Criitie

Criitie

  • Submitted By: janadaher
  • Date Submitted: 09/29/2015 10:44 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 308
  • Page: 2

The article, “Time to Bury Legacy”, written by Robert DeKoven and published in the San Diego Union-Tribune(2003), claims that an affirmative action should be done to end the inequality among normal students and legatees. The article wasn’t completely consistent and the examples given were either unreliable or outdated. The writer opposed the legacy admissions and advocated equality among students.
DeKoven is a professor at California Western School of Law. This gives him credibility to argue about the actions of the Supreme Court. He didn’t support his main claim with convincing grounds whereas he offended the legacy (Legacies are a form of positive bias based upon one’s lineage). He presented counterarguments in paragraphs 8 and 9 but didn’t refute them appropriately (Private schools defend legacy practice because it builds school loyalty...). DeKoven didn’t discuss the legal issues related to the legacy admissions except in few paragraphs. He mentioned some statistics with no clear reference (in paragraph 5) and referred to outdated examples from 1964 and 1970 whereas his article was published in 2003. The paragraphs were very short and not developed well.
Red Herring fallacy can be detected in paragraph 11 where the writer related legacy to sexual and racial discrimination and this is not the case. There’s an oversimplification in the conclusion where the writer offered a very simple solution (affirmative action) to a controversial issue (legacy practice).
DeKoven mentioned the example of George W. Bush three times in his article as an appeal to values (Pathos). The intended audiences of the writer were the American people and government because he discussed the American law and listed the examples from American universities.
Overall, the article was not convincing enough despite that the writer had some correct points concerning the inequality among students. However, the solution he offered was not logical and it advocates discrimination in...