Educational system in the United States has one of the best offering universities and colleges in the world. It has drawn great attention to scholars, academic institutions, and students because of the high quality education and outstanding professors.
There are many funding agencies that support the educational system in the US but most of the fund comes from the federal, state, and local. Literacy rate is at 97% for both men and women.However, a decline in enrollment from primary to post-secondary was a little bit alarming, the statistics subside from 37.9 million – primary, 16.4 million – secondary, to 17.5 million post-secondary.
Post secondary includes graduate school and primary education consists of kindergarten (Wikipedia, 2007).One contemporary educational issue is the racial preferences in college admissions. It created a huge clamor among people of different race. The University of Michigan is one special case where lawsuit against affirmative action was put into court.
Years of legal battle was over in 2003 when the Supreme Court has made a decision to endorse the use of racial preferences in college admissions but it didn’t provide exact information on how it will work. But to Jennifer Gratz, an aspiring law student then in the University of Michigan but her application was denied and eventually filed a case against the university, it was a depressing judgment made by the Supreme Court.The University of Michigan Law School admission policy is promoting affirmative action and race-based admission is somewhat unconstitutional according to Federal District Court Judge Bernard Friedman (Kay & Martin, 2001).He further argued that promoting racial diversity in the student organization is not a convincing state interest and violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. On the other hand, another Federal Court District Judge Patrick Duggan supported the validity of affirmative action policy for college admissions (Kay & Martin, 2001).Both Law School and undergraduate admission in the University of Michigan is using race as a decisive factor in entering the university.
The issue has generated more uproar when a new group of justices decided to require racial preferences in determining admissions, this time in elementary and high school placements (Brush, 2006).The issue is a serious and contentious matter to discuss further on the part of the Supreme Court. It has a great impact on the youth and citizens in terms of legal implications and quality education.Racial preference in college admission should not be practiced in the University of Michigan but also to other universities and schools because it is not the race per se that will measure the high quality education of the youth but the considerable and significant budget for education in all levels.
Even whites who belong to the lower class should not be denied of admission to any schools and universities, minorities should not be defined solely on ethnic groups but should also consider the oppressed people of different race whose economic, social and political means is denied.Every human being should be educated and respected not according to their color or status but as part of a society who can give meaningful contribution to the development of the modern society.Affirmative action in some way fails to uphold the rights of the lower class, though it has a positive impact on blacks but the question is who benefits most in the black community, is it the member of the vast majority of the working class or the big businessmen, elite professionals, and corporate leaders?Affirmative action should be studied and debated further to ensure the admission policy in colleges and also the employment opportunities in companies. But then it is important to consider that discussions and debate is well-represented from the marginalized sectors of the society to ensure genuine equality.
Abstract The objective of this paper is to discuss and defend the pros and cons of racial preference and affirmative action in college education. Firstly, the paper stated the situation of education in primary, secondary and post-secondary.We discussed one special case on the lawsuit against the University of Michigan regarding the affirmative action in choosing college students entering the university. Results from the Supreme Court decision favoring the university has drawn great clamor and attention to most scholars and citizens because it won’t bring a positive effect in the future years to come.This paper concludes that affirmative action and racial preference should not be the sole reason of measuring an aspiring student to enter into a university. Education should served the lower class – whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanic, Arabic and any different race and respond to the needs by allocating significant budget on education in all levels.
Further discussion and debate in studying affirmative action should be enhanced and well-represented from the marginalized sectors of the society.References:Brush, S. (2006). Why Race And Education Are Still Up In The Air [Electronic Version].
Retrieved May 23, 2007 from http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060619/19race.htm.Kay, J.
, & Martin, P. (2001). Affirmative action and the right to education: a socialist response [Electronic Version]. Retrieved May 23, 2007 from http://www.
wsws.org/articles/2001/may2001/aa1-m03.shtml.Wikipedia.
(2007). Education in the United States [Electronic Version]. Retrieved May 23, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States.
