lt. Uhura as a "charming negress".  Uhura's reply (paraphrased): "In the 24th century, we have learned not to be offended by jsuch terms."

Gravity is a harsh mistress.

RE: Affirmative Action

You worked for Ward Connerly, TheTick?

:).

My feelings on the UofM law school admission thread is that the 21 Black applicants were fully qualified whereas nearly 300 white applicants were fully qualified. What's the issue? I absolutely refuse to believe that U of M bent over backwards or whatever to accept students of lesser caliber just because of their ethnic minority status. On paper it might look that way, but, hey, are the courses and grading skewed such that "dumber" students have an advantage? I say "no." I also refuse to believe that the children of Ham are any less disposed to academic greatness than the children of Shem or Japeth, so there. Johnny Cochran is a pretty successful lawyer, Colin Powell is pretty good at what he does, too. I will grant that Powell has made public statements to the effect that some sort of AA policy gave him a chance (in the military, I think) but it's a good thing for the world that that chance was there.

Luk: working for and with "girls" is great but beware of defecating where you eat.

RE: Affirmative Action

zdas04, I don't know where you are coming from but it certainly isn't Detroit. The population there is more like 70/30 with blacks in the majority. Living in a Suburb of Ann Arbor I can tell you that racism in the outlying areas is subtle but rampant. In almost all of the small companies I have worked for minorities have been conspicuously absent. There are in fact, very few areas in southeast Michigan that are significantly integrated, with perhaps Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti being an exception due to their attempts at diversification. I don't know if affirmative action is the answer, but I haven't heard any better solutions proposed.

RE: Affirmative Action

No, it wasn't Ward Connerly that I worked for, but he sounds like someone I would like to meet.

Having read Colin Powell's "My American Journey", I am a fan of the man.  He is a man of great integrity, and this country needs him as close to the Oval Office as possible.

It's been observed that the remarkable thing about Powell's appointment to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was not that he was the first black to hold the post, but that he was the first ROTC graduate to hold the post.  In the military officer ranks, prejudice by academy grads against ROTC grads far outweighs any ethnic bias.

Gravity is a harsh mistress.

RE: Affirmative Action

Rot or not,  I've worked with a grand total of about 12 black engineers over a span of 26 years.  I have no neighbors that are black in what is ostensibly a middle-class neighborhood.  The school population at by child's school is predominantly white, followed by Asian and Hispanic.  

So if that's great strides, I'll yield that point, except to note that I've worked with probably 10 times as many Asian engineers, despite the fact that they comprise a smaller percentage of the population and in many cases, are foreign-born.

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

Should the NBA stop accepting qualified black athletes because the vast majority of players are black?  Wait a second, the NBA started off with more white players than black, but now it is completely different.  According to affirmative action, the NBA should still be all white and asian.

I say we start boycotting the NBA until the start forcing more white people into the game.  Hey, while we are at it, how come all of the current stars are all black?  This is disproportionate to the population.  This is blatant racism!!!!

RE: Affirmative Action

2
Well, here's my two cents.  I am a white male "Gen-Xer" with an engineering degree.  In my graduating class in my major, 50% of the students were female (she graduated with honors, I didn't).  Granted my major was the smallest in terms of number of students (two total that year, but check my math).  Materials Engineering apparently isn't as popular as Pharmacy.  Which brings me to a very interesting point, which I believe has some bearing on this topic.  

Let's for the time being remove race and sex.  Since we're all engineers here, can you say that of all the engineering disciplines offered at the college where you were educated, each program had an equal number of students enrolled?  The answer is without a doubt, no.  So should we institute an affirmative action program to ensure that a certain number of incoming engineering students are distributed throughout the disciplines?  Again, no.  Well, then, how can this be "fair"?  As a materials engineer, I'm being held down and oppressed by the mechanical and electrical engineers!  And what about the disciplines that I didn't mention in this post.  I'm surely discriminating against you by not mentioning you, right?  Does this sound like a stupid argument to anyone else?  Wake up!

So why did some of us choose electrical over mechanical, or aerospace over automotive, etc.?  Something in each of us drew us to a field that we found interesting, fun, or whatever, whether we're "boys" or "girls", men or women, black, white, asian, or any of the dash Americans.  Maybe I'll start calling myself an "American-American" and claim minority status.

Here's another disturbing thought, why is it that only 10% of my college professors were white males born in America?  Obviously white males are the laziest of all, since so few of us are pursuing advanced degrees, or teaching at the college level.  Think about that the next time you hear subtle racists talk about how "lazy" or whatever a certain ethnic group is.  Perhaps I was lucky enough to go to a college where we had a beautifully diverse faculty, or all faculty was hired to meet "quotas".  I don't know, but I'll tell you this, I could have directly benefitted from affirmative action, but chose not to.  Read on.

Upon receiving my bachelor's degree, I thought of going for my PhD and took the GRE's and sent out the applications and did the tours.  I was offered research fellowships at more than one univeristy, and one in particular stood out, do you know why?  Because I could speak english fluently.  They blatantly told me that.  The fact that I was an American-American male made me extremely attractive, since "we" are definitely a minority in the graduate programs.  But I chose to enter the middle-class grind, and let the university give the fellowship to another applicant, since I "found out" that there was a more qualified Asian gentleman who was also going for the open spot.

The point is, for the most part, people pursue things that they want to do.  Who are we to try to understand why a disproportionate number of black students applied to a law program in Michigan?  Oh, yeah we're engineers, we try to understand everything.  Should they have been accepted?  Yes, if they're more qualified than the 9,731 applicants that didn't get accepted.  Maybe that year, there were only 21 black people in Michigan that wanted to be a lawyer.  And they wanted to be a lawyer for a long time, so they pursued the classes that would make them good candidates to be accepted in U of M's law program.  

Granted some of us do live in poor neighborhoods (I do).  And some of us live in the suburbs.  And some of us, because of our crappy lot will never get out of the slums.  And there's without a doubt many more diamonds-in-the-rough that have the potential to escape the ghettos and make something of themselves, but will take a job working at the corner store, on the graveyard shift, for minimum wage, because it's better than dealing drugs and getting shot.  And what about the people who do deal drugs?  If ever I did see a need for affirmative action, drug dealing is where it is.

I guess I'll wrap up my rant.  The point I'm trying to make is this, affirmative action isn't the best system, and yeah, sometimes a more qualified candidate for a promotion or a fellowship, or a spot in the law program does get screwed over.  But if you're more qualified, you don't give up just because you didn't make it the first time, or even worse, decide to sue someone because they hurt your feelings.  The courts don't need more frivilous law suits (how many potential lawyers applied to U of M's law program that year?).  No, what you do is prove your qualifications to someone who is appreciative of what you have to offer.  A company or college that isn't concerned with pleasing the masses, but is concerned with having the right kind of people ("right kind" meaning the best for the job) regardless of race or sex or nationality.  Is affirmative action an "unfair" system?  Probably.  Do you have a better solution?  If so, tell it to one of the black law students, and maybe when they get to Congress, they'll fix it.

Of course, that's just my opinion.  I could be wrong.

RE: Affirmative Action

Tick,
A bit of info:
The majority of the military upper ranks are ROTC grads today. (Ref. to Colin Powell, a fellow grad of ROTC at City College of NY.) Is there an argument for discontinuing the academies? I hope not. The academies are the first line leadership training schools for the military, and the doctrine flows down from there.

RE: Affirmative Action

Actually, having studied military history as an NROTC student, I am firmly in support of our military academies.  An effective professional leadership corps is vital to our future security.

I would even say that the academy grads got a higher quality education than us ROTC's.  Still, there was a pervading attitude among the academy "ring knockers" that ROTC's were not their equals.

Gravity is a harsh mistress.

RE: Affirmative Action

re:NBA, maybe...  why are all these athletes getting the college scholarships while more deserving students are getting nada?

But that's hardly the point.  Ward Connerly, etal., can always trot out success stories, but they are exceptions to the rule.  Even with the NBA, having a grand total of about 29 franchises and maybe 13 players on the active roster for a total of 377 successes out of how many thousands are looking for a slot?  This is a stereotype as well; how many NBA players do you know personally?  

Does the average black person believe that the NBA success story is in any way applicable to himself or even he can succeed in the white world in general?

If you believe that blacks have it good and that everything is hunk-dory, don't be surprised the next time there's another LA riot.

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

IRstuff, I agree that stupid athletes shouldn't get scholarships for simply being able to hit a ball, run really fast, etc..

I am perplexed by your question, "how many NBA players do you know personally?"  What does that matter?  My scenario is still valid regardless if I happen to know any of the people.

With regards to having it "good" or "bad", I think that if the skill set has been demonstrated, then ANYONE can succeed in this society.  I personally know individuals that would be considered "white-trash", and guess what, they don't get lowered standards to go to college.  Heck, noone in their families has every gone to college.  I myself, am the first one in my family to graduate college.  Does that mean that I should have to perform to a different set of standards that minorities simply because I am a non-minority?

Perhaps we should stop treating people differently because we are so eager to appease!  There is a lot to be said for pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and doing what it takes.  Getting things that you didn't earn teaches a very dangerous lesson.  The implication is that you don't have to be as good as everyone else, because you are a minority.  Is that the message you really want to send?  How is that helping bridge the gap of injustice?  Aren't you simply perpetuating a negative stereotype of minorites?

Finally, with regards to the "LA riot".  I am truly disappointed in our culture, that we would allow the lowest common denominator to become our guiding light.  My 2 year old hits me when I put him in bed.  Does that mean that I should stop putting him to bed because I don't want him to hit?  Well, I don't want him to hit, right?

RE: Affirmative Action

Melone,
I appreciate your argument, and to anybody making that argument I would encourage them to read the book "Hardball". (There was a horrible movie loosely based on this book--don't hold it against the book itself)  

The book itself is non-fiction, and one of the few books that has brought me to tears.  It's about a middle-class suburban white man who coaches little league for a bunch of African-American children in Cabrini-Green (considered one of the roughest projects in America). It illustrates the pervasive hopelessness that some children take for granted as a part of their life. It's not just an issue of poverty that many children in America deal with; often it is so much worse than that.

Again, I think Affirmative Action is very little to address this.  Is it potentially providing role models for these kids? Maybe. But not enough to help...

IRstuff--what about this point?--if do you acknowledge that an honest attempt at improving such conditions (if it were politically feasible) would do so much more than token programs at adulthood?

Brad

RE: Affirmative Action

I don't have any objection to the other things that we need to do, but it's a very complicated problem and I would bet good money that we'd abandon it 30 years from now because it "failed."

I agree with your caveat about the issue of "politically feasible" since it's clear that we really have no idea how to pay for it nor do we have necessarily understand how to make it happen.  You need to have:

>  parents that want their children to succeed enough to instill the discipline required.  I rarely see that level of dedication even in ostensibly middle-class families
>  schools and teachers that are high-quality and motivated and that are MOTIVATING
>  Educational oppportunities.  This is tricky.  Consider UM Law School with say, 100 black applicants and the same 10,000 white applicants.  Where is the proper balance of encouragement and fairness?  We can't expect that the newly minted pre-laws to be in the 90 percentile, so the bulk of them will still get rejected based on scores alone.  Even if we assume the identical acceptance criteria, e.g., 3% acceptance, that means that less than 1 black applicant would get accepted out of the 100.  Will they stay sufficiently focussed and stay the course against such overwhelming odds?

>  Employment opportunities.  I used to believe as Melone that ability would always win out and that society grades on merit only.  This has been proven over and over again to be false.  Equally qualified blacks and women do not get the same pay or opportuniies.  Ala the ROTC remark, we even know that within the category of "white" there is a discrimination in favor of taller, better looking people.

>  Positive role models.  Naturally, these need to be black or female as required for the targeted group.  Even on Barney, girls choose nurturing and caregiver careers while boys choose masculine careers.  It's quite insidious.

>  Money to pay for all of the the above.  



TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

It has been interesting to see how many of the posts here have focussed on the (to use the PC term) African-American minority instead of minorities in general.  The posts also show how statistics can "prove" points depending on how they are manipulated.  On a global scale, caucasians are not a majority so do you apply affirmative action on a global scale?  If you use a national population scale, how do you contend with foreign applicants?  Non-discrimination falls under ethical practice and I do not feel that it can be effectively legislated (keywork "effectively").  Possibly good in the beginning, is it now a societal crutch.

IRstuff, I wonder if affirmative action will in fact be abandoned in 30 years or so because by then, whites may no longer be the population majority.

Interesting comments on childhood and environment.  While (to use and manipulate a phrase from a rather famous document), we all may be created equal, we don't all end up equally accomplished.  Affirmative action deals with race, religion, sex, and creed, not about talent or availability.  It may become easy for corporations to appear segregated simply because there was no minority candidate available or meeting the skills needs.  How far afield would a firm have to search?  Locally?  Statewide?  Nationally?  Globally?

How can such legislation be considered successfull when it is virtually impossible to determine compliance?

Regards,

PSE

"If you try to please everybody, nobody will like you"

Murphy's Laws

RE: Affirmative Action

PSE--
In this whole discussion, I have been careful to avoid racially-specific comments except when dealing with the specifics of the UM case.  It happens that the pervasively poor are disproportionately minorities. I have tried to focus on this situation--fixing this situation will fix much of the ills which face the African-American and Hispanic communities.  Addressing the symptoms of this, rather than the cause, is a large part of why minorities as a group have not derived more significant benefit from such affirmative action programs.

Gosh, I'm starting to sound like a bleeding heart ...

Brad

RE: Affirmative Action

Talent by itself is insufficient.  Imagine if Stephen Hawking were born in Bangladesh; would he wind up in the same place he is now?  
 
I'm not sure that it's simply a question of minority or majority.  Even with whites in a non-majority percentage of the population, it will be decades before the decision maker population reflects the population overall.  
 
By the same arguments for fairness based purely on test scores, it's pretty clear that even with a fairly sizable population of blacks, UM Law School only had 21 black applicants, even though, thet were effectively guaranteed acceptance.  Being in the majority does not imply that the black applicant pool will magically increase to 10,000.

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

So why are the black applicants more valuable simply because they are black?

RE: Affirmative Action

I don't consider them to be of any different value.  My primary concern is a selfish one; the preventive of race-based riots.  For whatever reason, right or wrong, true or not, there is a class of people in our society that feels discriminated against and in general, oppressed.  

I can't say that I completely disagree with that assessment.  Clearly, a black person has a higher probability of being arrested and/or harassed by the police.  It's been well demonstrated as mentioned earlier that any demographic group not in power is discriminated against, e.g, blacks, women, ROTC grads, the old and ugly, etc.  

Of all these groups, blacks are by far the worse off and by far more likely to to believe that the oppression is overwhelming and therefore more likely to lash out.  Having driven past burning buildings and a drive-by shooting at workers trying to go home as well as experiencing National Guard troops patrolling the street in front of work, it's clear that the American Dream is a failure for blacks and they need to believe that it's real.

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

So why reward undersirable behavior with special treatment?  By that argument, criminals should rule since we don't want to make them mad, they might start hurting innocent people.

RE: Affirmative Action

That's fine if there are fewer criminals than cops.

Plus, it's not a question of reward, but prevention.  Moreover, its also a question of ultimate cost.  To allow such a large percentage of the population to drain our public services and not contribute to the tax pool is foolhardy at best.

TTFN

RE: Affirmative Action

So are we truly concerned about these people, or just keeping our taxes low?  From the last few posts, it sounds more like appeasement, instead of help.  Why don't we work harder at eliminating the hopelessness by creeating programs that teach young underprivledged (notice that race / religion / creed /etc. is NOT a factor) to become useful members of society?

If we are truly concerned about leveling the playing field, let's stop thinking in these conventional, and unproductive ways.  Why not make mentoring / tutoring / etc. a requirement for anyone that attains a position of "success"?  I admit that most will scoff at the idea of helping their fellow man (or woman), but this type of solution is no more difficult to implement than legislating the affirmative action philosophy.  By forcing the stereotypical white-powerful males to interact with the oppressed, they will be forced to see these people as fellow human beings.  Only resentment, and feelings of betrail, injustice and racsim can be gained by simply forcing minorities down the throats of the people in a position of power.

RE: Affirmative Action

Where do the words "American dream" appear in our beloved constitution?

As I recall, it's "...life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness."  It's not "delivery" or "attainment" or "guarantee" of happiness.

Gravity is a harsh mistress.

RE: Affirmative Action

Melone for Congress! (the presidency will have to wait a few terms). Your sentiments in the above agree with mine.

The median household cost within a five-mile radius of my house is pushing $250K. Do the math--most people who I mingle with day-to-day do very well. The few minorities that are in my town are as well-off or better than I, and there kids won't likely NEED the quotas to go to college.
 
Yet only about 20 miles from my community is downtown Detroit, with slums, homelessness, and violence.  I've seen first-hand, several times, what an effect working in a homeless shelter or soup kitchen has on people in my community.

When poverty is just a statistic on paper that one never encounters (or an occassional "bum" that one can drive by), it's easy to ignore.  When it becomes a lovely 8-year-old girl who's thanking you for feeding and clothing her, her parents, and her younger siblings it suddenly demands a bit more out of you individually. I don't believe that this 8-year-old is worried about her slot in UM's law school in 15 years.  She's much more worried about getting through the next ten years without falling into the trap her parents are currently in. Sadly, we're spending too much time (societally) worrying about 15 years from now, instead of the next ten years which are far more critical.
Brad

RE: Affirmative Action

(OP)
The responses that I received from this post have been enlightening. Thanks to you all for contributing.


                                      Maui

RE: Affirmative Action

I guess I'll add my own two cents' worth to this discussion, if only to add my case to the tally.  Affirmative Action was a big deal when I was in school (in Amherst, MA), it was present at hiring time for recent college grads, and then virtually non-existent throughout my professional (lack of a) career.

I suspect (as a former insider) that engineering outfits w/ ties to government, either directly (eg, TVA) or indirectly (eg, Raytheon) could earn brownie points by instituting this form of sexual and racial discrimination in their policies, for promotion and hiring.  No one has ever admitted to hiring me as a quota filler, though I have persistently inquired on the nature of my selection.

I have also had a devil of a time trying to stick around wherever I worked.  If I was doing fine, they wanted to send me some place else, physically.  If there was no place else to be sent to, my job came to an end all the same.  Now, w/ so many employers on my resume, companies are hesitant to hire me in a direct, permanent staff capacity.

My own beliefs are these:  AA only hurts people in the long run, same as bilingual education.  Even if it was true that there was discrimination AGAINST (as opposed to in-favor-of) minorities and women in the engineering workplace, it is preferrable to fix it by stimulating the DEMAND for engineering jobs in the minority/women population than by ensuring the SUPPLY of these jobs to less deserving candidates.

And while we're on the subject of diminishing returns, so called progressive (income) taxation has similar counterproductive results:  namely, regressive motivation.  I don't understand how so many people can see this in the AA example but not in all these other similarly wrong policies.

Roberto Sanabria

RE: Affirmative Action

(OP)
Are there any predictions on how the Supreme Court will rule on this issue? A decision is supposed to be rendered later this month. According to the news media the Court appears to be evenly split with Sandra O'Connor casting the deciding vote. Your insights?


                                            Maui

RE: Affirmative Action

I think the New York Times displayed affirmative action at its finest!

All this machinery making modern music can still be open hearted.

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