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I'm not sure I understand here: are you objecting to a lack of evidence that Asian-American students are penalized for their ethnicity, or a lack of evidence fo

I'm not sure I understand here: are you objecting to a lack of evidence that Asian-American students are penalized for their ethnicity, or a lack of evidence for the claim that this is unjustifiable discrimination? The first point is easy to prove - every admissions-rate breakdown suggests that many colleges apply a substantial penalty to Asian students, equivalent to ~100 points of SAT score. (Elite colleges also have distorted admissions percentages for Asian-Americans, but this SAT penalty can't be calculated cleanly; scores are bounded at 2400 and many applicants are >2300.) Other people have linked plenty of sources here, and I'd like to hear a counterargument if there is one. If you mean the second point, it shakes out of affirmative action arguments pretty directly. The question is whether we accept affirmative-action-as-erasing-privilege (which shouldn't penalize Asian students) or affirmative-action-as-increasing-diversity (which I suppose would try to mirror population percentages regardless of privilege). Plenty has been written on that, but I can see how one might accept the "Asian penalty" on a diversity argument.

metaphorm 10y ago
an alternative argument that is neither based in "erasing privilege" or "increasing diversity" nor any other possible reason for affirmative action (or some other kind of quota system). disclaimer: this is conjecture, so please humor me. I don't have citations. this is a thought experiment for the sake of discussion. suppose that the aspects by which Asian-American students claim they excel in, and claim as the basis for why they ought to have higher acceptance rates at certain universities, are actually not considered very valuable by those universities? example: standardized test scores. SAT or ACT or some similar thing. maybe its true that the average standardized test score amongst Asian-American university applicants is higher than that of the general population. what advantage is that if the standardized test score itself is not something being highly valued by the admissions officer? what would falsify that claim? examples of applicants from other cohorts being over-represented at the same average standardized test score levels. under-representation of another group with similar test scores would not falsify the claim that standardized test scores are not considered valuable. if they're not important than there is some other criteria being selected for. over-representation of another cohort would, however, evidence some kind of discrimination. the claim is that over-performance in standardized test scores ought to lead to over-representation in admissions. if it does for one group that over-performs but not another that also over-performs that does look like discrimination.
abiox 10y ago
> affirmative-action-as-erasing-privilege (which shouldn't penalize Asian students) under the usual AA paradigm, wouldn't an over-representation of any particular group demonstrate unequal privilege?

metaphorm 10y ago

an alternative argument that is neither based in "erasing privilege" or "increasing diversity" nor any other possible reason for affirmative action (or some other kind of quota system). disclaimer: this is conjecture, so please humor me. I don't have citations. this is a thought experiment for the sake of discussion. suppose that the aspects by which Asian-American students claim they excel in, and claim as the basis for why they ought to have higher acceptance rates at certain universities, are actually not considered very valuable by those universities? example: standardized test scores. SAT or ACT or some similar thing. maybe its true that the average standardized test score amongst Asian-American university applicants is higher than that of the general population. what advantage is that if the standardized test score itself is not something being highly valued by the admissions officer? what would falsify that claim? examples of applicants from other cohorts being over-represented at the same average standardized test score levels. under-representation of another group with similar test scores would not falsify the claim that standardized test scores are not considered valuable. if they're not important than there is some other criteria being selected for. over-representation of another cohort would, however, evidence some kind of discrimination. the claim is that over-performance in standardized test scores ought to lead to over-representation in admissions. if it does for one group that over-performs but not another that also over-performs that does look like discrimination.

abiox 10y ago

> affirmative-action-as-erasing-privilege (which shouldn't penalize Asian students) under the usual AA paradigm, wouldn't an over-representation of any particular group demonstrate unequal privilege?