EDITORIAL: The beginning of the end for affirmative action?
Whether it was filling out a census survey or the pre-writing portion of the MEAP, we have all done it – check the box that represents your ethnicity.
While this box is optional, the reason for it being there is unjust.
Despite efforts to diversify and to ensure equality, race is an issue that permeates our culture.
Affirmative action is a policy designed to make the hiring and admittance process fair and even-keeled, but over the past decade, it has taken a turn in the opposite direction.
By favoring one race over another, affirmative action is ultimately discriminatory in and of itself.
Striving for equality is a merit-worthy endeavor, but race shouldn't have anything to do with advancement.
With the United States Supreme Court currently debating the purpose and benefits of affirmative action, now is a good time to get rid of this policy, not amend it.
To drag a policy along that many view as unfair is a prime example of redundancy. Forced diversity is an unhealthy measure.
Specifically when it comes to college admission, academic merit should be the focus above all else.
While demographics and income can have effects on performance in schools, a student's intelligence is not dependent on these factors, nor is it dependent on race.
There should be no box to check. Incoming students and employees should be judged on their performance in the field and not by the color of their skin.
Now the Supreme Court has to weigh on whether the state of Michigan can tell public universities that they can not consider race when deciding whom to admit.
There are other ways to attain diversity in these institutions.
This is not bargaining in politics. This is simply taking race off the table.
It would be naive to think that racism is dead. Defenders of affirmative action are correct when they say that racism still permeates American society, and affirmative action stands as a safeguard against institutional racism. But a better safeguard would be to simply not consider race a factor at all in admissions. That way, the best students, of all races and creeds, can be accepted solely on their merits as students.
Treating people differently based on their race is wrong. The time for racial preferences has passed.
