Letters

Racial preferences seen as cause of
discrimination

Affirmative action is the very essence of racial discrimination.
It judges people on their race rather than their abilities. I
acknowledge the sad and unfortunate decline in the numbers of
underrepresented minorities at UCLA since the repeal of the
affirmative action. I agree as much as anybody that our university
as a whole would benefit from a more racially and culturally
diverse setting.

But using racial discrimination as a tool to increase minority
enrollment is not the way to promote diversity.

I believe in equality and fairness ““ the type of equality
and fairness that judges people on their achievements, talents, and
hard work. Martin Luther King Jr. said it first that people should
not be judged “by the color of their skin, but on the content
of their character.” Anyone who agrees with affirmative
action supports the opposite.

I don’t deny that the lobbyists for affirmative action
have the good intention of diversifying our university, but they
don’t realize that by promoting affirmative action we are
taking a step back to our past as a nation that judges people by
their ethnicity.

I agree that someone growing up in a rich suburb and attending a
private high school has a major advantage over someone attending a
run-down public school. The student attending private school can
afford SAT prep classes and tutoring while the student in such a
public school system usually can not. It is an unfair situation,
but the roots of the problem are socio-economic rather than
racially based. There are people of every background and color in
each economic class across the country.

Affirmative action can also be harmful to minorities. People
will look at minority students and assume that they got into UCLA
because of their race and not because of their accomplishments.

Whether you agree with affirmative action or not, you
can’t deny the fact that it discriminates based on race. For
every minority student admitted to UCLA with the help of
affirmative action, there is another, possibly more qualified
applicant rejected because they were not considered a disadvantaged
minority.

I don’t believe this is fair and if you put yourself in
the shoes of the more qualified student who got rejected, you
wouldn’t think it was fair either.

Alexander Spilger Third-year Mechanical
engineering