 Welcome to Teens On Topic, I'm your host Emma and I'm joined by my friends Sarah and Blaine and today we have a little bit of a controversial topic so I'm excited about that. So let's roll some clips on people from Davis and what they have to say about it. Do you have any thoughts on affirmative action? Affirmative action. Affirmative action. Well, we're 100% for affirmative action. One of the great strengths of the community and its resiliency is determined by its diversity and inclusivity. Well, it should be. I think that affirmative action is important not only for ethnic minorities but also for women, people with disabilities and also GLBTQIA communities as well and I think for everybody in general. We meet a lot of people like here in the farmers market, especially a lot of students that are from different nationalities and to me they're all very smart, very sharp. And I think that it would be important for those students to be able to have the opportunity to have a representation of not just people of their own background but you know of different backgrounds. I don't know why people are talking about it. I think people had affirmative action a certain time, it's time for other people to get affirmative action. Well, everyone seemed really strongly for affirmative action. The people that said it were just very, I guess very strong. What do you guys, do you have any opinions on? Yeah, that one lady with the Melissa Moreno pin on her T-shirt made an interesting point when she was kind of just going off on all the groups that she thought should be subject to affirmative action. She kind of ended her statement with and for everybody in general and all students should have affirmative action which seems a little kind of counterproductive because at that point if everyone has affirmative action there really is no affirmative action because affirmative action has specifically to do with targeting certain groups it can't be, not everyone can have affirmative action. Yeah, I think an idea that was really brought up was an idea of like the value of diversity on a campus and how they see that translated through their own interactions with probably UCD students. Yeah, it's definitely interesting. I mean I think it's a really interesting topic especially like weighing the pros and cons and I think it would be interesting to see the other point of view from people who disagree with the idea of affirmative action. There should be no thinking of one race over another. This issue that's used to drive a wedge between communities of color because you have East Asians that are considered like the model minority and they do really well in school blah blah blah all this bullshit and then they're pitted against other communities of color who are like basically set up as like the bad minorities who don't do as well but that's very false that's a false narrative. Well if it has to do with race and a person's nationality as Jehovah's Witnesses we feel that all races are pleasing to God our Creator. They're using this issue so that communities of color fight against each other instead of fighting against like the actual system that is bringing inequity into these communities and also white women are the ones who benefit the most from affirmative action so like arguing against that is just bullshit. Anybody from any national race has the ability to succeed just like anyone else. I'd say those people are just as strong in their opinions as the positive ones. If not stronger and one lady was pretty mad at the fact. She was but what was interesting about her disagreement was that she like didn't really appear to disagree in principle with affirmative action. She just kind of disagreed with perhaps what she perceives to be the result of affirmative action and the comment or the argument that she made that white women are the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action is a little confused by that because the beneficiaries of affirmative action are the people who are not guaranteed but are more likely to have an admission spot in a prestigious college when their race is considered versus when their race is not considered and I failed to understand what she meant by that. Yeah I feel I feel a similar way I don't know Sarah do you have any. Yeah I think the last line of what the man said about everyone has the same opportunity to get into college despite race. I don't know if I completely agree with that just because there are many other factors in a person's life that determine their ability to have a good education to be housed in somewhere that can provide you with a stable place of living and I think all of those factors definitely affect someone's ability to take the SAT or to do well in school and so I think that schools being aware of those factors through affirmative action is not necessarily an awful thing in my opinion. Yeah and I mean I kind of agree with the accessibility to things like the SAT and tutors and things like that but I don't think that the accessibility to those things is tied to your race which is really what the question of affirmative action is about it's about how or if at all we consider the race of the person who wants to get into the college and I think that a lot of the factors that give you those really good scores have a lot to do with how much money you have and very little to do with what race you are and so I would agree with you if you're going to say like colleges should be looking for the you know kind of the underdog who did not have a lot of money but who still managed to do really well in their life. Yeah I don't know if I completely agree with that statement just because I think that there is to a certain degree of correlations that you can make between economic mobility and certain what race you are I think that there is some degree of correlation I think we see that with gentrification I think that we see that in many parts of our history whether it be redlining when people are put into communities and housed in certain areas because of their race I think that definitely disproportionately affects some people and their ability to actually have economic mobility in this country. Yeah and I mean maybe to to a certain extent there is some correlation between race and between economics but the fact of the matter is is the question of affirmative action is really more of a blanket consideration right it's not like your race coupled with the fact that you grew up in this really poor neighborhood it's has the question of affirmative action at least in the way that it's debated in the mainstream has much to do with whether or not we consider your race and so maybe if you we were arguing for a more like a larger scope of consideration like we consider your your race and the living standards that you've lived in and your entire backstory maybe that could be more fair and equitable but I was of the I was of the persuasion that as a society we've been moving towards even though it's not perfect we've been moving towards a world where we don't guarantee things or give people things just because of factors that they can't control like their race. I mean I think at that point you call it most colleges don't have the time to go through like an entire back story so maybe it's not perfect now but I think affirmative action can help really help those who don't have all the same chances as someone who's more affluent so I think this is like something that's kind of a compromise between the two areas but how but how does like considering affirm considering affirmative action does a disservice to highly qualified candidates right that's what we're seeing in the Harvard trial right now where when high school students had completed their SAT scores Harvard would mail out like mail to students who scored like 1300 or above to Asian students who scored 1300 or above they would encourage them to or sorry non-Asian students that would encourage them to apply Asian students had to score almost 1400 to be considered by Harvard that they wanted them to apply and I don't understand how that I don't understand like what the compromise there would be because it looks like it's really do it's harming more than it's helping the people that it's supposed to help. I think for me it's a matter of like diversity of mind even and I understand that the correlation between race and like how you think as an individual are completely different but I think that if we are going solely by the test scores and solely about how people do in high school and we're admitting people like to really competitive schools like Harvard I think that the amount of diversity that you'll see on a campus is not going to be all the way there if that makes any sense I don't know so are you I'm not sure I'm understanding so are you saying that if Harvard were to switch to a merit based system where they were only going to take in very high test scores that they would have little to no diversity or less less than they probably have so what would that look like would that look like less of less students who have the same race as the race of people who score the highest on the SAT is that what you mean yes so what would that look like I think I'm not sure about the details of like the race and SAT score breakdown but I'm sure that because this case is being brought up by all Asians you would see a huge influx of Asian students at these really competitive schools and I think especially college in the four really formative years you're not going there to be surrounded by like-minded people I think you're going there to be challenged and put outside of your comfort zone to learn about other people's identities and cultures and I don't think that using affirmative action to kind of get there is necessarily or inherently a bad thing yeah so I guess I guess the question then becomes is if the value of diversity is such a like poignant thing that we should pursue that that is going to look like making it more difficult for qualified Asian American applicants to get into college based on their race like that's exactly what Harvard was doing with their with their like who they were mailing they were targeting certain populations based on their race because those people had to score a higher SAT score in order to be considered for admissions to Harvard and I and maybe I'm wrong but but my understanding of the way America has been developing is that we've been trying perhaps sometimes failing but trying overall to pursue a nation in which we do not consider someone inherently better or more qualified based on the color of their skin and I think that that's what that looks like and but if you believe that the harm the benefits to that outweigh the harms then I'd love to hear that case but I think generally like measuring diversity is really difficult because diversity means differences all across the board aside from just race right I think we talked about class earlier I think there's a case to be made about sexuality for sure I think colleges need to take into take those things into consideration over just test scores yeah because that there's so much more things that are valuable other than just what you get during a four hour test that you take on a Saturday morning yeah definitely and I am someone who's like feel like I have a lot to offer with extracurriculars but not so much to offer in terms of my test scores really and my GPA so that would be something that that I would approve of too but we have to like reconcile that fact that I would much appreciate that and that make it a lot easier and fair for a lot of students with the fact that colleges you're not entitled to an admission to any colleges and also colleges have a lot to do and probably like Emma said earlier can't afford to or don't want to delve into the background of every single student and disregard their race you know what I mean what would you say would be a better method then I think and and the hard part about this is that I'm advocating for this even though I know that it would hurt me because I know that there's a lot more to me than just my test scores but from a from the perspective of a college admissions office the fairest and most egalitarian and meritocratic thing that they should do or can do is really to consider and admit the the applicants based on their academics like the highest scores of the people that apply no I know I know that's bad and it hurts because obviously there's more there right but that is the more meritocratic thing so you have two worlds where I think there's more there because you need to consider the amount of access that people have to resources in order to prepare for those tests not everyone can have access to a private tutor that can teach them how to snatch the SAT right like we don't all have that access and so for students who are really doing their best despite everything that's in their life and they're doing their best and colleges can see that they can go places based on their efforts I don't think that judging by number is going to do anything yeah no yeah I agree with you like I would like some consideration of extracurriculars and I think there can be a world where we consider extracurriculars and consider SAT scores but to not like 100% but to a very very high degree those two factors are under your control like your your scores and your extracurriculars to a very high degree there are some exclusions but to a very large extent those are under your control but things like race are not you know what I mean so that that's that one question and things like sexuality are not and things like gender are not and so to have them be considered in your admissions process like if you had two equally qualified candidates with the same background and same extracurriculars which never happens but if you did yeah race is not something that the student can control and might be something that ultimately they're not allowed admissions into a college because of and for me I don't think that's fair regardless of what race you are well I really thank you for both of you coming in and talking I was really interesting seeing the the variety of views both in Davis and in this room next week there'll be some more exciting topics and thank you for watching