7 ms·
I may get a lot of hate for this... But I think affirmative action has opposite the desired effect. The majority groups are dicriminated against by design. I do
by throwaway189262 6y ago
I may get a lot of hate for this... But I think affirmative action has opposite the desired effect. The majority groups are dicriminated against by design. I don't think this does anything to fix the tensions causing racism in the first place. I think it makes them worse.
The government should find a way to benefit minorities without outright descrimination against those that doesn't fit their definition. My personal favorite idea is improving schools. If we diverted enough money and resources to primary schools in poor areas, we could achieve similar outcomes to affirmative action without just switching the groups we discrimate against.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago>My personal favorite idea is improving schools. If we diverted enough money and resources to primary schools in poor areas, we could achieve similar outcomes to affirmative action without just switching the groups we discrimate against. The problem is student outcomes aren't linked to how much money and resources the school has, they're linked to how much money and resources the parents (and the network of the parents) of the children have. Networking is the primary benefit of top tier schools, and so unfairly giving a chance to those without the network is the only way for them to move up the ladder as a group. This will necessarily displace individually who might deserve to be there more, but the problem is an intractable one due to the outsize gains of being part of that network. I am not endorsing affirmative action, or discrimination against certain "successful" minorities, simply offering a chain of reasoning for it.
- throwaway189262 6y agoIt would probably be more than schools. We would have to divert significant amounts of money to helping poor communities. I think the government adopted affirmative action instead because it was a much cheaper way to placate the masses
- thrav 6y agoOr what we realized was the right idea a long time ago... mixing everybody up by force. (Busing) I believe it has been proven that as communities become more integrated, outcomes improve for all parties — and not just academically. One Source, since people seem to disagree: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/23/forced-busing-didnt-fail-desegregation-is-the-best-way-to-improve-our-schools/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/23/... Something more academic: https://gsppi.berkeley.edu/~ruckerj/johnson_schooldesegregation_NBERw16664.pdf https://gsppi.berkeley.edu/~ruckerj/johnson_schooldesegregat...
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoBut the problem we realized, after trying out forced busing, was that in the long term all parents with resources would simply opt out of the public school system to avoid it.
- neutronicus 6y agoPractically, going a long way to school on a bus every morning blows
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- LorenPechtel 6y agoBecause schools are a reflection of the students they get. Private schools do better not because they teach any better, but because they keep out the ones that aren't there to learn and thus the teacher can actually spend their time teaching a group of kids at the same level.
- LorenPechtel 6y agoAffirmative action was almost certainly the least bad solution--it broke the back of the rampant discrimination in this country, something that would have been very hard to do anywhere near as fast by other means. The problem is that it's already produced all the benefits it's going to, now it's pure burden with no benefit.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- monoideism 6y ago> The problem is student outcomes aren't linked to how much money and resources the school has, they're linked to how much money and resources the parents (and the network of the parents) of the children have. The consistent positive outcomes of disadvantaged students in KIPP Academies would suggest this is not always the case.
- icelancer 6y agoThere is likely significant selection bias happening at KIPP schools - and all charter schools. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIPP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIPP --- The authors of The Charter School Dust-Up said that KIPP's admission process self-screens for students who are motivated, compliant, and come from similarly motivated, compliant and supportive families. The 2010 Mathematica Policy Research study found that KIPP schools had a "lower concentration of special education and limited English proficiency students than the public schools from which they draw".[22] Some KIPP schools show high rates of attrition, especially for those students entering the schools with the lowest test scores. A 2008 study by SRI International found that while KIPP fifth-grade students who enter with below-average scores significantly outperform peers in public schools by the end of year one, "60 percent of students who entered fifth grade at four Bay Area KIPP schools in 2003–04 left before completing eighth grade",[23] although research on attrition at one KIPP school in Massachusetts differs.[24] The SRI report also discusses student mobility due to changing economic situations for student's families, but does not directly link this factor into student attrition. Figures for schools in all states are not readily available.
- monoideism 6y agoOf course KIPP selects for motivated students. But it also selects for severely disadvantaged students. So while it's true that we can't assume KIPP's results can be generalized across the entire population, we know that additional school resources works in a subset.
- Wolfenstein98k 6y agoIt is always good to make this clear. It is "how", not "how much". The American system would benefit a great deal from a systematic reshuffle without a dime extra being spent. A few realigned incentives here, a little more competition there, and voila... The system pulls itself closer to your goals as it iterates, rather than further down a path that appears to satisfy no one except those whose interests are entrenched.
- Balgair 6y agoMy SO taught in public schools. One was a 'standard' public school, the other was a 'charter' school [0]. I have some second hand knowledge here. The parents make all the difference. Yes, poverty is a huge factor, but some parents are more in touch than others, in spite of the poverty. At the 'standard' school, it was a mess that I won't burden the reader with. One key metric that I found interesting was that the teacher drop-out rate was ~80%. This gives an idea of the quality of the school. At the 'charter', every single graduate has gone to college in some form. They are quite proud of this metric, as they should be. The 'charter' was richer on average, yes. But many of the kids were opting out of the 'standard' school and going to the charter. The income of those kids' parents was similar to the 'standard' school. The population of 'poor' kids that went to the 'charter' school was much less though. [0] It's publicly funded, but still a charter. The local district is not like most. Every parent/guardian is forced to rank the schools for their child to go to. All are open for enrollment. City Bus passes are provided for every child for free in lieu of school busses. It works, but still has a lot of issues, like most places.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nickff 6y agoIncreased spending does not seem to help much; perhaps the money is not being well allocated.[1][2][3] [1] http://www.npri.org/imgLib/20110228_Fed_ed_spending_vs_results.jpg http://www.npri.org/imgLib/20110228_Fed_ed_spending_vs_resul... [2] https://rogerkerr.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/derugy-column-chart2.jpg https://rogerkerr.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/derugy-column-... [3] http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/edgraph.html http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/edgraph.html
- jpxw 6y agoNot only that, but it becomes impossible to tell whether someone in a group benefited by AA is in a given position because of AA, or because of their merit. This is harmful to people in those groups.
- Larrikin 6y agoIt's only harmful when people assume that they couldn't have gotten the job or in the school without it and don't look at their merit.
- loco5niner 6y agoWhich is what naturally ends up happening when affirmative action gets out of hand.
- commandlinefan 6y agoI worry about this a lot - my kids are Hispanic (inherited from their Mexican mother), and I honestly don’t know what to tell them when it comes time to check the “race” box for college admissions in a few years. Do they check the “hispanic” box and always wonder if they were just admitted to meet some quota? And no matter what they do, as soon as somebody realizes they have a Hispanic parent, they’ll (reasonably) assume that they did check the Hispanic box.
- throwaway189262 6y agoI would check it. It's a free advantage in a competitive application process. The government has plenty of misguided programs that people take advantage of. The law is blind to morals and it's clearly a stupid system, so just close your eyes first if it makes you feel better :) You shouldn't feel any worse than when you try to minimize your taxes. In a broken system there are no bad actors
- travisoneill1 6y agoCheck the hispanic box. The system is unfair and racist, but it makes the most sense to take advantage of it.
- ggggtez 6y agoWhy not both? Give more money to public schools, and support affirmative action until those network effects start occurring naturally.
- jpxw 6y agoBecause it isn’t fair.
- joe_the_user 6y agoI don't think this does anything to fix the tensions causing racism in the first place. The purpose of affirmative action isn't to cure racism, broadly defined as racial animosity or something similar. The purpose of affirmative action is to correct the harm caused by previous institutional bias (edit: a given institution previously systematically excluded a group and now is making up for that exclusion). Racial animosity and so-forth should be dealt with in other fashions.
- _wt8k 6y agoIf the justification of affirmative action is to "correct the harm caused by previous institutional bias," how is it justified that it discriminates against Asian-Americans when we've never held institutional power in America? (I'm not sure if you're defending affirmative action or if you're just outlining its supposed purpose.)
- joe_the_user 6y agoIf the justification of affirmative action is to "correct the harm caused by previous institutional bias," how is it justified that it discriminates against Asian-Americans when we've never held institutional power in America? There is zero way in which may post claims discrimination against Asians is justified by purpose of affirmative action and implying that I am doing so is a despicable bad-faith troll. Of course, the truth of the Federal Government's claim various colleges are discriminating against whites and Asians is a different corner of this debate, which is to say it's the thing looking at this would argue.
- icelancer 6y ago>> The purpose of affirmative action is to correct the harm caused by previous institutional bias (edit: a given institution previously systematically excluded a group and now is making up for that exclusion). Asian-Americans were broadly excluded as enshrined by law in Korematsu v. United States, to say nothing of the discrimination that Chinese-Americans dealt with. So... kinda odd that it is correct to continue to discriminate against them in higher education... isn't it?
- coredog64 6y agoAIUI, it’s even worse, as the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action are well off members of the minority group (e.g. the kids of doctors and dentists) rather than students whose SES would be significantly improved by a degree from a prestigious institution. This is because admission is the first hurdle, not the last, and being well off removes potential sources of stress.
- swimfar 6y agoAIUI: As I understand it SES: Socioeconomic status/situation
- fmajid 6y agoI recently learned most Ivy League African-Americans are either biracial like Obama, or from Caribbean parents.
- crocodiletears 6y agoI've been catching whiffs, of a cultural tension between descendants of black families that immigrated from places like Africa and the Caribbean in the mid-20th century, who in my experience seem to benefit those most from affirmative action policies, and black Americans whose families either arrived decades before the civil rights movement, or descended directly from black slaves, and bore the brunt of America's apartheid policies. I wonder if we'll see a major political bifurcation along those lines in the next decade.
- skissane 6y agoSome have been advocating "American Descendants of Slavery" (ADOS) as an identity specifically for those whose ancestors were victims of slavery in the United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Descendants_of_Slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Descendants_of_Slaver...
- zozbot234 6y agoThe Caribbean has a history of African slavery not unlike the U.S.
- leereeves 6y ago> The majority groups are decriminalized against by design I think autocorrect failed here. Did you mean to say "discriminated against by design"?
- throwaway189262 6y agoHaha yeah stupid autocorrect
- Wolfenstein98k 6y agoI happen to agree: the worst penalty is in schooling, and the most bang-for-interventionary-buck is also in schooling. It's also not visible to peers in adulthood, and thus not a source of jealousy or mistreatment or suspicion, as many AA recipients detail experiencing. It's also the most moral way to address something which - IMO - deserves addressing, but which currently is addressed quite immorally. See: the OP article.
- jayd16 6y agoIf you assume all groups are on average equal but certain groups are underrepresented you must assume that the selection process is flawed. If the process is flawed than correcting the process can be seen as removing bias, not adding it. Do you feel like any correction at all is discrimination, the correction of is flawed in some specific way, or do you feel like its a matter of overcorrection?
- lliamander 6y agoGenuine question: does it make sense to add bias to the selection process if group average differ?
- RhysU 6y agoTo your first assumption... It seems unlikely that anything can be subdivided, repeatedly, into arbitrarily many groups by arbitrary criteria whereby comparing all possible groups (i.e. comparing the non-empty members of the powerset) yields statistically insignificant differences for all discernable moments. Unless the thing is truly homogeneous. Which people are certainly not. For example, I clearly have less than average tact.
- llamaz 6y agoI've taken courses is probability and topology where the power set is used, and am intimately familiar with it, but I have no idea what you're talking about
- RhysU 6y agoSuppose S is the set of all people. The powerset of S is all possible ways to subdivide humanity into groups of individuals. Comparing two members of the powerset of S is comparing two groups of people. Any criterion by which you can divide people will produce elements of the powerset of S. For example, "people that like jazz" are in there. So too are "people who eat peas with a knife". I am saying that there are many ways to lump people into buckets. What defines the buckets does not matter. They are all in the powerset of S. If humans are equal, then comparing any two arbitrary groups in the powerset of S should always conclude in equality. At least in some statistical sense. I am giving a counterexample to equality across arbitrary divisions of humanity (members of the powerset of S). I claim that arbitrary groups of humans are not equally tactful. Because if you measure the tactfulness of any member of the powerset of S where I personally am present it will generally show less tact than members of the powerset where I am not present.
- lliamander 6y agoRegarding schools, I think there is evidence that charter schools and school vouchers have a significant positive impact for the most disadvantaged kids.
- arwhatever 6y agoThe funding bill could be crafted so that disproportionately high, or nationally-leveling, funding could be sent to schools in ZIP codes with the lowest average incomes, and the law could exist in perpetuity such that it would always assist the most disadvantaged ZIPs without regard for the ebb and flow of various identity groups over time.
- LorenPechtel 6y agoExcept throwing money at the schools doesn't do much of anything about the problem. Schools reflect the students they get far more than they make the students.
- boogies 6y ago> we could achieve similar outcomes to affirmative action Hopefully much better, affirmative action harms even the minorities it attempts to help, let alone others like Asians: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-painful-truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-pai...
- raxxorrax 6y agoYou are correct because it forms obvious common interest groups. That is at least one factor. Maybe I should scrap the "obvious" since it seems to be beyond elite university staff. My neighbor looks pretty similar to me but that doesn't mean we get along (My neighbor is pretty cool and doesn't look like me at all, but the concept should be clear).