*sniff sniff* , what's that I smell? Ahh, the aroma of entitlement, rearing its ugly head again.
In the case of state schools, are we not entitled to equal treatment?
From the Grutter v. Bollinger piece:
"As we have explained, “whenever the government treats any person unequally because of his or her race, that person has suffered an injury that falls squarely within the language and spirit of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.” But that observation “says nothing about the ultimate validity of any particular law; that determination is the job of the court applying strict scrutiny.” Id. , at 230. When race-based action is necessary to further a compelling governmental interest, such action does not violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection so long as the narrow-tailoring requirement is also satisfied."
Again, the rationale is that discrimination is justified in the name of diversification if done correctly (i.e. strict scrutiny / narrow-tailoring). As we have already discussed, it's important to remember that SCOTUS made their ruling reluctantly and with the opinion that these methods would not be required in 25 years.
So actually, we
are entitled to something, but lucky for you the government says racial discrimination is O.K.
merriam-webster defines discrimination as "the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people". the key word here is "unfairly" --
re-read the definition of discrimination i posted. from a societal standpoint, many would argue that redressing centuries of racial discrimination, as well as shaping the physician workforce to look more like the populations they serve, is "fair". you disagree, which is fine, but it's not unequivocally "by definition" discrimination, as you seem to suggest
Sorry, but this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life.
You have conveniently found a definition of 'discrimination' that conflates the two distinct, very important elements to this argument: the definition of the word and the justification (moral component). (The objective and subjective components). Your definition claims that something cannot be considered discrimination if it does not lead to an unfair result. That's convenient! Who gets to decide what is considered fair? The government? The school? The dean? People who don't mind hurting an innocent population to correct wrongdoings of the past (as you allude to in your post)? The majority opinion of the population? What if you were surrounded by a bunch of idiots? Would that make it O.K.? By your definition much of abhorrent treatment of slaves wouldn't technically have been considered discrimination at the time because many slaves were considered subhuman (ever heard of the Three-Fifths Compromise?), so denying them rights or opportunities could easily have been considered "fair." But no one in their right mind would consider the way slaves were treated back then justified and nondiscriminatory.
Furthermore, if we accept this ridiculous definition of yours, 13 years from now (25 years from 2003, the time of Grutter v. Bollinger) or whenever this racial discrimination in higher education is deemed unnecessary and eventually deemed unlawful, you will have no choice but to consider
these actions today as discriminatory, because they will no longer be considered "fair."
Your definition is yet another feeble, cowardly, weak-minded, pathetic attempt to exculpate yourself from the guilt associated with discrimination, something you
claim to be fighting so valiantly against. It's incredibly ironic and hypocritical.
For the record, the definition I've been using for discrimination from dictionary.com:
Discriminate:
1. to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality.
2. to note or observe a difference; distinguish accurately
Well, the numbers are a little nuanced and they have some problems that make it difficult to point at and draw a single conclusion from. One of the largest confounding factors are the HBCUs which are taking a big number of black applicants. They make their mission clear and are willing to lower their GPA and MCAT averages in order to get the kind of students they are looking for. It's really difficult to parse out what the remaining data would look like (what the average GPA and MCAT scores would be for black applicants at the rest of medical schools) but we can surmise that the average scores would go up.
There was a guy in Grutter v. Bollinger, his sole job was to organize all the data and compare just how big of an advantage the URMs had in the admissions process:
"He concluded that membership in certain minority groups “ ‘is an extremely strong factor in the decision for acceptance,’ ” and that applicants from these minority groups “ ‘are given an extremely large allowance for admission’ ” as compared to applicants who are members of nonfavored groups."
Keep in mind this is law school, which generally is considered much less competitive than medical school. The HBCUs and Puerto Rican schools really don't have that many seats, removing them wouldn't eliminate the discrepancies. Sure, it might changes thing a little, but there will still be a massive differences between the races.
