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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 t

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.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    > No, you are completely and utterly wrong on that. This is more of the same intellectually lazy assumptions, please stop this. Then can you explain what was biased about an admissions process that does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, and other identity characteristics, if it wasn't the demographics of the student body? It's still vague how a race-agnostic admissions process would be biased. > 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. I'm not sure how one arrives at this conclusion. An African American student in the 4th decile (as in, is scoring above 40% of students and below 60% of students) has the same chances at admission at an Asian student in the top decile. Even at that top of the academic performance an Asian applicant has a ~15% chance at admission while an African American student at the same academic performance has nearly a 60% chance at admission. There is nowhere near equal chances at admission between racial groups at the same academic performance. The fact that they have many more qualified applicants doesn't make their admission practices any less discriminatory. If I have 500 qualified white applicants and 5,000 qualified Asian applicants and I admit 100 whites and 100 Asians have I not discriminated against Asians? Just because I'm picking both from the same qualified pool doesn't change the fact that I'm making a 10x disparity favoring whites.

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.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  > No, you are completely and utterly wrong on that. This is more of the same intellectually lazy assumptions, please stop this. Then can you explain what was biased about an admissions process that does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, and other identity characteristics, if it wasn't the demographics of the student body? It's still vague how a race-agnostic admissions process would be biased. > 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. I'm not sure how one arrives at this conclusion. An African American student in the 4th decile (as in, is scoring above 40% of students and below 60% of students) has the same chances at admission at an Asian student in the top decile. Even at that top of the academic performance an Asian applicant has a ~15% chance at admission while an African American student at the same academic performance has nearly a 60% chance at admission. There is nowhere near equal chances at admission between racial groups at the same academic performance. The fact that they have many more qualified applicants doesn't make their admission practices any less discriminatory. If I have 500 qualified white applicants and 5,000 qualified Asian applicants and I admit 100 whites and 100 Asians have I not discriminated against Asians? Just because I'm picking both from the same qualified pool doesn't change the fact that I'm making a 10x disparity favoring whites.