5 ms·

Does Harvard discriminate against Asian-Americans?

35 points by onuralp 9y ago

mankash666 9y ago
Such policies never end well. A university's best chance of relevance long term is to unabashedly pursue the best and the brightest, regardless of race. This holds in the valley too - merit trumps everything else. There's ample evidence of a (happy) best-in-class workforce affecting bottom lines.
- hux_ 9y ago
  Bias has its advantages. There is ample evidence of that too.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  These policies at least begin with good intentions. After starting from a long history of discrimination, bias may be ingrained and require intentional counter-action. Once you've adjusted, however, the policy stops being useful.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Such policies never end well. A university's best chance of relevance long term is to unabashedly pursue the best and the brightest, regardless of race Such universities don't really care for the "best and brightest" (they can have a picking on those to keep up their academic prestige high). They care about catering to rich elites. "Best and brightest" don't pay the bills, either as students, or as alumni.
- MagnumOpus 9y ago
  > pursue the best and brightest Well, for Harvard (and most other top universities apart from Caltech) the "best" and the "brightest" are not necessarily synonyms. First, from the viewpoint of prestige, it is better to accept those into the program who don't cut the mustard but have a good chance of becoming presidents/prime ministers/kings/business tycoons. And who has a good chance? Kids of senators, dictators, billionaire movers and shakers, way more so than the politically active 4.0 student from next door. Second, from the viewpoint of long term relevance, spitting out one student who will endow the university subsequently with a few millions is worth way more than spitting out twenty eminently smart professors who go on to teach in obscurity - Harvard is the best example, even if their marketing goes badly, their $30bn endowment will buy sufficiently many Nobel-prize-winning faculty and scholarships for bright students to stay relevant for centuries.
mankash666 9y ago
The next time you read a bullshit article/research on the Harvard Business Review (hbr.org) remember that it isn't necessarily the product of unbiased scientific research. An admissions committee (including professors) that doesn't value merit and objectivity can't be trusted to publish realistic research
reacharavindh 9y ago
I'm shocked reading this. How is this legal in the USA? And they have been doing this "racial balancing" for this long?
- sanxiyn 9y ago
  This is illegal in the USA. That's why this is being litigated.
- trav4225 9y ago
  The US is completely obsessed with race. It's utterly bizarre to me. I often ask people what race has to do with anything, but they never seem to provide me with a convincing answer...
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Well, for a long time, the US meant white (and 90% protestants). All the founding stories and elites are based on them (from the Founding Fathers and the pilgrims to the image of America in culture, Hollywood etc). Heck, there was a fuss that Kennedy was catholic -- and that was in the late 50s. So, it was those English, German, nordic, etc people at the core. Blacks, of course, had their start as slaves and servants of those whites, and were until the mid-60s discriminated openly against, with full legal coverage for that. So a large part of the white population has inherited notions that this is their proper place, where others are judging them by the second and third order effects of their old status up to the segregation (e.g. seeing that they're still many uneducated, poor, living in bad areas, over-represented in prison etc. Those whites assume that just because slavery ended -- and they conveniently forget 100+ more years of discrimination-- those blacks should just raise and ascend to middle/rich class, like many immigrants did. After all those immigrants started dirt poor too -- yeah, but those immigrants didn't live in a hostile society forever, they were more easily assimilated, intermarried etc into the white story, and given more chances, especially after WWII). Because even other whites, like Italians, Jews, Irish, Greeks, and so on, were openly discriminated against for a large part of the 20th century. After they got slowly accepted into white society (and again, not totally), they also adopted their stance towards other races (not totally), as a requirement to be admitted in "polite company". Asians too, were at the bottom. Japanese Americans, in the early 20th century, were considered barely better than blacks were, working in the worst menial jobs. So that's what race has to do with anything. You came into the US as a member of a race, found solace and support with your own, and usually hatred or obstacles put your way from the dominant races. And as you were accepted into the mainstream society, you learned to hate those other races they hated too. That's my understanding of the issue.
zimablue 9y ago
The mental doublethink that enables outrage over this but tacitly accepts gender quotas is amazing.
- nailer 9y ago
  They're different people. People who want gender quotas seems to think of Asian people as a successful group and therefore OK to discriminate against - my SF friends called Facebook's employee numbers re: Asians irrelevant because Asians were somehow Europeans.
- Retric 9y ago
  Uhh, more women go to collage now so that seems like it would discriminate vs women? Really, if we want to punch more women into stem we would need to eliminate less useful options.
  - zimablue 9y ago
    Talking about the push for implicit quotas in tech companies/all companies. Kind of obviously.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Ok, article is about collage admissions so I assumed that's what was being referenced. Companies are not going to introduce quotas as it reduces their efficiency and thus costs them money.
      - GhostVII 9y ago
        > Companies are not going to introduce quotas as it reduces their efficiency and thus costs them money Don't they already do this? Maybe not with direct quotas, but certainly they fast-track women when hiring.
        Retric 9y ago
        Fast tracking does not have the same downside as quotas. With fast-tracking you can have some minimum standard, with quotas you are more or less forced to accept people that are arbitrarily bad simply because you did not get enough applications. Another way of thinking about this is if you take say 2+ weeks to vet everyone then some perfectly qualified people are going to drop out because they found a job on day 3. On the other hand if you simply adjust the schedule so group X gets an answer within 3 days you are going to end up with more perfectly qualified people from group X without lowering your standards. Similarly if you promote someone sooner they are less likely to look for a new job right after a promotion. That does not mean you need to promote people that are not capable, just reduce mandatory waiting periods.
quantumofmalice 9y ago
Yes, of course it does (as do the rest of the ivys and most elite schools): http://www.unz.com/runz/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/ http://www.unz.com/runz/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/ Somewhat humorously, if you buy unz's numbers, non-jewish whites are actually the most underrepresented group in nearly all elite universities.

35 points by onuralp 9y ago

Such policies never end well. A university's best chance of relevance long term is to unabashedly pursue the best and the brightest, regardless of race. This holds in the valley too - merit trumps everything else. There's ample evidence of a (happy) best-in-class workforce affecting bottom lines.

hux_ 9y ago
Bias has its advantages. There is ample evidence of that too.
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
These policies at least begin with good intentions. After starting from a long history of discrimination, bias may be ingrained and require intentional counter-action. Once you've adjusted, however, the policy stops being useful.
coldtea 9y ago
>Such policies never end well. A university's best chance of relevance long term is to unabashedly pursue the best and the brightest, regardless of race Such universities don't really care for the "best and brightest" (they can have a picking on those to keep up their academic prestige high). They care about catering to rich elites. "Best and brightest" don't pay the bills, either as students, or as alumni.
MagnumOpus 9y ago
> pursue the best and brightest Well, for Harvard (and most other top universities apart from Caltech) the "best" and the "brightest" are not necessarily synonyms. First, from the viewpoint of prestige, it is better to accept those into the program who don't cut the mustard but have a good chance of becoming presidents/prime ministers/kings/business tycoons. And who has a good chance? Kids of senators, dictators, billionaire movers and shakers, way more so than the politically active 4.0 student from next door. Second, from the viewpoint of long term relevance, spitting out one student who will endow the university subsequently with a few millions is worth way more than spitting out twenty eminently smart professors who go on to teach in obscurity - Harvard is the best example, even if their marketing goes badly, their $30bn endowment will buy sufficiently many Nobel-prize-winning faculty and scholarships for bright students to stay relevant for centuries.

mankash666 9y ago

The next time you read a bullshit article/research on the Harvard Business Review (hbr.org) remember that it isn't necessarily the product of unbiased scientific research. An admissions committee (including professors) that doesn't value merit and objectivity can't be trusted to publish realistic research

reacharavindh 9y ago

I'm shocked reading this. How is this legal in the USA? And they have been doing this "racial balancing" for this long?

sanxiyn 9y ago
This is illegal in the USA. That's why this is being litigated.
trav4225 9y ago
The US is completely obsessed with race. It's utterly bizarre to me. I often ask people what race has to do with anything, but they never seem to provide me with a convincing answer...
- coldtea 9y ago
  Well, for a long time, the US meant white (and 90% protestants). All the founding stories and elites are based on them (from the Founding Fathers and the pilgrims to the image of America in culture, Hollywood etc). Heck, there was a fuss that Kennedy was catholic -- and that was in the late 50s. So, it was those English, German, nordic, etc people at the core. Blacks, of course, had their start as slaves and servants of those whites, and were until the mid-60s discriminated openly against, with full legal coverage for that. So a large part of the white population has inherited notions that this is their proper place, where others are judging them by the second and third order effects of their old status up to the segregation (e.g. seeing that they're still many uneducated, poor, living in bad areas, over-represented in prison etc. Those whites assume that just because slavery ended -- and they conveniently forget 100+ more years of discrimination-- those blacks should just raise and ascend to middle/rich class, like many immigrants did. After all those immigrants started dirt poor too -- yeah, but those immigrants didn't live in a hostile society forever, they were more easily assimilated, intermarried etc into the white story, and given more chances, especially after WWII). Because even other whites, like Italians, Jews, Irish, Greeks, and so on, were openly discriminated against for a large part of the 20th century. After they got slowly accepted into white society (and again, not totally), they also adopted their stance towards other races (not totally), as a requirement to be admitted in "polite company". Asians too, were at the bottom. Japanese Americans, in the early 20th century, were considered barely better than blacks were, working in the worst menial jobs. So that's what race has to do with anything. You came into the US as a member of a race, found solace and support with your own, and usually hatred or obstacles put your way from the dominant races. And as you were accepted into the mainstream society, you learned to hate those other races they hated too. That's my understanding of the issue.

zimablue 9y ago

The mental doublethink that enables outrage over this but tacitly accepts gender quotas is amazing.

nailer 9y ago
They're different people. People who want gender quotas seems to think of Asian people as a successful group and therefore OK to discriminate against - my SF friends called Facebook's employee numbers re: Asians irrelevant because Asians were somehow Europeans.
Retric 9y ago
Uhh, more women go to collage now so that seems like it would discriminate vs women? Really, if we want to punch more women into stem we would need to eliminate less useful options.
- zimablue 9y ago
  Talking about the push for implicit quotas in tech companies/all companies. Kind of obviously.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Ok, article is about collage admissions so I assumed that's what was being referenced. Companies are not going to introduce quotas as it reduces their efficiency and thus costs them money.
    - GhostVII 9y ago
      > Companies are not going to introduce quotas as it reduces their efficiency and thus costs them money Don't they already do this? Maybe not with direct quotas, but certainly they fast-track women when hiring.
      - Retric 9y ago
        Fast tracking does not have the same downside as quotas. With fast-tracking you can have some minimum standard, with quotas you are more or less forced to accept people that are arbitrarily bad simply because you did not get enough applications. Another way of thinking about this is if you take say 2+ weeks to vet everyone then some perfectly qualified people are going to drop out because they found a job on day 3. On the other hand if you simply adjust the schedule so group X gets an answer within 3 days you are going to end up with more perfectly qualified people from group X without lowering your standards. Similarly if you promote someone sooner they are less likely to look for a new job right after a promotion. That does not mean you need to promote people that are not capable, just reduce mandatory waiting periods.

quantumofmalice 9y ago

Yes, of course it does (as do the rest of the ivys and most elite schools): http://www.unz.com/runz/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/ http://www.unz.com/runz/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/ Somewhat humorously, if you buy unz's numbers, non-jewish whites are actually the most underrepresented group in nearly all elite universities.