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Conservative Media Link Affirmative Action to Illegal Immigration

May 19, 2011, 5:06 pm

A former associate dean at the University of Maryland at College Park has told Fox News that admissions officers at his institution favor undocumented students, sparking a flurry of articles and columns in conservative media outlets arguing that colleges’ affirmative-action policies reward illegal immigration. James M. Purtilo, an associate professor of computer science who was associate dean of the university’s former College of Computer, Mathematical, and Physical Sciences from 2007 to 2009, told The Chronicle that his intention in alleging such preferences was to draw attention to his broader reservations about affirmative action. He estimated that his college in the university admitted just a handful of undocumented students each year. In interviews with The Chronicle, both Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, and David A. Hawkins, director of public policy and research at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, expressed doubt that the nation’s selective higher-education institutions gave admission preferences to significant numbers of undocumented students. Mr. Nassirian called the idea “laughable,” arguing that, if anything, colleges resist admitting undocumented students because accepting them “brings political heat” and “enormous administrative difficulties.”

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  • CU_Alum

    It’s not surprising that some illegal immigrants got preferential treatment.  What matters is whether applicants received it *because* they were illegal immigrants. If the university’s affirmative action program favors, say, all Hispanic applicants, than it would apply to Hispanic citizens, legal residents, holders of student visas, and illegal immigrants alike.  That sounds far more plausible than Purtilo’s allegations.  If I’m right, then what he really wants is for the university to DISfavor illegal immigrants.  That’s a reasonable position, especially at a public university.  But to accuse the university of favoring them is a very different position.

  • Guest

    If the university’s affirmative action program favors, say, all Hispanic applicants, than it would apply to Hispanic citizens, legal residents, holders of student visas, and illegal immigrants alike. 
    —
    No it shouldn’t apply to illegals at all regardless of their ethnic group or skin color. It is shameful that an illegal immigrant who snuck over the border five years ago would get racial privileges over a native-born white American whose family has been here for 100, 200, 300 years or more, and whose ancestors paid this country’s taxes, cleared its forests, built its infrastructure and fought its wars.

    Please explain to me how you would justify giving an illegal immigrant a college seat over a native-born American whose great-great grandfather is buried at Gettysburg, just because that illegal immigrant has a “favored” skin color. I’m all ears.

  • burger1376

    Obviously, many liberal extremists in America can’t seem to understand your logical thinking.  Unfortunately, Liberals extremists control US higher education.   

  • CU_Alum

    I wouldn’t give him “a college seat over a native-born American whose great-great grandfather is buried at Gettysburg, just because that illegal immigrant has a ‘favored’ skin color”.  But I would give him that seat if he had better grades, test scores, extracurriculars, etc., and I would factor his background into the decision.
     
    Now please explain to me why you would admit a less-qualified American just because one of his ancestors died in a well-known battle.

  • CU_Alum

    Sorry.  I didn’t realize that admitting applicants based on academic merit and personal characteristics rather than immigration status was a symptom of brainwashing by the left.

  • ult324

    I believe that any student’s LEGAL immigration status SHOULD most definitely be a consideration before admittance, regardless of their academic merit. A prospective student who is not legally in this country should NEVER have priority over an American citizen or registered alien.  

  • k_steiner

    Regarding the headline, does CHE acknowledge a “liberal media”?  Would it use that term to introduce a story reported by NPR and blogged about in the Huffington Post?

  • rogerclegg

     From Roger Clegg, Center for Equal Opportunity:  On why racial and ethnic preferences for recent immigrants — legal, illegal, temporary, whatever — makes especially little sense, see this 2006 National Review Online column by Edward Blum and me: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/217526/indiscriminate-discrimination/edward-blum  Not, of course, that they make sense for anyone else either.

  • stannadel

    “He estimated that his college in the university admitted just a handful of undocumented students each year.”  If so this is making a mountain out of a molehill and it looks like he’s just trying to use the illegal immigration theme as a stick to beat his real target, affirmative action.  If nothing else this is intellectual dishonisty.

  • stevo1

    When did we lose our common sense? Our Government, has allowed the invasion of 30 million criminals in direct violation of Article IV, Section IV of our Constitution. they force American tax payers to pay Billions to provide Welfare, Prison cells, Educate the invaders children, free medical care,massive document fraud, & are destroying our schools, hospitals, communities, culture while Robbing, Raping, Killing & Assaulting American Citizens WE ARE BEING INVADED! WAKE UP PEOPLE!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9IGKRzdzZ8&feature=player_embedded
    .youtube.com/watch?v=tsH8xvjTAlo
    .youtube.com/watch?v=Btj6IeOFkis&feature=player_embedded
    http://immigrationcounters.com/
    .ojjpac.org/memorial.asp
    .immigrationshumancost.org/
    .newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty580.htm
    .youtube.com/watch?v=muw22wTePqQ
    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/02/immigration-costs-fair-amnesty-educations-costs-reform/
    http://www.rense.com/general81/dtli.htm
    http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=41045
    http://www.cairco.org/econ/econ.html
    http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/003335.html
    Every Non-representative including obama and holder are not upholding the oath of office! they swore to defend the Constitution! If these clowns were to do their job, this would all be a Moot point!
     Anchors and their criminal parents go, period, you knew you were breaking the law when you crossed the border.

    Next shut down any business hiring illegal labor. Oh and owners go to jail.
     Got a better idea? Lets hear it!

  • katisumas

    Why don’t you go back where your parents or grandparents or greatgrand parents came from? 

    You’re spewing hatred and lies and are trying to provoke violence –have you no shame? 

  • 11122741

     we it is: C U must be Columbia University

  • 11122741

     it’s called birth right, entitlement and the social compact and all of the other rights your claim for yourself as well as basic honesty which seems to be a problem for you.  My guess is that you are a gamer of the first order.

  • 11122741

     why do liberals always respond to people like Steveo1 by telling them to leave and go back to the “old country” rather than offering to leave themselves or actually respectfully responding to their disagreement with knee jerk views …spreading a little hate of your own there huh Kat.  i have an idea who should be feeling some real shame relative to their disavowal of established basic facts and simple arguments.  If you actually bother to read what Steveo1 wrote somewhat dispassionately you will see that your accusations (hatred, lies, provoking violence) are incorrect and he is opening up the other side of the conversation and argument that you seem quite unwilling to participate in.  Why don’t you try beginning with identifying what is factually incorrect in what Steveo1 had to say.

  • stevo1

     no hatred, no lies, i wouldnt sneak into your country, and collect the benefits and get free school for my children

  • CU_Alum

     Getting into college is not a birthright.  Applicants should be admitted or denied based on merit, not where they were born.  And “basic honesty” is only an issue if the applicant falsely claims to be here legally.

    Since you think basic honesty is a problem for me, please point to something dishonest I have written.  And please explain why you make an ad hominem attack instead of addressing the issue.

  • stevo1

    my great great grandparents were cherokee  and comanchee

  • stevo1

    what is wrong with you people? you expect us to pay for you sneaking into our country? and then, pay for your kids to go to school? then we should give you tuition breaks for college? then we should pay for you to to through the court system? and give you welfare? WHAT ABOUT AMERICAN CITIZENS? 

  • rhancuff

    In two ways, you’re conflating two very different things. First, a blog in the Huffington Post is not “media” in the same sense that Fox News or NPR are “media” (as for the unnamed “conservative media outlets,” it’s hard to say if the Chronicle reporter differentiates between traditional media and internet blogs). Second, the Huffington Post could be classified as liberal, but NPR is hardly liberal, unless you define liberal in the traditional classical liberal sense. Unfortunately, in our country, covering multiple angles of stories and attempting to connect events rather than trumpet sound bites has come to be seen as a negative and dismissed as “liberal.”

    More people need to take this shoddy thinking seriously and challenge it. Fox News is a corporation that exists because Rupert Murdoch knew he could make money doing it, and there’s nothing wrong with that; after all, that’s why CNN exists and why the networks used to staff their news organizations. However, Murdoch understands better than the others that “news” is a product, and he tailors his product with more of a mind to market than a mind to integrity. Fox is a conservative news outlet. In the US, we don’t have a “liberal media” outside of a few weeklies (The Nation for example).

  • rhancuff

    Aren’t everyone’s?

  • rhancuff

    Did you read CU_Alum’s comment above? It says that if the AA program favors all Hispanic, then it wouldn’t differentiate between legal or nonlegal, etc. Allow me to illustrate from the world of computers: if I design a program to admit all women before admitting any men, then I am not designing a program to figure out which women are white, black, straight, gay, legal, or undocumented. You can argue all you want about whether that program is good or not, but you seem to be arguing with a premise CU_Alum didn’t argue in that particular post.

  • CU_Alum

    College applicants who are here illegally were almost all brought here by their parents.  They had no say in the matter.  They can’t realistically pack up and leave, since few have the means or the knowledge to return to their country of birth and since their families wouldn’t be there to take care of them.  It’s wrong to punish them for something over which they had no control.

    And who said anything about tuition breaks?  The article is about admissions, not financial aid.

    Your comment about “the court system” makes little sense.  Immigration matters are handled by special immigration courts, not by the same courts that handle other cases.

    How do you make welfare part of this thread?  The kids who go to college are the ones least likely to need welfare benefits.  If you really want these kids not to need welfare, you should let the best and brightest go to school here instead of condemning them to go through life with no education or skills.

    Finally, given your stated concern about reserving spaces for American citizens, do you think our colleges should reject all foreign applicants?  Or should such treatment be reserved for the ones who are here through no fault of their own?

  • Guest

    Now please explain to me why you would admit a less-qualified American just because one of his ancestors died in a well-known battle.–
    1.) Because that American’s ancestor gave his life to make a better country for HIS children and grandchildren, not for someone else’s.
    2.) Because when you give foreign-born people, especially foreign-born lawbreakers, racial privileges over those of native-born Americans, you break the social contract and make native-born Americans lose faith in their country–an expression of which is the willingness to pay taxes to keep the government of that country going. Do you really think that native-born Americans will continue to want to pay taxes to support institutions that discriminate against them in favor of non-natives?
    3.) Affirmative action is rarely handed out because of merit. It’s skin color and ethnic group that matters. Affirmative action for newly come immigrants simply because they are not white is pure racism against white Americans.

    So you answer me something? Who is more likely to be committed to the welfare of this country, to have pride in it, and to be willing to make the sacrifices necessary in hard to times to keep it going? An immigrant, who, no matter how talented or well-intentioned, probably has divided loyalities between his “old” country and his “new” one–or that native-born American whose ancestor paid the ultimate sacrifice at Normandy, or Gettysburg, or Yorktown?

    Man does not live by bread alone. A native-born blue-collar worker with an average IQ, with deep roots in this country, who is willing to sacrifice for her in good times and in bad, is a much more valuable citizen in the long run, than a guy with an Einstein IQ who just came to America to make as much money as he can.

  • Guest

     I did read CU_Alum’s post. He doesn’t have a problem with giving racial preferences to newly come immigrants whether they are here illegally or not. His subsequent replies to me showed me where hew as coming from. It was that to which I was responding.

  • Guest

    Perhaps the terminology should not be “liberal” or “conservative” but ”politically correct”? NPR is VERY politically correct; the firing of Juan Williams proves it.  

  • Guest

    A good article but it does not go far enough in showing how affirmative action for newly come immigrants–just because they are not white–is basically just racism against white Americans.

    Non-white immigrants–unlike the descendants of American slaves and Native Americans–are VOLUNTARY “minorities.” They are not minorities in their home countries. Does it not seem rather absurd that someone who VOLUNTEERS to become a “minority” by immigrating to this country can now turn around and say, “Hey, I’m a minority, give me racial privileges?”

    It reminds me somewhat of the story of the Yiddish definition of chutzpah: “A guy who kills both of his parents and then demands mercy from the court because he’s an orphan.”

    White native-born Americans are not responsible for someone else’s VOLUNTARY choice to become a “minority,”  and should not be penalized because of that choice.

  • Guest

    Affirmative action for newly come immigrants just because they are not white is grossly unjust whether they are legally or illegally present, but racial privileges for foreign-born lawbreakers is a particularly cruel and egregious injustice.

    Are you arguing that an injustice is not an injustice because it’s “just a handful” of cases? 

  • CU_Alum

    1.)  If you’re so concerned about admitting “lawbreakers”, why are you focused only on illegal immigrants?  Shouldn’t you insist that colleges exclude *all* lawbreakers?  Should we keep out any kids who engaged in underage sex?  Or who drank alcohol without parental consent when they were minors  Or who took drugs?  What about kids with criminal records?  (Remember that being in the country illegally is not a crime, and that most children who came her illegally had no say in the decision.)

    2.)  From where I sit, giving preferential treatment to an applicant because his ancestor died in a war almost 150 years ago is a breach of the social contract. (Would you disfavor an applicant whose ancestor fought for the confederacy?)  I hardly think soldiers gave their lives in service to our country so that future generations could have their status determined by their ancestry rather than their own merits.  Just as your applicant shouldn’t get better treatment due to the actions of his great-great-great grandparents, my applicant shouldn’t get worse treatment due to the actions of his parents.

    3.)  At least ostensibly, this controversy isn’t about affirmative action.  It’s allegedly about admitting illegal immigrants.  You seem to think that even undocumented aliens who are *more* qualified than citizens should be excluded.  I realize you have an ax to grind with affirmative action, but please stay on topic.

    4.)  Many children who are here illegally don’t even remember their former countries.  At the same time, many who are here legally just got here and are much more loyal to their country of birth. More fundamentally, why should loyalty to the U.S. determine who can or can’t go to college here?  By your logic, we should never issue student visas since those students are destined to go back to their own countries and are thus less likely to sacrifice for America than are the undocumented aliens who want to stay here.  Do you think only Americans should be admitted to our colleges and universities?  Or do you selectively apply your argument only to the group you already want to exclude?

    5.)  Lots of native-born Americans are also just trying to make as much money as they can, and lots of immigrants — both legal and illegal — want to do their part for this country.  Besides, you’re assuming both that the applicant chose to come here and that he made that choice just to make money.  In reality, though, an illegal immigrant who finished high school here probably came here due do his parents’ decision rather than his own.  Even if the parents really just want to make money — and even if just wanting to make money is a bad thing — why impute their motives to their children?  And if we do hold children accountable for their parents’ actions, shouldn’t we exclude American applicants whose parents fall short of our — excuse me, *your* — expectations?

  • CU_Alum

    Does it not seem rather absurd to pretend that someone whose parents brought him to this country as a child made a voluntary choice to be here?

    And why do you think illegal immigration only affects “White native-born Americans”? Shouldn’t the same be true re citizens of all races, including those who were naturalized? Or does this quote reveal something about your real motivations?

  • anon1972

    I would agree with your assessment of NPR as “politically correct.”  In the sense that they are generally loath to challenge the status quo or what seems to be the majority opinion.  However, that does not make them “liberal.”  FOX News, on the other hand, is avowedly “conservative.” They happily advertise their product as such.

  • anon1972

    Gosh, MaryJay, you don’t know much about immigrants, but you sure are ready to make a lot of assumptions about them.

  • CU_Alum

    Believe it or not, only a small fraction of illegal immigrants are criminals.  You seem to think being here illegally is a crime, but it isn’t.  It’s a civil violation, like a serious traffic ticket.  The consequence is usually deportation, but that does not make the offense a crime.

  • hawkeye515

    Your great great grandparents would have been better off if those illegal anglos hadn’t started showing up here 400 years ago.

  • k_steiner

    Rhancuff:  Your own statements show that “liberal” and conservative” are subjective constructs, and it would be pointless to argue with you whether NPR is liberal or not. However, your suggestion that there is no liberal media outside of weeklies such as The Nation, which is almost universally regarded as on the left-wing
    fringe, is objectively silly (see previous sentence). Furthermore, it is absurd to suppose that only Murdoch tailors his products with a mind to market. NPR knows its market precisely and tailors its product accordingly, and it proves both points by returning to the same few, tiresome selling points in every fund-raising appeal. However, I did not assert that Fox News is not conservative. I happen to believe that its actual news programs are more balanced than many other sources, but without solid metrics (which you also appear to lack) I concede that this is merely my opinion. I merely asked a question that was begged by the headline, does CHE acknowledge a “liberal media”? If it does not, then the headline is demonstrably tendentious.

  • uiipbir

    sevo1 – Do you actually believe this stuff?  In my opinion, you’re promoting hatred and lies, which doesn’t do anyone any good, least of all yourself.

  • burger1376

    Now you know…

  • gamicastillo

    The move to digitize everything is probably gaining momentum. I expect other publishers and libraries to follow suit.

  • sgray17

    The School of Information at the University of Michigan made a similar promise a little over a decade ago: free email, storage and web hosting for life. Of course this type of program is the first thing to be slashed when budgets are tight, as it was at UM, so a healthy dose of skepticism about this offer is in order.

  • quacker

    Wouldn’t it make more fiscal sense to teach students these lessons using the free consumer cloud resources already available to all of them?  That way they’d also learn how to differentiate the good from the not-so-good and cost vs benefit of these ervices?   

  • ronr8896

    This is very interesting. Can students save their copy protected e-text books in LifeTime Library?
    Will anyone from your team be attending Educause in Philadelphia next month? 

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