ook the bar examination "only 56% of blacks passed", and that "the success rate was about half that of regular students" (qtd. in O'Neal 69). From this study we learn that admissions by race does not necessarily ensure success for minority students. Martin goes on to claim that affirmative action is not only beneficial, but that "the disproportionate number of blacks out of work...[is] enough evidence that the policy isn't taking jobs away from whites". This may be true of the work place but Bakke v. Regents of the University of California (1978) proves that reverse discrimination does exist in our education system. Bakke, a white man, was denied admission to medical school despite the fact that his grades and test scores "were significantly higher than those of several minority students who were admitted."(Newton qtd. in Hicks 222). Accepting unqualified students to a medical school is not as Martin says "[a] tremendous benefit to society"(220). After using affirmative action to his own benefit, Martin presupposes to write an "educated" and "insightful" article by using not fact but conjecture to prove his ill-researched and unsupported argument in favor of the continuing use of affirmative action programs in the work place and then again in education. Ellison 4THE PENALTY OF DEATHbyH. L. MenckenHenry Mencken's article on the death penalty is quite original due to the fact that it does not oppose the death penalty for either moral or constitutional reasons. In fact, Mr. Mencken does not oppose the death penalty at all. He sees and understands the need for revenge, or as he words it, katharsis, in our society. He is also aware of the people who are most deserving of the death penalty His basic objection is to "...our brutal American habit of putting it off so long."(Mencken qtd. in Hicks, 83). Mr. Mencken begins his article with two basic objections to our system of final justice,~ that capital punishment is "...a dreadful business, d...
