AA – praag.org

76% of South Africans have been victims of crime

More than 76 percent of South Africans say they have been victims of crimes ranging from kidnapping, murder and sexual assault to robbery and housebreaking. This is one of the findings in the State of Security Report, commissioned by the Automobile Association (AA), which is being released today.

In addition to reviewing official government statistics, the authors also conducted a wide-ranging survey with more than 1100 respondents to determine direct feedback on personal security in South Africa.

Among the findings of the Report is that South Africans rate their sense of safety as being less than 50 percent. The report also found that people feel less safe in outdoor public spaces such as parks, than indoor public spaces such as malls. The report finds that as a result of the perceived lack of security, many South Africans change their behaviour, or avoid certain areas or situations, and increasingly add security features to their homes.

Another startling finding is that only 43.5 percent of people in South Africa feel mostly safe in their own homes. Just over 15 percent of respondents say they feel completely safe in their own homes, which is a shocking finding considering that one’s home should be a safe haven.

The release of the results comes two months after the AA introduced its new mobile security app known as AA Armed Response. The app is available as part of the AA’s Rescue Me suite of apps within the AA app, or as a standalone app and provides users with personal armed security at the push of button.

“We initially launched the service in December last year as an addition to our range of Rescue Me services. Based on the findings of the report the launch of AA Armed Response is not only timely but critical given the staggering statistics of crime people are exposed to daily, especially in a worsening economy,” says Willem Groenewald, AA CEO.

He says having a button available on a smartphone to activate immediate personal armed security is a powerful tool which can literally be the difference between life and death.

“The AA is a member-based organisation but on the back of these findings we have decided to also make this service available to non-members. We felt this is important because our aim is to provide a valuable service to the public, while still retaining some core member benefits. Members will, however, be able to access AA Armed Response at a reduced rate to non-members,” says Mr Groenewald.

Mr Groenewald says that as a non-profit company, the AA has worked hard to ensure it provides affordable pricing to all South Africans.

“Our first goal is to provide South Africans with a tool to make themselves safer, and to do so at a rate everyone can afford,” Mr Groenewald says.

AA Armed Response is a location-based security solution which provides immediate co-ordinates of the user’s location to a call centre when activated. More than 160 private professional security companies throughout South Africa are contracted on the service and the closest security provider to the user’s position is then dispatched to provide armed assistance. The services rendered through AA Armed Response are provided by professional security personnel, from independent, registered security companies.

Mr Groenewald says AA Armed Response has no limitations in terms of use, and can be activated by users who feel threatened, or even if someone is at their own home which has a separate armed security service.

“This solution is intended to provide peace-of-mind to users – or to family members who gift it to other family members such as parents or guardians who sign up children to the service. But, more than this, it is a service which can be activated anywhere, anytime to actually provide security to someone in distress. It is, essentially, like having a private armed security officer in your pocket at all times,” he explains.

Users can search AA Armed Response in the Huawei App Gallery, on the iOS App Store, or the Android Play Store.

AA Armed Response is pre-loaded on all new Huawei smartphones.

A challenge to advocates of Affirmative Action

by Kevin King

A few months ago I read an article entitled “Some perspective for racist whites in SA” by Hanjo. If you haven’t yet read it please do so. In his letter, Hanjo basically says the following things:

a) He advocates AA/BEE (Affirmative Action/Black Economic Empowerment) – provides the reason that it is to “undo the past” and to “level the playing field”

b) He says that most whites are racist – basically states that whites “reach for their racist agenda” when dealing or debating this topic. Considering that the majority of whites do not support AA/BEE, he is implying that most whites are racist.

Besides his negative stereotyping of one specific race, which by definition is racist, I also find it disturbing that he directs his argument solely at whites, not Indians, Coloureds, Asians, and yes Hanjo, even Blacks that also do not support AA/BEE. I’d question your motives for ignoring these groups when discussing a topic that affects an entire country which you call “a democracy”.

What are you advocating?

Those that support the current AA/BEE system usually provide the same argument that Hanjo has in order to advocate AA/BEE. But what are you really supporting:

a) You are backing a system which takes jobs and wealth from one racial group and gives it to another racial group. This is racist and unconstitutional. In a country with huge unemployment figures, you promote the transfer jobs and wealth rather than the creation thereof.

b) You support a system that uses time and money which could rather be used on issues such as “crime, poor governance, poverty, unemployment, over population, education, etc”. It is as evident as night and day that government puts more emphasis on transformation than it does on issues which you say are important. It makes sense however, as taking from the whites and giving to the blacks is far easier and cheaper than dealing with these important issues.

c) You advocate a system that seeks to replace the skilled candidates with weaker candidates based solely on race, thus weakening the entire team, in which case everyone loses.

d) You vote for a system that at present is enriching only a select few, and was designed by a select few, who steal hundreds of billions of rands each year from the citizens of this country.

e) You endorse a system which is a paradox to nation building and racial harmony. A system which mimics Apartheid.

I challenge you

Come with me to one of the thousands of white Afrikaner squatter camps around the country which hold almost a million white Afrikaners and do the following:

a) Justify to these peace loving, law abiding people why they had their jobs taken away and why they are now unemployable, thus left unable to support their children because they are white.

b) Justify to them why they are refused jobs even when there are vacancies which have been open for months, even years. And why in some cases government will even import foreigners above qualified locals because they are white.

c) Justify to them why they are refused government aid such as grants and food aid because they are white, and are even told by government officials that “it is racist to feed poor whites”.

d) Justify to them why government is even refusing to support those charities (non-profit organisations) which provide care and support to whites.

This is the system which you support and openly advocate, a system which has all the characteristics of genocide.

Key affirmative action case to be decided this month

The controversial issue of affirmative action will be decided this month by the US Supreme Court and will set a precedent in how colleges and universities accept students. It is not expected to have significant impact on the current admissions policies of Utah’s colleges and universities, however.

The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, which has been on a legal track toward the top court since 2008, centers on a woman who claims she was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin despite being equally or more qualified than minority students who were admitted under the university’s policy of considering family circumstance and race in its application process.

University officials claim Abigail Fisher, a white student from the Houston area with a 3.59 grade-point average, the plaintiff in the case, was not qualified to attend the school and said her race was not the reason she was not accepted into the school. Officials at the school also argued that schools have the right to assemble a diverse student body, a position upheld by the court in a 2003 case (Grutter v. Bollinger) focused on affirmative action admissions decisions at the University of Michigan.

Prior to reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, a district court in 2009 ruled in favor of the University of Texas at Austin. The case was then appealed to a three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also ruled in favor of the university.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has recused herself from hearing the case. Five of the remaining eight judges would need to rule against the university’s policy, as a tie would uphold the lower courts’ decisions. A decision is expected by the end of June, possibly as early as Monday.

A ruling in favor of Fisher would give legal precedent to individuals challenging affirmative action admission policies, which are sometimes cited as perpetuating racial divisions, and the dispute has been among the key cases the court is ruling on this month.

Utah’s standards

Pamela Silberman, spokeswoman for the Utah System of Higher Education, said the court’s decision, while impactful nationally and precedent-setting, will have little immediate impact either way on Utah’s public colleges and universities. It could certainly impact Utah students seeking education out of state, particularly in hard-to-get-into programs making use of affirmative action policies.

Of the eight schools in the Utah public system, five are open enrollment, meaning all applicants are accepted based on a basic entrance requirement. The remaining three schools — the University of Utah, Utah State University and Southern Utah University — determine enrollment by a minimum index score combining high school grade-point averages and ACT or SAT exam scores.

“There’s really not any sort of consideration of race or ethnicity or other demographic standards there,” Silberman said. “It’s going to have almost no impact in the state of Utah because there hasn’t been a strong history of those kinds of policies anyway.”

Because Utah’s schools determine admission based on academic criteria, it is not likely that a decision against the University of Texas would lead to Utah students challenging their denied admission applications, she said.

“I think that if the criteria for entrance are really clear, then you’re going to avoid that,” Silberman said. “We want all students to be prepared so they can meet those criteria, and I think that’s the focus we have.”

The U. recently transitioned to a holistic application process, which considers extracurricular factors like creative endeavors and community service in addition to GPA and test scores.

Octavio Villalpando, associate vice president for equity and diversity at the U., said the policy is still being fine-tuned, but because it does not give special consideration to race or demographics, he does not foresee it running into conflict with the court’s decision on Fisher.

Villalpando said U. officials have studied the effects of anti-affirmative action laws in other states to avoid conflict.

“We don’t anticipate any significant changes here at the campus,” he said. “Looking across the country in states where a version of this law passed, the flagship campuses didn’t have to change much of their admissions process.”

Of the 33,291 students enrolled at the University of Utah in the fall of 2012, about 70 percent were white, 7 percent were Hispanic and 4 percent were Asian, according to data from the Utah System of Higher Education. Statewide, 14 percent of public college and university students in Utah were minority students in 2012.

Villalpando said the University of Utah, as well as other institutions in the Utah System of Higher Education, have focused on collaborating with K-12 education to prepare students for college, rather than implementing admissions policies to address perceived racial imbalances.

He also said the relatively recent diversification of Utah’s student body has allowed educators to observe the best practices of areas in the country with larger minority populations.

“I think the fact that Utah is just now beginning to see this large demographic change is really helping higher ed in many ways,” Villalpando said. “It’s allowing us to learn from other strategies states have adopted.”

Political action

But the controversy surrounding affirmative action is not unknown to the state. In 2010, Utah lawmakers considered a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment prohibiting affirmative action in state agencies and higher education.

The pre-emptive resolution, sponsored by Rep. Curt Oda, R-Clearfied, stated that public entities could not “grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.”

The resolution received a favorable recommendation during its House committee hearing but was moved by the House Rules Committee, where it languished until the session expired without coming up for a vote.

David Jones, education division chief for the Utah Attorney General’s Office, said affirmative action is not a pervasive issue in Utah’s courts. Historically, the number of cases on the issue has been minimal, Jones said, and he does not expect the Supreme Court’s decision on Fisher v. University of Texas to change that.

He also agreed with Silberman and Villalpando’s assessment that the index score admission process of Utah’s schools would be largely unaffected by the outcome of the case.

“The ACT scores and the grade-point averages aren’t going to be affected by the Supreme Court decision,” Jones said. – Salt Lake City, Deseret News

What happened to race-neutral admissions?

Nine years after the Supreme Court said colleges and universities can use race in their quest for diverse student bodies, the justices have put this divisive social issue back on their agenda in the middle of a presidential election campaign.

Nine years is a blink of the eye on a court where justices can look back two centuries for legal precedents. But with an ascendant conservative majority, the high court in arguments Wednesday will weigh whether to limit or even rule out taking race into account in college admissions.

The justices will be looking at the University of Texas program that is used to help fill the last quarter or so of its incoming freshman classes. Race is one of many factors considered by admissions officers. The rest of the roughly 7,100 freshman spots automatically go to Texans who graduated in the top 8 percent of their high school classes.

A white Texan, Abigail Fisher, sued the university after she was denied a spot in 2008.

The simplest explanation for why affirmative action is back on the court’s calendar so soon after its 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger is that the author of that opinion, Sandra Day O’Connor, has retired. Her successor, Justice Samuel Alito, has been highly skeptical of any use of racial preference.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a dissenter in the 2003 decision, probably holds the deciding vote, and he, too, has never voted in favor of racial preference.

As a result, said Supreme Court lawyer Thomas Goldstein, “No matter what the court does, it is quite likely that the UT program is going to be in big trouble.”

The challenge to the Texas plan has gained traction in part because the university has produced significant diversity by automatically offering about three-quarters of its spots to graduates in the top 10 percent of their Texas high schools, under a 1990s state law signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush. The admissions program has been changed so that now only the top 8 percent gain automatic admission.

More than eight in ten African-American and Latino students who enrolled at the flagship campus in Austin last year were automatically admitted, according to university statistics. Both sides acknowledge that the use of race is present.

In all, black and Hispanic students made up more than a quarter of the incoming freshmen class. White students constituted less than half the entering class when students with Asian backgrounds and other minorites were added in.

“For decades, the defense of racial preferences was, `We’d love to find a way to get diversity without using race, but it’s just not possible. There’s just no other way.’ And Texas found another way,” said Richard Kahlenburg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and prominent advocate of class-based affirmative action.

The university says the extra measure of diversity it gets from the slots outside automatic admission is crucial because too many of its classrooms have only token minority representation, at best. At the same time, Texas argues that race is one of many factors considered and that it “is impossible to tell whether an applicant’s race was a tipping factor.”

The Obama administration, 57 of the Fortune 100 companies and large numbers of public and private colleges that could be affected by the outcome are backing the Texas program. Among the benefits of affirmative action, the administration argues, is that it creates a pipeline for a diverse officer corps that it called “essential to the military’s operational readiness.” In 2003, the court cited the importance of a similar message from military leaders.

But lawyers for Fisher, of Sugar Land, Texas, said the race-blind method under which the university automatically admits most of its students has been successful. They say Fisher, who has since graduated from Louisiana State University, was excluded because of her race, and they point to a handful of African-American and Latino students who were admitted with lower scores than hers.

“If any state action should respect racial equality, it is university admission,” Fisher’s lawyers said in their written submission to the court.

The university says that a fuller picture of the process shows that white students with lower scores also were admitted, while many more minority students with higher scores than Fisher also were not offered admission.

The case also raises several contentious side issues, including whether affirmative-action programs hurt the very people they are supposed to be helping. A new book by law professor Richard Sander and journalist Stuart Taylor argues that “large preferences often place students in environments where they can neither learn nor compete effectively, even though these same students would thrive had they gone to less competitive but still quite good schools.”

Their book, “Mismatch,” says these students are set up to fail, getting lower grades and dropping out more often than white students with similar backgrounds.

Taylor and Sander, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, point to statistics in California to support their argument. After voters changed the state constitution to outlaw racial preferences, UCLA saw significant declines in enrollment by black and Hispanic students.

But the number of African-American and Latino graduates was unchanged for the five classes after the ban when compared to the five years before the change in state law, they said.

The dozens of legal briefs in the Texas case also highlight a debate over whether racial preference programs actually limit the number of students from Asian backgrounds, who are disproportionately represented in student bodies relative to their share of the population.

The university says Asian-American enrollment has increased under the policy that is being challenged. The numbers would be even higher if Texas stopped factoring in race, Fisher and others say. – AP