As college students, a topic of public controversy that I believe weighs heavily on the youth of this country is affirmative action. We live in a sad reality where we consider our society progressive and modern yet still fail to acknowledge all individuals as equal. The United States and New York City, in particular, are taking measures to correct the discriminatory atrocities that have shaped much of the western world’s history that still exist today. Such measures include affirmative action. However, in an attempt to successfully give minorities and people of color a leveled playing field, the very same system is neglecting merit and recognition from those that are believed to be “privileged”.
To project our voices on how affirmative action impacts the CUNY education system, we made a compilation of students from different campuses to embody the mixed opinions on affirmative action. Our project was divided into a video that had footage of people we personally asked about affirmative action and a poster that stood as political art.
Using a boxing match analogy, we showed how there are two unique takes on the affirmative action policy.
The link to our video cannot be posted as many of the people we interviewed were uncomfortable with having their opinions associated with their name on a public website. However, attached below are screenshots of two of the CUNY students we interviewed for our video.
The affirmative action initiative has been widely debated for several years in the United States and yet no one person can be proved right due to the many arguments both for and against. Being students in the Macaulay Honors program at Baruch College, we consider ourselves fortunate to be surrounded by such rich diversity. Learning from the plethora of cultures our peers bring to the table, we are able to give ourselves eclectic personalities. It will be a utopian education system the day affirmative action is not a conflict of debate and where diverse students who are like-minded have the provision to thrive collectively.
Group Members: Felicia Napoli, Shermeen Khan, Arya Sanghavi and Rom Raviv
