While I was
reading this article about race and its role in college applications, I found
it to be very interesting. I had never thought about race being a quality or a
trait that would affect your future. Here in this article the deans of two of
the most important law colleges in the USA, Martha L. Minow and Robert C. Post
from Harvard and Yale Law Schools, were presenting their arguments to why should
race be one of the questions in applications.
They strongly
belief that race affects how you end up growing and the way you handle problems
and challenges, as we see here in the article, “Writers of
recommendations frequently mention race in explaining how an applicant has
overcome challenges.” I agree with them on this. Race is your morals and
beliefs that are practiced for many years and have been carried on by your
family. Everyone is raised different but that doesn’t mean that people have
certain limitations depending on your race. This is the part in which I don’t agree.
To me their arguments seem like they are judging people on something
that they could not have control of. You are born into your race and you will
never be able to change it. Although the deans say that obviously this is not
the only thing that they will check in their applications, they will make a requisite
to write an essay to explain the impact of race in their life. “In their
personal statements, many applicants discuss how race has influenced their
lives.”
They say that diversity is a good thing to have in campus, “Race is
sometimes an important and relevant factor in group discussions both inside and
outside of the classroom.” This diversity includes different points of
view and opinions but also people who have a character that will not get along
with others, and this will happen no matter where people are from. If what
colleges want is an education that prepares students for the future, they shouldn’t
mind the applicants’ race. What counts is what’s in the mind of the applicant,
not where they are from. This gives space for discrimination and not having an
equal or fair chance of getting accepted.
