Michigan's Proposal 2 - Vote YES

Proposal 2 reads:

A PROPOSAL TO AMEND THE STATE CONSTITUTION TO BAN
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PROGRAMS THAT GIVE PREFERENTIAL
TREATMENT TO GROUPS OR INDIVIDUALS BASED ON THEIR RACE,
GENDER, COLOR, ETHNICITY OR NATIONAL ORIGIN FOR PUBLIC
EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION OR CONTRACTING PURPOSES
The proposed constitutional amendment would:
• Ban public institutions from using affirmative action programs that give
preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender,
color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or
contracting purposes. Public institutions affected by the proposal include state
government, local governments, public colleges and universities, community
colleges and school districts.
• Prohibit public institutions from discriminating against groups or individuals
due to their gender, ethnicity, race, color or national origin. (A separate
provision of the state constitution already prohibits discrimination on the basis
of race, color or national origin.)

A YES vote is in order here. Ending affirmative action will not "turn back the clock" on gains made by women and minorities, it will simply ensure that all applicants for Government contracts, jobs and educational spaces will be given equal consideration regardless of race.

An interesting article by Roger Clegg in the Detroit Free Press points out the current inequity under the affirmative action system currently in place.

Admissions data recently obtained from the University of Michigan show that race and ethnicity play a huge role in determining who gets in.

In last year's entering class, a Michigan native with neither parent a U-M alum, a cumulative SAT of 1240 and a 3.2 high school grade-point average had a 9-out-of-10 chance to be admitted as an undergraduate to the University of Michigan -- if the applicant was black or Hispanic.

For whites or Asians, the chances were 1-in-10.

Suppose you were applying to U-M's law school. If you had an LSAT of 162 and an undergraduate GPA a little over 3.5, then you would have a 7 out of 10 chance of admission -- if you were black. But if you were Hispanic, your chance was 3 out of 10, and for whites or Asians, still 1 out of 10.

Medical school at U-M? Well, with an MCAT cumulative score of 41 and an undergraduate science GPA of 3.6, you'd have a 74% chance of admission if you were black. If you were Hispanic, 43%, and for whites or Asians, you guessed it, 1 out of 10.

An interesting comparison is pointed out regarding the chance at admission for the currentl non-favored groups (whites, asians, Jews) based on the data:

The studies also tell the story using the statistical device of odds ratios. To put things in perspective, the odds ratio for a nonsmoker versus a smoker dying from lung cancer is 14 to 1. The chance of a white versus a black getting into U-M's law school is 18 to 1; for med school, it's 21 to 1; for undergraduate admission, it's either 63 to 1 (if you take the ACT) or 70 to 1 (if you take the SAT), the research shows.

Or look at it this way: In the four years analyzed by the studies, there were 8,091 Hispanics, Asians and whites whose undergraduate applications were rejected even though they had higher SAT/ACT scores and high school GPAs than the median black applicant who was admitted. For the law school, the number (based on undergraduate grades and LSAT) was 4,415; for the medical school (undergraduate science GPA and MCAT), the figure was 11,647, or nearly 3,000 students each year. (The four-year total of rejected African Americans was much smaller, especially for the professional schools: 1,539 undergrad, 31 law, and 215 medical.)

Simply amazing, and that dats is from only one school and does not tell us about all the contracts that have been given out preferentially or the admissions data at other schools.

Proposal 2 should be passed to end this clear discrimination and unfairness and have the government of Michigan treat people equally, as it should, without discriminating based upon race or ethnicity.

Vote YES on Proposal 2