Does Affirmative Action fit under the values of FIRST

[Koko Ed]

As an African-American I myself have never faced discrimination to my face (years ago when I went to a store with my friend after I passed by the front desk one of the clerks said to the other pointing at me "Keep an eye on that $@#$@#$@#$@#$@#$@#." He almost went over the counter after the idiot) and I do think Affirmative Action is flawed but lets not kid ourselves here,there is hatred and discrimination still in this country and in this world and it needs to be dealt with. The staus quo is all fine and dandy when it favors one group of people every time all the time but to think that the "lower classes" are just going to get tired of being second class citizens and are going to suddenly lift themselves up by the bootstraps is inane.
So to those who say that Affirmative Action is a great evil does that mean you support the staus quo or do you have something better that will cure the ills that hundreds of years of wrongdoing have caused so many who have so little to fall behind?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

So to those who say that Affirmative Action is a great evil does that mean you support the staus quo or do you have something better that will cure the ills that hundreds of years of wrongdoing have caused so many who have so little to fall behind?

Education and Opportunity. Not entitlements. Just the right not to be Kept Down by The Man.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Education and Opportunity. Not entitlements. Just the right not to be Kept Down by The Man.

Opportunity and entitlement is certainly a very, very fine line.

If these issues were simple enough for me to have a succinct opinion about, they wouldn't be challenging.

[pfreivald]

Methinks the goal would be to equalize opportunity to succeed from the very beginning of one's life, regardless of race, gender, etc, without resorting to using race, gender, etc. as a criteria for selection.

Then again, nothing's ever that simple.

[Katie_UPS]

I don't know who I heard this from, but its a brilliant idea:

• Hold a meeting and include as many people qualified to fill the role of "extra teacher" as possible. Give a presentation and tell them what you do and how great it is.
• Pass around a calender and ask if each teacher will sign up for a day or two to supervise.

I've been told that some teachers, after seeing what really goes on, WANTED to come more often to supervise.

This allows the teachers to help out without giving a huge time commitment. The days that don't get volunteers might require some voluntolding by high-er ups (as you mentioned this has happened before), surprise voluntolding (students asking teachers really nicely), or condensed meetings (only x amount of kids working on projects a, b, and c can come).

Solutions that don't involve barring students!