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Friday, March 21, 2014
State affirmative action proposal earns criticism PROPOSITION—p.1
there are so many other components.” Jacoubowsky believes that perpetuation is the reason behind increasing disproportionality rates within California’s public education system. “People who have the wealth and the means have the opportunity to go to the good schools, have the opportunity to hire tutors for their kids, which helps inflate, say, their SAT scores, which helps them get into good colleges,” Jacoubowsky said. “So kids who are privileged keep moving on and kids who maybe have not had those opportunities kind of lag farther and farther behind.” However, if SCA 5 is implemented, Jacoubowsky hopes that colleges continue giving underrepresented students support. Sophomore Cristobal Gonzalez believes that SCA 5 is a significant step toward maintaining diversity in the public education system. “What’s extremely important for a good college environment is diversity and diversity of opinions and ideas,” he said. Though Gonzalez acknowledges the negative reactions to SCA 5, he also notes the idea of entitlement to college as hindering judgement. “You have to think that these [underrepresented] students aren’t taking someone’s spots and that no one is entitled to a spot in college,” he said. According to Gonzalez, the number of minority applications to UC colleges and California State Universities has dropped due to certain cultural beliefs. “There’s a culture in this community full of minorities where children and high schools look at the people around them and they just don’t think of college as a tangible idea,” he said. “They don’t know people who have gone to college, they don’t know the process, they’d much rather go straight to the workforce, so I think a lot of it is just that they don’t see that path of coming to college as a possibility.” Junior Pratyusha Meka understands the intention behind SCA 5 but points out how it could be easily used for the wrong reasons. “It’s going against everything written in our Constitution about giving rights to people so they can pursue education,” she said. “If they want, they can set aside a certain part of the student body to be of the minority and allow the rest to be open admissions. Meka believes that SCA 5 would affect much of Gunn’s population if passed. “A majority of people at Gunn are intelligent and have a
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promising future, but if they are not accepting people based on gender or race, then I feel like this could be a huge disadvantage because a majority of our student body is Asian,” she said. Alternatives to SCA 5 can be made so that the emphasis is not on race or gender but on socioeconomic status, Meka says. “The best thing the U.S. can do is provide more seats to students at a more affordable price; then if you are of this economic status, you can compete with other kids of that same economic status to get those seats,” she said. “If you work hard enough and you put a goal and you meet that goal, your education should not be limited just because of your race
“If you work hard enough and you put a goal and you meet that goal, your education should not be limited just because of your race or gender because you cannot control that.” —Junior Pratyusha Meka
or gender because you cannot control that.”’ While SCA 5 may not be intended to target race, sophomore Annie Vesey notes that the amendment allows categorization of race. “By categorizing people by race and accepting based on race, then that is thinking and putting race into it,” she said. “Race should not be a factor in college acceptance because there are other factors they can use to diversify their campus that still supports a person with non-qualifying grades, such as work ethic and personality represented in interviews.” Nonetheless, Vesey understands the need for diverse campuses. “The reason schools aren’t diverse is because everyone doesn’t receive the same secondary education that prepares them for the college level,” Vesey said. “If everyone is put on the same playing field, schools will naturally diversify and schools won’t have to turn away someone who is more qualified.” Freshman Duchess Dankwah also agrees with this notion. “If you want more diverse colleges, you have to start in communities first because the only reason people get into colleges is because they all worked hard, but it’s not your race that determines how hard you’re going to work,”
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I really liked it overall and I enjoy it when The Oracle does school-wide surveys in its articles. It covered a diverse range of articles, like food and relationships. I liked the feminism articles and the pro-con. —Langsi Wu, 12
February 21, 2014 The most interesting to me was the chart of AP class enrollment based on gender. It sparked a lot of relevant conversation in my classes which I thought was great. I also liked the perspectives on feminism as well as the article about Skelly stepping down. —Hope Schroeder, 12 The last thing I remember was the eight things to do in SF—it was really informative and actually useful. —Lisa Wang, 10
she said. “That’s yours to determine.” According to Dankwah, passing this amendment could lead to more racism. “I think [SCA 5] just brings the idea of a superior race,” she said. “Someone could come up to you and say, ‘Oh, you obviously know you got into that college just because of your race.’” Furthermore, preferential treatment based on race or gender could cause more stress. “You shouldn’t have the fear of not getting into college because of your race,” Dankwah said. “You should have the fear of maybe not doing so well on the SAT and etc.” Senior Kirsten Wei says that instead of discriminating against race or gender, the government should give all public school students equal resources needed to meet qualifications for college. “Education at some K-12 schools is better than other schools even though they’re all public schools, and people deserve to get equal education,” Wei said. While Wei acknowledges that SCA 5 may assist some students, its ideals seem unfair to most. “It should not be based on something you can’t choose,” she said. “You can choose to push yourself, but you can’t choose your ethnicity or sex.” English teacher Mark Hernandez, unrelated to Senator Hernandez, predicts rapid complications if SCA 5 is enacted. “That gets dicey, obviously, and though there are good arguments on either side, it gets messy real fast,” he said. “I certainly don’t think it will be a magic bullet for whatever ill they’re trying to cure.” Mark Hernandez believes socioeconomic status would be more relevant for affirmative action. “My guess is that socioeconomic status has more to do with performance than race or gender,” he said. “That makes a big difference, when you’ve got people who have fewer means, that means, fewer tutors, fewer opportunities, etc., so I think it matters in the long run.” Currently, SCA 5 is undergoing a re-evaluation. Through the process, Senator Hernandez hopes to clarify misinformation about the amendment. “The point is to address concerns opponents have, which might mean amending or even rewriting the proposal,” he said in an interview with Pasadena Star News. If the revised amendment is passed by the legislature, it could be placed on the ballot again as early as 2016. However, Mark Hernandez does not believe the SCA 5 will become law. “The more dire the predictions, the stronger the fight,” he said. “There’s gonna be a constitutional battle for sure.”
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I want to see less opinion polls and more focus on news or state affairs, and also more stuff on student groups on campus. Lots of clubs are doing really good things that aren’t getting lots of publicity. —Lisa Zhang, 12
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I want to see more League of Legends articles. I think League of Legends is very prominent in our school and a lot of people would be interested in reading about it. —Brian Chan, 11 There was an interesting mix of love advice and politics/opinions. —Grace Park, 10 I did find certain articles to be sexist and very biased. It should be less personal. —Daniel Rothenberg, 11
I want to see more interactive activities, like sudokus and crosswords, or maybe political cartoons in the opinions section. —Sharon Chen, 11 I’d like to see a story about ideas on what to do during spring break since that’s coming up soon. —Marlene Goetz, 9 I thought it was the best one yet. It was extremely interesting, especially seeing gender discrepancies in math/science classes. —Larry Wang, 12 I would like to see more infographics. —Edwin Lai, 11
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