Conclusion

Jo here....

I'm headed to school short after this. I'm sure I'll be able to fill this up when I'm speaking.

III. CONCLUSION

A. (Review of Main Points):

1. Affirmative action continues the struggle of racial preference. “The guarantee of equal protection” which is guaranteed in the constitution “cannot mean one thing when applied to a white person and something else when applied to a person of another color.”
2. Quotas enable the underprepared to be thrust into institutions filled with students who have been provided an immense advantage over them. The requirements can not be met by students who have been behind and sets them up for failure.
3. The achievements of minorities should not be dismissed and the achievement gap should be closed.
How can the U.S. black-white achievement gap be closed?
B. Poor whites should at times be given preference over more privileged minorities. As President Obama put it “We have to think about affirmative action and craft it in such a way where some of our children who are advantaged aren’t getting more favorable treatment than a poor white kid who has struggled more,” ban preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity and sex in government hiring and public education. Within the lifetimes of today’s teenagers, two of every five American workers will be black or brown, and the nation’s economic and social future will depend critically on their skills. Projecting the status quo forward produces a frightening picture. One out of every three students of color fails to obtain a high school diploma. On the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress Grade 8 reading exam, 46 percent of black public school students and 43 percent of Hispanic students scored “below basic.” Only 12 percent and 14 percent of these groups scored proficient
A Harvard study led by Richard J. Murnane has convinced me that The low quality of the schools black and brown children is a critical piece of the problem. We need to use the money geared towards school reformation and affirmative action to allow low income families to send their young kids to pre school, and ensure that when they are in elementary school they are being taught by the best teachers- not teachers who’s resumes look good, but by teachers who have statistically been able to improve their students learning process. There are options for bringing about real change; the commitment of suburban communities to improving the education of urban students has substantive merit. We need to publically fund programs that dramatically change the middle school and high school experiences of urban youth. Options like travel, apprenticeships with craftspeople, and long-term individual tutorials — to name just a few of the activities through which affluent parents motivate and educate their teenagers. Our public money should be used to mirror the knowledge and experience provided privately because otherwise there is no way to compete.

C. FIRST: (Pass out second test.) Please apply for the last time. I know this paper won’t get you into the school of your dreams, but I hope that when mine and your children do apply, they will have had a fair chance and their hard work will pay off with great opportunity. If we do not move past the reverse racism and quick fix of affirmation, the future holds class segregation, in which the uneducated people of all races- who were denied a fair education will be far below the affluent minority sitting far from reach at the top.
D. If we can move past race and place value on what really matters, making sure we are equally preparing all children, we can all be accepted.

Counter the Counter- Andrew

Counter the Counter Argument

Because students from low income neighborhoods, go to low income schools. They are at a disadvantage and do not receive the same quality of education. We need to put more money into reforming K-12 education. So that these students will be able to compete with the all the other students whether it be from elementary school all the way till college. We will have then eliminated the need for affirmative action to be used from a racial standpoint. Because the students will be able and ready to go to college and perform accordingly. Rather than just being admitted to fulfill quotas or create seemed diversity on a college campus.

Andrew Solutions

Solutions

As we know Affirmative Action affects everyone. We have discussed some harms and barriers to a Affirmative Action. But I am going to bring fourth to you a solution.

We need to look at Affirmative Action from a different standpoint, Affirmative Action needs to be mended, not just thrown out completely.

Reforming Affirmative Action so that college admissions is based more on merit and socio/economics rather than race.

College admissions should not base admission on race, we feel that it should be taken off the application entirely.

The admission process should be based on socio/economic standards and merit. College admissions could use a admission process based on promoting diversity, by favoring students in admission from lower/socioeconomic backgrounds, failing school districts, or a from urban areas. This is because a huge disproportional number of minorities fall into these categories.

By working to promote diversity without using race, college admissions can maintain there diversity without having whites feel that they are being abused with “reverse discrimination.”

This intern gives will qualified racial and ethnic minorities the power to be free of accusations that they only gained admission because of there skin color.

There needs to be a clean playing field so that minorities and whites have the ability to gain access to college and this starts in reforming k-12 education.

Simultaneously the federal, state, and local governments need to reform K-12 education, because in low income neighborhoods kids are not are not getting the proper education for college admission.

Reforming K-12 education, so that all kids have a chance to take the prerequisites to gain access s to college is extremely important. It gives these kids a level playing field so that they can compete with more privileged kids.

A solution to reforming education is diversify the school districts and different schools. So that not only high income neighborhoods receive a quality education.

More money needs to be pumped into our schools at a younger age so that kids are able to get a leg up when they are younger, rather than giving that leg up when they are not as qualified.

Ultimately the colleges will see more diversity on their campuses if they use these solutions.

My Intro Speech

This doesnt have to be a final call or anything...just let me know what you all think :D

Good evening students, my name is Alex McFarr. Id like to begin to address our problem with a quote from the late Martin Luther King Jr, which goes :
“the best way to solve ANY problem is to REMOVE its cause” (stride towards freedom 1964)

My fellow group will now be handing out a college application to The Mike Sperla School of Communication, a school which is nationally honored as a top tier university.
Imagine yourself in the midst of your final fall semester at miracosta, you’ve been inundated with midterms, reports, and papers but still you must complete rigorous applications in order to transfer.
What Id like you all to do is answer honestly and put your pencils down when you have finished.
Now it seems that the results are in!
So turn over your application and find out whether you have been accepted or…. Rejected.

Quick, someone shout out how they felt after hearing back from the Admissions Office?

What you have all experienced is what it feels like to become the byproduct of a law which aims to promote equality….but in its reverse discrimination, fails to.
With the racial preferences that tag along with affirmative action how can we all be equal?

Tonight, we will discuss the once good-natured history of Affirmative Action.
the recent to present fallibility in quotas and attempts at university diversification, and a solution that everyone in here can put an effort into “mending, not ending” the affirmative action that we live with, not our forefathers and foremothers.

Throughout the course of several weeks, each of us has scourged the interweb for information on affirmative action: everything from the underlying foundations to the President Obama’s take. Through various articles, court cases, school studies, national and state statistics, and expert testimonies, we have picked each apart piece by piece for only the most pertinent information. Information that applies to us specifically: college students.
While we are quite confident in our knowledge of affirmative action and seek for you to decide for yourself on the topic, keep in mind that none of us claim to be professional experts.

Let me start off by saying affirmative action is a bit outdated. The problem lies within the lack of updating such an old law. Despite our country growing more diverse, and racially integrated every year, we must still live with certain prehistoric laws that do not have as profound effect on the nation as they once had.

The reason that affirmative action still carries the stigma of racial preferences and quotas in the college system is due largely in part to the lack of K-12 education reformation. Ironically, to quote one of the founding fathers of Affirmative Action, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair, “this was stated in a commencement speech at Howard University, a top black institution in To Fulfill These Rights

By simultaneously cutting the funding of programs specifically designed for minorities, programs which are available because of affirmative action, and spending that money on reforming K-12 education in low-income communities, we believe that schools and universities will find that more minorities are taking the required classes to qualify for state universities as well as cultivate a diverse group of leaders without placing preference on one race over another. We would also plan to gather enough signatures to have a bill introduced in Congress that nationally outlaws State schools and universities from requesting the race of a student on a college application.

Now Id like to hand the reigns over to Chris, the sixth member of the A Kickers.
Bear in mind that Chris has a notorious reputation for his comedic antics and is infamous for making a scene by using offensive language and views. Please do not be offended, he is really passionate about affirmative action:

Hey guys, this is Emily. I just realized that I wanted to put a statistic in my part but I dont have one that would work. I am looking for a statistic that is like this is the average number of college students that are white, black, hispanic, ect. in the US. Has anyone seen anything like this? 

Solution ONE

I think this is a good solution to the problem of affirmative action placing racial preferences in college admissions. so basically solution numero uno.

But in California, one of the country's major affirmative action laboratories, the "end it" argument proved more popular. Racial/ethnic preferences had become a major issue in a state whose minority population was booming. California's higher-education system also included two of the nation's top public institutions: the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) and UCLA.

Among many white, Anglo Californians, affirmative action had come to be seen as a system under which black and Latino applicants were getting into those two schools at the expense of whites or Asians with higher grades and SAT scores.

By 1996, the statewide university system's majority-Republican Board of Regents voted to end all race, ethnic and gender preferences in admissions. The board did allow universities to take applicants' socioeconomic circumstances into account.

And in the same year, California voters approved Proposition 209, which outlawed all race, ethnicity and gender preferences by all state entities. Connerly helped organize that referendum and followed up with successful campaigns in Washington state in 1998 and in Michigan in 2003.

Meanwhile, the "reverse discrimination" issue that had been decided in the Bakke case flared up in Texas, where Cheryl Hopwood and two other white applicants to the University of Texas law school challenged their rejections, pointing to the admissions of minority students with lower grades and test scores. In 1996, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided for the plaintiffs, ruling that universities couldn't take race into account when assessing applicants.

The appeals judges had overruled the Bakke decision, at least in their jurisdiction of Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, yet the Supreme Court refused to consider the case.

But in 2003, the justices ruled on two separate cases, both centering on admissions to another top-ranked public higher education system: the University of Michigan. One case arose from admissions procedures for the undergraduate college, the other from the system for evaluating applicants to the university's law school.

The Supreme Court decided against the undergraduate admissions policy because it automatically awarded 20 extra points on the university's 150-point evaluation scale to blacks, Latinos and American Indians. By contrast, the law school took race into account in what Justice O'Connor, in the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision, called a "highly individualized, holistic review" of each candidate aimed at producing a diverse student population.

SOOOO in my opinion,
the bottom line is we should propose a Nationwide law that states: universities cannot take race into account in undergrad and grad school admissions.
This will bar racial preference and quotas.
If we want diverse colleges, we must reform k-12 education and prepare minorites and low income students for higher education... as in improving statistics like this:

“In CA, 36 percent of all high school students in 2001 had taken all the courses required for admission to the state university system, according to a study by the civil rights project at Harvard university. Among black students, only 26 percent had taken the prerequisites and only 24 percent of Hispanics. Meanwhile, 41 percent of white and 54 percent of Asians had taken the necessary courses.” (20) (from the 36 page article)

Its just like President Lyndon B. Johnson said in a major speech that laid the foundations for affirmative action programs, although they werent set up for another five years after:
"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair, " (To Fulfill These Rights, a 1965 commencement speech at Howard University in Washington, DC, a top black institution)


However,
Thats not to say that admissions officers must ignore an applicants background if part of his/her personal statement essay includes that. I.E. my father's real life American Dream of reaching the land of freedom and opportunity has inspired me to be all i can be, etc etc.

Any thoughts?

this is alex again:
President Bill Clinton gave a 1995 speech at the National Archives in Washington in which he acknowledged that critics had a point. He said he didn't favor "the unjustified preference of the unqualified over the qualified of any race or gender." But affirmative action was still needed because discrimination persisted, Clinton added. His bottom line: "Mend it, but don't end it."


I really like this...its short, catchy and realistic..

IMO, we cannot propose to fully abolish affirmative action, that cant realistically happen and mike will counter our proposal by saying "well why hasnt it ended before" blah blah blah.