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The argument for affirmative action is not simply that some groups were historically disadvantaged by university admissions bodies. Some groups are still put a

The argument for affirmative action is not simply that some groups were historically disadvantaged by university admissions bodies. Some groups are still put at a disadvantage long before they begin the college admissions process (which is often compounded by the historical efforts to disadvantage their parents). Some groups may never have been specifically targeted by universities, but because of systematic repression elsewhere in society they are unrepresented in some fields of study. There is also the general benefit of having a diverse student body, so that people from different backgrounds can bring different ideas, experiences, and ways of thinking with them to the university, which benefits all students (regardless of why they were admitted). You do not have to agree with those points, but you should at least know what it is that you are disagreeing with. Also, as a Jew, I would rather not see minority groups using the history of antisemitism as a wedge against other minorities. While everyone is arguing about affirmative action, Harvard is admitting "legacy" students simply because their parents happened to attend Harvard, which helps to lengthen the effects of Harvard's discriminatory policies against earlier generations (to the detriment of Jewish, Asian, Black, and Latino applicants).

fmajid 8y ago
Studies show the grandchildren of Vietnam war draftees still suffer an economic hit 2 generations later, so it’s unsurprising slavery casts a pall to this day. “Diversity” in elite colleges is a scam, essentially rich urban whites throwing poor rural whites under the bus to give themselves a good conscience. Most of the “African-American” candidates have either one white parent of are of Caribbean origin, not the descendants of slaves, and the bonus for them is not means-tested. Don’t expect to find many kids from inner-city ghettoes or the barrio there. It’s easy to get statistics on racial diversity at US universities but getting numbers on socio-economic diversity is like pulling teeth. SFFA’s suggestion to give a bonus to poor students has a lot of merit, but of course it would upset the elite apple cart at Harvard, which is why they resist it so strenuously.
- danmaz74 8y ago
  > of Caribbean origin I'm curious, what would be the rationale behind this?
- zozbot123 8y ago
  > ...are of Caribbean origin, not the descendants of slaves Dude, seriously? Educate yourself, FFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_British_and_French_Caribbean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_British_and_Fre...
- sp527 8y ago
  It should be noted that if admissions were perfectly race blind and did (rightfully) correct for financial means, you would likely still end up with more poor Jews and Asians in the student body than Blacks and Hispanics. And that is why they don’t do it. Because it still wouldn’t give them the pretty superficial picture of diversity they’re looking for. The uncomfortable truth here is that they’re using a coarse-grained and super messed up attribute (race) to correct for a problem that goes much deeper than pure economic disparities.
gizmo686 8y ago
I agree that legacy should be done away with. However, the class of people who legacy harms is those whose parents did not attend Harvard. The overwhelming majority of White students fall into that class as well, and are just as harmed by legacy admissions as non-White students. Also, as a Jew, I would rather not see people act as if anti-Jewish discrimination is so special that we somehow cannot look to that history for lessons on any issue that is not anti-Jewish discrimination. Be happy that (in this country) the overwhelming majority of people have come to accept that anti-semitism is wrong, and lets leverage that to help other groups. There was a lot of suffering to get that recognition for Jews. There was a lot of suffering to get that recognition for Blacks. Maybe we can short circuit some of the suffering this time around for the next group. [0] [0] Although, frankly, I doubt we will see a turn around in our view of Asians anytime soon. If there is one thing I have learned from American History, it is that anti-Asian sentiments seems to be immune from social pushback for some reason.
sp527 8y ago
You don’t seem to understand that what you’re saying is tantamount to: “Asian people of merit should be disproportionately harmed versus Jews for having been born in a specific time and place, to correct for a historical imbalance they had equally little to do with.” I. Don’t. Care. I want fair treatment today. Now. While I’m still alive. Stop using my race against me. It’s wrong. As a society, we DECIDED it’s wrong a long time ago.
- betterunix2 8y ago
  Great, maybe we should start by eliminating legacy admissions, which take seats away from all applicants of merit for the benefit of people whose parents went to Harvard. You are upset about how Harvard makes decisions for all the other people who actually have to have outstanding academic achievements to even be considered for admission (people who benefit from affirmative action still have to be outstanding -- everyone else is rejected before admissions officers even consider "holistic" criteria). You want fair treatment? So do I. The thing is, I never knew my father growing up. Are you going to find someone to be a dad for every child in that situation? My mom worked the night shift at a blue-collar job and was not always there to keep me focused on my homework; are you going to find someone to supervise every child in that situation? Was it fair that I had to compete with people who did not have to deal with those disadvantages growing up? Meritocracy sounds appealing in theory but falls apart in practice because we live in a society that only nominally respects "merit" and where some teenagers have to deal with racism that other teenagers do not have to deal with. There is no fair definition of "merit" because everyone has a different set of circumstances in their lives, different obstacles to overcome, and different opportunities to shine. It is fine if you object to affirmative action or if you think there is some better system that should be implemented, but don't make the mistake of thinking that there is some way to treat everyone fairly.
sp527 8y ago
As a Jew, would you feel confortable indicating that via a checkbox? Anywhere, for that matter? Let alone having that used against you in college admissions? Of course not. If this mess with Asians isn’t truly a double standard against non-Whites, then you should be willing to accept the same treatment for the same reasons we supposedly think it’s okay to do it to Asians. If you wouldn’t be comfortable with that, your argument isn’t very useful because you clearly haven’t empathized far enough to understand how we feel.
- betterunix2 8y ago
  Actually, as a Jew, I faced something even more frustrating: "Jewish" is not even a box on the admissions forms. I never had the choice to identify myself as a Jew. For the purposes of affirmative action programs Jews are not a race and we are expected to just indicate "White" on the forms (unless you are talking about African Jews, who are expected to indicate "Black," or Asian Jews who presumably are expected to indicate "Asian"). I understand your complaint, I just think you are focusing on the wrong problem and greatly over-simplifying the situation. Harvard's exclusion of Jews took the form of an explicit quota, and was specifically intended to benefit White Christian students (except for Italian Catholics, but back then Italians were not considered to be "White") and to prevent the student body from becoming too diverse (at the time they would not even consider Black applicants). Your complaint is over subjective admissions criteria that are intended to support a diverse student body. I also think it is a mistake to focus on affirmative action when "legacy" admissions comprise 14 percent of the student body -- surely that is even more unfair to people who worked hard for years.

fmajid 8y ago

Studies show the grandchildren of Vietnam war draftees still suffer an economic hit 2 generations later, so it’s unsurprising slavery casts a pall to this day. “Diversity” in elite colleges is a scam, essentially rich urban whites throwing poor rural whites under the bus to give themselves a good conscience. Most of the “African-American” candidates have either one white parent of are of Caribbean origin, not the descendants of slaves, and the bonus for them is not means-tested. Don’t expect to find many kids from inner-city ghettoes or the barrio there. It’s easy to get statistics on racial diversity at US universities but getting numbers on socio-economic diversity is like pulling teeth. SFFA’s suggestion to give a bonus to poor students has a lot of merit, but of course it would upset the elite apple cart at Harvard, which is why they resist it so strenuously.

danmaz74 8y ago
> of Caribbean origin I'm curious, what would be the rationale behind this?
zozbot123 8y ago
> ...are of Caribbean origin, not the descendants of slaves Dude, seriously? Educate yourself, FFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_British_and_French_Caribbean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_British_and_Fre...
sp527 8y ago
It should be noted that if admissions were perfectly race blind and did (rightfully) correct for financial means, you would likely still end up with more poor Jews and Asians in the student body than Blacks and Hispanics. And that is why they don’t do it. Because it still wouldn’t give them the pretty superficial picture of diversity they’re looking for. The uncomfortable truth here is that they’re using a coarse-grained and super messed up attribute (race) to correct for a problem that goes much deeper than pure economic disparities.

gizmo686 8y ago

I agree that legacy should be done away with. However, the class of people who legacy harms is those whose parents did not attend Harvard. The overwhelming majority of White students fall into that class as well, and are just as harmed by legacy admissions as non-White students. Also, as a Jew, I would rather not see people act as if anti-Jewish discrimination is so special that we somehow cannot look to that history for lessons on any issue that is not anti-Jewish discrimination. Be happy that (in this country) the overwhelming majority of people have come to accept that anti-semitism is wrong, and lets leverage that to help other groups. There was a lot of suffering to get that recognition for Jews. There was a lot of suffering to get that recognition for Blacks. Maybe we can short circuit some of the suffering this time around for the next group. [0] [0] Although, frankly, I doubt we will see a turn around in our view of Asians anytime soon. If there is one thing I have learned from American History, it is that anti-Asian sentiments seems to be immune from social pushback for some reason.

sp527 8y ago

You don’t seem to understand that what you’re saying is tantamount to: “Asian people of merit should be disproportionately harmed versus Jews for having been born in a specific time and place, to correct for a historical imbalance they had equally little to do with.” I. Don’t. Care. I want fair treatment today. Now. While I’m still alive. Stop using my race against me. It’s wrong. As a society, we DECIDED it’s wrong a long time ago.

betterunix2 8y ago
Great, maybe we should start by eliminating legacy admissions, which take seats away from all applicants of merit for the benefit of people whose parents went to Harvard. You are upset about how Harvard makes decisions for all the other people who actually have to have outstanding academic achievements to even be considered for admission (people who benefit from affirmative action still have to be outstanding -- everyone else is rejected before admissions officers even consider "holistic" criteria). You want fair treatment? So do I. The thing is, I never knew my father growing up. Are you going to find someone to be a dad for every child in that situation? My mom worked the night shift at a blue-collar job and was not always there to keep me focused on my homework; are you going to find someone to supervise every child in that situation? Was it fair that I had to compete with people who did not have to deal with those disadvantages growing up? Meritocracy sounds appealing in theory but falls apart in practice because we live in a society that only nominally respects "merit" and where some teenagers have to deal with racism that other teenagers do not have to deal with. There is no fair definition of "merit" because everyone has a different set of circumstances in their lives, different obstacles to overcome, and different opportunities to shine. It is fine if you object to affirmative action or if you think there is some better system that should be implemented, but don't make the mistake of thinking that there is some way to treat everyone fairly.

sp527 8y ago

As a Jew, would you feel confortable indicating that via a checkbox? Anywhere, for that matter? Let alone having that used against you in college admissions? Of course not. If this mess with Asians isn’t truly a double standard against non-Whites, then you should be willing to accept the same treatment for the same reasons we supposedly think it’s okay to do it to Asians. If you wouldn’t be comfortable with that, your argument isn’t very useful because you clearly haven’t empathized far enough to understand how we feel.

betterunix2 8y ago
Actually, as a Jew, I faced something even more frustrating: "Jewish" is not even a box on the admissions forms. I never had the choice to identify myself as a Jew. For the purposes of affirmative action programs Jews are not a race and we are expected to just indicate "White" on the forms (unless you are talking about African Jews, who are expected to indicate "Black," or Asian Jews who presumably are expected to indicate "Asian"). I understand your complaint, I just think you are focusing on the wrong problem and greatly over-simplifying the situation. Harvard's exclusion of Jews took the form of an explicit quota, and was specifically intended to benefit White Christian students (except for Italian Catholics, but back then Italians were not considered to be "White") and to prevent the student body from becoming too diverse (at the time they would not even consider Black applicants). Your complaint is over subjective admissions criteria that are intended to support a diverse student body. I also think it is a mistake to focus on affirmative action when "legacy" admissions comprise 14 percent of the student body -- surely that is even more unfair to people who worked hard for years.