4 ms·

Harvard University 'discriminates against Asian-Americans'

25 points by doppp 8y ago

dang 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17325778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17325778
warent 8y ago
Pretty inflammatory title. Should be changed to something like "Lawsuit alleges Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans"
- willio58 8y ago
  It is in quotes..
- atonse 8y ago
  Yes you're technically right that it's alleged, but again, I think the quotes are sufficient. There's ample evidence of this, as shown in the unsealed document that Harvard fought to keep secret.
- monfrere 8y ago
  That's how the BBC does their headlines. Anytime something is in quotes, prepend the headline with "Someone says:". For whatever reason they won't write headlines longer than 6 or 7 words.
- skywhopper 8y ago
  This sort of headline is massively irresponsible these days, when most people learn most "facts" from skimming headlines on Facebook and Twitter and inferring the stories. When the headline is all you see, it needs to be as fair as possible. To respond to the other response here, quote marks give you no information about the veracity of the statement. The quote could be from a baseless accusation or from an independent report. The BBC should do better.
nostromo 8y ago
[I can’t delete this comment so I’m blanking it out. I decided there’s probably not a productive conversation to be had here. Apologies.]
- mkempe 8y ago
  [Parent suggested more intrusive Federal control of employment decisions and college admissions.] There is a third, peaceful path. Keep the government's nose out of all private, contractual relationships unless one party initiates the use of force.
  - mkempe 8y ago
    This way nobody is to initiate the use of force: neither individuals, nor corporations, nor the State. What a revolutionary ideal... securing rights.
- CyberDildonics 8y ago
  Race and gender are already protected classes for employment. https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/ https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/
ausjke 8y ago
Harvard being an all-left campus that claims supporting human rights and opposing discrimination, is doing the exact opposite, how ironic, though not a surprise. hypocrisy, hypocrisy. Being a private school you can do whatever you deem right, the problem is that, when you lose honesty, you lose everything.
cycrutchfield 8y ago
Is there any evidence they are directly using race as a factor in admissions and not factors that are strongly correlated with race, such as socioeconomic status and region of the country where the applicant lives? If you designed an admissions process that only tried to normalize for those factors, would it also give the same appearance as being race biased as the current Harvard admissions process? Note that I am not bringing up the subjective “likability” factor from the Harvard application process. Since it appears to be a subjective rating system it should probably be addressed separately.
- Alex3917 8y ago
  > Is there any evidence they are directly using race as a factor in admissions and not factors that are strongly correlated with race, such as socioeconomic status and region of the country where the applicant lives? I can't speak to how Harvard works specifically, but from what I've seen elsewhere if you're an underrepresented minority your application will get flagged and go through a different process where they take a deeper look into your background. For a white applicant who isn't a recruited athlete or flagged for any other reason, the admissions committee most likely makes a yes or no decision in 3 - 5 minutes just based on your GPA, SATs, and reading the first couple paragraphs of your essays. If your application gets flagged for some reason (being an underrepresented minority, a recruited athlete, letter from a big donor, etc.) then they'll actually take a deeper dive into your background before making a decision. The colleges also get their simulated US News rank updated a couple times per day based on the GPA and SAT averages of students admitted so far, so what you need in terms of basic stats can vary substantially depending on whether your application gets read in the morning or afternoon.
- michaelt 8y ago
  Is there any evidence they are directly using race as a factor in admissions and not factors that are strongly correlated with race In my country, anti-discrimination laws include "constructive discrimination". So you can't deny a person a job for being black, and you also can't deny them a job for having curly black hair and thick lips.
- jfnixon 8y ago
sebleon 8y ago
It’s reasonable for admissions to take into account your access to resources. Growing up in a poor, single parent home is like going through life in “hard mode”, and getting decent grades is impressive. Sadly race is a good proxy for socio-economic background, and people get treated differently depending on their skin color. Getting these different perspectives in the class is a positive.
- jfnixon 8y ago
  Using race as a proxy for "access to resources" or socio-economic background is almost certainly a suboptimal idea in the 21st century. Geographic proxies are probably better (think rural Appalachia or poor areas of Detroit), but looking at parents' income tax returns is better still.
jadedhacker 8y ago
I think this may be true may be not, but it's a distraction. People are fighting over Harvard's admissions process because it's one of the few relatively sure pathways to exit poverty (or maintain wealth) and become a "success". I raise the question, why do elite Universities even have a right to exist? We should make the public system free and excellent like in other countries. When I meet international students and postdocs at ivys they think our system is a travesty. People are "buying" degrees when in their country only the rich and stupid have to do so. Furthermore, the undergraduate culture on campus is one completely divorced from the rest of society and doused in unexamined privilege. Nationalize Harvard!
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Its a conundrum - does a Harvard degree bestow riches and success? Or do only folks destined for riches and success, pass Harvard's induction process? Some of both I suspect.
  - jadedhacker 8y ago
    Harvard sets itself up to always increase it's influence with business and national leaders. Every decision they make should be seen through that lens. That means that they'll attempt to induct meritorious freshmen, but will also gladly accept the failsons and daughters of the hereditarily powerful.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
temp-dude-87844 8y ago
Thought experiment: if you made all admission decisions by lottery, by randomly admitting a previously decided, fixed number of n applicants out of all valid applications received, and the resulting cohort of admitted individuals was later found to significantly differ in demographic composition from both the local and nationwide composition of population, would that be discriminatory? If not, would it at least be problematic? What if it differed significantly from the demographic composition of the pool of all valid applications received? This case is very unfortunate, because it literally pits racial categories against one another, and claims that Asian-Americans are being unfairly disadvantaged by affirmative action applied to Hispanic and Black applicants, whose likelihood of successful admittance is proportionally much higher, in part due to their race. What's unusual is Asian-Americans apply to Harvard at much higher rates that they occur in the population, which complicates the math, and encourages some reflection about the roles of affirmative action, e.g. whether it intends to counterbalance a pipeline shortfall, or improve absolute outcomes among groups whose society-wide outcomes have lagged behind, or to right past wrongs. These are questions worth asking among ourselves when we see that in some cases, and when faced with the allocation of a limited number of a resource (a chance for a Harvard education) to a large group of people. It's hard to avoid thinking that this may be an edge case of affirmative action that was purpose-selected by this group to force the courts to consider a larger issue.
- CyberDildonics 8y ago
  I personally think that instead of organizations trying to show how diverse they are, they should try to show off the neutrality and lack of bias in their decision making process. I think it's unfortunate that the response to countering discrimination has been to discriminate in the opposite direction instead of working towards pure meritocracy.

25 points by doppp 8y ago

dang 8y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17325778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17325778

warent 8y ago

Pretty inflammatory title. Should be changed to something like "Lawsuit alleges Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans"

willio58 8y ago
It is in quotes..
atonse 8y ago
Yes you're technically right that it's alleged, but again, I think the quotes are sufficient. There's ample evidence of this, as shown in the unsealed document that Harvard fought to keep secret.
monfrere 8y ago
That's how the BBC does their headlines. Anytime something is in quotes, prepend the headline with "Someone says:". For whatever reason they won't write headlines longer than 6 or 7 words.
skywhopper 8y ago
This sort of headline is massively irresponsible these days, when most people learn most "facts" from skimming headlines on Facebook and Twitter and inferring the stories. When the headline is all you see, it needs to be as fair as possible. To respond to the other response here, quote marks give you no information about the veracity of the statement. The quote could be from a baseless accusation or from an independent report. The BBC should do better.

nostromo 8y ago

[I can’t delete this comment so I’m blanking it out. I decided there’s probably not a productive conversation to be had here. Apologies.]

mkempe 8y ago
[Parent suggested more intrusive Federal control of employment decisions and college admissions.] There is a third, peaceful path. Keep the government's nose out of all private, contractual relationships unless one party initiates the use of force.
- mkempe 8y ago
  This way nobody is to initiate the use of force: neither individuals, nor corporations, nor the State. What a revolutionary ideal... securing rights.
CyberDildonics 8y ago
Race and gender are already protected classes for employment. https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/ https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/

ausjke 8y ago

Harvard being an all-left campus that claims supporting human rights and opposing discrimination, is doing the exact opposite, how ironic, though not a surprise. hypocrisy, hypocrisy. Being a private school you can do whatever you deem right, the problem is that, when you lose honesty, you lose everything.

cycrutchfield 8y ago

Is there any evidence they are directly using race as a factor in admissions and not factors that are strongly correlated with race, such as socioeconomic status and region of the country where the applicant lives? If you designed an admissions process that only tried to normalize for those factors, would it also give the same appearance as being race biased as the current Harvard admissions process? Note that I am not bringing up the subjective “likability” factor from the Harvard application process. Since it appears to be a subjective rating system it should probably be addressed separately.

Alex3917 8y ago
> Is there any evidence they are directly using race as a factor in admissions and not factors that are strongly correlated with race, such as socioeconomic status and region of the country where the applicant lives? I can't speak to how Harvard works specifically, but from what I've seen elsewhere if you're an underrepresented minority your application will get flagged and go through a different process where they take a deeper look into your background. For a white applicant who isn't a recruited athlete or flagged for any other reason, the admissions committee most likely makes a yes or no decision in 3 - 5 minutes just based on your GPA, SATs, and reading the first couple paragraphs of your essays. If your application gets flagged for some reason (being an underrepresented minority, a recruited athlete, letter from a big donor, etc.) then they'll actually take a deeper dive into your background before making a decision. The colleges also get their simulated US News rank updated a couple times per day based on the GPA and SAT averages of students admitted so far, so what you need in terms of basic stats can vary substantially depending on whether your application gets read in the morning or afternoon.
michaelt 8y ago
Is there any evidence they are directly using race as a factor in admissions and not factors that are strongly correlated with race In my country, anti-discrimination laws include "constructive discrimination". So you can't deny a person a job for being black, and you also can't deny them a job for having curly black hair and thick lips.
jfnixon 8y ago

sebleon 8y ago

It’s reasonable for admissions to take into account your access to resources. Growing up in a poor, single parent home is like going through life in “hard mode”, and getting decent grades is impressive. Sadly race is a good proxy for socio-economic background, and people get treated differently depending on their skin color. Getting these different perspectives in the class is a positive.

jfnixon 8y ago
Using race as a proxy for "access to resources" or socio-economic background is almost certainly a suboptimal idea in the 21st century. Geographic proxies are probably better (think rural Appalachia or poor areas of Detroit), but looking at parents' income tax returns is better still.

jadedhacker 8y ago

I think this may be true may be not, but it's a distraction. People are fighting over Harvard's admissions process because it's one of the few relatively sure pathways to exit poverty (or maintain wealth) and become a "success". I raise the question, why do elite Universities even have a right to exist? We should make the public system free and excellent like in other countries. When I meet international students and postdocs at ivys they think our system is a travesty. People are "buying" degrees when in their country only the rich and stupid have to do so. Furthermore, the undergraduate culture on campus is one completely divorced from the rest of society and doused in unexamined privilege. Nationalize Harvard!

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Its a conundrum - does a Harvard degree bestow riches and success? Or do only folks destined for riches and success, pass Harvard's induction process? Some of both I suspect.
- jadedhacker 8y ago
  Harvard sets itself up to always increase it's influence with business and national leaders. Every decision they make should be seen through that lens. That means that they'll attempt to induct meritorious freshmen, but will also gladly accept the failsons and daughters of the hereditarily powerful.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

temp-dude-87844 8y ago

Thought experiment: if you made all admission decisions by lottery, by randomly admitting a previously decided, fixed number of n applicants out of all valid applications received, and the resulting cohort of admitted individuals was later found to significantly differ in demographic composition from both the local and nationwide composition of population, would that be discriminatory? If not, would it at least be problematic? What if it differed significantly from the demographic composition of the pool of all valid applications received? This case is very unfortunate, because it literally pits racial categories against one another, and claims that Asian-Americans are being unfairly disadvantaged by affirmative action applied to Hispanic and Black applicants, whose likelihood of successful admittance is proportionally much higher, in part due to their race. What's unusual is Asian-Americans apply to Harvard at much higher rates that they occur in the population, which complicates the math, and encourages some reflection about the roles of affirmative action, e.g. whether it intends to counterbalance a pipeline shortfall, or improve absolute outcomes among groups whose society-wide outcomes have lagged behind, or to right past wrongs. These are questions worth asking among ourselves when we see that in some cases, and when faced with the allocation of a limited number of a resource (a chance for a Harvard education) to a large group of people. It's hard to avoid thinking that this may be an edge case of affirmative action that was purpose-selected by this group to force the courts to consider a larger issue.

CyberDildonics 8y ago
I personally think that instead of organizations trying to show how diverse they are, they should try to show off the neutrality and lack of bias in their decision making process. I think it's unfortunate that the response to countering discrimination has been to discriminate in the opposite direction instead of working towards pure meritocracy.