The Pros And Cons Of Affirmative Action

The supporters of Affirmative Action argue that the reason why Affirmative Action emphasized on race instead of socioeconomic status is that, most poor people in the United States is white people. “. . . racial diversity and socioeconomic diversity are not the same thing (because, in short, most of our poor people in this country are white). When a colorblind process emphasizing socioeconomic diversity was adopted at the law school at the University of California at Berkeley, African American enrollment in the entering class fell by approximately 60 percent” (Bollinger). Lee Bollinger, the former president of University of Michigan, stated in his speech at the College of Law at Willamette University, that emphasization on socioeconomic diversity during admission process brings African Americans into a more disadvantaged situation because in our country most poor people are white. This idea is conflicted against Affirmative Action however. Affirmative Action aims to help disadvantaged underrepresented minority groups, but it is ironic that most disadvantaged people in this country are white people who

A research directed by Professor Douglas S. Massey, Margarita Mooney and Kimberly C. Torres from Princeton University, stated that “41 percent of the "blacks" at the Ivy League colleges were not "American blacks"( Driscoll and Newton 2). Although these “blacks” help increase diversity at the Ivy League colleges, the problems here is that Affirmative Action was designed to end segregation in the United States so that the offspring of minority groups who struggled in US history can also get the chance to go to school, but the reality is a huge percent of black people in elite higher education institution are actually socioeconomically advantaged immigrants. Therefore, Affirmative Action does not reach its essential