notes on affirmative action, Education, College Term Papers.com


		Data Bases
		• Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism?

		Links
		• Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com

		Free Essays
		• Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • Free Essays • My Term Papers • Essay World • Planet Papers

Search Lots of Essays

Back to Subjects - Education

notes on affirmative action

notes on affirmative action California's decision in 1996 to outlaw the use of race in public college admissions was widely viewed as the beginning of the end for affirmative action at public universities all over the United States. But in the four years since Californians passed Proposition 209, most states have agreed that killing affirmative action outright would deepen social inequality by denying minority citizens access to higher education. The half-dozen states that are actually thinking about abandoning race-sensitive admissions policies are themselves finding that the only way to enlarge the minority presence in college without such policies is to improve dramatically the public schools that most black and Latino students attend. As a result, these states are keeping a close eye on California, Texas and Florida, where "percentage systems" have sprung up to replace affirmative action. Under these systems, students who achieve a specified ranking in their high school graduating classes are guaranteed admission to state colleges. In California, for example, the so-called 4 percent plan guarantees college admission to everyone in the top 4 percent of high school graduating classes statewide. Minority enrollment, which crashed after Proposition 209 passed, has rebounded at the second-tier colleges. But the decline has continued at the flagship colleges, U.C.L.A. and Berkeley -- largely because the high schools in black and Latino neighborhoods routinely fail to offer the advanced placement courses that are readily available in white neighborhoods and that are taken into account when the elite colleges make admissions decisions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has challenged this arrangement in a class-action lawsuit. Having eliminated the race-sensitive policies that once compensated for these inequalities, California is now being forced to deal with the inferior public schools that made those policies necessary. The University of Texas has learned a similar lesson since a federal court ruling forced it to abandon race-based admissions policies in 1996. Black and Latino enrollment dipped precipitously in the first year, but rose again after the legislature passed a law guaranteeing college admission to all students who graduate in the top 10 percent of any public high school class. A recent report from the United States Civil Rights Commission attributed this success to innovative recruiting, mentoring and tutoring programs. But the overwhelming lesson in Texas is that the public schools from which minority students come must be improved if these students are to perform at the top levels at the University of Texas. Texas now forces public schools to keep academic achievement records by race, and penalizes schools that allow black and Latino children to fall behind. Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida is currently embroiled in a fight over an executive order that outlaws race-based admissions at the state universities -- while guaranteeing admissions to the top 20 percent of high school classes. Mr. Bush's order was meant to render moot a ballot initiative on affirmative action that Republicans feared would heighten black turnout in this year's presidential election. The 20 percent rule seemed non-controversial and even generous -- until Governor Bush found that roughly two-thirds of additional black students who might benefit from the rule had been so neglected in high school that they had failed to graduate with the necessary credits for admission to the state university system. The state is now pushing public schools that serve black students to provide better course offerings. What all these states have learned is that the only real way to make race-sensitive policies unnecessary is to guarantee black and Latino children from poor communities a realistic chance at a decent education that prepares them for college. To kill the policies before those guarantees are in place is to court civic disaster. Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company The Boston Globe View Related Topics May 17, 2000, Wednesday ,THIRD EDITION HEADLINE: POPULAR, DIVERSE, ENDANGERED BEVERLY HILLS MINORITY-EDUCATION PROGRAM BYLINE: By Craig Tomashoff, Globe Correspondent BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Michael Higginbotham has heard it for 25 years now. Whenever the African-American law professor tells people he graduated from Beverly Hills High School, "they're very surprised," he said. "I think they're shocked to find there was any kind of racial dynamic there." Jason Kravitz is just now getting used to it. Whenever the white 17-year-old and his fellow Beverly Hills High athletes travel to a game in another school district, "we always hear the other kids saying we're a bunch of rich, white pretty boys, but that only makes us want to fight the stereotype." That stereotype, reinforced by such movies as "Clueless" or the television show "Beverly Hills, 90210," ignores the fact that for three decades, Beverly Hills High has run a popular program that enrolls minority students from the neighboring Los Angeles Unified School District. The venture has turned out doctors, lawyers, and executives, and helped transform what was a 98 percent Caucasian campus 30 years ago into one that is now 77 percent white, 14 percent Asian, 5 percent African-American, and 4 percent Latino. And, inexplicably to its many supporters, the program is in danger of ending, even though no complaints about it have ever been In the long line of battles against race-based educational plans around the country, there is a fair amount of symbolism in the skirmish in Beverly Hills, where the population is 88 percent Caucasian and the average household income is $173,000 a year. If a popular program in a liberal community where there is no organized opposition cannot be salvaged, many believe, the outlook for affirmative action is bleak. "If Beverly Hills can't make this work, nobody can make it work," said Wanda Greene-Hill, who is fighting to save the program. "I think people look to Beverly Hills to set an example in a lot of ways. If they see a program fail here, they'll start to wonder why they should keep one in their own community." The Multi-Cultural Transfer Program, established in 1969, lets approximately 30 minority students from 11 feeder schools outside the district into the high school's freshman class every year. Applicants are required to fill out a questionnaire that inquires not only about race but also grade-point average, extracurricular activities, and personality. "This isn't based on factors like entitlements and set-asides," said Darrell Smith, a black business executive who has had two sons in the program. "It isn't solely based on skin color. It's based on performance. "It's a separation from the theory we know of as affirmative action, [and that separation] is good. I didn't want my kids involved in something that wasn't based on merit." Nor did Greene-Hill, a member of the initial 1969 class, and her former classmate and now husband, Maurice Hill. That's why their daughter, Erin, is a participant, and their son, Christopher, was expecting to enroll next year. But when she went to get the enrollment forms for her children in March, she was shocked to learn that the program had been disbanded. Greene-Hill was aware that in early 1999, the Beverly Hills school board asked the district lawyer to evaluate the program in the wake of Proposition 209, a 1996 California initiative prohibiting state and local affirmative-action plans in education. She insists school officials had told her not to worry, that the Beverly Hills program would be "rewritten, restructured and retitled . . But the project was being dismantled because the district's attorney concluded that the inclusion of race as a factor in admittance put it in violation of Prop 209. He made his determination even though, as Beverly Hills Board of Education President William Brien noted, "no program child has ever displaced a Beverly Hills resident, and there are no parents who Once the report came back from the attorney, the board accepted it without a formal vote and asked the superintendent's office to figure out how to dismantle the program. Parents say they did not learn about the decision until this spring. The only apparent voice of opposition belongs to board member Gerald Lunn, who said he was the one who proposed determining the legality of the program. While agreeing that the program does have its merits and that "it's good for kids to meet people with different backgrounds," Lunn said it is illegal because it offers racial preferences. Furthermore, he said, unnamed parents have intimated to him that it has been used to bring minority athletes into the district to help the school's teams. However, no other school or board official interviewed could recall such a complaint ever being At a public hearing last month, nobody showed up to protest the program, while more than 200 people turned out to offer their support, including attorney Lew Hollman, who works for a nonprofit organization called the Center for Law in the Public Interest. He had read about its elimination and attended to offer a legal opinion. "I think they acted too hastily," he said. "The applicability of Proposition 209 hasn't been tested in school districts, and yet here was a district dropping a program based on what I consider bad legal advice." His advice helped prompt the Board of Education to order district officials to examine ways to salvage the program. Whatever the solution, according to Brien, at least the students currently in the program will be allowed to make it through their senior years, as will their siblings who were promised enrollment. Higginbotham is hoping this saga has a better story line than an episode of "Beverly Hills, 90210" he saw recently. In that show, the students at the fictional West Beverly High were barred from playing a football game at an inner-city high school. "The program has added a great deal of diversity to the Beverly Hills student body," said Higginbotham, a professor at New York University and the University of Baltimore. "It's a quiet program, but one that has quietly worked," he said. "It's shown that you can have diversity, it can be popular, and PROPOSITION 209: The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public Bibliography: : California's decision in 1996 to outlaw the use of race in public college admissions was widely viewed as the beginning of the end for affirmative action at public universities all over the United States. But in the four years since Californians passed Proposition 209, most states have agreed that killing affirmative action outright would deepen social inequality by denying minority citizens access to higher education. The half-dozen states that are actually thinking about abandoning race-sensitive admissions policies are themselves finding that the only way to enlarge the minority presence in college without such policies is to improve dramatically the public schools that most black and Latino students attend. As a result, these states are keeping a close eye on California, Texas and Florida, where "percentage systems" have sprung up to replace affirmative action. Under these systems, students who achieve a specified ranking in their high school graduating classes are guaranteed admission to state colleges. In California, for example, the so-called 4 percent plan guarantees college admission to everyone in the top 4 percent of high school graduating classes statewide. Minority enrollment, which crashed after Proposition 209 passed, has rebounded at the second-tier colleges. But the decline has continued at the flagship colleges, U.C.L.A. and Berkeley -- largely because the high schools in black and Latino neighborhoods routinely fail to offer the advanced placement courses that are readily available in white neighborhoods and that are taken into account when the elite colleges make admissions decisions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has challenged this arrangement in a class-action lawsuit. Having eliminated the race-sensitive policies that once compensated for these inequalities, California is now being forced to deal with the inferior public schools that made those policies necessary. The University of Texas has learned a similar lesson since a federal court ruling forced it to abandon race-based admissions policies in 1996. Black and Latino enrollment dipped precipitously in the first year, but rose again after the legislature passed a law guaranteeing college admission to all students who graduate in the top 10 percent of any public high school class. A recent report from the United States Civil Rights Commission attributed this success to innovative recruiting, mentoring and tutoring programs. But the overwhelming lesson in Texas is that the public schools from which minority students come must be improved if these students are to perform at the top levels at the University of Texas. Texas now forces public schools to keep academic achievement records by race, and penalizes schools that allow black and Latino children to fall behind. Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida is currently embroiled in a fight over an executive order that outlaws race-based admissions at the state universities -- while guaranteeing admissions to the top 20 percent of high school classes. Mr. Bush's order was meant to render moot a ballot initiative on affirmative action that Republicans feared would heighten black turnout in this year's presidential election. The 20 percent rule seemed non-controversial and even generous -- until Governor Bush found that roughly two-thirds of additional black students who might benefit from the rule had been so neglected in high school that they had failed to graduate with the necessary credits for admission to the state university system. The state is now pushing public schools that serve black students to provide better course offerings. What all these states have learned is that the only real way to make race-sensitive policies unnecessary is to guarantee black and Latino children from poor communities a realistic chance at a decent education that prepares them for college. To kill the policies before those guarantees are in place is to court civic disaster. Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company The Boston Globe View Related Topics May 17, 2000, Wednesday ,THIRD EDITION SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A3 LENGTH: 1033 words HEADLINE: POPULAR, DIVERSE, ENDANGERED BEVERLY HILLS MINORITY-EDUCATION PROGRAM FIGHTS TO SURVIVE BYLINE: By Craig Tomashoff, Globe Correspondent BODY: BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Michael Higginbotham has heard it for 25 years now. Whenever the African-American law professor tells people he graduated from Beverly Hills High School, "they're very surprised," he said. "I think they're shocked to find there was any kind of racial dynamic there." Jason Kravitz is just now getting used to it. Whenever the white 17-year-old and his fellow Beverly Hills High athletes travel to a game in another school district, "we always hear the other kids saying we're a bunch of rich, white pretty boys, but that only makes us want to fight the stereotype." That stereotype, reinforced by such movies as "Clueless" or the television show "Beverly Hills, 90210," ignores the fact that for three decades, Beverly Hills High has run a popular program that enrolls minority students from the neighboring Los Angeles Unified School District. The venture has turned out doctors, lawyers, and executives, and helped transform what was a 98 percent Caucasian campus 30 years ago into one that is now 77 percent white, 14 percent Asian, 5 percent African-American, and 4 percent Latino. And, inexplicably to its many supporters, the program is in danger of ending, even though no complaints about it have ever been filed. In the long line of battles against race-based educational plans around the country, there is a fair amount of symbolism in the skirmish in Beverly Hills, where the population is 88 percent Caucasian and the average household income is $173,000 a year. If a popular program in a liberal community where there is no organized opposition cannot be salvaged, many believe, the outlook for affirmative action is bleak. "If Beverly Hills can't make this work, nobody can make it work," said Wanda Greene-Hill, who is fighting to save the program. "I think people look to Beverly Hills to set an example in a lot of ways. If they see a program fail here, they'll start to wonder why they should keep one in their own community." The Multi-Cultural Transfer Program, established in 1969, lets approximately 30 minority students from 11 feeder schools outside the district into the high school's freshman class every year. Applicants are required to fill out a questionnaire that inquires not only about race but also grade-point average, extracurricular activities, and personality. "This isn't based on factors like entitlements and set-asides," said Darrell Smith, a black business executive who has had two sons in the program. "It isn't solely based on skin color. It's based on performance. "It's a separation from the theory we know of as affirmative action, [and that separation] is good. I didn't want my kids involved in something that wasn't based on merit." Nor did Greene-Hill, a member of the initial 1969 class, and her former classmate and now husband, Maurice Hill. That's why their daughter, Erin, is a participant, and their son, Christopher, was expecting to enroll next year. But when she went to get the enrollment forms for her children in March, she was shocked to learn that the program had been disbanded. Greene-Hill was aware that in early 1999, the Beverly Hills school board asked the district lawyer to evaluate the program in the wake of Proposition 209, a 1996 California initiative prohibiting state and local affirmative-action plans in education. She insists school officials had told her not to worry, that the Beverly Hills program would be "rewritten, restructured and retitled . . . whatever it took to keep it." But the project was being dismantled because the district's attorney concluded that the inclusion of race as a factor in admittance put it in violation of Prop 209. He made his determination even though, as Beverly Hills Board of Education President William Brien noted, "no program child has ever displaced a Beverly Hills resident, and there are no parents who openly oppose it." Once the report came back from the attorney, the board accepted it without a formal vote and asked the superintendent's office to figure out how to dismantle the program. Parents say they did not learn about the decision until this spring. The only apparent voice of opposition belongs to board member Gerald Lunn, who said he was the one who proposed determining the legality of the program. While agreeing that the program does have its merits and that "it's good for kids to meet people with different backgrounds," Lunn said it is illegal because it offers racial preferences. Furthermore, he said, unnamed parents have intimated to him that it has been used to bring minority athletes into the district to help the school's teams. However, no other school or board official interviewed could recall such a complaint ever being formally lodged. At a public hearing last month, nobody showed up to protest the program, while more than 200 people turned out to offer their support, including attorney Lew Hollman, who works for a nonprofit organization called the Center for Law in the Public Interest. He had read about its elimination and attended to offer a legal opinion. "I think they acted too hastily," he said. "The applicability of Proposition 209 hasn't been tested in school districts, and yet here was a district dropping a program based on what I consider bad legal advice." His advice helped prompt the Board of Education to order district officials to examine ways to salvage the program. Whatever the solution, according to Brien, at least the students currently in the program will be allowed to make it through their senior years, as will their siblings who were promised enrollment. Higginbotham is hoping this saga has a better story line than an episode of "Beverly Hills, 90210" he saw recently. In that show, the students at the fictional West Beverly High were barred from playing a football game at an inner-city high school. "The program has added a great deal of diversity to the Beverly Hills student body," said Higginbotham, a professor at New York University and the University of Baltimore. "It's a quiet program, but one that has quietly worked," he said. "It's shown that you can have diversity, it can be popular, and you can achieve excellence." PROPOSITION 209: The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.

Word Count: 1712

DMCA Notifications and Requests