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From: dgross@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Dave Gross)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: "64 cents!" (Was Re: The problem in academia)
Message-ID: <28160b5b.4d25@petunia.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 25 Apr 91 20:51:33 GMT
References: <1991Apr15.145023.7239@psych.toronto.edu> <672079231@lear.cs.duke.edu> <1991Apr24.003022.11330@MDI.COM>
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Hillel's idea of affirmative action by income level rather than race
seems to be picking up steam.  Dinesh D'Souza has just released a very
good book called "Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on
Campus" which spends a lot of time analyzing how affirmative action
has been used in university admission policies, and how this has led
to a number of problems (one of the most critical of which is that
people admitted with less academic preparation because their race was
considered more important than their college prep GPA often fail
academically when competing with peers who are more prepared).

Anyway, in his brief conclusion, D'Souza proposes basically that we
eliminate affirmative action on the basis of race and sex, and
institute it where it makes more sense.  Specifically, for university
admissions, recognize that getting an 'X' on the SAT verbal means one
thing if the student went to a school in a wealthy district and had
enough $$ to take "How to whiz the SAT" courses; and means another if
the student had to work full time in high school, and went to an
inner-city school in a poorer district.

In any case, the book is a good read and has some fine critiques and
ideas.


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