Affirmation Action!!??!?!?! (prompt 4, Ch 5.2 - 5.5)

4. Write about something that surprised you and explain why.

During the time when Rodriguez was in college and graduate school, the affirmation action* began to be pushed in Universities. Colleges now wanted "minority students" to be a part of their programs for "statistical purposes". There were both positives and negatives to this action. It did give minority students a better chance of getting into college, but that was only helpful for those who had had a good grammar and high school education. Those minority students without educations were overwhelmed. They could not compete with other students, which would make many feel like failures. Rodriguez notes on page 155 that 6 non white students that he knew suffered collapse. "The University officials who so diligently took note of those students in their self-serving totals of entering minority students finally took no note of them when they left." (155). All they were was a statistic. Very few teachers actually helped them to pass, they would just give them the grade so that they could graduate.
They should have made it easier for minority students to get into college WHEN they had the right education and should have worked to give younger students that education so that they could make it in Universities.

2. The second thing that surprised me was that Rodriguez got this great education and was now a teaching for year segments at Berkely and yet he decides to give it ALL up. Rodriguez had applied for teaching positions at many other different Universities and had gotten acceptances from many of them, including Yale. His friend, however, didn't get any big acceptances even though he had the same transcript. It was because of the affirmation action. They wanted more minority teachers and so Rodriguez was automatically picked because he had a great profile AND was a minority. Surprisingly Rodriguez turned all of the teaching positions, that he had worked so hard for, down because he decided that he was going to fight the affirmation action.
(Rodriguez did not like that he got all the breaks just because of his race or that others got breaks when they had not had the education or worked for them. He realized that it had good intentions, but really wasn't helping anyone. He didn't just want to be a statistic!)


This was surprising to me because I don't see how he would be able to fight the action without a high position. It seems weird that this man who worked so hard to succeed would give it all up.
When he told his parents, his father said that THEY had never had an opportunity like that before and Rodriguez said "No, his father never had any opportunity like that". Rodriguez had had plenty just because of when he was born and what his race were. It was mind boggling that he would get all these free scholarships and study abroad opportunities just because he was a minority.

*Affirmation Action-refers to policies that take gender, race, or ethnicity into account in an attempt to promote equal opportunity. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs. So more minorities would get the positions and those with the degrees who weren't minorities would have to work harder.

Here is Obama's opinion of the Affirmation action!!