7 ms·

Reading through the paper, I think the real buried lead here is that the reviewers discriminated in favor of selecting black and hispanic applicants, with a lar

by wbraun 6y ago

Reading through the paper, I think the real buried lead here is that the reviewers discriminated in favor of selecting black and hispanic applicants, with a larger effect size than anything analyzed but test scores and attractive vs unattractive (not neutral vs unattractive). This includes obesity, grades / class rank, research publications, and honor society membership. At least your appearance and test scores are mutable characteristics.

474637374 6y ago
Is it actually buried though when the context is America? It seems like this kind of behavior should be assumed as default when this sort of outcome is exactly what American advocacy groups have been persuing for years. If equity only matters for minorities then an org is just going to err on the side of caution and favor minorities.
elil17 6y ago
Yeah, but at least reviewers being biased towards Black and Hispanic applicants have some reason to be: they are trying to correct for society-wide discrimination. You can argue that it's not their place to do that, or that trying to do that on a case by case basis is unfair, etc., but it is at least some reason. Discriminating against unattractive people, has no equivalent justification. In fact, discriminating against unattractive people exaggerates a society-wide bias against unattractive people.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  In my experience, most racists think that their views are motivated by noble intentions in one way or another.
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    When the privileged classes have had generations to generate social networks that connect privileged people with privileged people (arguably one of the greatest privileges white people have, along with generational wealth and societies general presuppositions that go along with it), is it so bad to actively recognize that and go against it? Racism says an ethnicity is better or worse than another intrinsically. This is recognizing a section of our population has been, by and large, historically kept from making those connections and intentionally favoring them, not just for their sake but for the sake of their children’s children, by working to get them the same levels of connections the privileged class has historically had.
    - scarmig 6y ago
      Are Asian Americans privileged? For example, would you say that Vietnamese refugees and descendants of trafficked Chinese railroad laborers have been celebrated and given unfair advantages by white society?
      - sonotathrowaway 6y ago
        Asian-American encompasses an very diverse set of experiences in America, you can’t really create a cohesive narrative in the same way you could with other groups. The fact that you easily identify different groups with very distinct experiences should clue you in to that.
        scarmig 6y ago
        So your claim is that Asian-Americans are diverse, while black and Hispanic people each form unvariegated, homogeneous identities? I very intentionally point out particular groups in my original comment, because proponents of race-based affirmative action always avoid grappling with why it's fair to discriminate against some relatively successful subgroups of Asian Americans by bringing up red herrings about Hmong and Cambodian refugees (who, it's worth pointing out, are typically excluded from the benefits of affirmative action anyway, which makes it even more of a red herring).
        sonotathrowaway 6y ago
        If you take the population of black Americans you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of them have their history in the ~3.9 million people trafficked during the slave trade and the following diaspora from the south throughout the 40s-60s, the majority as in 80%+. If you look at Asian Americans, you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of them do not descend from the ~20k transcontinental railroad laborers. It’s not hard to tell that their experiences must be vastly different, because 20k is a very small proportion of the total Asian American population, while 3.5m is a much larger percentage. I hope this help you with differentiating how relatively homogeneous groups are.
  - asciident 6y ago
    After reading your sentence, it occurred to me that it's no longer clear in today's age if you're referring to people using racial discrimination to hire underrepresented groups as racist, or the ones who oppose racial-based hiring and only hiring on "merit" as racist because they oppose race-based preferential hiring.
    - definingracist 6y ago
      > rac·ism (rā′sĭz′əm) n. > 1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. > 2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
    - sonotathrowaway 6y ago
      I don’t think it matters. In general people that do harm to others in any way believe their actions are justified. It’s not special to racism, humans as a whole are pretty averse to causing unjustified harm to others.
    - jmpman 6y ago
      You mean the ones who follow the law as defined by Title VII of the Civil Rights bill?
- boogies 6y ago
  > they are trying to correct for society-wide discrimination Ironically, it turns out that discrimination against minorities + discrimination against majorities = worse outcomes for everyone. 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...
  - kayson 6y ago
    I came across similar conclusions when researching CA Prop 16, and it makes sense. Many affirmative action-ed students, by virtue of their systematic disadvantage, just can't keep up with their more privileged colleagues. I'm really disappointed, though, that the authors did not address the fact that this "mismatch" is still just another symptom of the problem affirmative action is trying to solve.
    - SamReidHughes 6y ago
      If you think these students faced a systematic disadvantage that made them unable to answer multiple choice questions about basic math problems, or material they were supposed to have learned during undergrad, you ought to point out what it actually is, and how big an effect size it has, and why.
    - john_moscow 6y ago
      Elephant in the room: most of the "privilege" you are talking about is literally parents giving a damn and pouring endless time and energy into teaching stuff to their kids and trying to engrave delayed gratification into their personality. But instead of rewarding and praising this behavior, and trying to make it a role model for the struggling minorities, we try to punish and discourage the kids that have learned the skills with their parents' help, so they won't succeed in life either. Of course, this doesn't affect the "admission by donation" kind of families, that leaves me wonder: is it about helping minorities succeed, or is it about replacing arrogant self-reliant challengers with grateful and loyal underperformers, to further entrench the elites' position?
- PeterisP 6y ago
  One form of discrimination begets another - since subpopulations often happen to be quite different in various aspects, positive discrimination towards one racial or ethnic group would be expected to cause some discrimination of other factors that happen to be correlated with belonging to that group.
- collyw 6y ago
  they are trying to correct for percieved society-wide discrimination
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Blahah 6y ago
*lede, for fun etymological reasons: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-versus-lead https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-...

by wbraun 6y ago

474637374 6y ago

Is it actually buried though when the context is America? It seems like this kind of behavior should be assumed as default when this sort of outcome is exactly what American advocacy groups have been persuing for years. If equity only matters for minorities then an org is just going to err on the side of caution and favor minorities.

elil17 6y ago

Yeah, but at least reviewers being biased towards Black and Hispanic applicants have some reason to be: they are trying to correct for society-wide discrimination. You can argue that it's not their place to do that, or that trying to do that on a case by case basis is unfair, etc., but it is at least some reason. Discriminating against unattractive people, has no equivalent justification. In fact, discriminating against unattractive people exaggerates a society-wide bias against unattractive people.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
In my experience, most racists think that their views are motivated by noble intentions in one way or another.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  When the privileged classes have had generations to generate social networks that connect privileged people with privileged people (arguably one of the greatest privileges white people have, along with generational wealth and societies general presuppositions that go along with it), is it so bad to actively recognize that and go against it? Racism says an ethnicity is better or worse than another intrinsically. This is recognizing a section of our population has been, by and large, historically kept from making those connections and intentionally favoring them, not just for their sake but for the sake of their children’s children, by working to get them the same levels of connections the privileged class has historically had.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    Are Asian Americans privileged? For example, would you say that Vietnamese refugees and descendants of trafficked Chinese railroad laborers have been celebrated and given unfair advantages by white society?
    - sonotathrowaway 6y ago
      Asian-American encompasses an very diverse set of experiences in America, you can’t really create a cohesive narrative in the same way you could with other groups. The fact that you easily identify different groups with very distinct experiences should clue you in to that.
      - scarmig 6y ago
        So your claim is that Asian-Americans are diverse, while black and Hispanic people each form unvariegated, homogeneous identities? I very intentionally point out particular groups in my original comment, because proponents of race-based affirmative action always avoid grappling with why it's fair to discriminate against some relatively successful subgroups of Asian Americans by bringing up red herrings about Hmong and Cambodian refugees (who, it's worth pointing out, are typically excluded from the benefits of affirmative action anyway, which makes it even more of a red herring).
        sonotathrowaway 6y ago
        If you take the population of black Americans you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of them have their history in the ~3.9 million people trafficked during the slave trade and the following diaspora from the south throughout the 40s-60s, the majority as in 80%+. If you look at Asian Americans, you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of them do not descend from the ~20k transcontinental railroad laborers. It’s not hard to tell that their experiences must be vastly different, because 20k is a very small proportion of the total Asian American population, while 3.5m is a much larger percentage. I hope this help you with differentiating how relatively homogeneous groups are.
- asciident 6y ago
  After reading your sentence, it occurred to me that it's no longer clear in today's age if you're referring to people using racial discrimination to hire underrepresented groups as racist, or the ones who oppose racial-based hiring and only hiring on "merit" as racist because they oppose race-based preferential hiring.
  - definingracist 6y ago
    > rac·ism (rā′sĭz′əm) n. > 1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. > 2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
  - sonotathrowaway 6y ago
    I don’t think it matters. In general people that do harm to others in any way believe their actions are justified. It’s not special to racism, humans as a whole are pretty averse to causing unjustified harm to others.
  - jmpman 6y ago
    You mean the ones who follow the law as defined by Title VII of the Civil Rights bill?
boogies 6y ago
> they are trying to correct for society-wide discrimination Ironically, it turns out that discrimination against minorities + discrimination against majorities = worse outcomes for everyone. 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...
- kayson 6y ago
  I came across similar conclusions when researching CA Prop 16, and it makes sense. Many affirmative action-ed students, by virtue of their systematic disadvantage, just can't keep up with their more privileged colleagues. I'm really disappointed, though, that the authors did not address the fact that this "mismatch" is still just another symptom of the problem affirmative action is trying to solve.
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    If you think these students faced a systematic disadvantage that made them unable to answer multiple choice questions about basic math problems, or material they were supposed to have learned during undergrad, you ought to point out what it actually is, and how big an effect size it has, and why.
  - john_moscow 6y ago
    Elephant in the room: most of the "privilege" you are talking about is literally parents giving a damn and pouring endless time and energy into teaching stuff to their kids and trying to engrave delayed gratification into their personality. But instead of rewarding and praising this behavior, and trying to make it a role model for the struggling minorities, we try to punish and discourage the kids that have learned the skills with their parents' help, so they won't succeed in life either. Of course, this doesn't affect the "admission by donation" kind of families, that leaves me wonder: is it about helping minorities succeed, or is it about replacing arrogant self-reliant challengers with grateful and loyal underperformers, to further entrench the elites' position?
PeterisP 6y ago
One form of discrimination begets another - since subpopulations often happen to be quite different in various aspects, positive discrimination towards one racial or ethnic group would be expected to cause some discrimination of other factors that happen to be correlated with belonging to that group.
collyw 6y ago
they are trying to correct for percieved society-wide discrimination

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Blahah 6y ago

*lede, for fun etymological reasons: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-versus-lead https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-...