4 ms·

It's not Asians primarily. They are discriminated against more stiffly, but are far outnumbered in the US by Whites, who also get the thumb placed on the wrong

It's not Asians primarily. They are discriminated against more stiffly, but are far outnumbered in the US by Whites, who also get the thumb placed on the wrong pan of the scale. The focus on Asians is because of a doctrine that discriminating against Whites is very good and correct, because they deserve it.

rjbwork 4y ago
>The focus on Asians is because of a doctrine that discriminating against Whites is very good and correct, because they deserve it. Maybe. I think it's because they are a small population being discriminated against heavily, versus a much larger population being discriminated against mildly. It seems far more egregious in the case of Asians when you look at the disparities in test scores required for admissions to these institutions by race.
- cudgy 4y ago
  Yet Asians earn more than all other ethnic groups, even the “mildly” discriminated whites, and Asians are far from a small population amongst those applying to these schools. This is another reason why picking and choosing admissions by race or even just test scores is nonsense. Create a minimum criteria to succeed in a program and simply randomly choose the students from that pool is a reasonable solution that avoids much of the discriminatory issues and likely results in a more diverse student body.
btilly 4y ago
The focus on Asians is because the group that brought this group is mostly Asian-American. And that is true because, as you admit, Asians are being discriminated against more stiffly. Now it is necessarily true that if we try to discriminate in favor of some group (eg blacks), we must necessarily give them an advantage over another group (eg whites). But the motivation there is arguably to help the historically disadvantaged, and not specifically to hurt whites. But there is NO argument for doing what these universities are doing. To identify racial groups that they want to discriminate against because they are too good. I see no difference between policies to discriminate against Asians today and historical policies to put quotas on how many Jews got accepted. And I doubt that there is much coincidence about which universities engaged in both policies.
- origin_path 4y ago
  "the motivation there is arguably to help the historically disadvantaged, and not specifically to hurt whites." Although this is what they claim, it's hard to believe sometimes. Look at the meltdown that accompanied some smart alecs putting up posters that said nothing beyond "It's OK to be white". Wokesters went mad and started tearing them down anywhere the posters were found, implying that in their mind it is actually very much not OK to be white. Of course, the problem here is that the woke aren't actually using race words to mean the actual skin color. It's all coded speech to hide the true target of their hatred - anyone who isn't as far left as they are. That's why they go nuts when they encounter black conservatives, or why you see white people are perfectly OK criticizing things like "whiteness". They aren't engaging in self criticism there, they've just established a convention amongst their community that "white" is coded speech for conservatives. Scott Alexander has a great essay that examines this in depth: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
HelloMcFly 4y ago
> a doctrine that discriminating against Whites is very good and correct, because they deserve it. This is an argument put forth in bad faith. The thought - agree or disagree - is white individuals in America have systemic advantages that persist due to historical social practices the manifest across many years of education and just existence in life in America. It's not about "deserving less" but about acknowledging they nudges in their favor many had along the way. I'm not going to debate the veracity of that thought on a forum, but it's not some sort of punitive belief.
- samatman 4y ago
  - HelloMcFly 4y ago
    I don't think my characterization is "merely rephrasing" what you said. If you believe policies and practices people are trying to disadvantage white people in decision-making because white people "deserve" less, you're wrong. I think you can debate the morality of helping mitigate structural disadvantages (which I hope you acknowledge exist) that many underrepresented groups face with intentional, procedural advantages for those same groups. I won't do it with you, but I think ignoring structural disadvantages created by a history of racism isn't the solution. I don't know what the solution is.
  - generj 4y ago
    This seems a rather uncharitable and combative read of the above commentator. Where did they start lying?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  How does acknowledgement of favor manifest if not by punitive discrimination? Is a simple admission of favor sufficient, or must corrective action be taken? It seems that this is simply the argument for why the punitive belief is just.
quantumwannabe 4y ago
Because schools withhold a large percentage of their spots for "legacy students", a White kid who isn't rich or well-connected is less likely to get into these elite schools than an Asian kid with the same grades. Half of the White students at Harvard are legacy students [1] and White students make up 44% of the Harvard student body. 50.9% of Gen Z is White [2], meaning that slightly less than 51% of the population is competing for 22% of the slots. The same numbers for Asian students are 5.3% of Gen Z and 25.9% of the spots at Harvard. Now, the proper numbers to use are probably SAT scores or some other "skill metric", but finding the proper stats to use is difficult since College Board locked them down, and in this case the population stats don't affect the conclusion because while more Asians have high scores as a percentage of their group than Whites do, it is canceled out by the difference in population sizes. Assuming Affirmative Action is still in place, once the current generation of Asian Ivy League grad's kids start applying for schools, this issue will start to apply to Asian kids as well. [1] https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/09/penn-upenn-philadelphia-harvard-admissions-legacy-athletes https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/09/penn-upenn-philadelphi... [2] https://www.brookings.edu/research/less-than-half-of-us-children-under-15-are-white-census-shows/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/less-than-half-of-us-chil...
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Of the 44% white students, about 20% are ethnically Jewish. [1] Jewish people make up about 2% of the population, leaving even fewer slots, if you take that view. However, nobody is entitled to a slot in a private university. Public schools should optimize for equality of opportunity, but private schools should be free to use other measures as long as they dont go against civil rights act. This includes maximizing profit or legacy students. https://www.chicagojewishnews.com/how-many-jewish-students-at-harvard/ https://www.chicagojewishnews.com/how-many-jewish-students-a...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - btilly 4y ago
    Correction. About 44% of Harvard students are white, and about 20% of them are Jewish. Therefore Jews represent about 45% of the 44% that are white.

rjbwork 4y ago

>The focus on Asians is because of a doctrine that discriminating against Whites is very good and correct, because they deserve it. Maybe. I think it's because they are a small population being discriminated against heavily, versus a much larger population being discriminated against mildly. It seems far more egregious in the case of Asians when you look at the disparities in test scores required for admissions to these institutions by race.

cudgy 4y ago
Yet Asians earn more than all other ethnic groups, even the “mildly” discriminated whites, and Asians are far from a small population amongst those applying to these schools. This is another reason why picking and choosing admissions by race or even just test scores is nonsense. Create a minimum criteria to succeed in a program and simply randomly choose the students from that pool is a reasonable solution that avoids much of the discriminatory issues and likely results in a more diverse student body.

btilly 4y ago

The focus on Asians is because the group that brought this group is mostly Asian-American. And that is true because, as you admit, Asians are being discriminated against more stiffly. Now it is necessarily true that if we try to discriminate in favor of some group (eg blacks), we must necessarily give them an advantage over another group (eg whites). But the motivation there is arguably to help the historically disadvantaged, and not specifically to hurt whites. But there is NO argument for doing what these universities are doing. To identify racial groups that they want to discriminate against because they are too good. I see no difference between policies to discriminate against Asians today and historical policies to put quotas on how many Jews got accepted. And I doubt that there is much coincidence about which universities engaged in both policies.

origin_path 4y ago
"the motivation there is arguably to help the historically disadvantaged, and not specifically to hurt whites." Although this is what they claim, it's hard to believe sometimes. Look at the meltdown that accompanied some smart alecs putting up posters that said nothing beyond "It's OK to be white". Wokesters went mad and started tearing them down anywhere the posters were found, implying that in their mind it is actually very much not OK to be white. Of course, the problem here is that the woke aren't actually using race words to mean the actual skin color. It's all coded speech to hide the true target of their hatred - anyone who isn't as far left as they are. That's why they go nuts when they encounter black conservatives, or why you see white people are perfectly OK criticizing things like "whiteness". They aren't engaging in self criticism there, they've just established a convention amongst their community that "white" is coded speech for conservatives. Scott Alexander has a great essay that examines this in depth: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

HelloMcFly 4y ago

> a doctrine that discriminating against Whites is very good and correct, because they deserve it. This is an argument put forth in bad faith. The thought - agree or disagree - is white individuals in America have systemic advantages that persist due to historical social practices the manifest across many years of education and just existence in life in America. It's not about "deserving less" but about acknowledging they nudges in their favor many had along the way. I'm not going to debate the veracity of that thought on a forum, but it's not some sort of punitive belief.

samatman 4y ago
- HelloMcFly 4y ago
  I don't think my characterization is "merely rephrasing" what you said. If you believe policies and practices people are trying to disadvantage white people in decision-making because white people "deserve" less, you're wrong. I think you can debate the morality of helping mitigate structural disadvantages (which I hope you acknowledge exist) that many underrepresented groups face with intentional, procedural advantages for those same groups. I won't do it with you, but I think ignoring structural disadvantages created by a history of racism isn't the solution. I don't know what the solution is.
- generj 4y ago
  This seems a rather uncharitable and combative read of the above commentator. Where did they start lying?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
s1artibartfast 4y ago
How does acknowledgement of favor manifest if not by punitive discrimination? Is a simple admission of favor sufficient, or must corrective action be taken? It seems that this is simply the argument for why the punitive belief is just.

quantumwannabe 4y ago

Because schools withhold a large percentage of their spots for "legacy students", a White kid who isn't rich or well-connected is less likely to get into these elite schools than an Asian kid with the same grades. Half of the White students at Harvard are legacy students [1] and White students make up 44% of the Harvard student body. 50.9% of Gen Z is White [2], meaning that slightly less than 51% of the population is competing for 22% of the slots. The same numbers for Asian students are 5.3% of Gen Z and 25.9% of the spots at Harvard. Now, the proper numbers to use are probably SAT scores or some other "skill metric", but finding the proper stats to use is difficult since College Board locked them down, and in this case the population stats don't affect the conclusion because while more Asians have high scores as a percentage of their group than Whites do, it is canceled out by the difference in population sizes. Assuming Affirmative Action is still in place, once the current generation of Asian Ivy League grad's kids start applying for schools, this issue will start to apply to Asian kids as well. [1] https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/09/penn-upenn-philadelphia-harvard-admissions-legacy-athletes https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/09/penn-upenn-philadelphi... [2] https://www.brookings.edu/research/less-than-half-of-us-children-under-15-are-white-census-shows/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/less-than-half-of-us-chil...

s1artibartfast 4y ago
Of the 44% white students, about 20% are ethnically Jewish. [1] Jewish people make up about 2% of the population, leaving even fewer slots, if you take that view. However, nobody is entitled to a slot in a private university. Public schools should optimize for equality of opportunity, but private schools should be free to use other measures as long as they dont go against civil rights act. This includes maximizing profit or legacy students. https://www.chicagojewishnews.com/how-many-jewish-students-at-harvard/ https://www.chicagojewishnews.com/how-many-jewish-students-a...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- btilly 4y ago
  Correction. About 44% of Harvard students are white, and about 20% of them are Jewish. Therefore Jews represent about 45% of the 44% that are white.