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I just want to chime in to say how astonished I've been in the past with Harvard's behavior, not necessarily with their affirmative action practices, but how th
by P_I_Staker 5y ago
I just want to chime in to say how astonished I've been in the past with Harvard's behavior, not necessarily with their affirmative action practices, but how they defend them.
I did skim the article, but may not be familiar with the latest stance from Harvard. However, if memory serves their legal defense really just seemed to be that the racism was right. Asian people have inferior personalities (obviously untrue, but that seemed to be what they were saying at times). I was surprised there hasn't been more backlash that this is their present stance (at the time it was and this was not being talked about).
Also, it's worth pointing out that many Asian people are totally playing the game and still getting boxed out. There have been a ton of families that have just said "Okay, this is what we have to do. Be a well rounded person. Show your leadership skills, participate in activities, and be a full person in the community. No problem. We'll just do that."
Many of them don't even have that much of a problem with the policy, and have no issue getting their kids to achieve on that front. They still get denied. I don't have the answer, and don't agree with using criticism of affirmative action as a Trojan horse for white supremacy. However, pursuing an openly racist legal defense that Asian people essentially have worse personalities seems quite shocking to me.
- pgwhalen 5y agoCan you provide a source of the “inferior personality” narrative? I have heard about how interviews/character essays/etc. can affect admissions, but that’s a pretty lofty accusation.
- TheCoelacanth 5y agoI believe this comes from an ongoing lawsuit[1] that SCOTUS recently agreed to hear. > The plaintiffs revealed that Harvard admissions officers consistently rated Asian-American applicants as a group lower than others on traits like positive personality, likability, courage, kindness and being widely respected. Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on other admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, but the students' personal ratings significantly dragged down their admissions chances. The plaintiffs also claimed that alumni interviewers (who, unlike admissions officers within Harvard, did actually meet with individual applicants) gave Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to white applicants. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._President_and_Fellows_of_Harvard_College#Plaintiff_allegations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v...
- P_I_Staker 5y agoSo I could be off base, but I recall them being pretty defensive of the metric, and there seemed to be clear evidence that they were getting bad scores. I honestly can't remember, but that seemed to be what they were saying at times. No asians just score lower in "personality". It seems that others in the thread mention they're claiming they score white kids the same, which is at least a better stance. I can understand the author saying they're gaslighting asian americans, because it definitely seemed that way to me. I'm really not sure what these people are talking about sometimes, because they seem to do a lot of tiptoeing around the issue, "debunking" claims that are either irrelevant or just easy to dispute, but not central to the issue. When they're not doing that they're questioning the intentions of the other side. I think there's actually good reason to question people's intentions, but it can be counter-productive too. Anyway, your right that I don't really have much to back this up, I just read these stories and Harvard always looks terrible; I put the article down thinking "good lord, what's wrong with these people"