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<DOCID>Affirmative_Action_-_sept._24.doc.txt</DOCID>
<AUTHOR>Kenny Casperson</AUTHOR>
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Affirmative action is again a hotbutton issue for the elections  especially in Michigan, where the University of Michigan has been one of the most targeted schools for anti or pro affirmative action legislation. A ballot initiative proposed for the upcoming November elections would amend the Michigan constitution to outlaw any and all preferential admission due to race, sex, or any other such category. The debate was sparked primarily by U of Ms admission process, where prospective students are evaluated at least partially by computer, and are awarded points for grades, community service, and other personal attributes  but students were (and still are) also awarded points for race and for gender, which makes many students feel that they were passed over despite superior grades or academic records simply because they were not a member of a minority. California is one of a number of states that have already passed laws serving the same purpose as the one proposed for this years ballot. We really have to remember the original purpose of affirmative action, says Bill Eilola, LSSUs Vice President of Admissions, which was to ensure that a you have a pool of students that is representative of your community. It used to be that engineering students got jobs because their father was an engineer, or they had contacts  it tended to be who you know, not what you know, and that isnt a good thing. According to Eilola, if the initiative does go through in November, it wont have much effect on how LSSU does admissions. U of M gets singled out because they receive more than forty thousand applicants in any given year, and a lot of people wind up getting rejected based on their formulas. We take a more holistic view of admissions here, and we dont reduce applications down to a formula that way. If we can do a better job of getting LSSUs story out, getting more people interested and coming in, then our diversity will increase naturally   we just dont need affirmative action up here. 

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