5 ms·

> Harvard has testified that race, when considered in admissions, can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in. So if your race matches their pre

• ekianjo 8y ago
  > IANAL but it sounds like Harvard just admitted that they were guilty. I don't like what they seem to be doing, but Harvard is a private university - they should be able to recruit who they want to based on their own criteria. Of course, it's not a binary thing: universities in the US receive lots of subsidies from local states, so there is a certain expectation of fairness. Maybe the right thing to do would be to completely cut subsidies if they decide to have a non-public selection process.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • curious_fella2 8y ago
    "I don't like what they seem to be doing, but Harvard is a private university - they should be able to recruit who they want to based on their own criteria" How is this argument different than supporting a private restaurant not serving e.g. Chinese people since they "are a private company that should be able to serve whom they want based on their own criteria?"
    • dnautics 8y ago
      It's not. And as a person of color, I'll tell you that laws preventing discrimination offered me and my family zero protections (specifically with respect to restaurants) in the post CRA-III era.
      • k_sh 8y ago
        CRA-III?
        • shkkmo 8y ago
          I would assume that is Title III of the Civil Rights Act which covers the obligation of the Attorney General to instigate civil suites to enforce the CRA on behalf of complainants who do not have the means to pursue a civil suite on their own.
          • dnautics 8y ago
            Sorry for the ambiguity. It's the third civil rights act (1964) after 57 and 60. I and II dominantly were about racism in voting, but III has substantial portions that were about regulating private behavior in addition to those segments about the state sponsored racism.
      • curious_fella2 8y ago
        Edit: misunderstood
        • dnautics 8y ago
          Sorry that was unclear. I should have written "it's not a different argument".
          • curious_fella2 8y ago
            Ah, sorry. Edited.
    • jorblumesea 8y ago
      How is what Harvard is doing supported by that example? They are giving preferential treatment to certain groups or ethnicities, not actively discriminating against any certain group. If you went to a restaurant and someone that was in line after you got seated before simply because of their ethnicity, that's not the same as not being served at all right?
      • lalaland1125 8y ago
        If there are a limited number of seats it's exactly the same as not being served at all.
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      • jjeaff 8y ago
        I'm sorry sir, but you've been bumped from this flight. Because someone from a more favorable race showed up. You'll have to try and catch the next flight. We have one departing next year.
  • dnautics 8y ago
    Although I'd support this, cutting subsidies is going to be incredibly painful. A lot of University income is tied up as overhead on top of research grants.
  • commandlinefan 8y ago
    Except that this was specifically what private universities (and private everything else’s) were required by law to stop doing 50 year ago, when their preferred race was white. There’s a LONG precedent against private institutions discriminating based on race in the United States - it just hasn’t been enforced evenly.
    • 09bjb 8y ago
      I hate to be this guy, but...how is this different from affirmative action? I'm not saying it's wrong, but affirmative action is discriminating based on race. Surely it hasn't been illegal this whole time?
      • tbrownaw 8y ago
        It looks like it's complicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_United_States#Legal_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_Unit...
        • deleted 8y ago
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  • Digory 8y ago
    The rule in the US is that a university that wants to discriminate based on race doesn't just lose its grants, it loses its tax exempt status.
  • throwaway333444 8y ago
    >I don't like what they seem to be doing, but Harvard is a private university - they should be able to recruit who they want to based on their own criteria. So your position is that they are free to racially discriminate against candidates because they are a private university?
  • protomyth 8y ago
    Once you take federal money, you have public obligations spelled out in multiple laws. Harvard takes a lot of federal money.
  • throwawayfri10 8y ago
    That's the actual issue here. Harvard receives around $600 million in federal funds a year [1]. 1. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/22/federal-funding-decreases-2014/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/22/federal-funding...
    • Manicdave 8y ago
      Thats a lot of money, what do they do with it?
      • extra88 8y ago
        It’s money for research.
  • paulddraper 8y ago
    I agree, people and private (non-government) businesses should be able to discriminate however they want on whatever factors they want. However, that is not what the law says.
• friedman23 8y ago
  > can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in. Ok, can someone explain to me if this distinction even matters effectively? If every group is getting a bonus and one group is not doesn't that effectively mean that one group is being penalized?
  • deleted 8y ago
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  • hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
    Yes, and that is exactly what is happening to Asian students, hence the lawsuit.
  • adamiscool8 8y ago
    Not if, e.g. $race_a applicants get +2 to their score, but $race_b applicants are more likely to be +2 in other $admissions_factors[c,d,..n]. Distinct from $race_b-2 and $race_a+2, as this only hurts the subset of $race_b applicants lacking [c,d,..n]
    • jjeaff 8y ago
      Whether they are "likely" to have better scores in other categories is irrelevant. You are still deducting points based on race.
      • adamiscool8 8y ago
        You're not deducting anything.
        • jjeaff 8y ago
          Call it what you want. Your race is reducing your chance at getting in due to seats being taken by those who got a bump for being a certain race.
• blazespin 8y ago
  Affirmative action has been a big issue, but I don't think it makes you guilty.
• corndoge 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_Unit...
• fromthestart 8y ago
  Doublespeak
  • dang 8y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
• rdiddly 8y ago
  I presume they're trying to have it be affirmative-action-like, but your comment did make me think of it in an interesting way: You can't say "race always helps" or "race only helps" because everybody has a race. There are no Person for which Person.Race is null. (Can you tell I'm on a break from writing code tonight?)
  • ajross 8y ago
    > There are no Person for which Person.Race is null. Are there not? There are surely Person for which multiple rows with distinct Race exist. It's... complicated. And yes: if you buy that "race" matters, for good or ill, it's not possible to have a completely just policy that is race-blind, it just isn't. If Harvard wants a campus whose diversity of background (and that obviously includes much more than just race) matches the world around it, which seems like a laudable goal to me, then there are going to have to be race-based decisions made. Are they the right ones? Not to everyone, no. The best ones? Surely not. But let's not get too caught up in our schadenfreude here. Be honest: the Preferred Admissions Policy of all the folks who are shouting the loudest here would result in a campus filled with middle+ class whites (with a detectable minority of east asians). We've tried that model. It sucked.
    • yhoneycomb 8y ago
      Actually, it would probably be mainly Asian students if it was completely merit based Does that suck? If so IMO you're racist
      • codyb 8y ago
        You can call me racist all you want but I do think that'd suck and meeting people from different and similar backgrounds to me has been a tremendous boon to me in my life. Getting out of your bubble is important, being challenged by others beliefs is important, and learning to have empathy for others situations is important. And universities should strive to be places where those things happen.
      • tuesdayrain 8y ago
• woodruffw 8y ago
  > Since the number of admissions is fixed this reduces the odds of those who have a race that doesn’t match their preference. Sounds like a classic example of double effect[1] to me: Harvard intends a good end (alleviating historical injustices), applies a means that is not in-itself objectionable (AA), and does not intend the bad end (that some otherwise-qualified students have a reduced chance of getting in). That's a moral argument and not a legal one, but my intuition is that the intent of their admissions program and its necessary connection to the means (AA) will play a central role in their defense. Fisher II v. UT[2] was decided on similar grounds. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_v._University_of_Texas_(2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_v._University_of_Texas_...
• bnm123123 8y ago
  Seems like Harvard is trying to add confusion to the issue. There's a strong possibility that asian applicants are penalized relative to white students, which has nothing to do with affirmative action.
• atomi 8y ago
  From what I've read the allegation was that Harvard admissions was giving lower personality ratings to applicants who weren't white[1]. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollment-applicants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollme...
• masonic 8y ago
  "... and all the children are above average", like Lake Wobegon.