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I don't know the specifics of what Harvard's history of discrimination is. Let's say that Harvard historically blocked 1000 Asian students from an education. Wh

I don't know the specifics of what Harvard's history of discrimination is. Let's say that Harvard historically blocked 1000 Asian students from an education. What they should do is open space for 1000 Asian students and stack rank all the students who apply for these slots so the ones who best match the criteria can come in. I realize I've practically described affirmative action. But there's varying ways to implement this system that avoids certain complaints. Let's say Harvard always admits 5000 students a year, they could add a bonus pool of 1000 students set aside for this. On the other hand if they're concerned about overwhelming their faculty they could admit 4000 students through normal means and 1000 from the special set aside. One of the objections to this is it's unfair to the 4000 or 5000 students who will now receive a lesser education because of some wrongs that they weren't responsible for. I'd like to propose it's equally unfair that students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds because of explicit decisions that these institutions made are denied a similar education. In this case should our institutions take no action to avoid upsetting the status quo and maintain a "color blind" ideal, or should they take active actions to rectify historic wrongs that continue to create inequality in the current day?

prepend 9y ago
I think the issue is that creating new injustice on the “innocent” isn’t a very good reason. The “someone must suffer and it sucks to be you” creates a negative cycle because in 50 years they now have a case. It’s like poking out a random person’s eye because racists blinded someone. Yes it helps the person who can now see, but the person who lost their eye will likely be bitter. The best program I’ve seen is the dedicated funding to expand new positions and try to target the expansion toward underrepresented. So while the ratios are still weird, people aren’t being excluded. Of course this is the most expensive option, especially in zero sum games like Harvard admissions. It’s easier to target some less visible vulnerable population and reallocate the positions. I do agree that being truly color blind keeps populations lacking 100 years of opportunity locked in a cycle. But perhaps we can get more precise with targeting based on income, or social determinants, or factors that are not specific to race and are more likely to provide opportunity to need. Of course many populations also share social determinants like income, parents education, country of birth, etc.

prepend 9y ago

I think the issue is that creating new injustice on the “innocent” isn’t a very good reason. The “someone must suffer and it sucks to be you” creates a negative cycle because in 50 years they now have a case. It’s like poking out a random person’s eye because racists blinded someone. Yes it helps the person who can now see, but the person who lost their eye will likely be bitter. The best program I’ve seen is the dedicated funding to expand new positions and try to target the expansion toward underrepresented. So while the ratios are still weird, people aren’t being excluded. Of course this is the most expensive option, especially in zero sum games like Harvard admissions. It’s easier to target some less visible vulnerable population and reallocate the positions. I do agree that being truly color blind keeps populations lacking 100 years of opportunity locked in a cycle. But perhaps we can get more precise with targeting based on income, or social determinants, or factors that are not specific to race and are more likely to provide opportunity to need. Of course many populations also share social determinants like income, parents education, country of birth, etc.