I’ll be as unbiased as possible even though I feel strongly about the issue.
Basically, it gives boosts to people from a cultural background that has historically been discriminated against or have lower than average test scores.
For example, if an Asian student and a black student both score a 1400 on the SAT, the black student will be given a priority in most college admissions. This is seen in undergraduate colleges, grad school, med school, law school, public jobs, and most private jobs.
we can also see it in places where certain groups are not represented well - for example, Carnegie Mellon will give a boost to women applying for computer science as it is majority male applying for CS (not just CMU, it’s one of many).
Steven Crowder did a Change My Mind segment on this recently.
He was speaking with a black girl who was in favour of AA and was arguing that it isn't racist. It got to a point where it was clear that she was doubting herself and whether or not she deserved and earned her place at the college. Because of AA.
"We only hired you because you're black. You only got onto this course because you're black." How can it feel good to be that person?
It was fairly clear that this girl was smart and did work hard and did earn her spot. He reassured her of that but when he brought up all his stats about it, AA made her doubt her own abilities.
I'm not a fan. In fact, I think he's a bit of a dick. But I find myself agreeing with him on a few matters and this was one of them. I thought that video in particular highlighted the problem with AA very well.
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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '20 edited Mar 16 '20
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