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Article takes too long to huff and puff and fluff before it gets to the heart of the matter (and then veering off into tangents shortly thereafter): The Suprem

Article takes too long to huff and puff and fluff before it gets to the heart of the matter (and then veering off into tangents shortly thereafter): The Supreme Court has ruled that the educational benefits that flow from having a diverse student body can justify using race as one factor among many in a “holistic” evaluation, while rejecting blunt racial quotas or race-based point systems. But what that permits in actual practice by universities — public ones as well as private ones that receive federal funding — is often murky. It would have also behooved a general audience to be given some history: https://www.britannica.com/event/Bakke-decision https://www.britannica.com/event/Bakke-decision It's not an easy issue.

troupe 9y ago
> It's not an easy issue. It is impossible to provide easier admission to college for one race without making it harder for other races. Treating people differently because they are of a certain race is the definition of racism. That part is simple. Now there are all kinds of arguments about whether letting in lower scoring students of one race are actually beneficial to their race and there are lots of people arguing that if someone was descended from slaves they should be given preferences that exceed what they would get based on their own skill, but it doesn't change the fact that affirmative action is a way to create a type of racism. People can argue that this type of racism is a good thing, but it is still treating people differently based on their race.
- provost 9y ago
  Assuming that a merit-based system is appropriate for admissions, can we remove race & name (so race can't be derived) from the admission forms? Then have a third party verify the student's ranking at how the student performed via local peer group (could be a derivative of their neighborhood, school, county, state, etc). The local peer group rank calculation could influence the decision without revealing any advantage/disadvantage (perhaps a statistician could discuss the mechanics of how to make this most appropriate) Example admission summary: Candidate XYZ graduated top 12% from their school, top 10% from their county, and top 24% from their state. Candidate played no sports, but participated in two academic societies, and accumulated 200 hours of volunteer service. The candidate was employed for 3 years before applying for university.
  - troupe 9y ago
    Sounds like a good way to make sure that admission decisions are not being made based on race. Sadly there are a lot of people who are explicitly trying to make sure that admission IS based on race.

troupe 9y ago

> It's not an easy issue. It is impossible to provide easier admission to college for one race without making it harder for other races. Treating people differently because they are of a certain race is the definition of racism. That part is simple. Now there are all kinds of arguments about whether letting in lower scoring students of one race are actually beneficial to their race and there are lots of people arguing that if someone was descended from slaves they should be given preferences that exceed what they would get based on their own skill, but it doesn't change the fact that affirmative action is a way to create a type of racism. People can argue that this type of racism is a good thing, but it is still treating people differently based on their race.

provost 9y ago
Assuming that a merit-based system is appropriate for admissions, can we remove race & name (so race can't be derived) from the admission forms? Then have a third party verify the student's ranking at how the student performed via local peer group (could be a derivative of their neighborhood, school, county, state, etc). The local peer group rank calculation could influence the decision without revealing any advantage/disadvantage (perhaps a statistician could discuss the mechanics of how to make this most appropriate) Example admission summary: Candidate XYZ graduated top 12% from their school, top 10% from their county, and top 24% from their state. Candidate played no sports, but participated in two academic societies, and accumulated 200 hours of volunteer service. The candidate was employed for 3 years before applying for university.
- troupe 9y ago
  Sounds like a good way to make sure that admission decisions are not being made based on race. Sadly there are a lot of people who are explicitly trying to make sure that admission IS based on race.