Student Sample

Lesson Assigned: Affirmative Action

Stew Dent
Period
Date

Affirmative Action

I first heard the term Affirmative Action from my parents. In their minds the idea of raising one
group over another based simply on race was an act of racism and because they believed it, I believed it.
This was the opinion I held when I walked into Mr. Papas classroom, an opinion held in the majority of
the class; on survey 75% of students who heard about Affirmative Action prior to Mr. Papas class
believed it was racist and unfair however when the lesson began the opinion of myself and my
classmates would dramatically change.
The lesson began with all of us answering four distinct questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Do you feel the past affects the present?

What is the difference between equality and fairness?
Should people feel offended when they receive a compliment based on their race?
Do you agree with this statement: I dont see race/color I only see people as
equal human beings.

When answering these questions, I really had to think about what I would say. I felt challenged by such
simple questions because I never really thought about such things in such ways; specifically I found
myself taking a long time contemplating the difference between equality and fairness. I always thought
the terms meant the same thing but when I was facing the question I was forced to think about how
they could be different and all I could think about was U.S history and how in the beginning the U.S had
government in which each state had one vote each, every state was equal but a lot of states who had a
bigger population did not like this way of government because they felt they should have more

Student Sample

Lesson Assigned: Affirmative Action

Stew Dent
Period
Date
representation because they had a bigger population, the bigger states felt it was unfair. When we as
class discussed the questions many students said the same thing and the teacher acknowledged that
this was a great example. An interesting thing occurred when we were asked the last question of
whether we agree with the statement: I dont see race/color, I only see people as equal human beings.
I did, and almost everyone in the class agreed that they do not see race and further explained that the
race of a person is inconsequential to a persons ability to achieve their dreams in the United States. On
this last question the teacher pointed out that a distinct pattern had emerged amongst those who
agreed with the statement. He showed that most of the students who agreed were Caucasian and Asian
while the others who disagreed were Hispanic and African-American. Such a realization lead to a
conversation about our own biases. I remember one student, John Doe demonstrated a lot of passion
when discussing the idea embedded in the last question, his points revolved around bringing up specific
examples in which African Americans had succeeded in U.S both from personal experience and public
example. On interviewing John Doe about the rigor he demonstrated on the last question. He said I felt
offended about the implication of having a particular position based on race. He also said I wanted to
show logically that race in our society is no longer something that can hold people back. The four
questions helped put us in the mindset of a thorough discussion about Affirmative Action.
The lesson of Affirmative Action was much different from other lessons experienced in class. We
as a class were accustomed to taking notes on what the teacher was discussing but it seemed that this
time Mr. Papa wanted us to do most of the talking and use our own experiences about race to talk
about the concept of Affirmative Action. After the opening activity Mr. Papa asked us to pull out our
notebooks and write the term Affirmative Action in the middle of a blank page. After that he told us to
think of any words or phrases we felt were associated with the concept, we did this on our own, I knew I
would have some pretty good phrases because I had heard this term before from my parents and so I
put down words like racism, unfair, African-American, unnecessary, and I put down the phrase, we

Student Sample

Lesson Assigned: Affirmative Action

Stew Dent
Period
Date
should not be judged by our race but by our own individual merit. We then got into groups of three, I
remember my group members were Ashley Thomas and John Lee and all three of us had similar terms.
When Mr. Papa asked each group to share with the class what each group had discussed, I thought it
would be a pretty unanimous understanding of such a policy, but like the last question of the first
activity, I witnessed a dramatic contrast, a contrast that again Mr. Papa pointed out had a pattern of
race. The African American and Hispanic students of the class shared much different words and phrases
than my group and I wrote down. They uttered phrases like justice, righteousness, forgiveness, someone
even said the phrase Black Power. In discussing our phrases Mr. Papa asked some of us to explain the
phrases we wrote down and when the explanations began it was starting to become clear that everyone
had an opinion about Affirmative Action and race and soon things would get very heated.
When Mr. Papa asked us to share our terms, he began to write what we said on the board and
after each group had shared, he began to circle the things written on the board. He then asked us to
develop a definition of Affirmative Action from the terms he circled. He circled the terms race,
government, gives jobs to African Americans, segregation, and justice. I remember that my group was
having a hard time with this exercise because the terms circled were not terms we provided nor were
they ones we agreed with. However we did our best and we came up with a definition that went:
Affirmative Action: A policy the government forces people to give jobs to African Americans because
of Segregation in order to provide justice for them.
We were then asked to share what we wrote down and oddly enough we all had pretty much the same
definition. Mr. Papa seemed pleasantly surprised and then began to provide the textbook definition
Affirmative Action.

Student Sample

Lesson Assigned: Affirmative Action

Stew Dent
Period
Date
Affirmative Action: A government policy that directly or indirectly awards jobs, government

contracts, promotions, admission to schools and training programs, and other benefits to minorities
and women in order to make up for past discrimination caused by society as a whole.
Mr. Papa seemed proud about the idea that each group formed a definition that was pretty close for
what was given to them. He then asked a question that would lead to the most heated debate ever
experience so far in his class. He asked who believes this is fair?
When Mr. Papa asked who believes this is fair, a little less than half shot up their hands. He then
asked the obvious almost redundant question of who believes this is unfair? and the other half of the
students shot up their hands. Mr. Papa then said for those who believed it was right to go to the right
side of the room and for those who believed it was wrong to go to the left side of the room. We were
now a class divided, former friends became rivals as we were asked by Mr. Papa to prepare for
classroom discussion about our belief over Affirmative Action. The two big groups were divided into
smaller groups and each smaller group began to discuss why we took the position we did on Affirmative
Action. We also began to discuss why the opposing group took their position about Affirmative Action
and why they were dead wrong. Both groups were eager to prove the other wrong, Interviewing John
Kim, a student opposite of my position said I wanted to destroy you guys and I felt that it was about to
go down! After we had discussed in our groups for about eight minutes, Mr. Papa asked us to then
elect one person from each group to be the representatives of our position. I was elected in my group to
go up, and I remember feeling really nervous but also excited. I discussed with the newly formed group,
refined our position and also developed questions which were going to ask the other side in order to
undermine the logic of their argument. After 5 minutes of refinement began the discussion, I remember
our group went first and we stated that

Student Sample

Lesson Assigned: Affirmative Action

Stew Dent
Period
Date
Affirmative Action was unfair because it runs contrary to the American Dream of providing benefits

based on the inconsequential criteria of race instead of merit and hard work, and because it does this
it is in its nature a racist act and should not be allowed.

The other position then stated their stance:

Affirmative Action as a practice was implemented in order to obtain the highest standard of fairness
by allowing minorities which faced numerous forms of discrimination to be provided the opportunities
barred from them in their past to create a more equal society.

Student Sample

Lesson Assigned: Affirmative Action

Stew Dent
Period
Date
After each side shared their position, the questioning began and I remember them being tough, and I
also remember Mr. Papa just sitting on the side not really doing anything except keeping us on topic
with our questions and answers. I remember being asked a question which through our whole group
back, it referred to a question asked in the first activity; do you believe the past affects the present?
We as representatives unanimous said yes, then the next question was then do you believe that past
injustices inflicted on African Americans, women and other minorities would affect their present ability
to achieve? We wanted to say no but we just said yes to the general concept of the past affecting the
present and we hesitated, the hesitation weakened our position and the best we could say was,
The history of minorities of the United States cannot conclusively demonstrate that it is responsible
for the negative outcome shared by some minorities.
However we werent always on the defensive, our sides questions were based on the notion of
individual achievement and said that there is a clear history of minority success which has created a
society which no longer discriminates based on race and provides equal opportunity for all people. After
about 10 minutes, Mr. Papa stopped the discussion and we moved on to the next activity.
After the discussion, Mr. Papa gave us a worksheet and in the original groups of three we were
asked to read as a group. The worksheet focused on a particular court case which involved Affirmative
Action known as Regents of the University of California V. Bakke. The court case involved a student by
the name of Allan Bakke who claimed to have been refused admission to the University of California
Davis medical school because he was white. He established that the UC Davis had a quota system
reserved 16 places out of 100 each year for minorities and he argued that minority students with lowers
scores were gaining an unfair advantage in acceptance because of this quota system which is why he
was not being admitted into UC Davis. I remember that I thought this is exactly what was wrong with

Student Sample

Lesson Assigned: Affirmative Action

Stew Dent
Period
Date
affirmative action, my group and I came to the conclusion that Affirmative Action was wrong because it
robs opportunities from more deserving students. It was about fairness not equality.
After each group finished the reading activity. Mr. Papa then asked us again another question
which would split the class in half. He asked Do you agree with the ruling of Regents of the University of
California vs Bakke? For the most part students stayed in their groups but some did change, Ashley
Thomas, a group member of mine from my reading group changed her position and felt that Affirmative
Action was a fair policy which is more helpful than hurtful. We followed the exact same procedure of
splitting up into smaller groups and discussing our argument and then electing a representative of each
small group to go up and articulate the stance about Regent of the University of California V Bakke. This
time I opted out of being the representative, and saw what it was like on the outside. The position we
established was that was
We disagree with the ruling of the Regents of University of California V. Bakke because it further
affirms that race should be a criterion in college admission but agree with the ruling that forced
schools to dismantle the quota system in their admission process.
The other side articulated this point.
We agree with the overriding ruling that race should be a factor in college admission because such
history attached to race contributes to the potential of a student and believe that the dismantling of a
quota system was in fact an action which better served the idea of a just society.

Student Sample

Lesson Assigned: Affirmative Action

Stew Dent
Period
Date

When I heard the other sides argument I was really surprised because they actually agreed with us
about the quota system, which lead the discussion in a different a direction. This time the questioning
felt more like a collaborative effort. I interviewed another student, Jorge Martinez, who was on the
other side and asked why they felt the quota system was unjust he said We all believed that race was
an important thing to consider when being admitted in college, but we also agreed that it is not the only
thing to consider, and the quota system delivered that message of only highlighting race.
After ten minutes, Mr. Papa ended the discussion and asked us to look back at the answers we
gave at the first activity. Mr. Papa instructed us to reflect on our answers and see if we still agree on
what we said. I looked at the last question, the question which stated Do you agree with this
statement: I dont see race/color I only see people as equal human beings. I changed my mind
because I was reminded of the history minorities in the U.S, a history that has made a distinction
between what opportunities are allowed for one group of people and what opportunities are allowed
for another. Presently our society is better at providing opportunities to minorities than ever before, but

Student Sample

Lesson Assigned: Affirmative Action

Stew Dent
Period
Date
after this lesson I realized that we as a society are far from universal equality, that race still matters, and
how we get better at creating a more equal and fair society is a question we still need answered.

This picture is meant to be ironic.