Sonia Sotomayor for USSC?

[dps]

I actually wonder what you mean by admission standards in light of your comment that you dont mind sports skill to be factored into that.   I had thought that there were minimum admission standards for athletes to be admitted into university.  Granted they might not be as high as you would wish but am I wrong that they do exist.  It is an honest question.  I know they exist in Canada - minimum GPA requirements were brought in when I was playing but I am not sure about the US.

See this article: http://blogsarchive.newsobserver.com/accnow/index.php?p=5191&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 to see some discussion on the point.  A lot of conferences and teams allow non-academically-qualified athletes to play.  And the minimums are set by the NCAA, not the school.  Schools can impose additional qualifications, but I don't know how many do.

Among Division 1A football programs, only Stanford, Vanderbilt, the service acadamies, and maybe a few others.  Notre Dame used to, but they don't anymore IIRC.

[Berkut]

My understanding is that there is a lot of variability amongst schools as to how tolerant they are of academic non and partial qualifiers. Certainly if you follow recruiting, your hear a lot about some recruit being recruited at one school, but ending up at another because the first school could not or would not get him accepted academically.

There has been some talk in the past about creating a more "honest" system, at least for college football. The reality is that the one size fits all is something of a pipe dream. The differences between how a BCS school runs their program as far as finances and such and a mid-major conference are tremendous.

I do not really support the idea that there should be systemic changes made, because to the extent there is a problem, it is a limited problem, and systemic changes would of course effect even those schools where there is not an issue. Perhaps there really should be a "super-conference" of about 40 or maybe 50 largest football schools that would operate outside the NCAA, and under the bounds of their own rules tailored to the reality of big time college football.

The only problem is that I suspect that rather than approach it from the stance of how do we address the unique problems of big time college football, it would be used to simply remove the existing restrictions, and make it even more of a joke. I guess I do value the "charade" to the extent that it at least forces the appearance of actual college athletics, rather than it just being a development league for the NFL, which IMO would lose much of its charm.

[grumbler]

Among Division 1A football programs, only Stanford, Vanderbilt, the service acadamies, and maybe a few others.  Notre Dame used to, but they don't anymore IIRC.

Do you have a link for this assertion?  I know that Michigan, for instance, has never accepted a partial qualifier and has seen many recruits sign elsewhere after they failed to qualify at Michigan.  I would also be astonished if Notre Dame used NCAA minimums as their own minimums.

[crazy canuck]

See this article: http://blogsarchive.newsobserver.com/accnow/index.php?p=5191&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 to see some discussion on the point.  A lot of conferences and teams allow non-academically-qualified athletes to play.  And the minimums are set by the NCAA, not the school.  Schools can impose additional qualifications, but I don't know how many do.

Thanks for the link.  I find AR's arguments regarding the lack of standards for athletes more pursuasive now.

[Valmy]

Only aboput half of the "money sport" athletes, in fact, graduate from the University, and those that do overwhelmingly graduate in degree programs designed for money-sport athletes. The last number I saw for Texas, for instance, had football playters graduating (in six years) at about half the rate of male students in general.

The idea that football players are "student-athletes" is a charade at the major programs.

Texas gets hammered by both sides.

On one end Texas' male athletes generally dont graduate at very high rates.  On the other Texas is generally hated for forcing on higher (relative term here) admission standards for athletes on the other Big 12 schools: http://www.allsands.com/sports/bigsport_wie_gn.htm

I feel somewhat glad the departments at least make a show of not passing some dude simply because he plays football.  They seem to really have to work on graduating.

Under the new Big 12 rules, only two male and two female partial qualifiers are allowed to enroll each year, with no more than one athlete in each sport. And nonqualifiers aren't accepted at all. They must go to junior college.

For NU and other former Big Eight schools, the Big 12 eligibility standards were a big change.

The Big Eight didn't limit the number of partial qualifiers a school could have and allowed nonqualifiers to enroll at institutions. Nonqualifiers had to sit out the first year - paying their own tuition - and then were eligible to play the second year provided they passed 24 credit hours over two semesters.

Originally, Big 12 schools agreed to adopt the old Big Eight rules for initial eligibility, former NU Football Coach Tom Osborne said. Then some Big 12 schools, led by the University of Texas, pushed for stricter rules. These standards are the one in place now.

The Big 12 now uses NCAA Clearinghouse standards to admit athletes. An athlete can establish eligibility with a GPA in 13 core classes as low as 2.0, provided the student also presents an SAT score (re-centered) of 1010 or an ACT sum score of 86. At the other end of the index, a minimum 820 SAT or 68 ACT sum score establishes the floor for students with GPAs of 2.500 or higher.

What upset Osborne at the time was the limits on partial and nonqualifiers. Some conferences like the Big Ten, don't have any.

"Where this rule can hurt you is if a player is considering Nebraska and Ohio State or some other school in the Big Ten," Osborne said. "The initial signing day is in February."

The Big Ten, which had always proclaimed itself as an elite academic conference, does not limit the number of partial and nonqualifiers. Theoretically, an athlete could have scored a 60 sum score on the ACT (an average of 15) and had a 1.5 GPA and still enrolled in a school like Michigan. They wouldn't play, but they could eventually.

But the Big Ten does have stricter rules once students enroll in institutions, said Jennifer Heppel, director of legislative and eligibility services for the conference.

The NCAA rules states an athlete must complete 24 hours toward his or her major each year. The Big Ten rules require 51 completed credit hours after the second year and 78 after the third year.

"We put more emphasis on their college work than high school grades," Heppel said.

[dps]

Among Division 1A football programs, only Stanford, Vanderbilt, the service acadamies, and maybe a few others.  Notre Dame used to, but they don't anymore IIRC.

Do you have a link for this assertion?  I know that Michigan, for instance, has never accepted a partial qualifier and has seen many recruits sign elsewhere after they failed to qualify at Michigan.  I would also be astonished if Notre Dame used NCAA minimums as their own minimums.

No, I was just talking out my ass.

[grumbler]

Theoretically, an athlete could have scored a 60 sum score on the ACT (an average of 15) and had a 1.5 GPA and still enrolled in a school like Michigan. They wouldn't play, but they could eventually.

It is kinda humorous that this author picked that example, since it made the point dead wrong.  No partial or non-qualifier can enroll at Michigan.  I know that this would be true for Michigan State and Ohio State, because Michigan scholorship acceptees who subsequently failed to qualify have gone to both of those schools.  I don't know what the policy is at other Big Ten schools, but I would be surprised if Penn State or Northwestern allowed partial qualifiers.

[jimmy olsen]

Looks like it wasn't a one time misstatement after all, she's said the same thing at least 7 times.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1903981,00.html

Republican critics of Sotomayor are planning to use the Ricci decision as Exhibit A in what they hope will be confirmation hearings focused on her views about race. Exhibit B is a speech she delivered in 2001 that included the following 32 words: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Since President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the court on May 26, that remark has become the main source of conservative attacks. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told his followers on Twitter that Sotomayor was a "Latina woman racist" who should withdraw. (He later apologized.) Sotomayor expressed regret about her word choice to Senator Dianne Feinstein. But after the Senate Judiciary Committee released Sotomayor's complete list of speeches, it emerged that she had delivered many versions of the same stump speech — seven by one count — between 1994 and 2003. In all of them, she suggested that a judge who was a "wise woman" or a "wise Latina woman" would issue a better opinion than a male or a white male judge.

[Faeelin]

No, it looks like the Republicans are claiming she are.

Myself, I wonde rif this is the right attack plan, even if she did say this. Or has the GOP written off the Latino vote entirely?

[Admiral Yi]

No, it looks like the Republicans are claiming she are.

You misread.  The info comes from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Myself, I wonde rif this is the right attack plan, even if she did say this. Or has the GOP written off the Latino vote entirely?

That's a rather patronizing attitude.  Do all Latino voters think female Latina judges make better decisions?

[jimmy olsen]

No, it looks like the Republicans are claiming she are.

Myself, I wonde rif this is the right attack plan, even if she did say this. Or has the GOP written off the Latino vote entirely?

I would think this would be something that Time could confirm or deny rather easily, those statements are either in the speeches the Judiciary Committee released or they aren't.

I'm a Latino and I think that if accurately reported, such sentiment so often repeated, is indicative that the woman's a racist.

[Hansmeister]

No, it looks like the Republicans are claiming she are.

Myself, I wonde rif this is the right attack plan, even if she did say this. Or has the GOP written off the Latino vote entirely?

Yeah, it will harm the GOP with latinos to the same degree that the filibustering of Miguel Estrada hurt the Democrats.

[derspiess]

No, it looks like the Republicans are claiming she are.

Myself, I wonde rif this is the right attack plan, even if she did say this. Or has the GOP written off the Latino vote entirely?

I have.  McCain tried pandering to Latinos last year & failed miserably.  They love Obama, plain & simple. 

[derspiess]

I'm a Latino and I think that if accurately reported, such sentiment so often repeated, is indicative that the woman's a racist.

You're about as Latino as I am, Tim

[jimmy olsen]

Blood doesn't lie.