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Harvard Asian-American discrimination case opens with packed courtroom

• fipple 8y ago
  If Harvard is trying to admit the top students academically, they must be race blind. If they are trying to admit the future powerful citizens of America, they can use a metric that accounts for that. For example, Beyoncé is more powerful than me, even though I probably had better grades. It wouldn’t be outrageous for Harvard to say we want Beyoncé as an alumnus more than me. But be honest about what you’re doing then, and don’t call your institution an academic one.
  • hackinthebochs 8y ago
    This really gets to the heart of the matter. Harvard wants to increase its prestige, and it does so by having future CEOs, Senators, and Presidents go to Harvard. But the distribution of potential leaders of society is not equal to the distribution of top GPA/test scores. Should Obama have been passed over from Harvard Law for someone with a higher GPA (or GW Bush for Yale)? If you want to argue that Harvard should only use the grades/test scores metric, you have to argue for it, as it is not self-evident.
  • TheCoelacanth 8y ago
    In what world is the goal of an academic institution to produce students with good grades and not to produce students who are capable of accomplishing things?
  • erikpukinskis 8y ago
    Just because an institution is an academic institution doesn’t mean they’re only trying to train people to be academics.
• forapurpose 8y ago
  How do we talk about this issue (and others like it)? Ignoring the politics is as useful and honest as ignoring your black eye when discussing your headache. We all know the score: For some, it's a way to undermine affirmative action and also a way to distract from the much larger prevalence of racial discrimination against African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans - a way of implying that those issues aren't special problems. Others take the opposing side in order to push back on these issues. Let's not pretend it is considered on its merits either here or in wider society, though most discussions try to talk as if it is. Possibly it will not be decided on its merits the politicized American judiciary: If it reaches the Supreme Court, for example, I think by only knowing the politics - and no facts or law - we could predict how several justices would vote. I just wish we would discuss it honestly.
• gentaro 8y ago
  Wow, this is a long time coming. Good luck to the Asian-American community.
  • rayiner 8y ago
    Some (probably lots of) asian-americans don't support this lawsuit, because they see it as a veiled attack on affirmative action: https://abovethelaw.com/2018/10/first-edward-blum-came-for-the-voting-rights-act-now-he-aims-to-gut-affirmative-action-with-the-help-of-asian-americans https://abovethelaw.com/2018/10/first-edward-blum-came-for-t....
    • kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      My understanding is that many Asian Americans are turned away from AA programs because they aren't "traditionally" disenfranchised minorities.
    • oh_sigh 8y ago
      Multiple entries in that article link to the same book which came out within the past two weeks saying that the myth "that Asian-Americans need higher test scores than non-Asian-Americans to get into a highly selective college" is debunked. Has anyone actually read the book? Is the topic settled?
      • btilly 8y ago
        I have not read the book, but on general principle I doubt that the topic is settled. If you look at https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2017/08/07/look-data-and-arguments-about-asian-americans-and-admissions-elite https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2017/08/07... you can see that indeed Asian Americans do not get in at the rates that their test scores would suggest that they should. That is evidence of bias against them. However it is hard to prove because it is hard to control for all of the other factors that colleges look for. That and other things that I am aware of strongly suggest that Asians are somewhat discriminated against. Given that, I would be more inclined to suspect bias is more important than fact in anything that claims to be a debunking.
• oh_sigh 8y ago
  > "Race alone is never the reason a student is granted admission," Lee said. "And race is never the reason a student is denied." > He downplayed the influence of any single numerical rating, saying the final decision comes down to a 40-person committee that spends weeks reviewing and discussing applications. I love how Harvard's defense is "We aren't 100% racist, we're only a little racist, but for good!"
  • akhilcacharya 8y ago
    Your problem appears to be holistic admission in general. And to that, ok, I do agree and it's not consistent or deterministic by design. But the idea that people should get so mad about this that they sue and raise a fit is silly. There are two competing implicit narratives here - 1) The school you go to doesn't matter and you should do the best where-ever you are (I personally heard this quite a bit). 2) You will be irreparably harmed for life because you didn't get into School N instead of School N - 1. Which is it?
    • solveit 8y ago
      The problem isn't holistic admission, the problem is that Harvard is using the cover of holistic admission to black-box the admissions process so nobody can prove what shenanigans are actually going on. That only works until somebody does a simple regression, but most people don't understand regressions or any sort of statistics at all.
    • sincerely 8y ago
      Wait, where are those narratives coming from the same person?
      • akhilcacharya 8y ago
        Sometimes, yes! But I've heard both repeatedly! It is absolutely maddening.
    • johntb86 8y ago
      I doubt that Harvard would be excited about arguing in favor of 1).
• randyrand 8y ago
  > "race is just one factor that's considered and can only help a student's chances of getting admitted." If this is their best argument, they'll fail miserably. You're not considered in a vacuum. Your resume is considered relative to the others that have applied. If most other applicants receive +10 bonus points and you don't -- that hurts you. It's not rocket science. > Yet Mortara argued Monday the lawsuit is not a broader attack on affirmative action, saying Harvard has simply gone too far in its "zeal" to consider race. "Diversity and its benefits are not on trial here. I don't see how they can argue this with a straight face. It's all the same thing just called by different names.
  • WillPostForFood 8y ago
    > I don't see how they can argue this with a straight face. It's all the same thing just called by different names. I think you can argue there is a difference between affirmative action (proactively seeking candidates for racial diversity) and penalizing based on race to keep the number of a particular race down.
    • randyrand 8y ago
      > proactively seeking candidates for racial diversity What is the difference in practice? If we proactively filled all of Harvard with disadvantaged races and didn't accept any asians, would you still be saying the same thing? Proactively helping one race is the same as hurting others. Maybe there would be a difference if Harvard was helping disadvantaged races only at childrearing-time instead of at application-time (the definition of pro-active), but they're not.
    • barry-cotter 8y ago
      There are only so many slots. If you’re giving extra points to greens that’s equivalent to taking them from purples if there are a fixed number of places to compete for.
    • fipple 8y ago
      But admissions to Harvard is a zero sum game. It’s not like they say before admissions starts “everyone with 210 points gets in” and then gives 80 points for SAT score, 80 points for GPA, and 25 points for race. It’s like an Olympic race where they let the Athlete from the host country start the race 10 seconds early. If the other athletes complained I don’t think “we’re not hurting you, we’re just helping them” would be very satisfying.
• function_seven 8y ago
  Whatever your views on affirmative action, this logic is hard to follow: Harvard's legal team denied any discrimination in its opening statement at Boston's federal courthouse, saying race is just one factor that's considered and can only help a student's chances of getting admitted. For institutions that have a limited number of slots available, it's impossible to say race can only help an applicant. I'm not making a value judgement here, just balancing a math equation. If we determine as a society that taking action to correct our structural biases is warranted, then own it. Not just the plus, but also the minus.
  • acchow 8y ago
    Unless the external system already has a negative bias against a race and you're correcting for that bias inside your own system by adding race into the equation.
    • Dylan16807 8y ago
      I can see an argument that correcting for bias isn't "hurting" someone that comes with a preexisting positive bias. But if that's the argument, then you're not "helping" anyone either. You can look at it either as removing bias so nobody is helped or hurt, or you can view it in comparison to a 'race-blind' process where it helps some and hurts others. You can't cherry-pick half of each.
    • function_seven 8y ago
      I assume both of those points to be true. That the external system is negatively biased toward certain groups, and that the point of affirmative action is to counteract that harmful bias. I'll even grant that affirmative action has been somewhat successful in achieving that aim. It's still disingenuous to argue that there is only benefit and no harm when re-balancing the scale here. Nothing irritates me more than intellectual dishonesty, and I perceive it here.
    • rococode 8y ago
      I think the issue of affirmative action really comes down to whether people think this is OK or not. The real question is, "is it more right to give privileges to the underprivileged than it is wrong to take away privileges from the privileged?". It'd be nice to just have the former without the latter, but with a limited number of "privileges" available, there just hasn't been a good solution yet (and there may not be one).
• nradov 8y ago
  This article fails to mention that Harvard (and other elite schools) used to apply similar subjective criteria to limit the number of Jews they admitted.
  • reader5000 8y ago
    Harvard was founded and held by WASPs in the 17th century, was conquered by Jews in the late 20th century, and will be conquered by Asians in the coming decades. There is the interesting question of whether the cultural relevancy of an Asian Harvard will drift into something like Caltech but you can't stop globalism!
  • danimal88 8y ago
    Yes, I have been following this and thinking the same thing. Not sure why this is not relevant as it obviously must have set precedent in some way.
  • dman 8y ago
    Would appreciate any pointers from people who know more about law than I do (which is practically nothing) on what arguments Harvard made back in the day about their discrimination against Jews. Are they structurally similar to the arguments they are making against Asians now? At some point did Harvard acknowledge that the policies that discriminated Jews were a mistake?
    • nradov 8y ago
      The argument at the time was that Jews were too focused on academics and didn't play enough sports. Eventually Harvard did acknowledge that religious discrimination was a mistake. (To be clear I don't support discrimination, just supplying some context.) https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/harvard-s-jewish-problem https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/harvard-s-jewish-proble...
  • turtlecloud 8y ago
    If Jews are viewed as a distinct group, white representation would be lower while Jewish representation is higher.
• fipple 8y ago
  As an Asian American I hate how we are “white” or “nonwhite” situationally, to our maximum disadvantage. We’re nonwhite so we get racist jokes in middle school and don’t get cast as leading actors. But we’re white enough to keep out of Harvard and for us to count as “whites and Asians” for tech company hiring. WTF are “Whites and Asians?” Whites own America, good and bad. They wrote the Constitution and they wrote the Three Fifths Compromise. They created the racial oppression system that Asians fought their way out of. And now because we’re successful we’re just bucketed in with them when convenient to anyone but us.
  • coredog64 8y ago
    > the Three Fifths Compromise Since this is one of my common beefs... The compromise was written at the behest of the Northern, non-slave states. The Southern slave-holding states would have been perfectly fine with five-fifths representation for each slave. Further, the point of the compromise was to limit the Congressional power of the Southern slave-holding states and was not intended as a value judgement as to the worth of slaves.
    • fipple 8y ago
      Yeah, I know that. I’m Asian, remember :)
    • googlryas 8y ago
      The compromise was that the Northern states gave southern blacks any representation. The correct value was actually 0/5ths for slaves, not 3/5ths or 5/5ths. Southerners wanted it both ways in that they could justify slavery because blacks were property - more akin to a beast of burden than a farmhand - and not humans with inalienable rights, but when it came to the census, they wanted blacks to be counted as humans, even though they could not vote and had no representation in both the state and federal legal system.
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• throwawaysea 8y ago
  Reminder: Harvard consistently rates Asian students lower on personality traits like "likability", which is a part of their admissions process: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollment-applicants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollme...
  • gentaro 8y ago
    "We're not racist, we just happen to not like Asians."
  • solveit 8y ago
    Despite alumni interviewers rating Asian students about the same as others, I might add.
    • DevoidSimo 8y ago
      Well presumably if they are alumni then they were given a high enough rating to get in so the numbers are skewed. Unless this is alumni from other universities.
      • solveit 8y ago
        No, Harvard alumni interviewing candidates is part of the admissions process. The alumni rated Asian candidates as being just as personable as candidates from other races. Since the alumni are volunteers from all walks of life (other than the obvious fact that they all went to Harvard), the idea is that they aren't affected by whatever is going on inside the admissions office, and the disparity between alumni ratings and admissions office ratings is evidence of systemic bias against Asians.
  • fraudsyndrome 8y ago
    That's why I believe they introduced measuring traits for "well-roundedness". Asian/Asian-Americans were doing better than whites at their own game (tests) and as such started testing for skills that can't be easily measured and are heavily biased. Suddenly someone with high scores and other non-technical skills can still be considered not well-rounded.
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• 40acres 8y ago
  Students for Fair Admissions is a front organization designed to find cases that will hopefully reach the Supreme Court and make affirmative action unconstitutional. Their president, Edward Blum, has stated so on multiple occasions. The Asian community has a legitimate beef if some of the details regarding Harvard's admissions are true. I would hope that the judge is taking this case with full context and knowledge of SFFA's role, and if they choose to rule in the favor of SFFA, do so narrowly. American's need to become more aware of organizations like SFFA and The Federalist Society and how they are shaping the court. If you thought the courts were supposed to be a neutral arbiter of law you thought wrong due to how these organizations operate. When you can easily tell how the Supreme Court will vote on major issues simply by knowing the party of the president that appointmented them something is wrong.
• liftbigweights 8y ago
  I don't see how anyone could be for race based discrimination. If we are going to make up for systematic oppression of the past, why not do so far earlier in a person's life instead of waiting til college? I think it's fairer to help minority mothers with day care help or schooling assistance for their children and even out the playing field there rather than discriminating at the college level to even the playing field. I just don't see how more discrimination is the answer to past discrimination against minorities. Especially when it's discrimination against one set of minorities to make up for the discrimination against another set of minorities in the past.
  • esrauch 8y ago
    It isn't like Harvard is choosing between the two options of "nationwide welfare program" or "control admissions" and exclusively choosing the latter, nor are welfare advocates saying "well, Harvard has that admissions program we don't need improved welfare anymore".
• qihqi 8y ago
  Many systems set up to please underrepresented groups such as African Americans and Latinos indirectly hurts Asians. One of the reasons is that Asians are never as vocal and numerous as the other 2 groups. However, the biggest reason is that the white will not set up a system to hurt whites. Only take away from one minority to give to other minority; then just sit there watch 2 minority group fight.
• lewis500 8y ago
  Can someone knowledgeable answer something: if the judgement goes against Harvard, would this apply to faculty and staff hires, too? I recall in grad school being in an econ
  • sjg007 8y ago
    No, faculty/staff are covered under equal protection employment law.
• glglwty 8y ago
  A few years ago an Indian guy changed his name to get admitted into medical school. I wonder how it would play out if more Asians do this. They should try harder messing with the system, forcing schools to do DNA tests, etc.
  • simonsarris 8y ago
    An Indian college friend of mine did this too, changing his name from Ankit to Andy (and simplifying the spelling of his last name) before applying to grad schools.
  • calvinbhai 8y ago
    "Vijay Chokal-Ingam" faked being black to get into med school (he himself came out and explained why he did what he did. Just google his name). That's how bad it is in the US for Asian kids at every level after High School. Another aspect of what ends up happening due to this is that Asian grads from such universities are always considered to be top notch by default, because it is assumed that they had to be more competitive to get through the sieve.
• thoughtstheseus 8y ago
  Harvard wants to pick the best students. If they do not select the best student they will lose their prestige/position over time. They seem to have a strong incentive. -my 2 cents
• ruang 8y ago
  People are also taking advantage of affirmative action by claiming to be part of a race if they had one relative from that race 10 generations back i.e. Elizabeth Warren. I feel you should have at least 50% of that DNA in order to be able to claim some racially disadvantaged status.
  • TheCoelacanth 8y ago
    Elizabeth Warren did not receive affirmative action. She didn't even tell anyone about her distant Native American ancestry until after she was a tenured professor.
• _archon_ 8y ago
  Is Harvard not a private school? Discussions of affirmative action/race aside, if they're a private institution, can't they do pretty much whatever they want? By what basis does anyone have authority/standing to sue? A private club can refuse admittance for any reason, or for no reason. Is this not the case for private schools?
• noetic_techy 8y ago
  It makes we wonder what the emergence of an all Asian Ivy league level school would look like, with an endowment to match, similar to historically black colleges. A private college technically can do what they want. Either you base admission on merit, or you base it on racial % of the US population, and then take from the top of each racial bucket, splitting it 50/50 for men and women. There are good arguments for both cases, but you can't really have a system that tries to be both without having massive exceptions. If you read Amy Chaus book The Triple Package, its not just Asians that do historically better than native Whites in the US, but also Indians, Cuban exiles, Jews, Nigerians, Lebanese, Iranians and even Mormons. Its often assumed that a merit system favors only Asians and Whites, predominantly Jews, when this is not entirely true.
  • neutralid 8y ago
    Indians, Lebanese and Iranians are Asians.