Affirmative Action Doesn’t Work

Introduction I. As once stated by John Kasich, â€Å"Affirmative action has a negative effect on our society when it means counting us like so many beans and dividing us into separate piles. † II. My partner and I stand against the resolution which states: â€Å"Resolved: Affirmative action to promote equal opportunity in the United States is justified. † III. We will show you that Affirmative action to promote opportunity in the United States is justified because Affirmative Action Doesn’t Work, Affirmative Action Stigmatizes Beneficiaries, Affirmative Action is not needed. Body I. Affirmative Action Doesn’t Work A. Affirmative action creates issues in college. Sander, Richard H. â€Å"Affirmative Action Hurts Those It's Supposed to Help. † Triblivenews. com. 2 Jan. 2005. Web. 02 Mar. 2010. . According to Richard Sander, (law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles) â€Å"Traditionally, critics of affirmative action have focused either on its unfairness to those groups that don't receive preferences (usually whites and Asians) or on the inherent conflict between racial preferences and the legal ideal of colorblindness. Over the last few years, however, a new and potentially even more damaging line of inquiry has emerged — the idea that racial preferences may materially harm the very people they intended to benefit†¦ My research over the last two years, using recent data that track more than 30,000 law students and lawyers, has documented even more serious and pervasive mismatch effects in legal education. Elite law schools offer very substantial racial preferences for blacks, Hispanics and American Indians in order to create student bodies that are as racially diverse as their applicant pools. Because these elite schools admit the black students that second-tier law schools would normally admit, second-tier schools, to keep up their minority numbers, also offer big racial preferences. The result is a cascade effect down the law school hierarchy, leaving 80 percent to 90 percent of black students at significantly more selective schools than they would get into strictly on their academic credentials. † B. II. Affirmative Action Stigmatizes Beneficiaries. A. B. Affirmative Action programs stigmatize minorities – studies prove Michelle Wu, senior writer, April 2, 2009, â€Å"Affirmative Action stigmatizes minority students,† Daily Princetonian, http://www. dailyprincetonian. om/2009/04/02/23248/ According to Michelle Wu, senior writer â€Å"Affirmative action may increase academic pressure and stigmatize minority students, according to a study conducted by sociology professor Douglas Massey GS ’78, â€Å"If white students believe that many of their black peers would not be at a college were it not for affirmative action and, more important, if black students perceive whites to believe that, then affirmation action may indeed undermine mino rity-group members’ academic performance by heightening the social stigma they already experience because of race or ethnicity,† Massey and his three collaborators wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education on March 27. The researchers also presented another detriment of the controversial policy: â€Å"that affirmative action exacerbates the psychological burdens that minority students must carry on campuses. † III. Affirmative Action is not a need A. B. Obama proves affirmative action is no longer necessary Joseph Williams and Matt Negrin, March 18, 2008, â€Å"Affirmative Action foes point to Obama,† Boston Globe, http://www. boston. om/news/nation/articles/2008/03/18/affirmative_action_foes_point_to_obama/ According to Joseph Williams and Matt Negrin, March 18, 2008, staff writers of Boston Globe â€Å"Leading opponents of affirmative action are increasingly seizing on Illinois Senator Barack Obama's historic run for the presidency as proof that race-b ased remedies for past discrimination are no longer necessary. Influential Republicans and a growing number of policy specialists at conservative organizations, including the Goldwater Institute, Project 21, and the Manhattan Institute, are citing the fact that large numbers of white voters are supporting Obama, who leads in the race for Democratic delegates, as evidence that affirmative action has run its course. Ward Connelly, a black conservative who is leading a national effort to ban racial preferences, vowed to use Obama's