Why should I vote Democratic?

[BainsBane]

33. Affirmative action

Interesting that you should raise this since it is essentially illegal. Quotas were banned by the Supreme Court about 15 years ago. You believe this to be an issue because of GOP propaganda that seeks to stir up racial animosity for political purposes. As we saw in the past election, there aren't enough uneducated white men for that strategy to work anymore.

The court is currently reviewing a case from the University of Texas that examines race as party of one of many criteria that a university may use in admittance. Traditional affirmative action as you imagine it hasn't been legal in a long time, but some schools still consider diversity under limited circumstances. SCOTUS will rule on whether or not this is allowable.

As a white person who went to UT, I have to say the idea that something thinks they couldn't get it to that school because they are white is pretty pathetic. The school is primarily white. In every case I'm aware of, the people who sued in protest of affirmative action were unqualified candidates who couldn't be admitted even after racial preferences had been disbanded.

It would be nice if the most qualified applicant always was admitted. But then how would people like George W Bush even get into a graduate program? Legacy preferences are much stronger than affirmative action, yet funny that the right never complains about that. Evidently if you're born to the manor--as opposed to being born a person of color--you're entitled to an Ivy League education even if your grades suck. It's too bad people weren't worried about the most qualified applicant being admitted through the 1970s, when places like UT law school refused to admit anyone of color under any circumstances. They only did so when the court forced them to, and even then they set up a separate cafeteria line so the white students wouldn't have to come into contact with a man of color. That was in the 1970s.