Blog Post #2 Affirmative Action

Last week on Monday  I had my first DIG group meeting. Julian went over some methods to improve our writing skills. We each got a package that includes many writing techniques that will be useful for me when I have to write an essay. Last class session was particularly interesting because everyone in class participated in a powerful activity outside. We all started out in a line linked by our pinkies and we had to step forward or backwards depending if the statement Jamie read applied to us. I believe I was more shocked than I should have been when I saw how far apart we all ended up. I had bittersweet feelings about the results. At first I was upset to see how far apart we all were and how unfair it is for those of us who ended up in the back. Those who were more privileged have had a huge advantage in their educational journey than those who were less privileged. Nevertheless, I felt proud of myself and all my classmates for overcoming any obstacles they encountered in their lives and now we are all CSUCI students. We are all one step closer to achieving our goals. In class we also discussed how corrupted our k-12 education system is. I was surprised to learn that in many ways students are still segregated. I find it frustrating that the K-12 education system has not been modified to work for the benefit for all students’ education and society here in the United States. Meanwhile other countries have taken matters into their own hands improving their K-12 education system. They have seen significant results in children learning and also in society. The U.S. government is mostly to blame for the corrupt system but society is partly to blame for letting this cycle continue.
Affirmative action was established after the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. According to the article, The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action, affirmative action policies were the solution to inequalities in higher education. Universities encouraged minority students to apply for college, offered financial assistance for students and even provided support program for students to ensure academic success. Affirmative action is controversial in the United States because race is a huge factor in the college admission process. Affirmative action had good intentions to increase diversity in college and universities to obtain educational benefits from having an ethnically diverse student body. Since the States banned affirmative action policies then the government should generate new policies that would aid minorities to reach academic success. A year later after California passed Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action in California, African American and Latinos freshmen enrollments dropped significantly. I don’t understand how leaders of this country can see the rates of minorities in higher education decreasing drastically and still believe that the application system will be fair to every applicant. Obviously this whole issue leads back to the corrupted K-12 education system and the minor assistance the federal government has on school funding. If African Americans and Latinos have assistance for academic success from the very beginning then there wouldn’t be a problem with the college application system. As a first generation Latina college student I know that such programs could have saved me a great deal of concerns and anguish I encountered in my educational journey.