In response to Andrew Goetz’s column “Affirmative action opponents pose one-sided, racist argument” (SN 2/15), it is completely ignorant to assume those who oppose racial preferences are all racists.

The use of race to decide who does and does not get admitted into a university is, in itself, a racist proposition.

Broad assumptions that all people of a certain skin color are disadvantaged, and therefore allowed special privileges, are false.

There are millions of poor white and Asian families who struggle to survive and find their children’s futures being undermined by the broad, racist paintbrush of racial preference policies that discriminate against them in university admissions.

Goetz also argues “qualified students are being denied admission simply because their relatives did not attend a certain school.”

In the admissions process, the University of Michigan grants 20 points to a student based upon “underrepresented minority status,” but only four points if a student has a parent who attended the university, and only one point for an “outstanding essay.” An applicant’s race far outweighs nearly every other criterion for admission.

As stated in the recent ruling against the U-M Law School, it is clear these racial preference policies violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The courts will continue to find these policies of racial discrimination unconstitutional in the future.

Marc Stemmer
political theory and constitutional democracy sophomore