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Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War over College Affirmative Action
What is the real story behind the fight over affirmative action in college admissions? Veteran journalist Peter Schmidt reveals truths that will outrage readers and forever transform the debate. His book exposes the hidden agendas of all sides, revealing * The conservative opposition to affirmative action preaches equality in college admissions, yet guts programs that help poor kids get in the running. * The higher education establishment feeds lies to the federal courts and the public about the benefits of affirmative action, and attempts to squelch any talk about how selective colleges' favoritism toward the privileged undermines professed commitments to diversity. * Affirmative action has evolved from a means of bringing about social justice into a tool colleges cynically use to sell themselves and attract corporate support. * Lower and middle class students of all races are being lost in the affirmative action struggle. The underlying premise is that affirmative action is a band aid used to hide a very deep wound that neither side of the debate has much interest in treating any time soon. The real winners in the war over college affirmative action are rich white kids, whose spot on the inside track is secure no matter which side comes out on top. The real losers are African- American, Hispanic, and Asian-American kids, who continue to have the deck stacked against them, and those worthy white kids who lack cash and connections and find their futures sacrificed by colleges for "diversity" and the almighty dollar. Unafraid to shine a harsh light on schools such as Harvard, the University of Michigan, Princeton, and the University of California, this is a startling and brave book that will inspire a national dialogue on class, race, and education.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published August 7, 2007
37 people want to read
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November 19, 2012
he short:
*Very dry: The beginning and the end were tough to stay awake during. The middle had some spots that seemed to be written differently enough to keep me awake. Or maybe I just had more sleep those days.
*Full of useful information: If you’re curious about the state of affirmative action in the last 15 years or so, not so much if you’re interested in what you would expect to be the thesis (the title), more in the next point:
*Fails to effectively wrap up the thesis. Sure, we astute readers can tell from reading the whole thing that the net effect is that rich kids & legacies still get the same, if better preference treatment as minorities under AA, and that for someone who complains about losing a spot in college to an AA minority – odds are at least as good that they lost it to a legacy or wealthy applicant. But, the closing chapters don’t really effectively wrap that up in any kind of way, they just wax on about the need for AA. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily disagree, I just think that the SPECIFICS of the idea of wealthy kids supplanting the middle class in colleges really wasn’t examined in enough detail. He presented some bits throughout to back this up, but I never felt like it was …hmm, enunciated (?) correctly.
Anyway, chock full of useful info if you’re into this kind of thing, and lots of references to look up the original studies statistics are from.
I’ll sum up some of the meat for the folks at home:
*Businesses are a lot bigger supporters for AA than you would expect. Hardline gimme the money giant conservative voting corporations. AA may have been cancelled for good if not for their (and the military’s – which is an interesting digression about the racial makeup of our troops that I’ll avoid because I’m not that read up on it) support in the last Supreme Court challenge.
*Colleges don’t want AA to be challenged/removed, because then it would be that much easier for people to get at/challenge their legacy programs, which they don’t want to get rid of at least partially because that’s a large part of how they are funded. Which brings up several interesting questions about the role of government in higher education.
*Very dry: The beginning and the end were tough to stay awake during. The middle had some spots that seemed to be written differently enough to keep me awake. Or maybe I just had more sleep those days.
*Full of useful information: If you’re curious about the state of affirmative action in the last 15 years or so, not so much if you’re interested in what you would expect to be the thesis (the title), more in the next point:
*Fails to effectively wrap up the thesis. Sure, we astute readers can tell from reading the whole thing that the net effect is that rich kids & legacies still get the same, if better preference treatment as minorities under AA, and that for someone who complains about losing a spot in college to an AA minority – odds are at least as good that they lost it to a legacy or wealthy applicant. But, the closing chapters don’t really effectively wrap that up in any kind of way, they just wax on about the need for AA. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily disagree, I just think that the SPECIFICS of the idea of wealthy kids supplanting the middle class in colleges really wasn’t examined in enough detail. He presented some bits throughout to back this up, but I never felt like it was …hmm, enunciated (?) correctly.
Anyway, chock full of useful info if you’re into this kind of thing, and lots of references to look up the original studies statistics are from.
I’ll sum up some of the meat for the folks at home:
*Businesses are a lot bigger supporters for AA than you would expect. Hardline gimme the money giant conservative voting corporations. AA may have been cancelled for good if not for their (and the military’s – which is an interesting digression about the racial makeup of our troops that I’ll avoid because I’m not that read up on it) support in the last Supreme Court challenge.
*Colleges don’t want AA to be challenged/removed, because then it would be that much easier for people to get at/challenge their legacy programs, which they don’t want to get rid of at least partially because that’s a large part of how they are funded. Which brings up several interesting questions about the role of government in higher education.
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