I've been discriminated against at work. Help?

[EscapePlan9]

[Danhdan]

[EscapePlan9]

[Juskimo]

[Bosox1]

Remember, I said Michigan "USED to" do that. I think they have since fixed that problem. I didn't go there personally but my cousin did.

EP9, I don't beleive it is possible to show "proof" that a less qualified candidate has been chosen becasue of afrimative action. To my knowledge, those studies don't exist. There is just a lot of anecdotal evidence. For instance, if you were an HR person and your employer told you to hire a minority if possible for a job opening, and someone was somehow able to prove you took a less qualified black applicant over a more qualified white one, you could easily find a dozen reasons why you didn't think the white guy was "right for the company". I've always sort of felt there was a lot of wink wink, nudge nudge when it came to this if you know what I mean.

Affirmative action definitely was a big help for a while. I live just outside of Boston and there is unfortunately still a bit of racism in certain neighborhoods. I think a lot of people are better off because of AA. However, I think it has outlived it's usefulness. Things seem pretty equal now for the most part. Maybe I'm just lucky that most people I know and employers I've had don't give a damn what color you are as long as you are reliable and get things done.

[excession]

What is interesting about affirmative action here is the UK is that we still mainly have a class based education system (in fact thanks to the soclialists abolishing state grammars it's more segregated class wise at secondary level than ever before).

The middle class kids either go to private schools or go to the good state schools (good because they take their intake from richer more middle class areas). The poorer pupils (unless they happen to live in a middle class area) end up with what are basically worse schools ('worse' in peer group terms, not necessarily in funding or staff dedication of course though they may well suffer in those areas too).
These pupils get worse A levels. The ones spoon-fed exam technique at the private schools get better A levels.

A levels are the holy grail of middle class parents as they govern university admissions to the effective exclusion of anything else.

What is no real suprise is that recent studies have shown that a pupils from a local state school outperform private schools pupils in terms of actual degree outcomes against the expected degree outomes (estimated from the A level results).

For example a pupil with C's from a local state school may be more likely to get a 2.1 degree than a pupil with B's from a private one.

The corollary of this is that university admissions tutors should positively disciminate in favour of local state school pupils by inflating their actual A level results (or in fact, as the Universities make an offer conditional on grades, by lowering their admissions criteria for such pupils) if they want to maximise their own universities degree outcomes.

It would be demonstrably unfair to be 'school-blind' when considering applications and would lead to an overall worse body of graduates.

I suspect much the same argument could apply in favour of positive discrimination on racial grounds in the US. The question isn't really 'should we adjust' but 'how and by how much should we adjust' as usual the devil is in the detail.

If you underadjust or overadjust you end up with less comptetent graduates than you should have (and in fields like medicine that isn't just unfair it's dangerous)

[EscapePlan9]

I strongly disagree that things are "equal for the most part" now. Women and minorities are still paid significantly less than white men and not because of the usual excuses. Read for more information there.

[DoctorHandles]

Screw you all for turning this into a serious thread.