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It's discrimination any way you slice it. You can't lower the bar for one person without raising it for another so long as the class sizes remain the same. If e

by ipnon 5y ago

It's discrimination any way you slice it. You can't lower the bar for one person without raising it for another so long as the class sizes remain the same. If elite universities are about providing education (a valid point of critical contention), then systematically barring Asians from entry is the same class of injustice litigated in Brown v. Board of Education. It's not enough to say you can learn calculus just as well at the University of Massachusetts. "Here we find our first indication of the strength of preferences for underrepresented minority students. African-American students have nearly an 80 percent better chance of being admitted than their white counterparts, while the Hispanic advantage is reflected in almost 50 percent higher odds compared to whites. By contrast, Asian applicants and those from other races face lower odds of admission on the order of 17 or 18 percent—in relation to comparable whites." https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/tje/files/admission_preferences_espenshade_chung_walling_dec_2004_full.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/tje/files/...

markdown 5y ago
- friedman23 5y ago
  > but it's good for society I feel like you've taken this position as a fact without having any evidence supporting it.
  - markdown 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - zo1 5y ago
      And if I follow your premises, I come to a different conclusion entirely. You're essentially advocating for society to perpetuate this "tropical, laid-back paradise" for the group, absolving them as a group to grow and better themselves (also implying that they can't grow on their own, absent discrimination). At the same time, you forget that this reverse-discrimination is usually justified under the guise of "perpetual" repression by the other group. It's a mess all-around and we're just adding additional layers of complexity and blame to go around. I.e. now you're punishing completely innocent people and breeding resentment, whilst telling the other group that they have essentially a repressive enemy. That is Not good for society. I honestly don't know how we convinced ourselves that this entire thing is good. We will be judged by our future generations.
      - markdown 5y ago
        > You're essentially advocating for society to perpetuate this "tropical, laid-back paradise" for the group, absolving them as a group to grow and better themselves They're in a wonderful place. Your argument seems to be that the "rat race" is the optimal human condition. I disagree. Better themselves? That implies that there's something wrong with them in the first place. > now you're punishing completely innocent people and breeding resentment, whilst telling the other group that they have essentially a repressive enemy. That is Not good for society. Nobody is being punished. Student of X culture has to work hard to get a scholarship. He is competing with everyone else in X culture. Student of Y culture has to work hard to get a scholarship. He is competing with everyone else in Y culture. Everyone gets a chance, and if they fall short they have nobody to blame but themselves.
    - verve_rat 5y ago
      I'm guessing... Fiji? I don't think ignoring the impact of the British being in charge and how that advantage flowed on to the Indian population, that they imported into Fiji to work for the British, is helpful at all. The British turned up, imported a bunch of Indians, and fucked up the local social structure.
    - tqi 5y ago
      Wait... is your belief that the "indigenous population" can't get ahead because their culture doesn't value education / hard work?? I think you have grossly misunderstood both the reasoning behind Affirmative Action and the root causes of inequality.
    - civilized 5y ago
      I'm guessing you live in Malaysia. Well, one difference between America and Malaysia is that majorities of every American racial group oppose racial preferences [1]. There is support for affirmative action in the sense of removing barriers and leveling playing fields, but racial preferences are quite unpopular. Even supermajorities of Democrats oppose them. They are only popular among Democratic elites. [1] 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...
    - throaway425119 5y ago
      I grew up in a society where 3 major races make up 60%, 26% and 10% respectively. The 26% and 10% have a culture of striving, and they typically aspire towards business and/or the professions. The 60% (the majority) are indigenous and had civilization that stretches back centuries. However, they did not (and do not) have a achievement-oriented culture and therefore are not given to striving (at least in comparison to the former groups). For the longest time, the 26% and the elite among the 10% controlled the economy. This all came to a head when racial riots broke out, after which the government introduced affirmative action favoring the 60%, for exactly the reasons you outlined -- to create racial harmony and to quell the racial resentment. In a sense, it worked. For decades racial strife was low, at the expense of marginalizing the capable 26% and 10%. The problem is that once you introduce affirmative action, it becomes a political tool for staying in power, and no government can ever remove it without risking losing an election. Affirmative action is a short term band-aid. If you keep it on for too long, people depend on it and the entire system degrades, especially when it applies to a large enough number of people. People lose the incentive to strive to do better, and the standards go down to accommodate the lowest common denominator. Affirmative action in my country has led to an overall decline in competency in many fields, and a brain drain of the people who are marginalized to neighboring countries and beyond. With every passing year, my country is surpassed by other countries in the region. The feedback loop of stomping on meritocracy (where ascribed qualities like skin color or race are elevated over competence) is self-reinforcing. Our politics has gotten worse, we're getting less and less competitive by the day, and competitive forces are eating our lunch. We may have a more equal pie, but we got there by pulling everybody down so our pie is smaller. The society feels stagnant and continues to degrade. This is my lived experience. The country next to us has also achieved low racial strife, but they adopted much more directed and -- I dare to say -- more social darwinist policies. They are economically much more successful than we are, and much more dynamic than we are, even though we both started out with similar initial conditions. I do think we need to have a society where everyone has an equal shot at social mobility. However I also believe that affirmative action is too blunt an instrument for achieve that and it is one that creates vicious feedback loops that are politically difficult to get out of even when it's clear its usefulness is over. So no, I'm not a big fan of affirmative action as it is conceived here in this article. To achieve a more equal society you cannot merely force equality by tweaking the gates, because (1) there's irreducible variance among humans that you quell at your own peril, (2) some of those gates are important -- remember Chesterton's fence. It's clear to me that a more thoughtful approach than affirmative action (or even a more thoughtful kind of affirmative action) is needed.
- ipnon 5y ago
  The point is there is no difference between Harvard's current admissions policy and telling the marginalized Asian students, "great application, but we don't accept your kind here anymore." It's not right when it happens to Asians, it's not right when it happens to Blacks, it's not right when it happens to anybody.
  - markdown 5y ago
    - dshpala 5y ago
      Wait, are you saying that it'll be better for US to copy India's caste system? Let me guess which caste you think you'll end up.
      - tomerv 5y ago
        I think they're saying that India's affirmative action against the caste system is a good idea, not the caste system itself. For a while now, people from the lower castes have gotten preferential treatment when applying to universities, and it seems to have reduced some of the stronger stereotypes against the lower castes. However, I'm not sure it translates well to the case of racism in the US.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      > Affirmative action is crucial in a multicultural society. India has done it for decades. Good thing India's only been a multicultural society for decades.
    - lenkite 5y ago
      Yes, everyone fights to be backward in India and every other year a community is added to the OBC (Other Backward Communities) list. So eventually once all communities are backward, we will once again in the future have equal opportunity. Many people get out of India to escape this nonsense. Sad to see USA follow the backward path.
    - 5y ago
- Decker87 5y ago
  Why do you believe it's good for America?
  - tandymodel100 5y ago
- xvector 5y ago
  Racism is not good for society. You cannot justify holding Asian-Americans to a higher level because "they can handle it." Asians are part of society too, and yet Asian-American children have dramatically different and more stressful childhoods than their counterparts - a constant churn of studying, stress, and pressure, compared to the relatively carefree childhoods of their peers. It disgusts me that you can say "this is good for America" - are Asian-American children not Americans? Asian-American children have to go through a nightmare to have a chance at opportunities comparable to their peers, simply because of the color of their skin. This is the literal definition of racism.
  - Mavvie 5y ago
    I haven't formed a strong opinion on affirmative action yet. > You cannot justify holding Asian-Americans to a higher level because "they can handle it." The person you're replying to didn't say anything like that. > It disgusts me that you can say "this is good for America" when Asian-American children have to go through a nightmare to have a chance at opportunities comparable to their peers, simply because of the color of their skin. I agree, but I think I understand what they meant. They're suggesting that the benefit to society of having more diversity in the higher educated (and then higher income, etc) brackets outweighs the harm to society from unfair admissions. It's certainly a way start rebalancing the race distribution of the "upper classes" of society.
    - notch656a 5y ago
      How do we know what 'race' someone is, do we just ask them or do we test for DNA. The more you drill down into the race question the more absurd it seems, and you quickly realize people either mean culture or some DNA pseudo-science.
      - SamReidHughes 5y ago
        Both those ways of determining race get the same answer 99.9999% of the time.
- saunier_duval 5y ago
  It’s lazy policy making. Affirmative action should be based on generational poverty. India has had caste based reservations for a while. There is no going back. Now sometimes 60 to 80 percent of government jobs or higher education seats are reserved. A sad joke.
  - markdown 5y ago
    > Now sometimes 60 to 80 percent of government jobs or higher education seats are reserved. There's your problem. Not the fact that there's affirmative action, but that it doesn't reflect society. Affirmative action should always result in outcomes that reflect society. So 60% is fine if 60% of the population are dalits (or whatever the protected class is). Basically you review it every few years so that it always reflects society.
- kleene_op 5y ago
  We'll see if you still think line that lowering the bar is a chance for America when you have to take a plane designed by a 2.1 GPA.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    I don't know the peculiars of GPA. But I did a mediocre school result at best efore joining university. In university something switched. And I was top of class in many lectures. So what exactly does my anecdata mean? Exactly nothi g. But So does your "argument" (you didn't make one except touting a statement full of subliminal racism in the context of this discussion).
- tqi 5y ago
  I think there is clearly a problem of inequality of opportunity in America, and Affirmative Action is probably a necessary bandaid to heal the legacy of slavery and racism. However based on the evidence presented, the admission policies at Harvard (and other schools like it) were absolutely appalling. The systematically lower "personality" scores for Asian applicants and the dean of admission's testimony about "geographic" diversity[1] paint the picture of a school that did not ask Asian American applicants to make a sacrifice in the name of the great good, but rather told them they did not deserve a spot on merit because they were boring, foreign grinds. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/opinion/affirmative-action-harvard.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/opinion/affirmative-actio...
  - deleted 5y ago
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seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Did Brown vs. Board of Education ever apply to private schools (like Harvard and unlike U Mass)? I’m guessing private schools had some rules applied to them later, but that was way after Brown and probably under different laws not arising from the constitution.
- pyuser583 5y ago
  Kind of. When Congress passed the Civil Rights act in the 1960s, the courts became much less aggressive in finding racial equity in the US Constitution, because it simply wasn’t necessary. Private high schools that had segregation policies ran the risk of having their tax status revoked messed with by the IRS. Colleges get tons of money from the federal government, which is conditional on not discriminating - and keeping federal government happy. So private secondary schools still have a fair amount of leeway. Not infinite, but in reality they don’t have to worry about lawsuits like this. Colleges do.
root_axis 5y ago
Despite the increased chances of admission, black students make up a modest 5% of the (e.g.) Harvard student body compared to Asian students and white students at 13% and 40% respectively. Ultimately, I can't justify the idea of rejecting students based on race, but when I look at those demographics I just don't see much to get worked up about. From a more cynical angle the problem almost seems like "the total percentage of black people is a few points too high". I understand that there are real people behind these statistics, but this is true no matter which racial bucket you land in. I'll also add, the paper you linked sort of muddies the waters on your point. > Based on complete data for three applicant cohorts to three of the most academically selective research universities, we show that admission bonuses for athletes and legacies rival, and sometimes even exceed, the size of preferences for underrepresented minority applicants. That is to say, there is a lot going on in the admissions process, but it isn't clear to me that much is gained by insisting on a racial perspective. With all that stated, it seems obvious that Asian Americans should fight against discrimination that statistically disadvantages them based on their identity. It's unfortunate that a quality education is a finite pie we have to divvy up into thin slices.
- vt100 5y ago
  > It's unfortunate that a quality education is a finite pie we have to divvy up into thin slices. I think this belief is part of the problem. Information is infinitely replicable at zero cost, but we create barriers to its dissemination. If there are kids who are eager and able to learn material, they should have access to that it. And if they have mastered the material, they should be granted recognition of that objective fact. Any other policy means we are deliberately dumbing ourselves down. On the other hand, perhaps we need to dissect what it is we mean by "education", because while access to information can be unlimited, the number of places at Harvard IS limited. Inasmuch as membership in an exclusive social club is limited, and inasmuch as the Harvard class is an exercise in social engineering, I can see wny one may want some representation for various groups. In short, knowledge doesn't need to be a finite pie. It only appears to be so because some domains are gate-kept by limited admissions numbers in order to protect the supply of labour in those professions. The tech industry shows that when we don't have professional licensing, talent can find a way regardless of credentialism.
whatshisface 5y ago
We think universities are trying to solve the trolley problem of whether egalitarianism means letting people rise as high as they can or if it means compensating for all the circumstances of their birth, but they're probably solving the problem of how to admit the student with the highest donation expected value first, then the student with the second highest, then the third...
- DebtDeflation 5y ago
  >or if it means compensating for all the circumstances of their birth If this is the objective, then we need to start a lot earlier than the point of university admissions. Also, "circumstances of their birth" would need to be broadened to encompass quite a bit more than just race.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    >we need to start a lot earlier than the point of university admissions. Everyone agrees with this, on all sides. That's why we have highschool and grade school for example.
R0b0t1 5y ago
But then you have to also not discriminate against white students. I'm aware that at super elite schools this discrimination usually helps white people, but in a lot of other situations it doesn't.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  IIRC, Ivy League schools actually have a lower proportion of white students compared to the percentage of the total populace that's white. Of course, if you look at grade schools, it looks like racial minorities are 'overrepresented' compared to the general population, so it's possible there's just fewer young white people.
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    > I'm aware that at super elite schools this discrimination usually helps white people,
actuator 5y ago
This is what affirmative action will look like. If you want to see the context of such an action happening somewhere for long time, take the example of India. There it is much more explicit and written in the law. For some subjects, the criteria it takes for one cohort to get admission in the top college is the same one in which the other cohort will not even get admission in any college in the top 20. You can see this in undergraduate level admissions the most. I read interesting stats on this long time back, will need to see if I can find them. However, in case of South Asia/India, the argument is positive discrimination now to correct for negative discrimination in the past. The same argument can't be made in US though against Asians.
- carrionpigeon 5y ago
  I was curious about how the Indians handle this, too, so I read Republic of Caste by Anand Teltumbde. It's a long, rambling, but detailed description of how the reservation system was playing out in India. Broadly, he argues that any initial positive effect has been displaced by caste becoming even more of a wedge issue (each caste feeling disadvantaged unfairly and hyper-vigilant for others' corruption) and castes scrambling for favorable designations (e.g. inventing a new history of victimization or fabricating a genealogy in order to be assigned to a more favorable schedule). Ironically, Teltumbde advocates for replacing reservations with American-style affirmative action.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - pewpew2020 5y ago
    Now it is a competition among castes to show that they are the most backward, since they would be considered for reservations then.
    - actuator 5y ago
      and this makes sense as well, I think while in practice the affirmative action in India seems ideal it is far too idealistic and one dimensional. Like just doing it on the basis of race would be in US. Should an Asian kid coming from a family with financial difficulties be subjected to the same bias as others. Also, I read a weird thing that in India even religions that don't have a caste system, have castes. It is interesting that Christians, Muslims can have one. It seems like that's one way to reap the benefits of the system.
beebmam 5y ago
You can, absolutely. A lottery system for admissions.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  Not sure if you're joking but it would be a heck of a lot more fair. Just have some sort of objective bar like SAT score, and then do a lottery. Then you don't have the "did we do enough for XYZ group", the RNG will simplify both decision making and justification. If there's x% of XYZ passing the minimum score, that's how many will be in your class.
  - technothrasher 5y ago
    But if there were racial disparities in your primary and secondary education systems which lowered the scores of some racial groups, then your supposedly objective "minimum score cutoff" would still be discriminatory.
    - lordnacho 5y ago
      Yes but then it's society's fault and you can't do anything about it and you have a reasonable explanation. You can pour money into giving test prep help to disadvantaged groups and keep the headline, which is that fate decides among many who are worthy.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    And when you find that x% of XYZ passing the minimum score isn’t exactly the same x% of XYZ in the population, what then?
    - lordnacho 5y ago
      "We didn't make the test. The bar is lower so more of every group passes. Fate decides who gets in, we don't add or remove anything based on legacy or donations etc."
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
rayiner 5y ago
Note that most Americans of all races, including Black people, oppose the practice of race conscious admissions: 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.... People of all races also overwhelmingly oppose consideration of race in hiring: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/05/08/americans-see-advantages-and-challenges-in-countrys-growing-racial-and-ethnic-diversity https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/05/08/america.... In California, Prop 16 failed in every single majority Hispanic county. It’s a minority of mostly white progressives pushing this stuff.
- pinephoneguy 5y ago
  > It’s a minority of mostly white progressives pushing this stuff. I think if you look a little closer you'll find that many members of that "white" minority are in fact not White (or Hispanic, Black, or Asian.)
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Really? Because I don't think so since I mostly see people with a falsely treated savior complex. Harsh judgement, but they also justify racism and if it comes down to it we need to be honest.
  - dang 5y ago
    You can't do this here. I've banned the account.
    - YaBomm 5y ago
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
UncleMeat 5y ago
The article calls out the TJ admissions policy, which was explicitly race-blind and did not lower the bar for anybody else.
- xvector 5y ago
  the bar was lowered for the express purpose of lowering the population of asians at TJ. that is plainly discriminatory and racist - "there are too many of you asian folk here so we're just gonna trash our admissions to get rid of you"
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    The above post said "lowered the bar for one person..." The bar in the new system was the same for everybody. It was simply a different method of judging candidates. There was no "these groups get a lower bar because they are black or hispanic." Notably a group whose admission went up with the policy change was poor asian people.
    - cuteboy19 5y ago
      The purpose of the policy was explicitly to lower the Asian population. It's there in the emails. Now the policy may have failed or ended up back firing but that doesn't make it any less of a racist policy.
slibhb 5y ago
> It's discrimination any way you slice it. You can't lower the bar for one person without raising it for another so long as the class sizes remain the same. I'm against affirmative action altogether but the best kind mostly avoids this problem: only consider ethnicity when it helps the application. Consider whites, Asians, Jews, and others as part of the same category.

by ipnon 5y ago

markdown 5y ago

friedman23 5y ago
> but it's good for society I feel like you've taken this position as a fact without having any evidence supporting it.
- markdown 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - zo1 5y ago
    And if I follow your premises, I come to a different conclusion entirely. You're essentially advocating for society to perpetuate this "tropical, laid-back paradise" for the group, absolving them as a group to grow and better themselves (also implying that they can't grow on their own, absent discrimination). At the same time, you forget that this reverse-discrimination is usually justified under the guise of "perpetual" repression by the other group. It's a mess all-around and we're just adding additional layers of complexity and blame to go around. I.e. now you're punishing completely innocent people and breeding resentment, whilst telling the other group that they have essentially a repressive enemy. That is Not good for society. I honestly don't know how we convinced ourselves that this entire thing is good. We will be judged by our future generations.
    - markdown 5y ago
      > You're essentially advocating for society to perpetuate this "tropical, laid-back paradise" for the group, absolving them as a group to grow and better themselves They're in a wonderful place. Your argument seems to be that the "rat race" is the optimal human condition. I disagree. Better themselves? That implies that there's something wrong with them in the first place. > now you're punishing completely innocent people and breeding resentment, whilst telling the other group that they have essentially a repressive enemy. That is Not good for society. Nobody is being punished. Student of X culture has to work hard to get a scholarship. He is competing with everyone else in X culture. Student of Y culture has to work hard to get a scholarship. He is competing with everyone else in Y culture. Everyone gets a chance, and if they fall short they have nobody to blame but themselves.
  - verve_rat 5y ago
    I'm guessing... Fiji? I don't think ignoring the impact of the British being in charge and how that advantage flowed on to the Indian population, that they imported into Fiji to work for the British, is helpful at all. The British turned up, imported a bunch of Indians, and fucked up the local social structure.
  - tqi 5y ago
    Wait... is your belief that the "indigenous population" can't get ahead because their culture doesn't value education / hard work?? I think you have grossly misunderstood both the reasoning behind Affirmative Action and the root causes of inequality.
  - civilized 5y ago
    I'm guessing you live in Malaysia. Well, one difference between America and Malaysia is that majorities of every American racial group oppose racial preferences [1]. There is support for affirmative action in the sense of removing barriers and leveling playing fields, but racial preferences are quite unpopular. Even supermajorities of Democrats oppose them. They are only popular among Democratic elites. [1] 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...
  - throaway425119 5y ago
    I grew up in a society where 3 major races make up 60%, 26% and 10% respectively. The 26% and 10% have a culture of striving, and they typically aspire towards business and/or the professions. The 60% (the majority) are indigenous and had civilization that stretches back centuries. However, they did not (and do not) have a achievement-oriented culture and therefore are not given to striving (at least in comparison to the former groups). For the longest time, the 26% and the elite among the 10% controlled the economy. This all came to a head when racial riots broke out, after which the government introduced affirmative action favoring the 60%, for exactly the reasons you outlined -- to create racial harmony and to quell the racial resentment. In a sense, it worked. For decades racial strife was low, at the expense of marginalizing the capable 26% and 10%. The problem is that once you introduce affirmative action, it becomes a political tool for staying in power, and no government can ever remove it without risking losing an election. Affirmative action is a short term band-aid. If you keep it on for too long, people depend on it and the entire system degrades, especially when it applies to a large enough number of people. People lose the incentive to strive to do better, and the standards go down to accommodate the lowest common denominator. Affirmative action in my country has led to an overall decline in competency in many fields, and a brain drain of the people who are marginalized to neighboring countries and beyond. With every passing year, my country is surpassed by other countries in the region. The feedback loop of stomping on meritocracy (where ascribed qualities like skin color or race are elevated over competence) is self-reinforcing. Our politics has gotten worse, we're getting less and less competitive by the day, and competitive forces are eating our lunch. We may have a more equal pie, but we got there by pulling everybody down so our pie is smaller. The society feels stagnant and continues to degrade. This is my lived experience. The country next to us has also achieved low racial strife, but they adopted much more directed and -- I dare to say -- more social darwinist policies. They are economically much more successful than we are, and much more dynamic than we are, even though we both started out with similar initial conditions. I do think we need to have a society where everyone has an equal shot at social mobility. However I also believe that affirmative action is too blunt an instrument for achieve that and it is one that creates vicious feedback loops that are politically difficult to get out of even when it's clear its usefulness is over. So no, I'm not a big fan of affirmative action as it is conceived here in this article. To achieve a more equal society you cannot merely force equality by tweaking the gates, because (1) there's irreducible variance among humans that you quell at your own peril, (2) some of those gates are important -- remember Chesterton's fence. It's clear to me that a more thoughtful approach than affirmative action (or even a more thoughtful kind of affirmative action) is needed.
ipnon 5y ago
The point is there is no difference between Harvard's current admissions policy and telling the marginalized Asian students, "great application, but we don't accept your kind here anymore." It's not right when it happens to Asians, it's not right when it happens to Blacks, it's not right when it happens to anybody.
- markdown 5y ago
  - dshpala 5y ago
    Wait, are you saying that it'll be better for US to copy India's caste system? Let me guess which caste you think you'll end up.
    - tomerv 5y ago
      I think they're saying that India's affirmative action against the caste system is a good idea, not the caste system itself. For a while now, people from the lower castes have gotten preferential treatment when applying to universities, and it seems to have reduced some of the stronger stereotypes against the lower castes. However, I'm not sure it translates well to the case of racism in the US.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Affirmative action is crucial in a multicultural society. India has done it for decades. Good thing India's only been a multicultural society for decades.
  - lenkite 5y ago
    Yes, everyone fights to be backward in India and every other year a community is added to the OBC (Other Backward Communities) list. So eventually once all communities are backward, we will once again in the future have equal opportunity. Many people get out of India to escape this nonsense. Sad to see USA follow the backward path.
  - 5y ago
Decker87 5y ago
Why do you believe it's good for America?
- tandymodel100 5y ago
xvector 5y ago
Racism is not good for society. You cannot justify holding Asian-Americans to a higher level because "they can handle it." Asians are part of society too, and yet Asian-American children have dramatically different and more stressful childhoods than their counterparts - a constant churn of studying, stress, and pressure, compared to the relatively carefree childhoods of their peers. It disgusts me that you can say "this is good for America" - are Asian-American children not Americans? Asian-American children have to go through a nightmare to have a chance at opportunities comparable to their peers, simply because of the color of their skin. This is the literal definition of racism.
- Mavvie 5y ago
  I haven't formed a strong opinion on affirmative action yet. > You cannot justify holding Asian-Americans to a higher level because "they can handle it." The person you're replying to didn't say anything like that. > It disgusts me that you can say "this is good for America" when Asian-American children have to go through a nightmare to have a chance at opportunities comparable to their peers, simply because of the color of their skin. I agree, but I think I understand what they meant. They're suggesting that the benefit to society of having more diversity in the higher educated (and then higher income, etc) brackets outweighs the harm to society from unfair admissions. It's certainly a way start rebalancing the race distribution of the "upper classes" of society.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    How do we know what 'race' someone is, do we just ask them or do we test for DNA. The more you drill down into the race question the more absurd it seems, and you quickly realize people either mean culture or some DNA pseudo-science.
    - SamReidHughes 5y ago
      Both those ways of determining race get the same answer 99.9999% of the time.
saunier_duval 5y ago
It’s lazy policy making. Affirmative action should be based on generational poverty. India has had caste based reservations for a while. There is no going back. Now sometimes 60 to 80 percent of government jobs or higher education seats are reserved. A sad joke.
- markdown 5y ago
  > Now sometimes 60 to 80 percent of government jobs or higher education seats are reserved. There's your problem. Not the fact that there's affirmative action, but that it doesn't reflect society. Affirmative action should always result in outcomes that reflect society. So 60% is fine if 60% of the population are dalits (or whatever the protected class is). Basically you review it every few years so that it always reflects society.
kleene_op 5y ago
We'll see if you still think line that lowering the bar is a chance for America when you have to take a plane designed by a 2.1 GPA.
- sdoering 5y ago
  I don't know the peculiars of GPA. But I did a mediocre school result at best efore joining university. In university something switched. And I was top of class in many lectures. So what exactly does my anecdata mean? Exactly nothi g. But So does your "argument" (you didn't make one except touting a statement full of subliminal racism in the context of this discussion).
tqi 5y ago
I think there is clearly a problem of inequality of opportunity in America, and Affirmative Action is probably a necessary bandaid to heal the legacy of slavery and racism. However based on the evidence presented, the admission policies at Harvard (and other schools like it) were absolutely appalling. The systematically lower "personality" scores for Asian applicants and the dean of admission's testimony about "geographic" diversity[1] paint the picture of a school that did not ask Asian American applicants to make a sacrifice in the name of the great good, but rather told them they did not deserve a spot on merit because they were boring, foreign grinds. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/opinion/affirmative-action-harvard.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/opinion/affirmative-actio...
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seanmcdirmid 5y ago

Did Brown vs. Board of Education ever apply to private schools (like Harvard and unlike U Mass)? I’m guessing private schools had some rules applied to them later, but that was way after Brown and probably under different laws not arising from the constitution.

pyuser583 5y ago
Kind of. When Congress passed the Civil Rights act in the 1960s, the courts became much less aggressive in finding racial equity in the US Constitution, because it simply wasn’t necessary. Private high schools that had segregation policies ran the risk of having their tax status revoked messed with by the IRS. Colleges get tons of money from the federal government, which is conditional on not discriminating - and keeping federal government happy. So private secondary schools still have a fair amount of leeway. Not infinite, but in reality they don’t have to worry about lawsuits like this. Colleges do.

root_axis 5y ago

Despite the increased chances of admission, black students make up a modest 5% of the (e.g.) Harvard student body compared to Asian students and white students at 13% and 40% respectively. Ultimately, I can't justify the idea of rejecting students based on race, but when I look at those demographics I just don't see much to get worked up about. From a more cynical angle the problem almost seems like "the total percentage of black people is a few points too high". I understand that there are real people behind these statistics, but this is true no matter which racial bucket you land in. I'll also add, the paper you linked sort of muddies the waters on your point. > Based on complete data for three applicant cohorts to three of the most academically selective research universities, we show that admission bonuses for athletes and legacies rival, and sometimes even exceed, the size of preferences for underrepresented minority applicants. That is to say, there is a lot going on in the admissions process, but it isn't clear to me that much is gained by insisting on a racial perspective. With all that stated, it seems obvious that Asian Americans should fight against discrimination that statistically disadvantages them based on their identity. It's unfortunate that a quality education is a finite pie we have to divvy up into thin slices.

vt100 5y ago
> It's unfortunate that a quality education is a finite pie we have to divvy up into thin slices. I think this belief is part of the problem. Information is infinitely replicable at zero cost, but we create barriers to its dissemination. If there are kids who are eager and able to learn material, they should have access to that it. And if they have mastered the material, they should be granted recognition of that objective fact. Any other policy means we are deliberately dumbing ourselves down. On the other hand, perhaps we need to dissect what it is we mean by "education", because while access to information can be unlimited, the number of places at Harvard IS limited. Inasmuch as membership in an exclusive social club is limited, and inasmuch as the Harvard class is an exercise in social engineering, I can see wny one may want some representation for various groups. In short, knowledge doesn't need to be a finite pie. It only appears to be so because some domains are gate-kept by limited admissions numbers in order to protect the supply of labour in those professions. The tech industry shows that when we don't have professional licensing, talent can find a way regardless of credentialism.

whatshisface 5y ago

We think universities are trying to solve the trolley problem of whether egalitarianism means letting people rise as high as they can or if it means compensating for all the circumstances of their birth, but they're probably solving the problem of how to admit the student with the highest donation expected value first, then the student with the second highest, then the third...

DebtDeflation 5y ago
>or if it means compensating for all the circumstances of their birth If this is the objective, then we need to start a lot earlier than the point of university admissions. Also, "circumstances of their birth" would need to be broadened to encompass quite a bit more than just race.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  >we need to start a lot earlier than the point of university admissions. Everyone agrees with this, on all sides. That's why we have highschool and grade school for example.

R0b0t1 5y ago

But then you have to also not discriminate against white students. I'm aware that at super elite schools this discrimination usually helps white people, but in a lot of other situations it doesn't.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
IIRC, Ivy League schools actually have a lower proportion of white students compared to the percentage of the total populace that's white. Of course, if you look at grade schools, it looks like racial minorities are 'overrepresented' compared to the general population, so it's possible there's just fewer young white people.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  > I'm aware that at super elite schools this discrimination usually helps white people,

actuator 5y ago

This is what affirmative action will look like. If you want to see the context of such an action happening somewhere for long time, take the example of India. There it is much more explicit and written in the law. For some subjects, the criteria it takes for one cohort to get admission in the top college is the same one in which the other cohort will not even get admission in any college in the top 20. You can see this in undergraduate level admissions the most. I read interesting stats on this long time back, will need to see if I can find them. However, in case of South Asia/India, the argument is positive discrimination now to correct for negative discrimination in the past. The same argument can't be made in US though against Asians.

carrionpigeon 5y ago
I was curious about how the Indians handle this, too, so I read Republic of Caste by Anand Teltumbde. It's a long, rambling, but detailed description of how the reservation system was playing out in India. Broadly, he argues that any initial positive effect has been displaced by caste becoming even more of a wedge issue (each caste feeling disadvantaged unfairly and hyper-vigilant for others' corruption) and castes scrambling for favorable designations (e.g. inventing a new history of victimization or fabricating a genealogy in order to be assigned to a more favorable schedule). Ironically, Teltumbde advocates for replacing reservations with American-style affirmative action.
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- pewpew2020 5y ago
  Now it is a competition among castes to show that they are the most backward, since they would be considered for reservations then.
  - actuator 5y ago
    and this makes sense as well, I think while in practice the affirmative action in India seems ideal it is far too idealistic and one dimensional. Like just doing it on the basis of race would be in US. Should an Asian kid coming from a family with financial difficulties be subjected to the same bias as others. Also, I read a weird thing that in India even religions that don't have a caste system, have castes. It is interesting that Christians, Muslims can have one. It seems like that's one way to reap the benefits of the system.

beebmam 5y ago

You can, absolutely. A lottery system for admissions.

lordnacho 5y ago
Not sure if you're joking but it would be a heck of a lot more fair. Just have some sort of objective bar like SAT score, and then do a lottery. Then you don't have the "did we do enough for XYZ group", the RNG will simplify both decision making and justification. If there's x% of XYZ passing the minimum score, that's how many will be in your class.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  But if there were racial disparities in your primary and secondary education systems which lowered the scores of some racial groups, then your supposedly objective "minimum score cutoff" would still be discriminatory.
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    Yes but then it's society's fault and you can't do anything about it and you have a reasonable explanation. You can pour money into giving test prep help to disadvantaged groups and keep the headline, which is that fate decides among many who are worthy.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  And when you find that x% of XYZ passing the minimum score isn’t exactly the same x% of XYZ in the population, what then?
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    "We didn't make the test. The bar is lower so more of every group passes. Fate decides who gets in, we don't add or remove anything based on legacy or donations etc."
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago

rayiner 5y ago

Note that most Americans of all races, including Black people, oppose the practice of race conscious admissions: 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.... People of all races also overwhelmingly oppose consideration of race in hiring: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/05/08/americans-see-advantages-and-challenges-in-countrys-growing-racial-and-ethnic-diversity https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/05/08/america.... In California, Prop 16 failed in every single majority Hispanic county. It’s a minority of mostly white progressives pushing this stuff.

pinephoneguy 5y ago
> It’s a minority of mostly white progressives pushing this stuff. I think if you look a little closer you'll find that many members of that "white" minority are in fact not White (or Hispanic, Black, or Asian.)
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Really? Because I don't think so since I mostly see people with a falsely treated savior complex. Harsh judgement, but they also justify racism and if it comes down to it we need to be honest.
- dang 5y ago
  You can't do this here. I've banned the account.
  - YaBomm 5y ago
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UncleMeat 5y ago

The article calls out the TJ admissions policy, which was explicitly race-blind and did not lower the bar for anybody else.

xvector 5y ago
the bar was lowered for the express purpose of lowering the population of asians at TJ. that is plainly discriminatory and racist - "there are too many of you asian folk here so we're just gonna trash our admissions to get rid of you"
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  The above post said "lowered the bar for one person..." The bar in the new system was the same for everybody. It was simply a different method of judging candidates. There was no "these groups get a lower bar because they are black or hispanic." Notably a group whose admission went up with the policy change was poor asian people.
  - cuteboy19 5y ago
    The purpose of the policy was explicitly to lower the Asian population. It's there in the emails. Now the policy may have failed or ended up back firing but that doesn't make it any less of a racist policy.

slibhb 5y ago

> It's discrimination any way you slice it. You can't lower the bar for one person without raising it for another so long as the class sizes remain the same. I'm against affirmative action altogether but the best kind mostly avoids this problem: only consider ethnicity when it helps the application. Consider whites, Asians, Jews, and others as part of the same category.