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Smart for a white girl, but not smart enough for a minority?

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Dr. Strange Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:07 PM
Original message
Smart for a white girl, but not smart enough for a minority?
June 25, 2007 -- A Brooklyn mother and father got the shock of their lives when school officials informed them their brilliant 11-year-old girl was denied admission to an elite public school - solely because she's of Indian descent.

"I feel bad because I would have gotten in if I was white," Nikita Rau lamented over her failed bid to attend the Mark Twain School, IS 239, in Coney Island, a magnet school for gifted students.

...

Under those quotas - which originally were intended to boost minority enrollment - 60 percent of Mark Twain's student body is set aside for white students, while 40 percent is set aside for minorities.


http://www.nypost.com/seven/06252007/news/regionalnews/color_barred_student_regionalnews_dan_mangan.htm

Am I reading this right? This part in particular seems flat out illegal:

Officials told the Raus that because Nikita is classified as a minority, she would need to score at least 84.4 to be accepted, while white students needed to score 77 or more.


How is this even remotely constitutional? And does this really "boost minority enrollment?"
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Lance_Boyle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:12 PM
Response to Original message
1. quotas are bad, m'kay?
Whether they work like they were intended to work, or in reverse (as in this case), they are a bad, bad idea.

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Dr. Strange Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:16 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. But I thought they were flat out illegal?
You can set "goals" etc, but having an actual quota, based on race? I thought the Michigan decision a few years back said no to the idea of giving points based on race. This school seems to (in effect) be doing that with different standards based on race.
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Gormy Cuss Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:15 PM
Response to Original message
2. It sounds like an unintended result of a rigidly written desegregation decree
Edited on Mon Jun-25-07 01:17 PM by Gormy Cuss
At the time the order was put in place mandating a 60-40 split of white vs.minority students probably reflected demographics of the community and represented a serious decrease in the percentage of white enrollment.


on edit: IMHO the quota isn't the primary problem. It's the lack of a mechanism in the court order to assess and adjust the percentages over time to reflect changing demographics.
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Rosemary2205 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:20 PM
Response to Original message
4. HAHAHA - they HAVE to lower the bar for the white kids????
if they don't lower the bar for the white kids then they can't muster 60% white and eventually the majority of kids in the school are minorities? BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA So much for white superiority.

God forbid they just say students are required to test at a minimum of 84.4 to even be considered and leave race the hell out of it.
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pampango Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:07 PM
Response to Reply #4
15. East and South Asian immigrants and their children on the whole
score higher than whites on most standardized tests.

My son just went through the college application process. We found that the universities in California have a problem keeping the campus "looking like the society the students come from". Asian applicants tend to score higher on admission tests (ACT and SAT) than other groups, including whites, blacks, and Hispanics, that they would be overrepresented in the student population at the expense of the other groups, especially blacks and Hispanics. Admissions officers never admit to having higher admission standards for Asian students (that would be illegal), but they have to do that informally to keep the campus "looking like society" and to achieve diversity which is a good thing.

The higher Asian test scores are usually attributed to the emphasis that the parents put on academic success and the resulting pressure on the students to take education seriously. (I suppose their success could be because Asians are just smarter, but I don't want to go there.)

It is easy in a case like this girl in New York. If she scores higher than white applicants, she should get into the school. It would be different if her higher test scores were jeopardizing the admission of a black or Hispanic student from a disadvantaged background. On the one hand, you should reward the hard work that immigrant and second generation children put into academic success. It is not like they are succeeding because they have an unfair cultural advantage, like whites do. On the other hand, if their success as a group limits opportunities for minorities support networks that Asians seem to have, it is more debatable.
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greenissexy Donating Member (126 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:26 PM
Response to Original message
5. 0% White 100% Minority...
would be more fair. The whites have had immoral advantages for too long. They should be looking to make-up for those things rather than using them as an excuse to continue to punish people for being "brown." As we see, the people in charge will do anything immoral or dishonest or simply illegal to push their racist agenda.
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Dr. Strange Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:29 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. 100% Minority...?
Isn't that an oxymoron?

:)
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Lerkfish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:29 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. erm....wtf?
:shrug:
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BlooInBloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:30 PM
Response to Original message
8. Awesome! The reverse-racism bridge-dwellers are back! Woohoo!
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greenissexy Donating Member (126 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:45 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. Huh?
How is it racism when used to correct a wrong? Think of all of the silver-spoon white kids in that area that go to private schools and all of the minority kids that are denied access to good schools.
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BlooInBloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:46 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Sarcasm tags are for idiots.
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BlooInBloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:40 PM
Response to Reply #12
23. ... Or for people who mis-read OPs. My apologies.
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chaska Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:33 PM
Response to Original message
9. Whites and East Indians are both caucasians.
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shanti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:19 PM
Response to Reply #9
19. not according to this school
apparently
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La Lioness Priyanka Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:34 PM
Response to Original message
10. i thought quota's are illegal
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The Backlash Cometh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:56 PM
Response to Original message
13. First, this is printed in the New York Post, which is probably meant
to illicit the response it's receiving on this newsgroup. And second, at some point in the future, I'm not saying in this case, but at some point in the future when ethnic cultures start congregating in areas, like Chinatown, expect whites to rely on Affirmative Action in order to get a chance into good schools.
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Dr. Strange Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 01:59 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. I wondered that too.
I haven't seen this anywhere else yet, so I may take this with a grain or two of salt.

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The Backlash Cometh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:10 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. Something is not adding up in that article.
My gut thoughts are this: Assume that the school was heavily segregated back in the 70s and desegregation made sense for the time; then, I ask, isn't 40% high, unless it reflected the true demographics of the community -- back then? And then there's another question. At what point did they require minorities to have higher test scores to get in? If this happened during the court order in the 70s, then it sounds like it was a major concession to whites.

Whatever, there are far too many freaky variables with this arrangement to use it as a reflection of all Affirmative Action style programs. It sounds like that court order needs some serious updating, but that it's not useful for anything else but for the New York Post to inflame a very volatile issue.
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BlooInBloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:13 PM
Response to Reply #13
17. New member, no posts, throws a bomb out from a republican newspaper?
Edited on Mon Jun-25-07 02:21 PM by BlooInBloo
It's obvious to anyone who isn't already predisposed to whine about "reverse racism".


EDIT: Unfortunately, there are oodles of DUers ready and rarin' to whine about "reverse racism", so this thread will probably be wildly successful. Kudos to the bridge-dwellers on an excellent play.
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Dr. Strange Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:33 PM
Response to Reply #17
20. No posts?!
Apparently you've missed my handiwork in the Lounge!

Does this count as reverse racism? It's not whites being discriminated against. Hell, it's not even men being discriminated against!
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BlooInBloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:36 PM
Response to Reply #20
22. On the substantive point, you're totally right - I misread - my apologies.
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Dr. Strange Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:41 PM
Response to Reply #22
24. Whew!
This was my first post outside of the lounge. You almost gave me a complex!
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BlooInBloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:43 PM
Response to Reply #24
25. LOL!
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pampango Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:52 PM
Response to Reply #20
26. It is certainly not reverse racism. I wonder if it is not something
like more "traditional" racism. Requiring high scores from Asian may be intended to keep them from taking too many of the 40 percent of admissions reserved for minorities, which could displace Blacks and Hispanics.
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Rex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:16 PM
Response to Original message
18. Whenever you put such rigid guildlines on things like 60/40
you will end up with immoral shit like different standards based on different races.
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Tulum_Moon Donating Member (556 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-25-07 02:33 PM
Response to Reply #18
21. This thread has the potential
to tun ugly. Race and quotas. need I say more?
There has already been stupid white girl remarks.
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