I would like to start off with a joke that is an analogy to affirmative action. The joke starts off with a rich guy, an Asian and a black guy that walk into a bar; in the middle of the bar there's a table with 11 pints of beer. The rich guy takes ten pints of beer, he then turns to the Asian guy and says: "Watch out, the black guy wants your drink!” This is what the current debate about affirmative action looks like. Affirmative action is a system that needs revisions in order to make it fairer for all applicants by placing a higher emphasis on socioeconomic factors than race alone. But by addressing affirmative action, we also need to acknowledge that legacy status applicants have an unfair advantage over all other applicants. Today I will be discussing the importance of affirmative action, its flaws, how we can make it into a better system, and exploring the legacy status.

         

          Affirmative action is such a controversial topic that this past year alone it made a lot of headlines, thanks to the college admission scandal. In this speech, I’ll be acknowledging all the critiques and the flaws of affirmative action. No system is perfect, but we should strive for the best anyways. I firmly believe in affirmative action and the huge role it has played in making campuses and workplaces more diverse. According to Slater , inequality is a huge problem, and Latinos and African-Americans are more likely to grow up in poverty concentrated areas than white Americans.

         

          Due to our prejudice-ridden history, minorities are still facing the repercussions to this day, specifically the black community. Andrew Lam is a Yale alumni, and he states, “There are economically disadvantaged students from Laotian, Cambodian and Hmong communities. There are Pakistani and South Asian students whose parents scrape by working 100-hour weeks. Affirmative action has the potential to hurt these individuals most of all.” And with this quote, I couldn't agree more. Since I am Pakistani, whenever I am filling out documents, I always have to mark off as being Asian. If someone were to assume I had a lot of privileges growing up because I was Asian, it couldn’t be further from the truth. A lot of people critique affirmative action for existing because it places an emphasis on minorities, yet they do not realize that not everyone has the same amount of resources. And so, if it weren’t for race-based affirmative action, how can we achieve a diverse student body while allowing other minorities an equal chance? According to the NY Times , We can look at our own state, California, which has banned the use of affirmative action. Instead, what we have is a very similar system, but it also takes into socioeconomic factors into account. It takes into account a person’s character and their struggles. I’m sure that when you guys applied for UC colleges you had to fill out personal statements, and that is a big determinant if you get accepted or not. The 2012 Century Foundation report even concluded that colleges who utilized such a system were able to maintain or even increase the Latino and Black American population. This goes to show that race alone cannot show a person’s potential. Instead of banning the idea of affirmative action altogether, we should instead strive to create a system that places an emphasis on a well-rounded person while acknowledging their past and their accomplishments.

         

          But at the end of the day, whether you are Latino, Asian, or Black, you are still a minority. We all may be different, but we all have faced discrimination one way or another. So what are the possible solutions? For one, we can adopt a system like California, but also instead of discussing affirmative action, we should instead shift our focus into how the wealthy are able to buy their way into any college. For example, legacy status can be given to a student if their parents were alumni. At Princeton University , the statistics state that they admitted 14.5% for the class of 2020 for the legacy admission. That is 190 students out of 1,312 students. And that’s not just Princeton. Every Ivy League college and other prestigious colleges place a certain emphasis on legacy applicants, and the widespread favoring of legacies has greatly reduced acceptance rates for Black, Latino, and Asian-American applicants because the overwhelming majority of legacy students are white. According to a 2008 study done by Reardon , Duke's legacies are more likely to be white, Protestant, American citizens, and private high-school graduates than the overall student body. Not to mention they are extremely rich as well. The Economist states that Legacy admissions are how private universities are able to secure big donations each year, yet no one bats an eye. While we are out here fighting about which minority gets to go to college, the wealthy are able to relax and buy their way into universities. It’s absurd that 190 students at Princeton got to go because of their privilege yet there were
probably 190 other applicants who were more deserving that did not get the chance.

         

          In a perfect world, we would not need to look at race. We would not need to look at socioeconomic status because everyone would be equal, the only determinants would be grades and extracurriculars. Yet, we live very far from that world. So for now, what we need to do is acknowledge that affirmative action has flaws that need to be addressed, but also realize that legacy applicants are not talked about enough. I had no idea prior to this speech that the admittance rate was that high. By being aware and getting the conversation started will be the only way we can get closer to a more equal and educated world. Thank you.