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It most definitely is a moral issue when students are racially discriminated against. There is a trade-off between racial diversity and racial discrimination.

It 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
>racially discriminated against But we haven't settled whether they're being racially discriminated against. If some legitimate feature to discriminate or filter against correlates with race, then it will look a lot like racial discrimination when it isn't. Harvard wanting to maximize their future prestige by carefully constructing the makeup of their student body is such an instance. Maximizing leadership potential of their student body will look like racial discrimination. It's similar to how the distribution of housing loans can look like racial discrimination if you didn't already know that income correlates with race. > non-Asian leaders who are individually worse leaders take the spot of Asian leaders who are individually better leaders No. I'm saying GPA and SAT scores only correlate with leadership potential up to a point. Once you've passed that threshold, other factors start contributing more, e.g. your background, interests, etc. It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA/SAT necessarily has more leadership potential.
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  > It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA/SAT necessarily has more leadership potential. And somehow these "lacking in leadership potential" students happen to be Asian more often than the norm? Year after year? Seems like a convenient coincidence.
  - hackinthebochs 8y ago
    You're missing the point. There is no way to quantify leadership potential and so they have to come up with various heuristics. One heuristic is being an outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster. That is, group people by various factors such as race, income, region, etc. Those who are outliers of those groups are likely to have leadership potential: whatever drove them to succeed where others failed in similar circumstances is a strong signal for leadership potential.
    - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
      > One heuristic is being an outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster. That is, group people by various factors such as race, income, region, etc. Then, pray tell, which lack of "being an outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster" is common to Asian applicants, year after year? I'm sure we would all be fascinated to hear the specific areas in which Asian applicants are failing to match these heuristics where other minority applicants do.
      - hackinthebochs 8y ago
        Your responses seem to indicate you don't understand the points I'm making (or you're just very invested in the narrative you're pushing). It's hard to see what I can say that won't invite a further response such as this. But to put a very fine point on it, Asians with stellar scores, similar backgrounds, similar interests, similar extra curriculars lack diversity in backgrounds, interests and extra curriculars by definition. There's nothing deeper to be noted about this. Whether Asians that apply to Harvard actually have similar backgrounds, interests and extra curriculars is certainly up for debate. But it is plausible. The issue is that the distribution of leadership potential in the applicant pool is not equivalent to the distribution of top GPA and test scores (past a certain threshold). So when you use your GPA/SAT metric to analyze something that doesn't follow the same distribution, you will conclude there is bias. But it is your metric that is wrong. If your argument is that they necessarily should use your GPA/SAT metric, then you have to argue for this directly. It is not self evident.
JamesBarney 8y ago
I think his argument is if you have the same number of great leaders per capita in each race. Then maybe at the margin you should take in an African American who scored better than 98% of his peers over an Asian who scored better than 90% of his peers.(for instance Asians have 30x the number of individuals per capita who score an 800 on an SAT compared to African Americans.)

hackinthebochs 8y ago

>racially discriminated against But we haven't settled whether they're being racially discriminated against. If some legitimate feature to discriminate or filter against correlates with race, then it will look a lot like racial discrimination when it isn't. Harvard wanting to maximize their future prestige by carefully constructing the makeup of their student body is such an instance. Maximizing leadership potential of their student body will look like racial discrimination. It's similar to how the distribution of housing loans can look like racial discrimination if you didn't already know that income correlates with race. > non-Asian leaders who are individually worse leaders take the spot of Asian leaders who are individually better leaders No. I'm saying GPA and SAT scores only correlate with leadership potential up to a point. Once you've passed that threshold, other factors start contributing more, e.g. your background, interests, etc. It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA/SAT necessarily has more leadership potential.

ThrowawayR2 8y ago
> It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA/SAT necessarily has more leadership potential. And somehow these "lacking in leadership potential" students happen to be Asian more often than the norm? Year after year? Seems like a convenient coincidence.
- hackinthebochs 8y ago
  You're missing the point. There is no way to quantify leadership potential and so they have to come up with various heuristics. One heuristic is being an outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster. That is, group people by various factors such as race, income, region, etc. Those who are outliers of those groups are likely to have leadership potential: whatever drove them to succeed where others failed in similar circumstances is a strong signal for leadership potential.
  - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
    > One heuristic is being an outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster. That is, group people by various factors such as race, income, region, etc. Then, pray tell, which lack of "being an outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster" is common to Asian applicants, year after year? I'm sure we would all be fascinated to hear the specific areas in which Asian applicants are failing to match these heuristics where other minority applicants do.
    - hackinthebochs 8y ago
      Your responses seem to indicate you don't understand the points I'm making (or you're just very invested in the narrative you're pushing). It's hard to see what I can say that won't invite a further response such as this. But to put a very fine point on it, Asians with stellar scores, similar backgrounds, similar interests, similar extra curriculars lack diversity in backgrounds, interests and extra curriculars by definition. There's nothing deeper to be noted about this. Whether Asians that apply to Harvard actually have similar backgrounds, interests and extra curriculars is certainly up for debate. But it is plausible. The issue is that the distribution of leadership potential in the applicant pool is not equivalent to the distribution of top GPA and test scores (past a certain threshold). So when you use your GPA/SAT metric to analyze something that doesn't follow the same distribution, you will conclude there is bias. But it is your metric that is wrong. If your argument is that they necessarily should use your GPA/SAT metric, then you have to argue for this directly. It is not self evident.

JamesBarney 8y ago

I think his argument is if you have the same number of great leaders per capita in each race. Then maybe at the margin you should take in an African American who scored better than 98% of his peers over an Asian who scored better than 90% of his peers.(for instance Asians have 30x the number of individuals per capita who score an 800 on an SAT compared to African Americans.)