dis·crim·i·na·tion
/dɪˌskrɪm
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noun 1. an act or instance of discriminating, or of making a distinction.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
3. the power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgment: She chose the colors with great discrimination.
4. Archaic. something that serves to differentiate.
Now is discrimination bad? According to some people here it is not bad if it is used against the right people (we're talking definition number two).
What happened to plain ole merit? A college has 15,000 openings for freshman (this includes women as well) and 60,000 apply. So how do you choose who gets to go to THIS school? According to some like Bjerk the freshmen are required to be about 15% black, 15% Hispanic, 6% Asian, 52% female, et al.
So what happens to the Asian student with a GPA of 4.05 but is the 901st Asian student to apply. Only the first 900 can get in. What if you're a black student with a GPA of 3.4 (respectable but not great). Should you get preference over other students with much higher GPAs until 2,250 black students are enrolled. The same can be said of the white student with a GPA of 3.2 but a rich family (can you say possible endowment?). A college is about knowledge, education, and the ability to use both for something worthy.
No, colleges today have to set aside a certain number of seats for alum children, friends of the regents children, poor children (deserving or not), international children (deserving or not), gay children, minority chldren, and then the rest are decided on merit. Doesn't help our colleges too much when they have to follow through with grade inflation to show that the undeserving can compete with the deserving.
I would like to hear a detailed explanation from someone like Bjerk about why merit is bad.