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Whites Only Scholarship Controversy
Zonkytonkman
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
www.collegian.psu.edu wrote:White-only scholarship given in Rhode Island
By Sarah Goldfarb email
Collegian Staff Writer
Today, one lucky student at Rhode Island's Roger Williams University will win a scholarship. The requirements do not include a 4.0 grade point average or a long list of accomplishments, but applicants do have to be white.
The scholarship was created earlier this month by the school's College Republicans to show members' opposition to affirmative action.
It has sparked debate across Roger Williams University and the nation. Roger Williams College Republicans President Jason Mattera is of Puerto Rican descent and a recipient of a $5,000 scholarship open only to a minority group. "It doesn't matter what my ethnicity is; the point is scholarships should be given out not based on race but on need and ability," he said.
Application
Requirements for the white student only scholarship:
Essay: "In 100 words or less, write why you are proud of your white heritage and explain what being white means to you."
Picture: "Must attach a picture to confirm whiteness. Evidence of bleaching will disqualify applicants."
Scholarship applicants were required to write a short essay about why they are proud of their white heritage and what it means to them to be white. They were also required to attach a picture to "prove their whiteness," according to the application.
Penn State College Republicans President Richard Pastena said he likes the idea of a scholarship for which only white students are eligible.
"I think they have a really good and creative idea to show the discriminatory nature of affirmative action and race-based scholarships," Pastena said. "It's great to see Republicans across the country using creativity to show how ridiculous it is to give advantages to people based solely on their race."
So what say you D+D?
Is there hyprocrisy in granting affirmative action, or is this nothign more than pouting from white students with a false sense of victemization?
This quote has me kinda incensed:
Julia Hynes wrote:When Julia Hynes (junior-women's studies and sociology) first heard about the scholarship, she said she was in disbelief. "It trivializes affirmative action. White people don't need scholarships. Minorities deserve the scholarships, because they are people who aren't normally privileged."
it seems to me that poor people aren't normally privlidged, not necessarily minorities. I'm sure some one in here will make me rethink my position though.
Zonkytonkman on
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Posts
Seriously, the college Republicans used to pull shit like this at my school.
They're like the conservative version of dirty hippies holding a drum circle.
The latter.
I love people's arguments that there are no "white" things like there are for blacks, but totally discounting things for Irish, Italian, Spanish heritage and the like.
But hey, I know. There is no White Entertainment Television.
Seems like fair is fair frankly, although the correct, moral thing would be to have no race based preferential treatment at all, anywhere.
It'd be all Friends and Mad About You re-reuns
#2 - Private entities have the right to give out money to whatever stupid cause they want, even if that cause is a pointless political stunt.
#3 - This is a pointless political stunt.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The only possible arguments I could think of are that there aren't enough requirements to get the scholarship (academic achievements or lower economic standing) and that white people get most of the non-segregated scholarships anyway.
Overall people can give out free money any way they want and if someone is going to argue that they shouldn't have a white scholarship but keep all of the minority scholarships, then they're running a high double-standard.
But "whites?" No, sorry. That's wrong.
trick question?
This wasn't here when I first responded.
Due to various things in our nations history, there are a much larger percentage of minorities below the poverty line.
yeah, i hit submit when i was aiming at preview.
Only if race played no part in discriminatory behavior. Since there are reams of scholarship to the contrary, let's start talking about the real world where racism does exist and not in the fairy tale world where everyone gets along and rides unicorns off into the sunset.
A few easy sources, look on jstor.org or other places for the hardcore scholarship:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_11_96/ai_55588161
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_2_48/ai_97873146
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_11_32/ai_86868864
Most everything else that people think falls into affirmative action doesn't (the University of Michgan Law case immediately comes to mind.)
Sure, there are a larger percentage of minorities between the poverty line relative to their representation in general society, but it's still pretty idiotic to act as if there are no white people who are aren't priviledged, or that white people don't need scholarships.
Right?
I always find it amusing when white people (not you) complain that that "scholarships should be given based on class, not race!" As though no disadvantaged white person in all of human history has ever recieved a schoolship for anything. Heck, I'll even hear white people who HAVE won scholarships complain about this.
I also find it amusing whenever white people complain that, "Man, if I were black, I'd be set, because the scholarships would just be pouring in!" I find this amusing because a) it assumes that the white person in question is automatically more deserving than any minority who applies. b) it treats race as though it were something that minorities could simply switch on and off simply by checking a box. There's a big difference between actually being a minority and having to live with the discrimination that comes with it, and being a white person who doesn't have to deal with that discrimination, but does get to check in a box that grants minority status whenever it's convenient.
http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html
So like, in the name of personal freedom, shouldn't this be cool? In poor taste, but still cool?
Affirimative action is working to figure out why minorities are under-represented and taking steps to level the playing field. Giving one race or another preferential treatment alone isn't affirmative action, because you also need to take action to fix whatever failed policies or procedures are causing underrepresentation.
Example: you're the admissions board for a private college with 4,000 students. You find that blacks represent 200 (or 5%) of your students, but you project that if it were representative of the population (after eliminating city of origin and parental income as variables) that you would expect blacks to account for 10% of your students. You could say, "Well, let's just let in blacks first until we get 400 of them, then we'll start letting in whites." That's not affirmative action.
Let's say you dig deeper and you find out that your admission scores favor students who enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program. Poorer schools with primarily black student bodies are less like to participate in the IB program. The reason you don't have as many black students is because the good black students who applied are getting weeded out because they weren't in IB - through no fault of their own. So you change your admissions policies so that students from high schools without IB programs are held against a different admission standard, no less strict, but one that focuses more on grades, SAT scores and extracurricular activities and elminates IB. That's affirmative action.
Private scholarships given to one ethnicity or another have fuck-all to do with AA, which is something a lot of anti-AA people willfully ignore.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
That said, the fact that they are doing this to purely stir up controversery makes them retarded. Also I don't agree with the fact these race-based scholarships exist, only that they do, and one for white people shouldn't be deemed racists out of hand (if it was made in all seriousness.)
it is an unstoppable force
Sigged.
No one said this white-only scholarship is not legal or acceptable. We're saying it's stupid, it's based on ignorance of what affirmative action is, it trivialises the problems faced by minority students, and as Shinto reminded us it's hypocritical as there Republicans support various discriminatory programs they benefit from. But they have the freedom to be stupid, ignorant hypocrits if they want to.
wachout!
Mexican is an unstoppable force at under minimum wage.
Judged on their individual merits absent the larger context, they can seem unfair. On the other hand, judged on it's own merits, the white/ black socioeconomic disparity in the US is grossly unfair
So - my general question to those who oppose affirmative action or minority scholarships is this: what is a better way to address the racial disparity in this country?
there's a box, people. think outside of it.
Wikipedia:
"Throughout the history of the United States, Mexicans and Mexican Americans have held different racial statuses, including White. Past misconceptions that Mexicans and/or Mexican Americans somehow constitute a single racial type have been responsible for these across-the-board labeling. Today, however, according to U.S. Census criteria and other governmental legal constructions, Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and any other persons of a Hispanic national origin are considered independent of any single race. Instead, a person may identify their Hispanic nationality, or identify generically as Hispanic or Latino and then separately indicate any one or more of the five officially recognized racial groups (or alternatively check other race). In the last U.S census, however, around half of all persons of Mexican or Mexican American origin in the U.S. checked white to register their race (in addition to stating their Mexican national origin)."
"According to the U.S. Census definition, North African Americans and Middle Eastern Americans are classified as white, and U.S. federal agencies group all Middle Easterners and North Africans as White. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulations also explicitly define White as "peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East," and the Census Bureau's decennial form offers no check-box for such a self-identity under the race question."
Do I have to answer that question?
Make education free (in the same way that high school is free) for everybody through the undergraduate level. It certainly doesn't fix everything, but it would go a long way in getting everybody on a level playing field in terms of education.