4 ms·

Please explain what you mean

by resource0x 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
pvg 8y ago
Harvard's admissions policies do not have discrimination as a deliberate goal. Arguments about them are typically about how they can result in effective discrimination or unfairness of some sort. Soviet discrimination was straight up just that.
- TAForObvReasons 8y ago
  It was definitely an explicit goal. There's a great book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/The-Chosen-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/061877355X https://www.amazon.com/The-Chosen-Admission-Exclusion-Prince... Here's a quote from a summary: > At one point, [Harvard President] Lowell wrote to a Harvard philosophy professor to explain that enrolling a high number of Jewish students would "ruin the college" by causing elite Protestant students to attend other schools, according to Karabel's book. Harvard would be ruined "not because Jews of bad character have come; but the result follows from the coming in large numbers of Jews of any kind, save those few who mingle readily with the rest of the undergraduate body," Lowell wrote in the letter. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-di...
  - pvg 8y ago
    "Lawrence Lowell, Harvard's president from 1909-1933" Harvard's current policies do not explicitly have discrimination as a goal. They'd get sued to hell and nobody would go there if they did. Can Harvard's policies have effective bias or be applied in a biased way? Sure. But the Soviet stuff was not remotely as subtle, let alone subject to any kind of legal remedy.
- 394549 8y ago
  > Harvard's admissions policies do not have discrimination as a deliberate goal. Apparently this "personality rating" was initially included in the Harvard application process explicitly to discriminate against Jews: From the OP: > Harvard has been here before. “To prevent a dangerous increase in the proportion of Jews, I know at present only one way, which is at the same time straightforward and effective,” wrote A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the 1920s, “and that is a selection by a personal estimate of character on the part of the Admission authorities, based upon the probable value to the candidate, to the College and to the community of his admissions.” The opacity of its admissions procedure could veil what Lowell’s written correspondence would later disclose to be a fully intended policy of discrimination.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Sure. And the Ivies took naked pictures of all incoming students for insane phrenology/eugenics purposes. But the kind of problems reported in the story we're all commenting on are not in the same category as a straightforward 'no Jews'.
- stefan_ 8y ago
  I'm sure the Soviets had just as noble goals. They just haven't aged well.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Nope, they didn't.
- resource0x 8y ago
  Another quote: "An interesting remark on the subject was made by Israel Gelfand in late 1980-ies, during his pre-seminar schmoozing. He said that, while the discrimination was initially directed against the Jews, it eventually was expanded to include all bright applicants. The reason was that to effect the policy, the admission committees had to be staffed with people willing to be unfair (give super-hard problems to specific individuals) to people they dislike (there was no lack of volunteer anti-Semites). Such people would tend to let their personal feelings affect their fairness across the board, not just towards the "official undesirables". Thus they would let their natural envy towards bright kids negatively affect their fairness. This is why even non-Jewish graduates of the best schools (e.g., 57) found it harder to gain admission."
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    That sounds eerily like what I hear about on campus. That's like the singling-out experienced by biology and science students at Evergreen.
- resource0x 8y ago
  As someone who was the subject of the quota in USSR, and despite what the article says, I think the story is more nuanced: at least in part, it was an "affirmative action". It's a zero sum game, the number of places was fixed. Good universities were in short supply. Not so good universities normally didn't enforce any quotas (at least in Russia proper; in Soviet Republics like Ukraine, it was more complicated :) (I cannot prove "affirmative action" part, it's just how I understood it then. Others might disagree)
  - pvg 8y ago
    Right but the parallel here is to Harvard (and top Soviet universities) specifically, not Soviet or American higher education in general. That parallel, while imperfect in many ways, works reasonably well.
- pochamago 8y ago
  In my opinion the situation looks like intentional discrimination. Harvard doesn't want to be too lopsided with Asian students, so they find ways to discriminate against them and keep the ratio lower.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts.

Please explain what you mean

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

pvg 8y ago

Harvard's admissions policies do not have discrimination as a deliberate goal. Arguments about them are typically about how they can result in effective discrimination or unfairness of some sort. Soviet discrimination was straight up just that.

TAForObvReasons 8y ago
It was definitely an explicit goal. There's a great book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/The-Chosen-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/061877355X https://www.amazon.com/The-Chosen-Admission-Exclusion-Prince... Here's a quote from a summary: > At one point, [Harvard President] Lowell wrote to a Harvard philosophy professor to explain that enrolling a high number of Jewish students would "ruin the college" by causing elite Protestant students to attend other schools, according to Karabel's book. Harvard would be ruined "not because Jews of bad character have come; but the result follows from the coming in large numbers of Jews of any kind, save those few who mingle readily with the rest of the undergraduate body," Lowell wrote in the letter. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-di...
- pvg 8y ago
  "Lawrence Lowell, Harvard's president from 1909-1933" Harvard's current policies do not explicitly have discrimination as a goal. They'd get sued to hell and nobody would go there if they did. Can Harvard's policies have effective bias or be applied in a biased way? Sure. But the Soviet stuff was not remotely as subtle, let alone subject to any kind of legal remedy.
394549 8y ago
> Harvard's admissions policies do not have discrimination as a deliberate goal. Apparently this "personality rating" was initially included in the Harvard application process explicitly to discriminate against Jews: From the OP: > Harvard has been here before. “To prevent a dangerous increase in the proportion of Jews, I know at present only one way, which is at the same time straightforward and effective,” wrote A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the 1920s, “and that is a selection by a personal estimate of character on the part of the Admission authorities, based upon the probable value to the candidate, to the College and to the community of his admissions.” The opacity of its admissions procedure could veil what Lowell’s written correspondence would later disclose to be a fully intended policy of discrimination.
- pvg 8y ago
  Sure. And the Ivies took naked pictures of all incoming students for insane phrenology/eugenics purposes. But the kind of problems reported in the story we're all commenting on are not in the same category as a straightforward 'no Jews'.
stefan_ 8y ago
I'm sure the Soviets had just as noble goals. They just haven't aged well.
- pvg 8y ago
  Nope, they didn't.
resource0x 8y ago
Another quote: "An interesting remark on the subject was made by Israel Gelfand in late 1980-ies, during his pre-seminar schmoozing. He said that, while the discrimination was initially directed against the Jews, it eventually was expanded to include all bright applicants. The reason was that to effect the policy, the admission committees had to be staffed with people willing to be unfair (give super-hard problems to specific individuals) to people they dislike (there was no lack of volunteer anti-Semites). Such people would tend to let their personal feelings affect their fairness across the board, not just towards the "official undesirables". Thus they would let their natural envy towards bright kids negatively affect their fairness. This is why even non-Jewish graduates of the best schools (e.g., 57) found it harder to gain admission."
- stcredzero 8y ago
  That sounds eerily like what I hear about on campus. That's like the singling-out experienced by biology and science students at Evergreen.
resource0x 8y ago
As someone who was the subject of the quota in USSR, and despite what the article says, I think the story is more nuanced: at least in part, it was an "affirmative action". It's a zero sum game, the number of places was fixed. Good universities were in short supply. Not so good universities normally didn't enforce any quotas (at least in Russia proper; in Soviet Republics like Ukraine, it was more complicated :) (I cannot prove "affirmative action" part, it's just how I understood it then. Others might disagree)
- pvg 8y ago
  Right but the parallel here is to Harvard (and top Soviet universities) specifically, not Soviet or American higher education in general. That parallel, while imperfect in many ways, works reasonably well.
pochamago 8y ago
In my opinion the situation looks like intentional discrimination. Harvard doesn't want to be too lopsided with Asian students, so they find ways to discriminate against them and keep the ratio lower.
- pvg 8y ago
  Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts.