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Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support
- lainga 8y agoEquivalent Bloomberg article [0] mentions that the ACLU has taken Harvard's side, and they state [1]: While the DOJ’s brief does not challenge Supreme Court precedent granting universities the right to freely select their own student body—presumably because it cannot do so at this stage of the litigation—the Trump administration has advocated for “race-blind” policies, which Harvard and virtually all other universities have found are demonstrably insufficient to achieve meaningful diversity, given the reality of historic and continuing racial discrimination in this country. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/doj-backs-asian-americans-in-harvard-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/doj-backs... [1] https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-department-justice-filing-harvard-university-admissions-lawsuit https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-department-justice-...
- pastor_elm 8y agoDisappointed in what the ACLU has become. I don't think their fundamental intentions are off, but in order to raise money in an anti-Trump era, they've definitely veered off course in practice. EDIT: For those downvoting me, you should give this a listen: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/podcasts/the-daily/aclu-nra-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/podcasts/the-daily/aclu-n...
- malcolmgreaves 8y agoRacsim is the systematic oppression of people. It's carried out in instutions, cultural, and processes: individual people do not perform racsim. (Individuals can discriminate.) Racism depends on country / region. In the US, racism exits against black and brown people. It is a system set up for the benefit of white people. Your confusion comes from falsely equating racial discrimination and racism.
- arif_sohaib 8y agoBrown guy in the US here. And Muslim and Pakistani. What kind of racism do you think I face? I felt more discrimination in Pakistan for being short and quiet and not having a deep voice than I ever did in the US for being brown, Muslim and Pakistani. I have been sent through the express lane many times at airport check-in, I have prayed openly(in a corner) at 2 airports, I have worked with a Christian Republican who dropped me off at a mosque on my request and reminded me of prayer times. I know this is anecdotal but I firmly believe the issue is pure economics + upgringing. I happen to be a moderately rich Pakistani Muslim from a happy and close-knit family, a white person with less income and/or bad family life will have it much harder in the US than I do and thanks to affarmative action, he will have a much harder time getting into an ivy league school than any member of my family or any rich/happy Black or Hispanic family.
- BadassFractal 8y agoLike you said, "brown guys" seem do be doing alright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...
- castlecrasher2 8y agoI'm not sure I understand the ACLU's statement. Is Harvard's discrimination against Asian-Americans for their race not racial discrimination to the ACLU? Or is it OK because it benefits worse-off races? I'm open to alternatives, I'm not trying to establish a false dichotomy here.
- jessaustin 8y agoThat argument is plausible, in general. In this specific case, I don't think it is. Harvard admissions policy benefits at least as many white applicants as non-Asian minority applicants.
- mberning 8y agoYeah, that is bonkers. Let’s use some actual racism to fix some other deficiency, which we assume is the result of some previous racism.
- malcolmgreaves 8y agoRacsim is the systematic oppression of people. It's carried out in instutions, cultural, and processes: individual people do not perform racsim. (Individuals can discriminate.) Racism depends on country / region. In the US, racism exits against black and brown people. It is a system set up for the benefit of white people. Your confusion comes from falsely equating racial discrimination and racism.
- vkou 8y agoIf the deficiency is not the result of previous racism, what is it the result of?
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoTake a completely random sampling of 1 million people from populations all across the world. And in fact, take them from the day of birth to avoid any sort of early biases (actually 'harbor' the parents from the day of conception to avoid any sort of prenatal differences). And now put all of these million people on a completely homogenous and equally fertile chunk of land on an island. Raise each and every single one of them identically until they are of an age to take care of themselves. Give each and every one of them the exact same amount of starting 'capital' and set them free to achieve as they will. 200 years later, with a population that's multiplied several magnitudes over - would you expect to still see a completely equal people? I wouldn't. People are different. And each child that is born is different, even when born to the same parents. Even identical twins are no longer completely identical by the time of birth. These differences express themselves in different ways (and wow was that the most tautological statement ever), but the point is that I think it's highly illogical to expect to see equality. Out of genuine curiosity, do you disagree?
- zyang 8y agoDisappointed in ACLU's stance. Why not apply the same logic to other parts of admission and ensure Asian students receive equal share of sport scholarships.
- gowld 8y agoHarvard doesn't offer sports scholarships.
- creaghpatr 8y agoBut they offer admission based on ability to play sports, so they can mandate meaningful diversity on their sports teams that reflects the greater student body.
- uhohnotgood 8y agoAlong with other school propaganda like "MIT doesn't do legacy", "Ivy League doesn't offer sports scholarships" is essentially false. The implication is that the ivy leagues don't give a "free pass" to students for athletic reasons, when they do. To their credit, they aren't willing to sacrifice all pretense of "student-athletes" compared to some other schools. But there are definitely plenty of students that only get admission due to their athletic ability.
- chibg10 8y agoI find the ACLU's statement wholly unsatisfying. There is a tradeoff here: is unquestionable racism against Asian-Americans justifiable to increase advance African-American participation in higher education? There is also surely a legal question at play. The ACLU, instead of addressing either matter, launches a political statement announcing its stance without justification. Lost some respect for them here.
- malcolmgreaves 8y agoRacsim is the systematic oppression of people. It's carried out in instutions, culture, and processes: individual people do not perform racsim. (Individuals can discriminate.) Racism depends on country / region. In the US, racism exits against black and brown people. It is a system set up for the benefit of white people. Your confusion comes from falsely equating racial discrimination and racism.
- gizmo686 8y agoThe ACLU has historically taken the philosophy of defending fundemental rights by defending them for unpopular people (eg. they would defend the right of Nazi's to march in a Jewish neighboorhood). I don't know if I am looking at their past through rose colored glasses, but their new direction is disturbing. It seems like they are increasingly okay with sacrifing our fundemental rights in favor of short term expediancy. Having said that, this is still just the start of a change in course. They still do a lot of good work, and they might find their way again. The bigger problem is that liberalism is dying in the US. The ACLU is the last major liberal public group/movement and they seem to be turning away from it.
- creaghpatr 8y agoThey have already codified a full reversal on that historic position. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-aclu-retreats-from-free-expression-1529533065 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-aclu-retreats-from-free-exp...
- SenseiMaster 8y agoIt annoys me how every official statement from institutions supporting affirmative action doesn't seem to acknowledge that racial discrimination is happening and is actively harming individuals. Any reasonable person would at least acknowledge the trade-off between racial discrimination and racial diversity.
- creaghpatr 8y agoNotably, the comments section of the article is overwhelmingly in favor of schools not discriminating based on the color of the applicant's skin.
- aaaaaaaaaab 8y agoHow about not discriminating at all?
- creaghpatr 8y agoPersonally, I'd love to see Harvard set aside 75% of their spots for a lottery of students who meet an insanely high threshold (98% percentile in the SAT, for example, or some other objective measurement), and then use the other 25% for athletes, legacies, diversity, etc. That way you may not get in, but you know you won't get cut because you got assigned an arbitrary 'personality' score if you scored high enough; enables kids to save face with friends/family too. Not a fully baked idea here, just a potential avenue.
- opportune 8y agoOver half of all students accepted to Harvard already have test scores in the top 2%
- jessaustin 8y agoLots of people dislike the current situation. They might very well prefer a random sampling of the 2% to the weighted-against-asians portion of the 2% that Harvard "already" admits.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y agoYes but then you invite the idea that the “meritocracy” is biased because only rich kids have the opportunity to study and achieve the top 2 percentile scores needed for admittance. This argument has been used against Texas schools, specifically A&M and UT, who currently work with a “Top 10%” rule where the top 10% of any class in state is automatically admitted to any state school. Note that I am not expressing any opinion about any of this, merely pointing out the counter argument.
- 40acres 8y agoThis argument, while important, is the low hanging fruit of the affirmative action debate in my opinion. We would not need affirmative action if legacy based admissions wasn't so prevalent in top schools. We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes, test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school extracurriculars, both academic and non-academic to prepare them for college. The best elementary schools in the nation are driven by property taxes, how many people do you know bought their house because of the school district? You probably did. Yet we really don't take these things into account when having these discussions. Everyone wants a fair and equitable opportunity for students to get a quality education but to really do so we need drastic reform to really enable that. There's enough political will to tackle the symptom that is AA but very few people want to tackle the causes.
- jaaron 8y agoBut there's the rub: "We would not need affirmative action if [reality was different]." Ergo, we need affirmative action. That is not to say we shouldn't also put significant effort into eradicating institutional prejudices, eliminating poverty, and investing in all communities. However, that effort will take generations and may never fully succeed, which means affirmative action, in its various forms, is necessary to counter-balance failures elsewhere.
- dunpeal 8y ago> "We would not need affirmative action if [reality was different]." > Ergo, we need affirmative action. Logical fallacy. "I have a good immune system, so I would not need medicine if I got a cold." Doesn't mean I need medicine right now, when I'm not sick at all. EDIT: The example seems to be confusing people, so here's a more formal explanation: if (reality is different) then not (we need affirmative action) Does not imply: if not (reality is different) then (we need affirmative action) The original claim is P-> ~Q It doesn't follow that ~P -> Q
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bitxbit 8y agoAsian-Americans should be fighting the Chinese natives not the schools because that's where all the spots have been going to for the past decade.
- downrightmike 8y agoWell, internaltional studuent tuition has a much better margin.
- logrott 8y agoThat's not the point. Let's fight the schools with BS vague "personality" tests.
- nradov 8y agoHarvard (and some other schools) used to apply similar subjective criteria to limit the number of Jewish students. Since there is no real legal definition of race, applicants who might be disadvantaged by this policy are free to select whichever answer on the "What is your race?" question they want. If the system is unfair, there's nothing immoral about gaming it.
- lainga 8y agoWell, by the same token, all you had to do was say "no, I'm not gay" at the US border until 1990.
- samangan 8y agoAlmost all the ivy leagues have in person interviews... Also are people supposed to fake their names?
- cma 8y agoIs Elizabeth Warren a traditional indigenous name?
- jessaustin 8y agoTruly, Warren is the gift who keeps on giving. She seems to be in the middle of every political disagreement...
- thaumasiotes 8y agoNo, but then again neither is "Sitting Bull". English wasn't common in pre-Columbian America.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 0x8BADF00D 8y agohttps://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-he-pretended-to-be-black/ https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains...
- topynate 8y agoSetting the racial aspect to one side, is there anything of value in "admissions readers" in a gargantuan administrative bureaucracy rating young kids on their "likability"?
- tabtab 8y agoPeople skills are helpful to success. I can testify to that as someone with insufficient amounts.
- drak0n1c 8y agoThe parent comment seems to be emphasizing the point that bureaucrats who have never met/interviewed the students shouldn't be the ones deciding which students have the potential to develop positive people skills. Their alleged leaning on stereotypes to make those decisions is unsurprising given such constraints.
- Symmetry 8y agoEspecially since the alumni interviewers who actually meet the candidates give Asian candidates basically the same marks for personality as White candidates.
- hackinthebochs 8y agoBut are the students who meet with alumni a representative sample? If I were a socially inept applicant I would take my chances without the interview.
- Symmetry 8y agoThe way it worked when I was interviewing was that every applicant had an interview.
- uhohnotgood 8y agoIt's not just alumni. Asian applicants were rated basically the same on "Personality" scores from teacher letters, counselor letters, alumni interviews, etc. Everything except their final grade (which is the only place that includes essays, I believe). However, I find it incredibly unlikely that asian applicants are so bad at writing essays that it's singlehandedly tanking their personality score that drastically.
- malcolmgreaves 8y agoA lot of commenters here are demonstrating that they do not understand the difference between racism and racial discrimination. Racsim is the systematic oppression of people. It's carried out in instutions, culture, and processes: individual people do not perform racsim. (Individuals can discriminate.) Racism depends on country / region. In the US, racism exits against black and brown people. It is a system set up for the benefit of white people.
- lainga 8y agoI'm not sure copy-pasting this argument 5 times in the thread has made it any more convincing.
- nightcracker 8y agoRacism is a term which has become fairly muddy without a specific definition. You say it's the systematic oppression of people. Wikipedia says it's "the belief in the superiority of one race over another". Others say it's prejudice + power. We could go on for a while. This arguing about what the word exactly means is a waste of time.
- educationdata 8y agoWho says racism exits ONLY against black and brown people? Historically, it has existed against Jews and Asians. The admission policy of Harvard (an institution) has been used against Jews, now it is used against Asians. By your definition, it is racism.
- biotech 8y agoThat is one definition of racism, but it is not even the most common definition. Individuals can be racist/perform racism. You don't get to change the definition that most people use just because you don't agree with it. Check the dictionary, you will clearly see that "racial prejudice or discrimination" is right there.
- tr0ut 8y agoSince you posted this exact statement a dozen times. Could you answer, What exactly is the benefit for white people to be racist to black and brown people?
- Brozilean 8y agoI think a lot of this boils down to where the problem can be solved. With AA, universities and companies have decided that rather than wait for education reform to streak across the US and guarantee proper funding and adequate education regardless of income, they will seek out those with the potential to do great things regardless of their test scores etc. They have decided to solve the problem in the portion that affects them: aka not solving the root but simply getting different types of applicants in that they think are valuable. I think the grand solution is to go back and reform education, which I think most agree on. But for now, companies and universities are doing really the only thing they can, which is give students and applicants opportunities that they have not been given earlier in their lives. Also in the end I believe that most people can do most jobs once you get training. Most jobs are specialized enough to train someone directly and college is meant to learn anyway so if Harvard wants to admit people of various socio economic backgrounds in favor of not admitting solely the top, I think that'd be better for them in the long run. Especially since the metrics for success are measured as if everyone is in the white top-middle class.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoI think this, and many similar issues, all come down to the need to clarify one's desire for equality of opportunity, or equality of result. If you are in support of equality of opportunity, then this is obviously a good thing. If you're in support of equality of result, then this is obviously a bad thing. In my opinion, equality if result is not really a tenable position. I suspect even if we were all completely and absolutely genetically identical, we'd still see different groups perform differently. The reason in this case would be emergent cultures. The culture in area like Palm Beach is going to diverge from the culture in e.g. Nome, Alaska. When Nomians then have, perhaps, better results than Palm Beachians does that mean we now need to start making it harder for Nomians to get into schools? It just doesn't make any sense. And of course this is all built on top of a false premise of each and every group starting with genetic equivalence to each and every other group. Ultimately I don't see any realistic way you can achieve equality of result without turning society into a dystopia.
- dustinmoris 8y agoDiversity quotas are the dumbest invention of the 21st century. All they do is create racial discrimination against a group of people. If you want to have a balanced admission process, which isn't biased towards a certain group of people (good schools, parents with money, Asians, etc.) then simply change the entry exams from tests which require someone being very book smart (= coming from a privileged background with access to higher education) to someone who just generally is very (street) smart. Smart people will always pick up what they need in order to succeed university, with or without a previous academic background. A blind process wouldn't discriminate and doesn't need quotas. Instead of asking questions with the hope for the right answer, ask questions to explore the right thinking which can be equally achieved no matter what someone's background is.
- rhcom2 8y ago"Smart people will always pick up what they need in order to succeed university, with or without a previous academic background." is just a reframing of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and ignores the entire history of inequality in the US.
- dustinmoris 8y agoNo it's not. It means if you are smart then you are still smart even if you haven't visited a private school and entry exams should be changed in such a way that it actually measures the potential of a candidate instead of their current education history. Also years of inequality don't have an effect on a blind process, because no student today had to live through a century of inequality. People of today have been born into a better world and if we design a blind application process then there is no reason why anyone shouldn't perform well. Quotas are only making it worse, by trying to apply a flaw in order to fix another flaw, which might not even exist anymore.
- rhcom2 8y agoInequality is systematic and generational, "because no student today had to live through a century of inequality" is a ridiculous statement when we still have major problems with inequality in schooling, health care, criminal justice, the list goes on and on. Just because things are better than they were 50 years ago doesn't erase 300 years of history. There is no such thing as a completely "blind" process that can somehow "measures the potential of a candidate" outside that candidate's socioeconomic history and outside the history of inequality in the US. It's the dream of a pure meritocracy which is completely impossible in reality.
- dunpeal 8y agoThe key facts of this story is that Harvard has been discriminating against Asian-Americans based on race, which is illegal in the US. Harvard knows they've been acting unlawfully, which is why they desperately try to resort to evasive tactics, such as claiming their admission process is a "trade secret" and should never be discussed in court: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/harvard-university-is-fighting-to-keep-its-secretive-admissions-process-under-wraps-2018-06-28 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/harvard-university-is-figh... The DoJ is right to conclude that Harvard has been acting illegally.
- bobmarley1 8y agoIt's actually not at all clear if it's legal hence the court battle. In fact AA is literally legalized discrimination that benefits Minorities so you really don't know what you are talking about.
- dang 8y agoThis and other recent comments you've made have broken the site guidelines. We ban accounts that do that, so would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here?
- sdinsn 8y agoThe use of gender and racial quotas in University admissions is unconstitutional, decided by the Supreme Court case Gratz v. Bollinger in 2003.
- dunpeal 8y agoIndeed. Harvard's legal argument isn't that they are racially discriminating and that it's legal. They know it's not. Their argument is what you'd expect from an institution that is racially discriminating, but trying to weasel out of its culpability: they try to hide their systematic bias in the most subjective and ambiguous candidate score - the "personality" ratings. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/harvard-asian-american-racism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/harvard-asian-ame... > The report by the plaintiff’s expert witness, the Duke University economist Peter Arcidiacono, revealed that Harvard evaluated applicants on the extent to which they possessed the following traits: likability, helpfulness, courage, kindness, positive personality, people like to be around them, the person is widely respected. Asian-Americans, who had the highest scores in both the academic and extracurricular ratings, lagged far behind all other racial groups in the degree to which they received high ratings on the personality score. > “Asian-American applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more than 20% of the time only in the top academic index decile. By contrast, white applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more than 20% of the time in the top six deciles,” wrote Mr. Arcidiacono. “Hispanics receive such personal scores more than 20% of the time in the top seven deciles, and African Americans receive such scores more than 20% of the time in the top eight deciles.” > Even if the very worst stereotypes about Asians were true on average, it beggars belief that one could arrive at divergences as dramatic as the ones Mr. Arcidiacono documents by means of unbiased evaluation.
- univalent 8y agoI think the problem lies with SATs/GREs/GMATs. The tests (especially SAT, GRE) are ludicrously simple. I'm your run of the mill IIT-an and placed 98th and 99th percentile without breaking a sweat in the GRE when it came time for grad school. I think I maxed 2 of the 3 sections and was 98th percentile in both. What's the point of a test like that? Thousands of people max/get to the highest percentile and it becomes useless as a variable. Why not follow the model of the JEE exam instead of the SAT (a different variant of the exam for each specialization). If the exam is harder, the distribution of students is more spread out. You can rank them nationwide. Not being a jerk, I'm honestly curious why people like middle school math problems in a grad school exam? https://jeemain.nic.in/webinfo/Public/Home.aspx https://jeemain.nic.in/webinfo/Public/Home.aspx
- jessaustin 8y agoThe SAT, which is the more relevant test for this discussion, was intentionally made easier years ago, so that it would be better suited to measuring the vast majority of USA college applicants. That made it less suited to Harvard's needs, but not as much as one might think. Plenty of Harvard students had less than the maximum SAT scores. Some might prefer that admission be based solely on test scores, but that is not Harvard's preference.
- univalent 8y agoSo maybe have 2 tests. A second one that is harder and spreads students out more. I was just questioning the value of a test that 'normalizes' student scores having no distribution at the top end.
- SenseiMaster 8y agoOr it works in Harvard's preference by potentially hiding the academic disparities of the different ethnic groups studying at Harvard. If everyone's score is truncated at 800 on a test out of 1200, then you can't tell the difference between a group that averages 800 vs one that averages 1100
- scarface74 8y ago
- risto1 8y agoWhy do people think affirmative action is a good idea? It's not meritocratic. People should be judged based on their skill, not based on their gender, race, or ethnicity. We should be striving for a fair society, not equality of outcome It's insulting to those minorities, it implies that they can't be smart enough to make it without this kind of leg up, and they will never know the extent to which this played a role in their success even if they're absolutely solid at what they do. And I think there's definitely a negative psychological effect to minorities by doing these kinds of things If a student gets into a school which is above their skill level or general academic interest, they could burn out and loose interest in a profession that otherwise would've been a good fit for them. A similar lack of motivation can also happen for someone who can only get into a school that's below their true skill level because they don't feel that their being valued fairly It isn't all encompassing -- it's not just gender and race, there are ethnicities that are widely discriminated against and they don't get a similar leg up. I don't think AA should be applied at all, just pointing this out There are problems in some minority communities struggle with for sure, but this isn't the right way to solve it at all One of big reasons why asian and jewish communities do better here is just culture -- their cultures highly value intellectual pursuits. I knew an asian guy that went to Harvard and they were so poor they lived in the ghetto, which should've messed up his chances because the public school sucked, but he was raised to highly value academic pursuits. And an asian girl I knew that went to Columbia, her mother told her that if she doesn't achieve academically she won't love her anymore. While harsh, they punish their kids for an A- the way other cultures would view an F. But it's a big reason for their academic success I also knew a girl that was very rich, but she basically didn't have to pay tuition because of her minority. I'm sorry but that's really annoying for someone that had to take out insane amounts of student debt. There were times when I thought I had to drop out because I couldn't even get approved for a loan, and the interest rates were insanely high The better solution is to find out why some minorities aren't doing well academically in proportion to others in the first place and change that. If it's financial or cultural or whatever else, the underlying cause should be addressed, not this BS Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvnTByzTmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvnTByzTmA
- Jyaif 8y agoYour initial question is linked to your final remark. People think affirmative action is a good idea because they think that minorities aren't doing well academically because they don't have role models to identify with. To be clear affirmative action is supposed to be temporary until the culture of minorities that do not do well academically as changed enough. So paradoxically the goal of affirmative action is to reduce cultural diversity.
- camjohnson26 8y agoThere's obviously an inequality problem between races in America but why don't we just provide affirmative action to low income people of all races? It could be as simple as boosting the chances of admission for all low income applicants by 5%. Just because systematic racism has lead to the oppression of black people in the country doesn't mean that race is the only factor we can look at to encourage diversity.
- SenseiMaster 8y agoI'm guessing that the poor students that are academically decent enough for Harvard are mostly Asian with some children of European immigrants and a few of African immigrants. I think that Asians are even more represented in the set of poor students that can academically fit into Harvard than the set of upper middle class and above students that can academically fit into Harvard.
- Jyaif 8y ago"Harvard does not discriminate against applicants from any group, and will continue to vigorously defend the legal right of every college and university to consider race as one factor among many in college admissions" translation: "We don't discriminate, but we discriminate." How can somebody write something that stupid?
- jessaustin 8y agoStart off with four years of Ivy League undergraduate education...
- hackinthebochs 8y agoThe subtext of the hand-wringing over this case is that somehow Asians have earned or deserve their spot in Harvard for having X GPA or Y SAT scores, and thus it is "unfair" for people with lower GPA/SATs to be admitted over them. But this is just flat out wrong. The issue is that admissions to top universities isn't strictly meritocratic. Or to put it another way, "merit" in this context isn't simply GPA and SAT scores. Harvard as an institution wants to increase its prestige over time, and so they want to admit students who will go on to be CEOs, Senators, Presidents, etc. They want to pick the future leaders of society, but this is only correlated with GPA/SAT up to a point. This is where race-aware admissions is perfectly warranted by Harvard. They want students who are outliers as those people will go on to do great things. But being an outlier of your cluster is important signal. And race is a very important cluster in society. That they structure their admissions to make sure they're getting the outstanding people from a broad range of races and circumstances is Harvard just working in their best interest. If Asian applications are very similar to each other, then they have a good reason to weigh such applications lower because you're no longer an outlier in the sense that is valuable to Harvard. This isn't a moral issue like some are trying to make this out to be. If there is a moral issue here, its whether any institution should have such an outsized influence on the outcome of a person's life, not whether Asians are being unfairly barred from the king-maker institution.
- castlecrasher2 8y agoWhat you explain in your third paragraph sounds an awful lot like quotas.
- SenseiMaster 8y agoIt most definitely is a moral issue when students are racially discriminated against. There is a trade-off between racial diversity and racial discrimination. What you're saying here is that non-Asian leaders who are individually worse leaders take the spot of Asian leaders who are individually better leaders because the race of non-Asian leaders makes them better leaders.
- hackinthebochs 8y ago
- tartoran 8y agoThis is totally against "test takers". Knowing the rules will make them better at taking tests but Harvard wants to be about something else. I may sure be downvoted to say that from my experience asians are the great test takers, and gotta also add that they have amazing rote memory, one of the best imho.
- uhohnotgood 8y agoPlease don't perpetuate stereotypes like this. This sentence has a clear discriminatory undertone implying that asians are less capable of creative/critical thinking.
- tartoran 8y agoYou just said this in one of your comments : "Unless one is going to argue that there are no genetic differences between individuals in the brain, it seems unlikely to me that different races don't have different brains in some fashion." Then I may ask, if you think different races have different brains , how can you argue against statements on traits by calling them stereotypes? I wasn't implying creativity, It was more general than that, and there's no better one than other.
- kapauldo 8y agoAffirmative action is supposed to be for under represented groups not over represented. This is invalid.
- DrJaws 8y agoOn 2016 Abigail Fisher sued the university of texas for the same reason, the supreme court stood with the university. Can anyone tell me why not here and what's the difference?
- uhohnotgood 8y agoWell, to be clear, the Supreme Court has not ruled on this case yet. The Department of Justice is part of the executive branch, responsible for the enforcement of the law. As for what the difference is, I'm no expert on law, and can't confidently provide an answer. To me, the difference seems to be that while white students may be slightly discriminated against through affirmative action, asian students face much larger hurdles. The Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action have not decided anything as clear cut as "affirmative action is completely allowed", nor "affirmative action is not allowed". From my understanding, explicit quotas are not allowed, but if a school can reasonably argue that their use of affirmative action serves its "education goal", then it's allowable.
- DrJaws 8y agothanks It's pretty weird everything, on my country nothing outside "this is your score, this is your admission" would be allowed.
- millermp12 8y agoAt what point will any of the self-professed "friends of science" -- the majority of HN posters for that matter -- sack up and allow themselves to even entertain the possibility that, in modeling disparate outcomes between ethnic groups, that the genetic term is almost certainly non-zero? The trends in genomics, specifically ever more powerful GWAS studies on complex phenotypes (e.g. height, academic achievement and yes cognitive ability) are not breaking in favor of this blank slate world view. http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/07/game-over-genomic-prediction-of-social.html http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/07/game-over-genomic-predi...
- millermp12 8y agoCan someone point out the material difference(s) between the Asian quotas, which Harvard is stridently defending, and the Jewish quotas which were repealed and roundly reviled?
- toomuchcabbage 8y agoCan someone point out the material difference(s) between the Asian quotas, which Harvard is stridently defending, and the Jewish quotas which were repealed and roundly reviled?