Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Perato and Admissions
Unfortunately, I think that once again, especially after the discussion in class about law school admissions yesterday, it is time to once again examine the subject in terms of Perato's efficiency. The main points of our discussion examined how unfair it is for a certain group (read: white males) over other groups when it comes to law school admissions. We also discussed how certain systems have been put in place to help balance out this inequality. However, we only very briefly discussed the impact that these systems have on the group that is supposedly in a much better place than most others. Being a white male who has grown up in a lower middle class family, I have been pushed my entire life by my parents to do well and school and work hard, even to the extent that my parents sacrificed to get me into an expensive private high school, where we ended getting almost all tuition paid for by aid. I took this sacrifice by my parents as motivation for making myself succeed, and I did better than I could of ever imagined. Now I sit here as senior applying to law schools and preparing to take my LSATs, however unlike the supposed unfair group that I belong to, I am not going to any classes and had to skip certain necessities for two months in order to be able to have enough money to pay for my actual LSAT exam. I think that there is way too much made about how much of an advantage white males have over groups. I think that if we are to look at this in terms of Perato's efficiency, we would see that while white males have dominated the system, it may be in part because of the effort some of us make and if you want to truly equalize the admissions, many of us hard working and just as disadvantaged will end up being greatly harmed, if not harmed worse than the other groups because there is then NO chance of gaining access to a high learning institution such as law school. In the end, I believe that is you want to change admissions the only true way to do it is through a grass roots level actions that forces the values my parents pushed on me to other individuals while they are still young, then everyone will be on a level playing field, because in the end money does not have that great of an impact if you are willing to actually work for your goals.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I completely agree with this post. So much emphasis is placed on the relationship of race, and poor socioeconomic status that it becomes assumed that just becuase you belong to the dominant group (white males) that everyone in that group is just as well off and advantaged as the persons at the top. There are many white males that are placed in even lower socioeconomic statuses than minorities, and to look over these candidates who have worked their asses off their whole life just because some level of the heirarchy wants law school admissions to be more "balanced" is completely unfair to members of this group.
ReplyDeleteWhile I disagree with your view that Pareto efficiency is relevant to this case, you have identified some key issues that I didn’t get to emphasize yesterday. As your post and Kennedy have noted, socioeconomic class is largely overlooked by existing standards for law school admissions, including some designed to combat hierarchy. Kennedy makes this point repeatedly throughout his article: “Students who are women or black or working class find out something important about the professional universe from the first day of class: that it is not even nominally pluralist in cultural terms.” (605) “There should be quotas within the lottery for women, minorities, and working class students [. . .] and investments of large sums of money and resources in students at the bottom of the academic hierarchy” (615). From your self-identification as “lower middle class” and your professed reliance on financial aid, it would seem that you are already benefitting from the type of attention to class that Kennedy advocates. However, your point that this assistance is limited, sporadic and thus requires still other sacrifices is well taken.
ReplyDeleteIt seems the source of confusion involves overlooking the fact that “white males” do not uniformly benefit from the existing structures of hierarchy. The fact that strategies to combat hierarchy often overlook issues of class does nothing to damage the general strategy of combating hierarchical structures; it only suggests that these strategies need to be further radicalized to include class hierarchies.