comment: >
  
  
  simply accept it as the price of being forgiven for being innately (based upon their race) evil. i
  
  This is not, and never has been the point of affirmative action or its intention. Affirmative action policies are an attempt to "right the ship" due to the extended history of exclusion inflicted upon certain demographics until recent history. To give an example of how recent, I'm in my 30s and I'm the first generation in my direct line to NOT be born under discriminatory law. The entire previous generation of my family was born under Jim Crow law.
context: The best argument opposing affirmative action is what researchers refer to as ‘mismatch.’ Research on the phenomena is abundant and can be fairly harmful to students of whom affirmative action is supposed to benefit. >
  
  OP I’m glad you mentioned point two. It’s amazing how many people think race or gender are the biggest factors for success. But this has been well studied and financial status of the home you came from is by far the biggest determinant. 
  So in US, a poor white male has much less opportunity than middle class black women.
  (On average of course) >
  
  I've actually read the opposite. That a middle class black woman has less economic mobility than a poor white male. Can you point me to some of the studies? Also what are they measuring (economic mobility, happiness, wealth, admissions)? >
  
  
  That a middle class black woman has less economic mobility than a poor white male.
  
  perhaps that is true, but that is not an accurate measure of advantage.
  Let's say that poor white males are able to become middle-class 10% of the time, and middle-class black women are able to become upper-class 5% of the time. Who has more advantage at the end of the day? Because 90% of the poor white males stay poor white males.
  And at the end of the day, going from middle class to upper class may just be harder than lower class to middle class. >
  
  The problem here is that you are simply assuming that the default method of admitting students is based on scores, and therefore any deviation from that needs to be justified. However, it's not at all obvious why admission based on scores should be the default. In other parts of our society, organizations don't distribute services based on who "deserves" them the most or based on who would make best use of the services (2 reasonable justifications for the score-based admission). Instead, even public services tend to distribute service based on willingness to pay, need, first come first served, the seller's subjective preferences, or some combination of all the above.
  Now I'm not trying to say that pure score-based admission would be a terrible approach to college admissions - there are obviously far worse options - but the fact that affirmative action-based approaches result in different demographic distributions among accepted students than the score-based approach doesn't necessarily mean that the affirmative action-based approach is discriminatory. I think there's an argument to be made that since it results in a distribution more similar to that of the general population in the country, it's actually less racially discriminatory on the whole. >
  
  
  based on who "deserves" them the most or based on who would make best use of the services
  
  from my perspective, those are often the same. the only time they are not the same is when people who don't make the best use of the services or products pay for services or products in voluntary transactions.
  
  doesn't necessarily mean that the affirmative action-based approach is discriminatory.
  
  yeah, it does. if the tables were reversed there would be a common consensus that the colleges or the system was clearly discriminatory in a negative way. in fact, there seems to be a clear consensus now that affirmative action is necessarily causing discrimination from the perspective of all demographics but most white people and asian people (except those who were clearly negatively affected) simply accept it as the price of being forgiven for being innately (based upon their race) evil. it is a very sad thing when the system is designed to punish you based on your family's genetics.