AFFIRMATIVE ACTION REFORM

TO: Carly Finseth, Instructor FROM: Rebeca Jurado, Student DATE: November 25, 2013 SUBJECT: Affirmative Action Proposal

Affirmative action is a popular practice that must be reformed. Though the problematic nature of affirmative action was evident before any steps were taken to further study the matter, the process that I undertook to create my proposal revealed much that I did not know about affirmative action. My rationale for this proposal is directly connected to the audience in that the audience is the main factor that continuously shapes the proposal, and the audiences opinion is what determines whether I continue pushing for the proposed plan. In other words, the audience gets what the audience wants; and while a considerable portion of my rationale takes secondary research into account, the audience gets the final word. Vaguely stated previously, the purpose of this proposal is to reveal the problematic nature of affirmative action and propose a plan that will meet the ethical needs of students. Rationale Before conducting my research on affirmative action and firmly stating my purpose, I had to think about the essential criteria that I had to meet in order to have a reasonable proposal. I thought about who is affected by affirmative action, and how those people might regard the subject. Being that the stakes of affirmative action are often high as affirmative action prominently impacts the educational journey of students, I decided that students opinions and regard of the subject would guide my plan. Their thoughts were gathered through surveys. However, I realized that scholarly secondary sources could further aid my knowledge and credibility. My proposal focuses on aiding those affected by affirmative action; and it deems the consideration of secondary research important, but not essential. Audience and Purpose Having said that students opinions on affirmative action are what guide my proposal, I decided that it is important for my proposal to be directed at students themselves. Since my ultimate goal is for my proposal to be accepted, I must reach out to students and present my proposal in order to adjust it accordingly and obtain decent support. Therefore, students are my audience. Unlike affirmative action, my rationale deems every students opinion on affirmative action valuable, without regard to race or superficial characteristics. This is because the purpose of my proposal is not only to reveal the problem with affirmative action, but also to mold a plan that will meet the ethical needs of all students. My proposal is not intended to put the plan into action immediately, as much legislation is needed beforehand;

2 however, the proposal should spark enough attention and concern among students in order to have enough support. Research Primary research in the form of surveys is what guides my proposal. I could not have arranged a proposal with potential if it was not for my primary research findings. Through my findings, I was able to understand students concerns about affirmative action, as well as their reasons for supporting it. When I began my primary research, I did not know exactly what my plan would be, as I was not completely informed about students needs. Once my primary research was complete and I was able to draw conclusions from it, I knew exactly where to start with my plan. On another note, my secondary research serves as proof that my plan is needed. This research introduced me to various case examples in which affirmative action has been dealt with in the past. While this research does not affect my plan much, being that my plan mostly stems from considering students opinions, it helps me establish more credibility and gain more knowledge on the subject. Even though much of the secondary research contradicts my overall claim, I was able to find some common ground and modify my plan accordingly. My primary research was conducted in the form of surveys. Questions from my primary research that I used towards my findings asked students whether they thought that universities should consider race or gender when reviewing applications. Similarly, for my secondary research findings, I used case examples in which students had sued universities for their affirmative action practices. This research solely considered a single article with much information regarding an academic authors point of view on the subject and numerous case examples in which the constitutionality of affirmative action was dealt with in court. Lessons Learned My research did not only help me construct an appealing proposal it also allowed me to learn more about affirmative action and understand why advocates of affirmative action think the way they do. Initially, I was biased and only seeking to pull my plan through; however, I realized that advocates for affirmative action also have their logical way of reasoning. Understanding affirmative action advocates viewpoints allowed me to figure out a way in which my plan could please both sides of the issue. I learned that if I want enough support for my plan, I must have compromise and mutual agreement with affirmative action advocates.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION REFORM

November 25, 2013, Rebeca Jurado, Student Activist 2210 Glenna Goodacre Blvd. Apt #7010 Lubbock, TX 79401 Dear Students of Texas Tech University, It has come to my attention that universities have been using affirmative action in their admissions policies for many years, and not many people seem to put much thought into the situation. I realized that this is a problem, being that there have been various court cases in which the constitutionality of affirmative action was debated. I analyzed the situation further by conducting primary and secondary research, and found that affirmative action is not only controversial, but a serious problem.

The current main issue with affirmative action in universities is that they use raceconscious admissions procedures in order to consider applicants. Many universities have certain race or gender quotas that must be met in order to promote diversity and combat discrimination. However, in doing this, they essentially discriminate due to the fact that they look at superficial characteristics of applicants in order to determine whether they can be admitted. This can happen when a university has too many people of a certain race; therefore, to meet a quota, they must seek to admit less people of that race and more of a race that has not filled. This is not a fair procedure, and numerous court cases have ruled in favor of students who claimed had been discriminated against by universities. Due to the problematic nature of affirmative action, I propose a plan that will make sure that universities do not discriminate against students. This plan will require universities to remove from applications any questions regarding applicants personal information that is not necessary to keep in contact with them or evaluate their academic skills. This plan will essentially prevent any sort of discrimination, thus it will please advocates on both sides of the issue. My plan will require great support from people and some interest groups in order to make a legislative bill out of it and have Congress pass it. If everything is executed properly, my plan should not take more than a year to complete, and it should only cost about $4,000. Please review my proposal and give me your thoughts on it. I am looking forward to affecting our lives as students in the best way possible! Best Regards, Rebeca Jurado

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Affirmative Action Reform Memo to Instructor . . . Affirmative Action Reform Cover Letter . . . Title Page . . . Table of Contents . . . Affirmative Action and Current Situation . . . Research . . . Research Findings . . . Plan and Benefits . . . Plan Timeline and Costs . . . Conclusion . . . Works Cited . . . Appendix . . .

Page 1 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 6 Page 8 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12

6 AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND CURRENT SITUATION Affirmative action is a process that many public institutions use when considering applicants for various jobs, schools, scholarships, programs, etc., in order to meet certain quotas. Webster online dictionary defines affirmative action as policies that take factors including race, color, religion, sex, or national origin into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group in areas of employment, education, and business." The earliest form of affirmative action began in 1961 in the effort to counter racial discrimination in hiring procedures. This practice later expanded to other public institutions and integrated other criteria such as gender. Affirmative action is also known as positive discrimination and has become a popular practice over recent decades. One of the ideas by which affirmative action functions is that there is still much racism and sexism nowadays; therefore, minority groups such as women, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Black Americans should be given extra support when applying to college. Though affirmative action covers businesses, education and employment, this research will focus on affirmative action in higher education. The following question will guide this research: Should universities and colleges keep using affirmative action in admissions procedures? RESEARCH According to the journal article Affirmative Action's Fate: Are 20 More Years Enough? by Michele S. Moses, there exists a relatively large and slightly increasing degree of underrepresentation at UT Austin relative to their state-level enrollment (1). Moses concentrates on underrepresentation and overrepresentation of minority groups or whites (1). Mosess type of reasoning correlated with the reasoning that supports affirmative action. Based on her heavy focus on overrepresentation and underrepresentation, and her articles implied call for racial equality in universities, it can be said that she believes that there should be racial diversity and a proportional representation of races in universities. This is essentially what affirmative action does in public institutions it seeks to combat racial discrimination by arranging a proportional number of races. According to a survey that I completed at Texas Tech University, one commonly addressed problem with Mosess type of reasoning is that instead of solely focusing on the applicants merit and intelligence, universities also consider superficial characteristics of applicants such as race in order to have some sort of equal number of races. Another problem that respondents addressed is that affirmative action essentially separates students into racial categories, rather than giving the natural social existence of the human race the place that it deserves in universities and society. Even though I received some feedback as to why affirmative action is good, all of the comments pointed to the idea that there must be an equal or representational number of races. This type of thinking can essentially discriminate against certain people in cases where their races quota has been met,

7 and I will provide case examples as proof when I begin explaining the second part of Mosess article. Opinions regarding race in affirmative action range from completely opposing the practice to completely supporting it. One of the open-ended answers claims, there needs to be an even level of different races, and another one stated, my race should not affect where I go to college . . . It is not right. Discrimination is not just against minorities anymore (Jurado 1). There are also people who accept some affirmative action procedures and rejected others by claiming, I think they have to ask about gender because there should be a balance in female to male ratio. I dont think it should matter of your ethnicity. If you have the qualifications to get into that school, why should it matter what race you are? (Jurado 1). Lastly, there are a few people who have no stance on the subject, or have never really given the topic any thought (Jurado 1). However, the majority of respondents do not approve of affirmative action when it comes to race, and the plurality does not approve of it when it comes to gender. The following graph represents peoples opinions regarding certain factors that play into affirmative action:

DO YOU BELIEVE THAT INFORMATION ABOUT THE APPLICANTS GENDER/RACE IS NECESSARY FOR COLLEGE APPLICATIONS?

No Yes Not Sure 0 50

Race Gender

Moses (1) presents various cases in which white people have sued universities for not accepting them based on the claim of racial discrimination. In Hopwood v. Texas, the case was ruled in favor of Cheryl Hopwood who claimed had been discriminated against by the University of Texas Law Schools admissions system (Moses 1). The Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit declared that the conscious-race criteria used to achieve diversity in the admissions process was not justifiable. Another case in which affirmative action produced a negative result is Johnson v. the Board of Regents of the University of Georgia where three white women sued the University of Georgia for having a point-based system that automatically awarded bonus points to non-whites and males without conducting individual reviews of applications (Moses 1). Two similar cases that went to the

8 Supreme Court, Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, - where two white women believed that they would have been accepted into the University of Michigan if it were not for its race-conscious admissions policies, - were ruled in favor of the University of Michigan. The constitutionality of using race as a factor when considering applicants was upheld; yet, the Court emphasized the importance of a holistic review of applications evaluating both quantitative (GPA) and qualitative (awards, etc.) criteria (Moses 1). Although Moses presents various other cases in which affirmative action was upheld and others in which it was struck down, the cases above portray the overall idea behind affirmative action, which is to create a system in which certain races are given less or more preference in admissions processes in order to fill a certain quota. Refer to Figure 1 in the appendix to see a picture of students against affirmative action. RESEARCH FINDINGS Based on the primary and secondary research, it can be inferred that affirmative action is a controversial issue. While it was initially intended to aid unfairly oppressed minorities in the hiring field, the concept has expanded to universities and negatively affected majorities; but many students do not approve of that process. According to my survey results ands case examples, affirmative action has become an issue as its race-conscious essence and procedures uplift some people, while oppressing others. According to my survey results, some people believe that racial discrimination is still prevalent. That opinion is acknowledged, as it is better to separate people into racial categories than to allow discrimination like it was in the past. Given the controversial nature of the issue and the fact that affirmative action might help solve a few problems while causing other similar problems, an alternative method to consider university applicants is urgently needed. PLAN AND BENEFITS I propose a plan where university applicants will be not be subject to such superficial evaluation or superficial categorizing. Being that advocates on one side support affirmative action because they want to prevent discrimination, and advocates on the other side negate affirmative action because they believe that it only makes discrimination worse, we must enact a plan that will make sure that applicants are not judged based on superficial characteristics, but rather on merit. Essentially, my plan combats discrimination. My plan is to require universities to remove questions on applications that pertain to the name, race/ethnicity, age, gender, national origin or religion of applicants. Applicants will receive a multiple-digit number that will help them track their application and be tracked by the university. They will not be required to disclose any personal information that is not needed to evaluate applicants academic eligibility to the university. The only personal information that applicants should disclose is information needed to stay in contact with them. Questions

9 regarding the demographics of the university will be allowed after applicants have been accepted. This plan will essentially prevent any sort of discrimination, and it will promote fairness among all applicants. The idea behind underrepresentation and overrepresentation should not apply here, as applicants will be solely judged on merit. In the case that a certain race outnumbers another race drastically, claims of racial discrimination will not apply given that the admissions processes are never given knowledge nor hints that may reveal the applicants race. This plan will not only effectively prevent court cases of racial discrimination, but also wholly end any sort of discrimination that could be going on in universities. PLAN TIMELINE AND COSTS In order to put my plan to practice, it must first receive much support among big populations of students; a clear majority would be appropriate. After gathering the support, it should be documented in the form of a petition, a formal letter or another proposal. This final document should effectively describe the general student populations need and strong support of the plan. It should also be free of any errors such as vagueness, lack of detail, etc. After the formal document has been finalized, it should be introduced to the media in order to gain a public reputation and perhaps support from interest groups. These first few steps in the process may take about 5 months in order to gather widespread support. The cost may vary as unexpected situations may arise; however, I estimate that it will cost about $4,000 $5,000, as I will have to compensate those helping me gather support, and perhaps buy some promotional ads. After the bill has gained the publics attention we can begin to pressure our Texas Senators Ted Cruz or John Cornyn to create a bill for the plan and present it to Congress. This is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks, as making bills and having them approved by Congress is very time-consuming, expensive and difficult. However, with heavy support from students and interest groups, the task should not be extremely overwhelming. This final process may take months, even years since getting the attention of a senator can be a tough task, and presenting a bill to congress can take months or years being that the Texas Legislature meets on oddnumbered years and only for 140 days. The senator may have other bills that are more important to him, so he may decide to hold it off until the next legislative session. We hope to catch the eye of an interest group who will lobby a Texas senator, and that will most likely be through monetary briberies. Unfortunately, the world revolves around money; and such noble, but society-changing reforms often require an extra push. Depending on how the senator perceives and roots for our plan will determine how costly it may be. The cost for this second part of the process may range from a few hundred dollars to cover traveling fees, food, etc., to hundreds of thousands of dollars to convince the senator. Again, such an immense cost will have to come from widespread support and interest groups. The plan can only be successfully executed if we receive much support from student populations, the general public and possibly a few interest groups. The plan should also be highly appealing to the senator so that he will be willing to put

10 himself out there for it. In the best case scenario, the plan will quickly receive widespread student and interest group support within a few months; then, a senator will look at the plan within a month and present it in the next legislative session where a majority of Congress will find the plan effective. The whole process could be completed with a $4,000 budget and within about a year. Conclusion Though easily overlooked, the problem with affirmative action has become prominent in society. Many people advocate for a proportional number of races in universities, while others believe that thinking about student populations in racial terms is inherently discrimination. It is clear that we cannot completely overcome discrimination if we continue to regard it as a factor that must be looked at in admissions processes. My plan effectively overcomes any type of discrimination whether it has to do with gender, national origin, race, etc. My plan will encourage holistic and ethical reviews of applications, and it will not require much money or time if effectively carried out at the state level. I hope that you found my proposals success plausible, and thank you for the consideration.

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Works Cited Eric. Abolish Affirmative Action in University Admissions. 2001. Magazine Americana. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. Jurado, Rebeca. Affirmative Action Survey. Survey. Survey Money. 12 Nov. 2013. Moses, Michele S., John T. Yun, and Patricia Marin. "Affirmative Action's Fate: Are 20 More Years Enough?" Education Policy Analysis Archives 17.17 (2009): wonderlandvisionary. Under our skin were all the same. DeviontArt. 2013. Web. Nov. 2013

12 Appendix Figure 1: The following is a picture of sudents protesting against affirmative action.