Uhphermuhtivv Akshun Update 12/11

Last night, I worked tireless on my paper and am completely done with the citations! I am very proud of myself, because I was more worried about my citations than anything else. However, I would still like to find some more sources just for the sake of thoroughness.

Uhphermuhtivv Akshun Update 12/9

Today, I did absolutely nothing related to my affirmative action paper. I have quite a bit of Organic Chemistry to study and I am much more worried about that class than my paper. I still feel fairly confident in my paper and am not too worried about completing the paper on time. I hope you all feel updated.

Uhphermuhtivv Akshun Update 12/7

Today, I finished my introduction and my conclusion for the first draft of my affirmative action expository paper. I felt like completing these two things would not require me to be 100% finished with my research, but still allow me to get some good work done. This is huge because in all honesty, I would much rather spend the next few weeks on preparation for finals than this paper. I had relatively little trouble writing my introduction because affirmative action tends to be a topic that can write its own story. There is such a deep history of America associated with affirmative action and its precursors that there is really no lack of information to use. This makes me even happier with my choice of topic for my paper, and I continue to feel confident that I can complete this paper on time more than adequately.

Uhphermuhtivv Akshun Update 12/4

Thursday evening, I spent most of my time attempting to amass more information and sources on affirmative action associated with colleges. At this point in my research I'm just shooting out googles fishing for good info wherever it may be. I also started working on the bibliographies of these sources. The purpose of this is to just save time for me in the future so I won't have to deal with citations and such while cram editing my paper at the last minute. I feel fairly confident about the direction in which my paper is going and hope to have continued success in finding information.

Uhphermuhtivv Akshun Update 12/1

I'm done with my paper proposal! I made sure to incorporate the merits of researching an argument about affirmative action in college acceptance, how it relates to me, and where I could go to look for information on my topic. I feel pretty darn good about it being accepted, so on Wednesday I'm probably going to begin doing research for the next piece of our paper we have due, which requires us to research the opinions of both sides of our issue and explain what they believe and why. I've got my mojo going and I'm ready to knock this paper out!

Uhphermuhtivv Akshun Update 11/30

Today I found a great resource that I think is going to prove key for both sides of my affirmative action in college acceptance debate. Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) was a Supreme court case that directly confronted the issue, asking whether or not the judgment based on race that may have kept Barbara Grutter from being accepted into the University of Michigan Law School. The Court majority voted in favor of the law school stating that such judgment was constitutional, with Sandra Day O'Connor writing the majority opinion and Ruth Bader Ginsburg writing a concurrence. Justices Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia and Chief Justice Rehnquist all wrote dissenting opinions. This case, filled with important statistics and educated opinions, is a vast wealth of information for my paper that may single-handedly take me where I need to go!

Just in case you're curious:

The Oyez Project, Grutter v. Bollinger , 539 U.S. 306 (2003)
available at: (http://oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2002/2002_02_241)
(last visited Sunday, November 29, 2009).

Layeramee Prahgekkt

Watching the Laramie Project gave me incredibly mixed emotions about the inspiration of the film itself. Throughout the entire film, I felt great sympathy for Matthew Sheppard, his family and friends, and the entire Laramie community, and I wish there was some way such a catastrophe could have been avoided. However, the movie itself seemed to push the support of hate crime legislation that I just do not know enough about to feel comfortable to accept at this point. I was somewhat disappointed in the fact that a movie that could have been incredibly powerful without the ending political message had to add that piece in. The story of Sheppard on its own raises a great deal of important awareness of social injustice within our country. However, the political aspect of the piece with hate crime legislation left me fairly upset.