> Why does the student body need to replace part of its Whites and Asians with minorities to be "rich and diverse"?
Hey, so there are two parts to your question, the "rich" part and the "diverse" part. I'll start with diverse because it's the most obvious.
In order to have a "diverse" student body, it should be represent a plurality of points of view. If everyone was White/Asian then the student body wouldn't be diverse, because, by definition, there would just be people from those backgrounds. Obviously there's more to diversity than just race, and I'm not not trying to argue there isn't. I am trying to keep this response short though, so forgive me from enumerating on other things when you asked specifically about race.
Ok so now the "rich" part of the question. College is an important time in one's life where many people get the opportunity to experience freedom for the first time, while they pursue a challenging, serious education. However homework and lecture is not the only place where our education happens. Being exposed to a lot of ideas, people, and experiences is also critical to the college education. By this line of reasoning being around people of all sorts of different backgrounds is part of that aspect of education.
I grew up in a suburb of Texas. There were not a lot African Americans. I actually can't remember there being any. My family wasn't wealthy though, and my parents are immigrants (just to give you some context and to keep my story honest). I truly think that if my university hadn't had its affirmative action program, there's a good chance I would have made it to adulthood without having ever been around non-white people in a meaningful sense. When would I have? I didn't choose what family, city, state, or country I was born in. All of those things happened outside of my control, and, frankly, from the perspective of someone who was from a city like New York or London I would have seemed pretty ignorant.
It's sort of like traveling, you know? Having the opportunity to travel gives you a baseline level of experience in the world that there really is no substitute for. I think having an ethnically diverse student body is similar, and that is why I said society is the primary beneficiary of affirmative action. That's my best way to answer the question without there being an actual person in front of me and being able to have a face to face discussion, so I hope you take my answer as one given sincerely, even if you don't agree with it.
> Also, aren't you worried about how getting denied admission to a college because of your race will have a very negative effect for "society"?
I am Italian. My "race" invented pizza, so no.
Edit: Also, kidding aside, give me a break. I don't even know how to answer that. You're acting like you're the victim of some kind of race war, and it's cringe. I hate to say it, and I don't mean to be disrespectful, but it's true. You sound like one of my parents when they pretend like "you can't joke about anything anymore" or that everything is "so complicated with all the political correctness". Madonna.