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> I'm not even counted as "diverse" (because I'm not black or hispanic) despite coming from a muslim family and middle eastern background. I can only select "wh

• dcow 5y ago
  No it shouldn't, but as a society we seem to want it to so it does. Sowell has an interesting take on AA and believes it actually does more harm than good because it pits those subject to it against scenarios they have not been prepared to handle and thus in turn results in over-stress, higher rates of failure, and ultimately disillusionment.
  • dcow 5y ago
    The means at which we arrive upon AA is even suspect: A: We want equality, why are white people successful? B: Clearly because they went to a good college. C: Okay easy, let’s put the underprivileged into good colleges, that should fix ‘er right up. It doesn't seem like anybody is interested in solving the hard problem of why underprivileged communities aren’t producing good high school graduates. Maybe it has something to do with, IDK, the fact that they’re under served and underprivileged? Maybe primary education is a more important factor than the name at the top of your college transcript? Maybe good communities produce outstanding colleges and universities, not the other way around? Yet we can’t seem to spend money on primary education or figure out how to help struggling communities. Why is that?
    • gjhh244 5y ago
      Exactly. From an European perspective America's obsession with race seems absolutely idiotic. Progressive taxation and major help for poor communities and families regardless of skin colour is obviously the only sensible solution.
      • zozbot234 5y ago
        Racial groups are used as vote banks by the two major parties - that's all there is to it. It has nothing to with wanting to help the poor or improve social cohesion, rather the opposite. A divided society is great for the most incompetent politicians since it provides them an easy way to whip up their constituents against other groups and fish for more votes.
        • washadjeffmad 5y ago
          So change FPTP to ranked choice and end the age of American extremism.
          • whythre 5y ago
            Unfortunately the two parties that hold the reigns of power only stand to lose from such a system... so it isn’t gonna happen.
      • xyzzyz 5y ago
        You might not be aware of this, but taxation in the US is much more progressive than it is in Europe.
      • curryst 5y ago
        As an American, I think it's because the treatments for racism are far cheaper and more tolerable than the treatments for poverty. Minorities were kept out of any opportunity to create generational wealth for a long time, due to racism. The problem we need to solve to reverse that is deprivation of generational wealth for decades, not racism from 60 years ago. We don't want to talk about that, though, because most of the solutions end up looking like wealth redistribution. There isn't a way to cheat poverty that I've seen. You either have enough money or you don't, and the only way out is to have enough money. That's not to say that racism isn't a problem; it is, and we should fix it. It's not going to magically solve problems like graduation rates and income gaps, however.
        • 5y ago
    • Spooky23 5y ago
      Sociologists or whatever correlate good outcome with education. 90% of rich people went to college, therefore college good. That’s true, but one dimensional. I coach little league, and have been following a group of now ten year olds since 2016 or so. They are all awesome, but the cracks that come from family life and environment are starting to show up. I fear for a few of them.
    • UncleMeat 5y ago
      > It doesn't seem like anybody is interested in solving the hard problem of why underprivileged communities aren’t producing good high school graduates. The same people who are seeking equity in college are seeking it in high school and elementary school and preschool. The same opponents and arguments come out against them at all of these phases. I have personal experience with this work in both the elementary school and high school levels. What you are saying here is simply false.
      • username90 5y ago
        So why is affirmative action still needed at college level if they get so much help in all the years before?
        • UncleMeat 5y ago
          They don't get "so much help" in all the years before because of the same forces that resist change at later ages. My family got a lot of hatred and resistance for just pushing back on the idea that it was okay that many of the schools (you can guess which ones) in our district simply never sent a single application to the 3rd grade GT system because their principals didn't believe that any application would ever succeed. They were wrong, of course.
          • username90 5y ago
            So why not fix that problem? You can't make up 12 lost years beginning at College, putting them to compete with people who are that far ahead will just make everyone feel those people are stupid even if it isn't true.
            • UncleMeat 5y ago
              People are trying but facing resistance from the same people who resist it at higher ages. We can’t “just fix that” because any discussion of social equity in education brings out active resistance and even death threats.
  • maroonblazer 5y ago
    I thought AA meant that, when given two equally qualified applicants, where one is caucasian and the other is a minority, the seat should go to the minority. In light of that, Sowell's take makes no sense.
    • 908B64B197 5y ago
      > given two equally qualified applicants I wonder if that push toward diminishing the impact of measurable, standardized testing isn't an attempts at generating more "equally qualified applicants"
      • dcow 5y ago
        Wonder no more. It very explicitly is. Here’s the “logic”: If we give a standardized test to a random selection of people and then look at the results and add a racial overlay, white people (allegedly) disproportionately succeed. Therefore the test itself is racist. It is an unwanted artifact that encodes the privileged (alleged) majority’s innate biases and confers structural racism upon future generations. These artifacts must be purged. This is the way. Let’s concede for a moment the definition of structural racism and agree it’s worth addressing in the admissions process. The problem then is not the desire to address the perceived oppression, but rather the conclusion that we should just tear down the racist institution without a viable replacement on hand. If we tear down pillars of rational society (or, western liberalism), then what remains is not ideologically consistent.
      • curryst 5y ago
        There are complaints that standardize testing isn't equal. Basically that some portions of the testing reflect white culture, which puts minorities at a disadvantage. I read the article a while back, but one of the examples they gave was the choice of words to test on the SAT. One of the questions was asking for a synonym for "armoire". The article posited that that term was far more likely to be recognized by white students because their family was more likely to actually own one, and further to refer it to as an armoire instead of simply a wardrobe or cabinets. I think there was another question that involved boats that was similar. I think the article also noted that in many cases, the questions really discriminated more against poverty than race. Race gets dragged in because people of color are drastically overrepresented in poverty, so anything impacted by poverty will also show an effect along racial boundaries (at least when aggregated). The underlying question is whether the score boost you get from being born into a high enough social class to have wide exposure to things like that actually makes you more qualified or not. It certainly boosts your test scores, but does knowing what an armoire is actually make you more qualified, or does it just keep poor people out?
• xwdv 5y ago
  Absolutely not. Any attributes like race and gender should play no consideration in a fair admissions process. It should not even be public information.
  • tdhz77 5y ago
    The color blind thinking modal has a long history of helping the majority stay the majority. What you propose is to continuing allow the status quo, which has already by statistical aggregation of college entrance proved to allow under performing “whites” in. Have you not seen the news where Aunt Becky got her kid in? Without tough affirmative action rules, Aunt becky’s kids get in and your kids don’t. This thinking model is best to be dropped into the dustbins of history.
    • zozbot234 5y ago
      > Have you not seen the news where Aunt Becky got her kid in? Without tough affirmative action rules, Aunt becky’s kids get in and your kids don’t. This whole controversy is about a handful of the most elite schools in the nation. I find it more than a bit silly tbh, since whatever admissions policy they choose it's not going to be even close to affecting "the majority" of prospective students. We should be working to expand access to education at every level, not just focusing on such a tiny minority.
    • rayiner 5y ago
      Black, Latino, and Asian people all oppose racial preferences in admission: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americans-say-colleges-should-not-consider-race-or-ethnicity-in-admissions/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ.... For example Latinos say that race and ethnicity shouldn’t be even a “minor factor” in college admissions by a margin of 2:1. Like many things, this is in large part about liberal white people wanting to engage in social engineering on behalf of minorities who mostly don’t support their policy. Like “defund the police.”
      • tdhz77 5y ago
        30 years of conservatives not understanding what affirmative action is really the reason for this. They often misquote 1970’s affirmative action law which was thrown out by the liberal court. It’s shocking how most people don’t understand affirmative action and it’s rationale. But, then again conservatives aren’t thinking people.
• BitwiseFool 5y ago
  My high-school's college admissions advisors told us, in no uncertain terms, if you are non-white or mixed race, make sure you declare that because it will help your chances.
  • klipt 5y ago
    Unless you're Asian, in which case declaring your race will lower your admission chances even relative to white people.
    • BitwiseFool 5y ago
      We actually had a few Pacific Islanders express anxiety with selecting "Asian American/Pacific Islander" because they were worried that identifying as such would subject them to more competition. They were advised to do it anyways.
      • temp8964 5y ago
        I read somewhere says "Asian American/Pacific Islander" is a totally made up term by the federal government and basically has no root in reality.
        • dragonwriter 5y ago
          All human “races” are social constructs with no basis in reality other than the social perceptions of the group delineating them. So, yeah, that's true of API, but its just as true of, say, White.
          • morpheos137 5y ago
            There are most certainly meaningful genetic clusters in human populations. You can call these races or something else but to assert that differences between human populations only extend to a few superficial traits like skin tone is just ignorant and silly. For example there is a meaninful genetic reason why some sub-saharan populations have a higher incidence of sickle cell anaemia than Irish people or why most of those with native American heritage are less able to tolerate alcohol than Europeans.
• madengr 5y ago
  Why not just put down Black? If I can identify as an opposite sex, I can certainly identify as another race.
• nonameiguess 5y ago
  This article is specifically about the UC system, which has been banned by Proposition 209 since 1996 from considering an applicant's race when making admissions decisions. It might matter at private schools or in other states, though. It might surprise people who only know California by reputation and assume it is completely full of raging lefties, but affirmative action measures have been pretty soundly rejected by voters many times in the past three decades and the state has not been allowed to implement any of them.
  • an_opabinia 5y ago
    Dropping the SAT is an affirmative action measure.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • mannerheim 5y ago
    California has a significant Asian population. In my experience, many older Chinese Americans are completely apolitical, but one thing they do care about is that their children get into a good college. They exerted significant pressure the last time repealing Prop 209 was proposed by calling and writing their elected officials.
    • crackercrews 5y ago
      The last time 209 was up for repeal was last year. Elected officials were not involved. It was up for popular vote, and it failed. I think the margin was even wider than when 209 was first put in place. The pro-209 campaign was outspent something like $27M to $1.6M but still prevailed.
      • mannerheim 5y ago
        Ah, my mistake, I was thinking of the attempt in 2012.
      • usaar333 5y ago