Where are the inequalities in the admissions requirements if they are applied the same to everyone?
The argument is not that there are inequalities in the admissions requirements – the argument is that inequalities exist in terms of the educational background afforded to minorities. As a result, applying the same admissions requirements to everyone – and thus implicitly assuming that everyone is coming from a level playing field – is actually
unfair, not fair.
Now, as you go on to note, these issues aren’t always race specific, but in practice, they frequently are race specific, to the point that minorities, in general, don’t have the same opportunities that whites do, in general. Obviously, that’s not going to apply to every case, but it applies to
so many cases that we can say we want social policy to address it.
Equally obviously, minorities, in general, don’t have the same opportunities that whites do not because they’re “lazy” or because they don’t “work hard,” which is the typical racist rhetoric, but because of a very long and complicated history of social and political oppression.
It’s important to note that this is not a sob story, as some posters have callously attempted to pass it off as. It’s not a “Ah, woe is me! Boo hoo, boo hoo! Won’t someone please help me!” story – it’s an observation about a serious problem that’s affecting a portion of the population, and it’s a problem that’s split more or less along racial lines.
One policy solution is that college admissions should
take into account these discrepencies of opportunity when evaluating applications. Is this going to result in some cases where a poor white kid gets the short end of the stick while a middle class black kid gets a big advantage? Sure. There are always going to be a handful of situations like that and abuses and other things that people generally don’t like. But
overall – and this is, after all, a big picture policy – overall, it will make the tremendous unfairness of the system that currently exists a little, teensy bit more fair.
And yes, maybe that means that some upper-middle class white brat is going to get wait-listed from his top choice and have to go to his second or third. Oh, the horror.
Play me the world’s smallest violin. I’ve got zero sympathy for people who whine about their enormous privileges being slightly curtailed so that the system, overall, can be made more fair. If you’d like to label that “discrimination” and try to argue that it’s “hypocritical” or a “paradox,” you’re free to play word games all you like, but it’s not going to make a bit of difference to people who actually understand the issues.