Contemporary Controversies #3

http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N4/briscoe.html

Columnist Brandon Briscoe is arguing against MIT's policy of trying to "balance excellence with diversity," saying that they are headed the wrong way with affirmative action. He continues to back up his claim by mentioning how more women have a chance of getting hired at MIT, as well as more women and students from underrepresented racial backgrounds are having more chances of getting admitted into the school. He believes that MIT's intentional reservation of spots and acceptances aren't fair,especially in the case of job offerings they give to professors and students. Considering that he himself is a white male, he believes that such affirmative action is discriminating and way over the line of trying to maintain a diverse campus and goes to such an extent to question how such ways even help the core of the school's mission. Overall, he doesn't believe that MIT should put so much emphasis and stress about filling in missing slots of people, but instead should focus on what's really important through the ability of the students in order to maintain its higher status as an institution. Being a junior in high school, college has been a big issue on my mind this year and searching colleges has been something very relevant to me. However, being an Asian-American, although it may not always be the case, for a majority of the colleges I've searched and through conversations with my friends, it's evident that it's significantly harder for us to get accepted to certain schools, which is why this controversy directly affects me.