This House would End Affirmative Action

Hung : 9:9 (4 Abstained)

Yay! It was a lot of fun. More than 20 people were there and half were new! It wasn't heated or impassioned in the least. It was sort of a mellow and intellectual conversation about what Affirmative Action is meant to do, an analysis as to whether it does accomplish that goal and whether we are better off without it. The conversation was mostly based in the larger context of the American education system, how it fails to give the same opportunities to every child and parent and how Affirmative action seems to be a poor fix so late in the game. We had a couple of people share their personal stories which I thought was really nice. Some were about immigrating here very young and struggling to succeed and get the resources to make it through the system, one was about the stigma that comes with Affirmative action and how it can cause the racial tensions it is meant to assuage. The stories, I thought, were quite heartfelt.

Kazu was an awesome awesome moderator. Almost everyone entered the room as undecided - I think it was 4 ppl in favor of Affirm. Act, 4 ppl against and 10 undecided. In the end it was 9 in favor, 9 against and 4 undecided which I think is a nice compliment for the debaters and participants that they were able to persuade and inform people.

-- caroline