QotW [5-04-03]: Discrimination

[Christina]

Originally posted by M. Krass

So, to elaborate further, where do we draw the line where discrimination is concerned? If the KKK wanted to bring FIRST to two dozen white children in Mississippi, but would only do so by the conscious exemption of black children, is that acceptable? If a church sponsored a team but excluded Buddhists? If a Boy Scout troop sponsored a team but excluded gays and women? In each of these examples, there doesn't seem to be any logical reason to exclude another group based on their ability and potential to accomplish the same things and benefit in the same ways as any others.

Alright, if the KKK wanted to have a FIRST team that discriminated against black children, even though it wouldn't be something I necessarily agreed with, it is their money and they can choose to do whatever they want with it. Would it be fair to those 2 dozen white children to take away their chance at a FIRST team? Same thing with all those other examples you listed. It is their money, and their choice to spend it as they please.

Look at scholarships. There are scholarships that are based on gender and race, even sexuality, which aren't viewed as "wrong." But, really, what's the difference? You are then discriminating against people who aren't eligible.

I'm not saying that discrimination is right, but it does happen. There is definitely a very fine line and it's not always easy to see. Just remember though, discrimination works both ways.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by Meli W.
I've seen it many times - such as driver's being chosen just b/c they are seniors when others were better qualified,

We just had a similar issue. Voting for captains. Some wanted a certain student cuz he was going to be a senior. Was he at a lot of meetings/exhibits/fundraisers all year? No. Did he lead others and teach them? No. Is he available by email since a lot of team communication is thru that medium? No.

Some didn't want an incoming soph to be president. Was she at a lot of meetings/exhibits/fundraisers all year? yes. Does she work on the team? Yes, she's the welder. Can she organize people, write, work with team members, with mentors, is she responsive by email? Yes.

[Lisa Rodriguez]

discrimination is a very hard thing to deal with and is sometimes and unspoken problem on my team
One of our team mentors thinks that the drive team should be an equal representation of the team rather than the people best qualified for the job. Because our team goes from urban to suburban to rural towns, there is a great mix of culture, so therefore making an equal representation is hard. What this mentor has often done is chosen the drive team without consulting the team members at all [which had been done in the past] Bascially he put one caucaisian boy, one african american boy, one hispanic boy and one girl, now I would see no problem with this drive team if I knew that they were the best people for the job, but they were not, drivers were put on the "b" team because of their race or sex, which was very wrong, and does not give us the best representation on the field.
No one has ever approached our mentor because he is the team leader, and he doesn't always listen anyway, but opinions have been expressed to various adults and they are trying to talk to our mentor
also a minor discrimination problem, seniors
now i love seniors, and I am friends with every single one of them that is on our team, but them being picked over better underclassmen or making decisions that affect the drive team without consulting the team or adult is a problem, and example of this is last yeat [2001] when I tried to become a human player and my brother [a senior at the time and the arm driver] decided that he didn't want me on the drive team because me being on stage somehow made him angrier and less able to control himself, even though I never even spoke to him when we were up there. a LARGELY unfair situation that honestly, no one on my team did anything about, most due to the fact that my brother was worshiped as a god [why, i will never know]

[srawls]

Originally posted by Keiko173
discrimination is a very hard thing to deal with and is sometimes and unspoken problem on my team
One of our team mentors thinks that the drive team should be an equal representation of the team rather than the people best qualified for the job. Because our team goes from urban to suburban to rural towns, there is a great mix of culture, so therefore making an equal representation is hard. What this mentor has often done is chosen the drive team without consulting the team members at all [which had been done in the past]

Wow ... you just described exactly what happened on our team this year. We have people from the governer's school (a magnet school for gifted kids), the Vocation Technical school (for kids in classes like welding, autobody, etc), and Point Options (a "last chance" type school for would-be drop outs). Our team leader felt it would only be fair if we had each one of the "factions" represented on the drive team. This caused a LARGE rift during the build season (oh yeah ... we decided the drive team at the last minute). I do feel this has been debated and talked about suffuiciently on our team, such that another debacle will not happen next year.

Speaking about factions, last year our teachers accused the people on our team of discriminating against the different schools, and being exclusionary. Part of it is natural ... I am a programmer, so I am around programmers/eletrical people all year, so I tend to hang out with those kids, just because I know them better. It's not that I have anything against another student just because he goes to a VoTech school, it's just that by circumstance, I'm not around him a lot. I do act friendly at competitions and such (well ... I am a shy person, so this is a relative term I suppose), but my teacher complained that afterwards, when us kids would go out to have fun, we would form groups ("factions"), and exclude other groups, completely based on which school a student goes to. Now, I know this sounds a lot like typical high school elitism, forming cliques of friends and assuming a role of social dominance, but our mentor's accusations were really unfounded. Any result was not due to active discrimination on our part, but by circumstance. This year, for instance, a few of the VoTech kids went to a lot of our parties and such (the kids on our team like to throw robotics parties, where we invite everyone on our team to just have fun). We became friends, and the issue of school never really came up. Of course, our teacher still accused us of exclusionary practices (*sigh*).

To answer the question ... discrimination can rear its ugly head in many circumstances. In our team we never really noticed it until our teacher attempted to "set things right" by discriminating himself. In our situation at least, the teachers are making a mountain out of a molehill, because I know the kids don't take what school someone goes to into consideration when making friends. In other circumstances, though, I suppose it can be a serious problem, which must be fought and countered if the discriminated person wishes to continue to participate in his team.

Stephen

[Wetzel]

Originally posted by Christina
Alright, if the KKK wanted to have a FIRST team that discriminated against black children, even though it wouldn't be something I necessarily agreed with, it is their money and they can choose to do whatever they want with it. Would it be fair to those 2 dozen white children to take away their chance at a FIRST team? Same thing with all those other examples you listed. It is their money, and their choice to spend it as they please.

Look at scholarships. There are scholarships that are based on gender and race, even sexuality, which aren't viewed as "wrong." But, really, what's the difference? You are then discriminating against people who aren't eligible.

I'm not saying that discrimination is right, but it does happen. There is definitely a very fine line and it's not always easy to see. Just remember though, discrimination works both ways.

And FIRST is its own competition, and can choose not to accept certain values. FIRST is more about the INSPIRATION then the robot, the robot is merely the medium for the inspiration. Now, you have 2 dozen kids with mentors that express the views of the KKK. That is not how FIRST is trying to inspire students.

It is their money, and I invite them to spend it elsewhere.


As to discrimination, I havn't seen that so much as favoritism. While not setting out to discriminate, it does so when the captain picks his friends for things, the seniors get the leadership positions. This happens all the time in business, and seems to be an accepted practice. Its all in who you know. It is the realization of this that has changed my opposition on gender/race specific scholarships from disagreement and opposing, to just disagreement.


Wetzel

[Madison]

Originally posted by Wetzel
And FIRST is its own competition, and can choose not to accept certain values.

Can it? Currently, it is at a team's discretion to determine who participates on the team and how they participate. There are teams that accept anyone who wanders in, there are teams that only accept students from the sponsoring school, and there are teams that have implemented an application process to screen students.

FIRST has no mandates regarding how teams should use this discretion. Furthermore, do teams participating in FIRST have any legal affiliation with FIRST, the organization? If FIRST says, "Each team must be composed of equal parts males and females," are teams legally obligated to comply? If they aren't, can FIRST impose penalities against those teams?

FIRST's goals for growth are going to lead them into new territory. Particularly, as we garner more media attention and scrutiny, the practices and policies of the organization and its teams may come under attack.

Already, the 'family' feeling that many of us have experienced in the past is diminishing. Soon, it will disappear. I'm really curious to see how FIRST will adapt to that change, as well as how we, as participants, will adapt.

It seems inevitable that FIRST will have to mandate against discriminatory practices in the future. Right now, FIRST exercises no control over the 'inspiration' we're providing to our students. They're relying on good will and good faith in the mentors to do the right thing. It's noble, really, and it's worked amazingly well so far. Unfortunately, I don't if it's good enough for the "real world" of public scrutiny. ...and, as FIRST grows and gathers more attention, it's increasingly more likely that one of these "rogue" groups, like the KKK, may enter into the equation.

It'll be interesting to see how things play out when controversy finally comes to FIRST. Not all publicity is good publicity.

[Erin Rapacki]

I am a female and heavily involved in FIRST, but I bearly touch the robot during build season. Just because of my personality and nature, I enjoy the organizing, spirit, awards, fundraising, and other "people aspects" of a FIRST team... and sometimes I consider myself exemplifying the "FIRST female stereotype."

(Nowadays I do everything but the actual designing and building on the robot... but it isn't uncommon to see me in the machine shop helping out. But if you think about it, I give the people who DO build the robot a big advantage because then they don't have to worry about such things. You can't have one group without the other.)

My point, we all would like to see more girls designing, testing, and machining on FIRST teams, and girls are not uncapable of doing such things... but the in most cases the interest just isn't there.

Unfortunately, females in the world today are mostely raised to do 'girly' things. I wouldn't say that it's because of discrimination that there are not many girls are on FIRST teams, if a girl came to a team and told them that she was interested in the robot or already had skills... I'm sure the team would be more than happy to accept them.

It's only when the mentors know they're qualified and still refuse to let them show off their skills that I'd call it discrimination.

I believe that unless there is a drastic change in the American culture, there will NEVER be a 50/50 ratio between guys and girls on FIRST teams. The only way that there could be is to reverse descriminate against guys... which is also wrong.

Ok, so I've just babbled for a little while too long... last year I tried to get my sister to join FIRST, and I learned that it's IMPOSSIBLE to drag anyone on a team unless they have a personal interest in doing robotics.

There are many things that girls can do on a team, it's just unfortunate that most of them won't want to build the robot.

That's the fact... accept it
(But congradulations to all the girls out there who break the stereotype! Keep spreading the word and the enthusiasm of being techy's... and maybe a culture change will occur someday)


ByE

erin

p.s. I'm not completely mechanically inept... I am doing well as a Mechanical Engineering student. I just agree with the more experienced guys on my team that they have the better ideas when it comes to building robots... lol

[Josh Hambright]

Okay so i was thinking about this and what if a team had a minimum GPA that all students had to have to keep on the team. Is this discrimination against students who dont perform as well in school or this just a 'standard'?

What do you guys think?

[Erin Rapacki]

I think its perfectly legitamate for a team to require a certain GPA, as long as it isn't so rediculously high that only 'honors' students are allowed to participate on the team

however, some teams have interviews and cuts anyway where GPAs might be a factor... that's similar to trying to qualify for any sports team in school

Obviously if a kid is failing, has a really low GPA, and is on a FIRST team... perhaps they should spend more time on homework than in the machine shop (school is more important), and FIRST could be a motivation for them to keep their grades up

so yes... requiring a certain GPA, I feel, should not be considered discrimination. Teams could even tutor fellow students and help them get their grades up, so that those students may participate in robotics the following year


ByE

erin

p.s. A situation where it is discrimination is if you have a team of say... 30 students, and only 18 can travel to nationals, and you pick the 18 students with the highest GPA instead of the students who were the most enthusiastic and active in building the robot... that would be wrong

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by oneangrydwarf
Okay so i was thinking about this and what if a team had a minimum GPA that all students had to have to keep on the team. Is this discrimination against students who dont perform as well in school or this just a 'standard'?

Brings up memories. The RUHS VP insisted 3.0 was the "standard", and he sometimes threatened to kick off the team those that didn't measure up. Then a mentor happened to be at the school meeting where the MCHS teacher applied for funds for our team. The description said the team was open to all kids regardless of GPA. I was happy to use that description instead.

We wondered why on other teams a 2.0 was the standard for whether kids could miss school and go to games, but the VP was trying to say 3.0. A more reasonable administrator agreed, it's 2.0 .

For the VP, I don't think it was so much discrimination as much as that if the kids all had 3.0 then no teachers could argue with him about the time the kids were spending in robotics.

[Amanda Morrison]

Originally posted by Redhead Jokes
We wondered why on other teams a 2.0 was the standard for whether kids could miss school and go to games, but the VP was trying to say 3.0.

In that case, I would have never been allowed into FIRST.

Where would I be now?

I think this is a perfect example of discrimination in FIRST. Who should say a kid is 'too dumb' to be in FIRST based on what their GPA is?

Just because our championship field is named Einstein doesn't mean that every kid in FIRST is a genius. They don't have to be. That's what FIRST is for.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by Amanda Morrison
I think this is a perfect example of discrimination in FIRST. Who should say a kid is 'too dumb' to be in FIRST based on what their GPA is?

I think it was Chatsworth who had a special ed kid who was such a valuable member - mechanical.

[Wetzel]

Most sports teams require a 2.0 GPA for eligibility.
The January/February grade dip is also now hurting the team. The lead teacher for the past 5 years has burned out and is stepping down. The annual grade dip is part of the reason some teachers have declined becoming the lead teacher. (The fact that Tripp burned out dosn't help much either).

The reasoning goes like this. School is for learning certain things, and grades are the standard for how well you are learning the certain things. If you are not demonstrating this with good grades, you are not doing what you are supposed to.
GPA isn't even a measure of intelligence, although that figures into it. Your GPA is more a measure of your effort and work ethic. In the real world, if you don't meet at least the average expectations, you are often fired.

What I've heard from 116 is requiring a 2.5 current GPA to go on any of the trips. I think this, while unpopular with the students, is perfectly valid and not discriminatory. If you are failing school, maybe you shouldn't be missing school to goto a competition or spending 8 hrs a day working on the robot, but spending some time doing homework or studding.


Wetzel

[Josh Hambright]

It would be fun to graph a teams grades throughout the season. I know on my team atleast we have good grades first semester but by the time second semester and build season rolls around our grades all usualy dip but by the time the end of the year rolls around they are right back up again.

Unfortunately this year the first week of the build season matched up perfectly with our week of finals, which really sucked!

[Jeff Waegelin]

Well, I know a certain team member of mine (who will remain unnamed, though you all know him) is getting a rather-less-than-average grade in one of his classes, right now, because of Houston... hehe... waiting for him to kill me now...

Our driver from last year used to always have that problem, too... he was taking college classes in the evening, and would always skip them for robotics, then wonder why he was failing. I guess I'm one to talk, though, given that I got 23% on my second Linear Algebra test at OU. It was the week after the robot ship, for heaven's sake... what was I supposed to do? Go to class, or build a robot?