Word: argumentative
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...even offer these classes. A student who aces every class offered in his high school in the barrio and ends up with 4.0 could lose out to a student from Beverly Hills who gets A's in advanced-placement classes and graduates above 4.0. It's not a bad argument. But the fact is, even if U.C. cleaned up its criteria, as long as race is not considered, the number of blacks and Hispanics at the top campuses is not likely to go up much...
...cascading is good: it means U.C. applicants are finally being judged on their abilities, not the color of their skin. Advocates go a step further, saying that it even benefits the minority students who end up being turned away by more prestigious campuses. Students are better off, the argument goes, when they attend colleges that match their academic level...
...violence. They are yoked in the politician's sermon like Sodom and Gomorrah or Bonnie and Clyde. Their effect on the young is pernicious, folks: film violence will put a gun in a kid's hand; film sex will grow hair on his palm. But this argument didn't come from anyone who actually goes to movies. Sure, there's film violence, so much that it's numbing. But where...
Redwood says both sides have turned the argument over affirmative action into "a false debate that doesn't deal with the real problems." On one hand, there is what she calls "white noise" from Connerly and his ilk, who have defined the issue in terms of racial preferences instead of equal opportunity for women and minorities. On the other, there is the unwillingness of some affirmative-action proponents to look hard at blacks' lagging performance on standardized tests...
...House majority looking thinner than ever, Republicans -- who would like to give back a lot of the surplus in tax cuts -- have learned that when they try to shout Clinton down, they lose. Kick up a little fuss and hammer out a deal, and they can save the larger argument (solvency) for a less formidable opponent (Al Gore) or a fellow traveler (George...