lleges by way of racial preferences, dont have the educational background needed to be successful in those colleges.For an example of his concern; all students who enroll at the nations twenty-five top-rated universities, must score a 1291 or above on the SATs. An average of 650 on both math and verbal would have to be scored. Yet in the entire country, only 1523 black students scored above a 650 on math and only 603 scored above 650 on the verbal section. This is compared to 74,000 whites who scored above 650 on math and 23,000 that scored above 650 on the verbal (Noel, 1997 p. 5). Is this worth General Powells concern? However, some minority students might not need to worry about their academic achievements since a study done by the Brookings Institute found that being black or Hispanic counted in your favor by several hundred points on the SAT or a grade point higher in your GPA. The study done with 5,000 recent students found that a white student needed a 3.8 GPA to have the same chance as Black or Hispanic student with a 2.8 GPA in gaining admittance to an elite college (Zinsmeister, 1997, p. 18). Isnt this discrimination, or are minority students considered higher achievers in academics then non-minorities? My GPA was around a 2.8 in high school, however I doubt I would have been able to tackle Harvard. I wish not to take the opportunity away from minorities to gain a higher education, however if they do not have the educational background, and are most likely to drop out because of that, what is the point? It is not just in the schools that concerns about preferential treatment and reverse discrimination arise, but in the job market as well. For example, in the beginning of the preferential actions, 25% of employed white male mangers lost their jobs due to restrictions affirmative action had on them. Another example, The Northern Natural Gas Company of Omaha, Nebraska, was forced by the government to release sixty-five white m...
