6 ms·

I don't understand, if he wrote an op-ed uncovering racial discrimination in academia, why would people who are (presumably) against racial discrimination want

by yucky 4y ago

I don't understand, if he wrote an op-ed uncovering racial discrimination in academia, why would people who are (presumably) against racial discrimination want to cancel his lecture?

tablespoon 4y ago
- customkitchen 4y ago
  If by "the DEI people" you mean "students who were only able to be there because someone made a conscious effort to do diversity outreach" then yes. They would be opposed to someone suggesting that they should stop the outreach so that people like them could no longer be there. His piece (you can read it here: https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-1618419 https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-16...) is more of the same intellectually dismissive rhetoric that we've seen a thousand times before. As usual it's got all the same nonsensical discriminatory suggestions that don't actually help people, like "support charter schools" and "we should use a process based on merit and qualifications alone" and "we should build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone but is also unbiased". And just for fun he suggests at the end that any university even considering how to approach race issues is somehow comparable to nazism. This is just bad writing, I don't blame the students for being upset. Have you noticed how very few students who are actually underprivileged would ever share these views?
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    > If by "the DEI people" you mean "students who were only able to be there because someone made a conscious effort to do diversity outreach" then yes. They would be opposed to someone suggesting that they should stop the outreach so that people like them could no longer be there. This is only half the equation. There's another group of people who excluded on account of their race and gender as part of this "diversity outreach". DEI isn't about inclusion vs. exclusion. Both Abbot and DEI supporters are in favor of including and excluding students. What they disagree on is how this decision is made. Also, how is "we should build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone but is also unbiased" a discriminatory suggestion? That is the total opposite of the message.
    - customkitchen 4y ago
      No, it is not the opposite. That suggestion is just restating the question. They already tried to build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone, and the complaint is how doing that has led to extremely biased results. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing on how the decision is made, but the piece itself is poorly written, intentionally inflammatory, and insulting. There are maybe two valid suggestions buried within a bunch of nonsense, which shouldn't be the case for such a short article. It always disturbs me how anyone is willing to publish these terrible, low quality op-eds. And then when people get angry at them for their writings being low-quality, insulting and inflammatory, they have the nerve to complain that people don't want to hear the rest of their opinions... Instead of, you know, addressing the issue that caused the anger and changing the bad opinions accordingly.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        I think you're still not not getting the point Abbot is making. > They already tried to build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone, and the complaint is how doing that has led to extremely biased results. How did it produce "extremely biased results"? You're being vague here, but I suspect by "biased results" you mean they produced a racial (and perhaps gender) makeup you don't like. Abbot rejects the idea that a non-discriminatory admissions process is biased because it produces student body with the "wrong" racial makeup. His view is that picking a "right" racial makeup and utilizing discrimination to achieve it, is a form of bias. Also how is it "intentionally inflammatory and insulting"? Are you aware that 62% of African Americans do not support the use of race in admissions?[1] Perhaps what's insulting is and admission process that looks like this: https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/1482/90/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20180623_USC932_0.png https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/1482/90/sites/default/f... 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...
        customkitchen 4y ago
        >You're being vague here, but I suspect by "biased results" you mean they produced a racial (and perhaps gender) makeup you don't like. No, you are completely and utterly wrong on that. This is more of the same intellectually lazy assumptions, please stop this. And I get his point perfectly, it is still insulting and dismissive. When someone starts talking about school vouchers and "merit" in the context of this then it's mostly an admission that they don't know what they're talking about. It has absolutely nothing to do with the problems faced by a school like MIT that already has an extremely low acceptance rate anyway. They know how to test students on academic rigor, that isn't the issue. The fact is, they already cannot accepts all students who pass based on academic merit alone. Your chart even demonstrates that is the case with Harvard, the issue is explicitly not that racial makeup is being considered over academic achievement.
  - yucky 4y ago
    >And just for fun he suggests at the end that any university even considering how to approach race issues is somehow comparable to nazism. I wouldn't invoke Godwin here, I think the point may have been to show racial discrimination in general always ends badly. People who support it will always defend their reasons, but in the end doesn't it always lead to divisiveness and suspicion and hatred?
nonethewiser 4y ago
> why would people who are (presumably) against racial discrimination want to cancel his lecture? Because they are not against racial discrimination.
- akomtu 4y ago
  In 1984, there is a scene at the end where O'Brien (a party member) interrogates and tortures Winston (the main character). He asks him political questions and demands truthful answers, and if he spots that Winston lies to avoid pain, but knows the truth, O'Brien still electrocutes him. At the end O'Brien shows him 4 fingers and asks how many fingers Winston sees. He says 4! And gets electrocuted. Then he says 5, and gets electrocuted again. After many attempts, Winstom cries "wtf it matters how many fingers are there! it's whatever number you want!" O'Brien, pleased finally, releases Winston. O'Brien wanted to teach that truth shall not be appealed to in presence of authority, for the only truth is the will of the authority, and when the will changes on a whim, the truth does too.
tlear 4y ago
That would be because they are in fact racists.
wjko21 4y ago
Because they redefined the meaning of word "racism" such that their views are no longer considered racist. Unsurprisingly, that also redefined the meaning of "against racial discrimination". Tl,dr: We no longer understand each other.

by yucky 4y ago

I don't understand, if he wrote an op-ed uncovering racial discrimination in academia, why would people who are (presumably) against racial discrimination want to cancel his lecture?

tablespoon 4y ago

customkitchen 4y ago
If by "the DEI people" you mean "students who were only able to be there because someone made a conscious effort to do diversity outreach" then yes. They would be opposed to someone suggesting that they should stop the outreach so that people like them could no longer be there. His piece (you can read it here: https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-1618419 https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-16...) is more of the same intellectually dismissive rhetoric that we've seen a thousand times before. As usual it's got all the same nonsensical discriminatory suggestions that don't actually help people, like "support charter schools" and "we should use a process based on merit and qualifications alone" and "we should build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone but is also unbiased". And just for fun he suggests at the end that any university even considering how to approach race issues is somehow comparable to nazism. This is just bad writing, I don't blame the students for being upset. Have you noticed how very few students who are actually underprivileged would ever share these views?
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  > If by "the DEI people" you mean "students who were only able to be there because someone made a conscious effort to do diversity outreach" then yes. They would be opposed to someone suggesting that they should stop the outreach so that people like them could no longer be there. This is only half the equation. There's another group of people who excluded on account of their race and gender as part of this "diversity outreach". DEI isn't about inclusion vs. exclusion. Both Abbot and DEI supporters are in favor of including and excluding students. What they disagree on is how this decision is made. Also, how is "we should build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone but is also unbiased" a discriminatory suggestion? That is the total opposite of the message.
  - customkitchen 4y ago
    No, it is not the opposite. That suggestion is just restating the question. They already tried to build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone, and the complaint is how doing that has led to extremely biased results. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing on how the decision is made, but the piece itself is poorly written, intentionally inflammatory, and insulting. There are maybe two valid suggestions buried within a bunch of nonsense, which shouldn't be the case for such a short article. It always disturbs me how anyone is willing to publish these terrible, low quality op-eds. And then when people get angry at them for their writings being low-quality, insulting and inflammatory, they have the nerve to complain that people don't want to hear the rest of their opinions... Instead of, you know, addressing the issue that caused the anger and changing the bad opinions accordingly.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      I think you're still not not getting the point Abbot is making. > They already tried to build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone, and the complaint is how doing that has led to extremely biased results. How did it produce "extremely biased results"? You're being vague here, but I suspect by "biased results" you mean they produced a racial (and perhaps gender) makeup you don't like. Abbot rejects the idea that a non-discriminatory admissions process is biased because it produces student body with the "wrong" racial makeup. His view is that picking a "right" racial makeup and utilizing discrimination to achieve it, is a form of bias. Also how is it "intentionally inflammatory and insulting"? Are you aware that 62% of African Americans do not support the use of race in admissions?[1] Perhaps what's insulting is and admission process that looks like this: https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/1482/90/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20180623_USC932_0.png https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/1482/90/sites/default/f... 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...
      - customkitchen 4y ago
        >You're being vague here, but I suspect by "biased results" you mean they produced a racial (and perhaps gender) makeup you don't like. No, you are completely and utterly wrong on that. This is more of the same intellectually lazy assumptions, please stop this. And I get his point perfectly, it is still insulting and dismissive. When someone starts talking about school vouchers and "merit" in the context of this then it's mostly an admission that they don't know what they're talking about. It has absolutely nothing to do with the problems faced by a school like MIT that already has an extremely low acceptance rate anyway. They know how to test students on academic rigor, that isn't the issue. The fact is, they already cannot accepts all students who pass based on academic merit alone. Your chart even demonstrates that is the case with Harvard, the issue is explicitly not that racial makeup is being considered over academic achievement.
- yucky 4y ago
  >And just for fun he suggests at the end that any university even considering how to approach race issues is somehow comparable to nazism. I wouldn't invoke Godwin here, I think the point may have been to show racial discrimination in general always ends badly. People who support it will always defend their reasons, but in the end doesn't it always lead to divisiveness and suspicion and hatred?

nonethewiser 4y ago

> why would people who are (presumably) against racial discrimination want to cancel his lecture? Because they are not against racial discrimination.

akomtu 4y ago
In 1984, there is a scene at the end where O'Brien (a party member) interrogates and tortures Winston (the main character). He asks him political questions and demands truthful answers, and if he spots that Winston lies to avoid pain, but knows the truth, O'Brien still electrocutes him. At the end O'Brien shows him 4 fingers and asks how many fingers Winston sees. He says 4! And gets electrocuted. Then he says 5, and gets electrocuted again. After many attempts, Winstom cries "wtf it matters how many fingers are there! it's whatever number you want!" O'Brien, pleased finally, releases Winston. O'Brien wanted to teach that truth shall not be appealed to in presence of authority, for the only truth is the will of the authority, and when the will changes on a whim, the truth does too.

tlear 4y ago

That would be because they are in fact racists.

wjko21 4y ago

Because they redefined the meaning of word "racism" such that their views are no longer considered racist. Unsurprisingly, that also redefined the meaning of "against racial discrimination". Tl,dr: We no longer understand each other.