Arguing Affirmative Action; What's the Purpose?

Tarponious commented on Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? on 09.30.11
So the dialogue Wednesday night was robust and carried the audience through many points of view that were often centered w/ objectivity yet some PsOV became diluted with emotion. Bottom line via discrimination Affirmative Action seeks to avail equal opportunity to all people. Unfortunately, Affirmative Action has been hijacked by the political agenda and reduced to the simplistic ideal that its whites vs all other races when it comes to competing for opportunity in the world. The political agenda seeks to stir up emotion through vehicles such as Affirmative Action and gain power by doing so. Fortunately, Sandels experience as a professor prevents the conversation from reducing itself to serving a certain political agenda. The potential for Sandels course to be seen as serving an agenda is real however since Sandels real and hypothetical subjects are correlated to a degree of affluence. Unfortunately, affluence has become synonymous with white people and almost further concentrates down to mean white males. This popular belief is unfair since affluence can be found in and/or acquired by all races in the United States. The take away last night suggested that Affirmative Action can be fair. Fairness could be measured via the exponential increase Ín opportunities Affirmative Action bestows upon its beneficiaries. I was surprised that the discussion failed to address this idea of exponential benefit. All of those who contributed in the discussion seemed to agree that Affirmative Action can be fair but disagreed on whether using race as a criteria for receiving its favor is fair. Sandels forum displayed the need to level an individuals access to opportunity. Affluence vs. nonaffluence is a rational regulator of Affirmative Action benefits because if an individual is born into an affluent family and raised in and excels w/in the institutions of affluent areas then the exponential affect on this persons access to future opportunity from an acceptance to a particular university may be less when contrasted with a person who excelled in a nonaffluent upbringing and at a standard inferior to the candidate with the affluent up bringing. In short, the candidate who comes from affluence has access to more opportunity simply by the social, and cultural circles that overlap in the affluent lifestyle. The social and cultural circles binding nonaffluent individuals are void many factors capable of exploiting intellectual excellence. Intellectual excellence is a gate keeper of sorts for many opportunities in our country. The positive BENEFIT that comes with a degree from a particular university is greater for the nonaffluent individual and will exponentially change their access to opportunities. Therefore, the concept of Affirmative Action needs to surround itself w/ what the exponential benefit to the individual will be and should be blind to race. Race diminishes fairness as it relates to Affirmative Action. I think Sandel exploits this point when he asks his students to consider two individuals, one white, one black but come from the same affluent background his challenge to them was to consider the fairness of one having an advantage over the other relative to being accepted to a University as a result of Affirmative Action. This would be unfair because the exponential benefit of the education the individuals would receive would be similar. Sent via BlackBerry by ATT