Affirmative Action for LGBT Students

I'm not sure what to say... This suggests that LGBT students need an 'edge' of some kind to get into university - and I'm not sure that is the case.

 

Hmm, well I personally don't like affirmative action. A student should get in for his or her hard work and what he or she can contribute, not for his or her background. If a student is gay and can be a valuable contributor to the campus, that's fine if he or she gets in. But if a student gets in or is given exclusive treatment just because he or she is gay, I don't think that's a very good policy.

By the way, I'm saying this from the viewpoint of a minority and a legacy (both my dad and older brother went to MIT).

 

Whilst I can see this as a step in the right direction for the US, where official government support for GBLTs is slim and how little legislation protects people of sexual minorities. I do however, believe that were it to be implemented somewhere such as the UK then it would be completely wrong.

I guess there are places that are more homophobic than others, and in those such actions should be welcomed that will take previously disadvantaged youth and put them on a par with the heterosexuals. I understand that here it gives them an edge, but where before they're seen as lower class this edge will help to even the field.

I guess you do have to start worrying though, if this gets out of control. I for one would want to be picked for a university based on the normal entrance criteria, to know that I'd gotten in based on my own hard work, determination and qualities and not on the fact that I like other boys. To think that this would give me an edge over someone with better grades and qualities than me, and to rob them of their deserved place would make me feel really bad.

 

I'm against any sort of affirmative action.

It just reinforces the view that people of the group benefiting from it are not able to get anywhere on their own.

 

I dont like at all, it makes me feel Im an alient, Im totally different from other people(straight) in a bad way or a minority student, though Im not. How can they put us in the category as minority students? Being gay isnt minority, yet the gay population is less than straight

 

But Steven, being treated the same as everyone else doesn't mean being treated better. In a way it's pretty patronizing/condescending.

 

I don't really agree with the affirmative action thing... Wouldn't it contradict our stand in equality -- "equal treatment" -- if we were given "exclusive treatment".

 

I guess I can see this issue from two points of veiw. I'm not really sure which I buy into more.

On the one hand I understand just what kind of trials and tribulations LGBT people go through and I understand that they are constanly confronted with situations that make them seem inferior straight people. Gay marriage laws in the US is just one example of this. I'm ok with the idea of a church denying religious union in the eyes of a god, but it seems totally unjustified that a married couple can get such amazing tax benefits, survivor benefits, etc... without ever having to jump through hoops to get there.

I understand that some people are bigoted against LGBT people and some would even go out of their way to prevent us from succeeding in life. In this way I feel that an "affirmative action" type policy at a school to help LGBT people acheive the kind of equality we deserve and to reduce the amount of influence these biased people might have over us could be a great thing.

On the other hand. I hate the idea that LGBT people should be given, much less feel that they need, a step up in life. Like a previous poster, I feel that academic scholarships and admissions should be based on a student's acheivements, rather than his/her race, gender or sexual orientation.

I suppose that looking at it in this way almost makes me despise the policy altogether because I don't feel that gay people need this handout. There are just as many scholastically capable gay people as there are straight (statistically speaking). Our sexual identity should not, therefore, be used in a context that degrades us a a whole and implies that we need help.

I'll have to think about this more.

 

Affirmative action is fighting discrimination with discrimination, 'nuff said.

 

i like that i hav a better chance at getting in!, but overall, i don't like it.

it might just make other people resentful that we have a better chance. they might be just making it worse.

 

It does seem a bit patronisising, I'm afraid. Equal rights does not mean special rights.

 

Sorry... you can see how behind I am on keeping up with posts.

Anyway, I think affirmative action is a non-ideal solution in a non-ideal world. But until systemically oppressed groups stop being oppressed and having the deck stacked against them, I'm all for it. Sadly these kinds of policies can't really discriminate between say a gay kid that had super-supportive family and friends and a gay kid who faced a ton of shit growing up and still managed to succeed. But something flawed is better than having no recognition of the inequities that exist at all.

As for it being a "special right," equality does not mean sameness. If you take a gay kid growing up in a gay-hostile environment and a straight kid growing up in a regular "straight environment," the straight kid has got it WAAAAY easier, so to say the gay kid and the straight kid have equal chances and equal trials and tribulations is garbage.

Now the special treatment of alumni children is totally bogus! Because going to university is a privilege and so if you have parents who went to university, you have a leg up from that and ceteris paribus, you have a leg up on children of non-alumni... well, at least on children who don't come from as educated a background.

P.S. I had to look up ceteris paribus. It means "all other things being equal."

 

i'm totally against affirmative action. like jim said, it's saying that people of LGBT community aren't on par with straight peoples and need an edge. it's total BS.