Affirmative Action

I believe that affirmative action, defined as "an action or policy favoring those who tend to suffer from discrimination, especially in relation to employment or education." is detrimental to those it is in place to help. By lowering the admission standards for minorities, it is potentially immersing a student in an environment they cannot handle, causing them to have higher levels of stress, or drop out altogether which, as we all know, leads to a higher poverty percentage. This is because without a high school degree it is much harder to find a job that will allow you to fully sustain yourself, let alone a family.

While I do understand the desire to level the playing field by educating minorities in the hope that they will pass along the standard of living that comes from being an educated member of society to their children, you also have to take into account the fact that if we continue to make it easier for minorities to enter better schools merely based on the color of their skin, they will have an increasingly harder time valuing their achievements, because if they're self-aware of their situation and the privilege being given, they will know that, at least in some cases, they did not go as far as some did to earn that same merit.

Think of this: I have been a Boy Scout since I was small, and ever since I have tried extremely hard to earn the highest achievement, Eagle Scout. As a fourteen-year-old, I am one rank away from achieving that goal. Now, if I sit here and think about how I would feel if someone gave me special privilege in the earning of Eagle due to my ethnicity, and I can tell you that it wouldn't be the same. If it was well known that administrations cater to persons of my own race, those who look at this achievement on my college applications, such as the one I intend to submit to West Point, will know that I did not work as hard to achieve it as others have, and that accomplishment begins to mean little to nothing.