Instigator / Pro

1465

rating

debates

0.0%

won

Topic

#2638

Affirmative action causes racism.

Status

Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics

Better arguments

Better sources

Better legibility

Better conduct

After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

seldiora

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Parameters

Publication date: 11.18.2020 10:38AM
Last updated date: 01.27.2021 09:18PM
Type: Standard
Number of rounds: 3
Time for argument: Two weeks
Max argument characters: 10,000
Voting period: One month
Point system: Multiple criterions
Voting system: Open

Contender / Con

seldiora

1417

rating

158

debates

32.59%

won

Description

THBT: Affirmative action causes racism.

-Definition-
Affirmative action - Affirmative action is a policy in which an individual's colour, race, sex, religion or national origin are taken into account to increase opportunities provided to an underrepresented part of society.

Racism - prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group.

-Rules-
Forfeit = Instant loss
No kritks
Definitions are agreed upon

Round 1

Checkmate

11.19.2020 05:22AM

Pro

To clarify, the definition's are as follows.

Affirmative action - Affirmative action is a policy in which an individual's colour, race, sex, religion or national origin are taken into account to increase opportunities provided to an underrepresented part of society.

Racism - prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group.

Firstly, I would like to draw your attention to the following website, and especially to the first image.

https://www.vox.com/2018/3/28/17031460/affirmative-action-asian-discrimination-admissions

Essentially, it shows that Asians have a 140 point deduction purely because of their race. Racism is "prejudice against a person based on their membership of a particular race". If an Asian is getting points deducted because of their race, that would indeed be "prejudice against a person based on their membership of a particular race".

Also, this is a good analogy I like to use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUR_MCdnUAo

seldiora

11.19.2020 12:56PM

Con

Thanks pro.

THBT: Overall, affirmative action causes racism (currently)

Pros own article says we already solved this problem:

“Espenshade and Radford used data from just a handful of schools in 1997, and it was data from before major court rulings changed how schools can consider race.“

As pro failed to show how A.A. creates racism in an overwhelming and unavoidable level directly, he has failed to uphold his burden of proof.

Round 2

Checkmate

11.19.2020 09:00PM

Pro

To reiterate, my main contention is as follows.

Affirmative action causes racism.

I will not be adding the words overall or currently as you have done.

Essentially, my opponent has constructed their argument purely based on this definition change. But no matter, I shall still deconstruct it.

Pros own article says we already solved this problem:
“Espenshade and Radford used data from just a handful of schools in 1997, and it was data from before major court rulings changed how schools can consider race.“

As pro failed to show how A.A. creates racism in an overwhelming and unavoidable level directly, he has failed to uphold his burden of proof.

Objection.

To satisfy the BoP, I need not to find current examples of affirmative actions (though I could very easily do so as affirmative action is very much a thing), I simply need to show that X causes Y, therefore, I uphold my BoP.

For my opponent to score victory, they must prove that the case I have provided does not showcase racism. Essentially, the question is, "does penalising Asians on their SAT scores purely because of their race inflict racism upon them"

seldiora

11.19.2020 09:35PM

Con

I do not need to negate your one example. In countless laboratory experiments and cases, we must investigate countless events that occur and the way that they resolve. We thought that leaving a flask in the open can spontaneously generate life from nothing. We were wrong. With careful experimentation we disproved this notion of "spontaneous life". Similarly, Pro only shows us one singular case study, and even that study has managed to resolve its seeming problem. He has only shown a correlation of Affirmative Action and Racism. He has not displayed why it causes it. After all, AA is all about fighting racism and helping minorities in trouble. Without an overwhelming amount of evidence or expert analysis in his side, we can only assume he cherry picked one example to prove "AA *can* cause racism" or even that AA is correlated with racist acts. The refutation is upheld.

Round 3

Checkmate

11.21.2020 02:53AM

Pro

I do not need to negate your one example.

Con's clearly does not understand how a BoP can be proved and disapproved. I have provided an example which satisfies the BoP and you have negated to answer to it, therefore keeping my BoP satisfactory.

We thought that leaving a flask in the open can spontaneously generate life from nothing. We were wrong

Besides the obvious fact that this is a clear red herring, I will still respond to it. If an experiment, even a single experiment yielded results which shows that something did grow out of nothing, that would have to be investigated instead of dismissed. What I have done is provided that one instant. What you have done is dismissed it.

Similarly, Pro only shows us one singular case study, and even that study has managed to resolve its seeming problem.

I have already dismissed this point in my last argument. The debate is specifically not about whether systemic racism is real, but whether affirmative action causes racism.

He has only shown a correlation of Affirmative Action and Racism. He has not displayed why it causes it.

I'm not too sure what my opponent is getting at. Perhaps I didn't express myself clear enough. I will clarify my contention in the conclusion.

After all, AA is all about fighting racism and helping minorities in trouble.

But it doesn't matter what one's intention is, the important thing is what AA has caused. It has indeed helped black people get into colleges but at the expenses of Asians who are almost certainly working harder and score higher.

Conclsion

The following is a recap of my PoV and the points I have presented.

I have demonstated that affirmitive action is racist, especially in the form of college accpetnce. I have shown that Asians are penalised 140 points purely because they are Asian. I then revistsed the definition of racim, which is as follows.

Racism - prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group.

As Asians are being deducted purely because they are members of a particular race and not their ability, this would be considered racism. I then concluded that this 140 point reduction because of one's race is a direct result affirmitive action. If AA was too be abolished, then this point dedcution would be no more, meaning that affirmitive action does indeed result in racism.

As I have satisfied the BoP, Vote Pro.

seldiora

11.21.2020 03:44AM

Con

to overgeneralize AA as a whole to one singular example that has since been fixed goes to show that Pro does not understand how a "cause and effect" debate works. If I say gun control causes crime rates to drop, I can't just pick Australia and say "see? Gun control causes crime rates to drop". There are too many unknown variables similar here: the timing, the people who implemented AA at the time, and of course, the judicial interpretation to destroy the seeming act of racism. If I say our laws cause racism and mention slavery being allowed centuries ago, we must also bring up the present and the progress made; how the Supreme Court desires equality and at the highest level possible, we do our best to implement equality and thus laws cannot inherently cause racism. As the problem is localized to this one specific example of dropping Asian scores by 140 points and failure to point the cause to AA specifically (rather than, I don't know, the lawmakers during the time?), Pro has lost this debate.

Wilh3lm

01.27.2021 09:18PM

#13

[chess move]# won. It says he didn't from a single vote. The problem is that when there is one vote, it makes false results. In among us, the only person who voted voted for me and got me voted out. I think there should be a minimum of (some number) of votes or the result is inconclusive.

MisterChris

12.21.2020 01:06PM

#12

-->

@Checkmate

That was a copy of Fauxlaw's vote, which was reported and removed due to the reason I provided. He could've revoted if he altered the original, but alas he elected not to.

Checkmate

12.21.2020 05:51AM

#11

-->

@MisterChris

It seems you provided a description which would suggest you wanted to vote for me. Yet you didn't?

MisterChris

12.20.2020 03:01AM

#10

Argument: Pro presented a valid argument based on definitions and valid source material that demonstrates decided discrimination specifically against Asian-Americans in academia, to wit, Asians are specifically penalized SAT score negative points while other minorities receive added points to their scores. Con attempted to attack the source in all three rounds, but the R1 attack claimed "the problem has been solved," apparently by interpretation of added graphics to the article, concluding from these graphics that article writer concludes the problem has been solved. Unfortunately, the rebuttal by Con does not hold because the article, itself,. never claims that, but one or two graphics display that possible understanding, but the article makes it clear that the claim Con makes is not true, and the article conclusion clearly repeats the defense that such understanding is wrong. Points to Pro

Sources: Pro's sources clearly support the resolution. Con had no sources in any round. Points to Pro

S&G: tie

Conduct: I could say Con's attitude regasrding pro's source material was misunderstood, but that does not really justify a conduct detraction; it's just misunderstanding. Tie.

MisterChris

12.20.2020 03:01AM

-->

@fauxlaw

**************************************************
>Reported Vote: fauxlaw // Mod action: Removed
>Points Awarded: 5:0 (5 points to PRO)
>Reason for Decision: See Comments Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:

The voter dismissed CON's refutations using arguments that were not presented in the debate.

He says:
"but the R1 attack claimed "the problem has been solved," apparently by interpretation of added graphics to the article, concluding from these graphics that article writer concludes the problem has been solved. Unfortunately, the rebuttal by Con does not hold because the article, itself,. never claims that, but one or two graphics display that possible understanding, but the article makes it clear that the claim Con makes is not true, and the article conclusion clearly repeats the defense that such understanding is wrong."

It may be true that CON's refutation was factually incorrect. And the voter is certainly welcome to look into the sources used. However, it is not the voter's place to go into the source and do the refuting for PRO. If CON presents an argument about a source that is unchallenged by PRO, and if that argument is logically coherent, then generally speaking, the voter should not dismiss it of their own accord. The only exception would be an argument that is objectively false based on common knowledge & reason.

The voter may revote if they properly explain why CON's refutation did/didn't work according to voting guidelines.

Another note, the voter should add more detail to their allocation of source points.

To award sources points, the voter must:
(1) explain how the debaters' sources impacted the debate,
(2) directly assess the strength/utility of at least one source in particular cited in the debate, and
(3) explain how and why one debater's use of sources overall were notably superior to the other's.

Checkmate

12.02.2020 08:52PM

Voters, anyone?

Checkmate

11.29.2020 09:48PM

*bump*

Checkmate

11.25.2020 01:18AM

Bump

Checkmate

11.21.2020 03:58AM

-->

@seldiora

We'll see.

seldiora

11.21.2020 03:47AM

-->

@Barney

easy-ish debate to vote on.

seldiora

11.21.2020 03:47AM

-->

@Checkmate

I don't think you understand how "X causes Y" debates work. If I used Australia to demonstrate gun ban leads to crime rate dropped, that doesn't mean all gun bans cause crime rates to lower.

Checkmate

11.19.2020 05:24AM

You can make an affirmative action debate.

seldiora

11.19.2020 03:52AM

I wonder if I can make this a "net balance" debate. Hm.

Conway

12.18.2020 11:28PM

Criterion

Pro

Tie

Con

Points

Better arguments

3 point(s)

Better sources

2 point(s)

Better legibility

1 point(s)

Better conduct

1 point(s)

Reason:

Affirmative action - Affirmative action is a policy in which an individual's colour, race, sex, religion or national origin are taken into account to increase opportunities provided to an underrepresented part of society.

Affirmative action does not need to be based on race. Essentially what I expect of Pro is to prove that the policy of identifying underrepresented parts of society so certain people might receive some sort of administrative privilege causes racism.

Pro's argument in round one seems to be centered around the idea that affirmative action can be based upon racism, but they didn't show me why affirmative action caused racism among the faculty or students. Maybe racism is linked to something else, and affirmative action was merely an expression.

I did not regard the video in round one.

Round 2 - Pro states: "I simply need to show that X causes Y, therefore, I uphold my BoP." What pro actually did was more like stating X = X than X causes Y.

Racial discrimination is an expression of racism, yes. Does affirmative action predispose people to discriminate on the basis of race?

______

Arguments that might have bolstered Pro's case could include parallels between different forms of discrimination, discussing the possibility that affirmative action also has an effect on hiring practices, what is considered acceptable behavior in the workplace, who would consider taking up the requirements of the job, and so forth.