If someone's race is (insert race), give them X number of bonus points. If someone's sex is (insert sex), give them X number of bonus points. These are basic principles of discrimination that I find to be evil and wrong.

I applaud Jim Lala for his courage to speak his mind in "Diversity doesn't promote better education, system flawed" (SN 2/3). I disagree with what his title suggests because I do believe diversity is a good thing, just not at the expense of fairness, which was one of his points. I do not pretend that discrimination has vanished from America. I wish it would, but it has not.

Affirmative action is not the way to try to remedy this.

In the past, affirmative action was needed because of blatant discrimination against minorities and women, but the issue is with the present and not the past. Today, people argue that affirmative action is needed because most minorities come from less affluent backgrounds than most whites. But what about all the exceptions? Also, didn't we decide - to the vast improvement of our society - that it was illegal to discriminate based on race or gender?

How about this as an alternative: A sex-, race- and religion-blind application, much like how you can't ask sexual orientation, with weight instead given based on economic background. Obviously, the idea needs to be better thought out than I can describe here, but can anyone give me a good reason why such a system wouldn't be more fair than the system we have now?

With the current system, no matter how you want to debate or explain it, you are giving something to someone who did not do as well as someone else, based on his or her race or gender - end of discussion.

Nicholas Ellis
criminal justice junior