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US Supreme Court poised to ban affirmative action in university admissions
- LatteLazy 4y ago"Poised" seems strong, they're just about to hear the first arguments...
- stop50 4y agoI can see why they used poised. Affirmative action is an tool they use to reduce the inequality caused by historic events (jim crow era). Absolute equality helps only people which start line was moved before others.
- LatteLazy 4y agoPoised means it is about to happen. But I don't think anyone knows which way this case will go. Maybe they will ban it, maybe they will affirm it. No one knows...
- teg4n_ 4y agoYou can make a pretty good prediction based on the people in the court and their political opinions which makes poised an accurate assessment.
- LatteLazy 4y agoAssuming that is true (and I am sympathetic to it) they're still going to spend a few months hearing arguments and then writing it all up. The chances they will give a ruling without going through the motions is basically zero right?
- ReptileMan 4y agoThe biggest losers of the affirmative action are asian Americans.
- jmpman 4y agoI have white cousins who are second generation drug dealer’s children. I have black cousins who are members of the local golf country club. Which one deserves affirmative action to get into college? By every measure, my white cousins are worse off. Sure, neither are Harvard bound. A reliable car, and an apartment in a city with strong job prospects are what my white cousins need, and I try to provide. My black cousin’s need help with their golf short game… so do I.
- hackyhacky 4y agoYou are using anecdotes to disprove data. You know very well that statistically speaking, the argument for affirmative action is in one direction, your own personal acquaintances notwithstanding.
- aetherane 4y agoThat is essentially the core difference in viewpoint, though. Whether to treat people as individuals or broad statistical classes.
- spiderice 4y agoWrong. You’re using data to ignore people’s problems because their skin isn’t the right color. Get rid of affirmative action and replace it with income/poverty level. Basing it off of race will always be racist, and never be fair, as highlighted by GP’s example.
- doubleunplussed 4y agoThat really depends what metrics you think are relevant. On the one hand, the average black person in the US is more disadvantaged than the average white person. That much is true. If you meet a random person, and they are black, statistically they are more disadvantaged than if they were white. On the other hand, I'm fairly sure it's the case that for almost any given threshold of disadvantage, there are numerically more whites below it than blacks, simply because there are more white people in the US than black people. So if you are a university with hypothetical applicants drawn randomly from the population, the majority of the disadvantaged applicants in the pool are white, for most thresholds of disadvantage. A system that treats disadvantaged whites, who are quite numerous, as if they are advantaged, based in the colour of their skin, is incredibly unjust, and creates deserved resentment. Frankly, even if disadvantaged whites were less numerous it is still incredibly unfair. AA based on poverty and socio-economics directly, rather than the colour of one's skin, would be more just (and is more how things are done where I'm from).
- threatofrain 4y agoAre outside observers good at predicting how the Supreme Court settles lower court disagreement?
- hackyhacky 4y agoIn this case, there is no disagreement in the lower court. Both the district court and the appeals court upheld affirmative action.
- indymike 4y agoNo. Two things one should never try to predict: the end of the world and what the Supreme Court will do.
- nerdponx 4y agoI read something recently (maybe on SCOTUSBlog?) about how oral arguments might not have much of an effect on the decision of the court, and that by the time the arguments are heard, the justices have already researched and studied the issue, read the briefs, etc. and likely have already made up their minds. However I don't recall the study methodology or the source, take this with a grain of salt.
- pjc50 4y agoAre they also going to ban other forms of structural bias like legacy admissions?
- version_five 4y agoIt makes sense to start with overt discrimination, that's a lot more clear cut I'd actually go further and say that banning nebulous forms of bias really just makes work for consultants and other rent seeking that tries to craft arguments that some statistical result is or isn't biased. If an organization wants to do that, fine, but government and law should not go down the road of making general rulings on handwavy stuff. In a specific case, the courts are always an option.
- yanderekko 4y agoLawmakers would have to make legacy status a protected class first, presumably.
- zug_zug 4y agoIt's my understanding that these universities aren't selectively admitting people because they are required to due to "protected class," but rather they desire to not have the admissions "overrepresent" certain highly qualified groups (asians and Jews being the biggest groups that are overrepresented iirc). Please correct me if I'm wrong.
- yanderekko 4y agoSure, and racial discrimination is presumptively illegal. Affirmative action is the acceptable carveout to this presumption. These no presumption of legacy admissions being illegal, however...
- zozbot234 4y ago> Affirmative action is the acceptable carveout to this presumption. Note that this is pretty much an urban legend, with little to no basis in law. "Affirmative action" when originally introduced as a standard was very clearly defined as acting to ensure that racial discrimination would not occur. Non-discrimination is, and has always been, the overall goal.
- rdtwo 4y agoNature should stop writing this crap and go back to covering science instead of politics
- nerdponx 4y agoScience lives in universities. It's a relevant issue.
- yucky 4y agoScience lives online. Universities are mostly parasitic at this point, seeking only to maximize their endowments while burdening the youth with debt.
- kennywinker 4y agoUnfortunately science and politics are not actually separable things. People, including the courts and politicians, use biological arguments to justify their policies and opinions. Scientists have to be aware of the political ramifications of their work, and how their work is being used and mis-used.
- mancerayder 4y agoThat sounds like a suspect take. If someone's studying how some plant cells work, or discovering new stars, they're discovering information for the long-term of humanity's collective knowledge. Everything is political, you can't sit still on a moving train, etc. The fascists said that this or that art or science was Jewish art or Jewish science. The Marxists said that this or that art or scientific take was bourgeois art or bourgeois science. What you said about everything being politics reminds of Foucault's arguments, comrade.
- golemotron 4y ago
- sebow 4y agoSadly Nature, AS & other historically-respected journals have became political for some years now. It's kind of sad but that happens when you put money above everything else, including integrity and scientific principles.
- version_five 4y agoIt is, science just means something different now
- rdtwo 4y ago
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoIt looks like Nature still publishes science articles and this is just a different section of the site. https://www.nature.com/nature/research-articles https://www.nature.com/nature/research-articles
- jfengel 4y agoWhich is why they publish articles that affect universities, where scientists are trained.
- welshwelsh 4y agoNature publishes all sorts of stuff outside of the research journals. They have news and opinions, book reviews, even science fiction.
- eternalban 4y agoPolicy changes that will affect academic institutions that produce scientists are of immediate interest to the readers of Nature.
- spamizbad 4y ago
- endisneigh 4y agoMy expectation is 5-4 with kavanaugh dissenting to majority to keep affirmative action in place. Kavanaugh explicitly has only female clerks in order to help resolve the systemic inequality, so ideologically I would expect him to go for it.
- CamperBob2 4y agoKavanaugh explicitly has only female clerks in order to help resolve the systemic inequality Well, that could certainly be one reason.
- justahuman74 4y agoChoosing to only hire from one gender seems like discrimination
- OJFord 4y ago'affirmative action' (sometimes 'positive action', 'positive discrimination') per the title is exactly that - discriminating the 'other' way to try to balance the scales as it were. (I'm not saying it's good, personally I think it's a bad approach to a good goal. Would likely never be in my favour though, so pinch of salt etc.)
- headsoup 4y agoIt's going to work initially, but I've never seen it have the clause that 'this will result in equality once we hit the correct percentages' or that 'AA will finish at this point' because that second stage is difficult and will rip off the band-aid.
- MarkMc 4y agoIsn't that illegal when it comes to hiring employees?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- thrillgore 4y agoThe approval rating for the Supreme Court has never been lower. https://news.gallup.com/poll/402044/supreme-court-trust-job-approval-historical-lows.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/402044/supreme-court-trust-job-...
- peterhadlaw 4y agoThankfully approval rating has nothing to do with Constitutionality.
- hackyhacky 4y ago... and constitutionality has nothing to do with the SCOTUS decisions.
- peterhadlaw 4y agoTheir job is to find it, not court (pun intended) approval rating.
- hackyhacky 4y agoThe job of SCOTUS is to make a decision. Whether or not that decision has anything to do with the Constitution is anyone's guess. And in the case that their decision clearly defies the Constitution, there is nothing that anyone can do about it. In other words, like every other part of the government, their real job is politics. The only difference between SCOTUS and Congress is that the former is conveniently shielded from public opinion.
- skissane 4y ago> And in the case that their decision clearly defies the Constitution, How can anything “clearly” defy the US Constitution, when it is drafted in such vague and sweeping language? (Not just the original document, even moreso later additions such as the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment.) If the framers of the document didn’t want to give SCOTUS such immense discretion to decide what it means, they should have written it with more details, precision, elaboration - which would have narrowed the Court’s hermeneutic freedom.
- throwaway29439 4y ago
- Hikikomori 4y agoClarence Thomas himself was a victim of affirmative action, only fair that he is part of removing it I guess.
- jacobolus 4y agoClarence Thomas was a beneficiary of the “affirmative action” afforded to underqualified so-called conservatives in law schools, clerkships, judicial appointments, and the legal profession in general. The Federalist Society is more or less an affirmative action program. It has gotten to the point now that ambitious law students pretend to to far-right ideological positions they don’t hold just because the competition for clerkships is so much easier among who suck up to these extremists.
- Apocryphon 4y ago> The Federalist Society is more or less an affirmative action program. In the same way that legacy admissions are probably the most powerful affirmative action system, perhaps.
- Dig1t 4y agoIf this actually happens, what will the demographics at top universities end up looking like?
- bparsons 4y ago
- ryan93 4y agoHow many asians were in that class?
- MichaelCollins 4y agoThat makes no sense at all. The demographics of America have changed substantially between then and now.
- Izkata 4y agoPer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_d... I wouldn't call that "substantially". For the most part it looks like "mixed race", "other", and "asian" displaced "white" since then (with no hint of how much "mixed race" is partial-white). "Black" and "native" has barely budged.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> (with no hint of how much "mixed race" is partial-white) You mean people like Obama? Guess he counts as basically white in your book, because he's "mixed race" and partial-white? I guess you figure Obama as president was not "substantially" different from Eisenhower being president in the 50s, both are basically white right?
- Izkata 4y agoGreat example of interpreting my words in the worst possible way! What about Elizabeth Warren? Is she white, native american, or mixed race? My point there was that these are self-identifying labels on the census, and "two or more races" wasn't even an option until 2000, so that option can't be compared to 1960 - we have no way of knowing how many of them would have picked "white" vs the others.
- manv1 4y agoRace in the US tends to be a proxy for class. Instead of using race as a factor, they can just use family income as a factor. Is "race" (and its manifestations) is a protected class? I'm not sure what the law says. If so technically you're not supposed to use it, because the 14th amendment (which is what AA is based on) mandates "equal protection." Reverse discrimination isn't equal protection. That said, racial politics in the US are all weird. First there was no such thing as race, then suddenly everyone was using race for everything, and now only white people can't use racial terms. WTF? As a POC, I'm always amazed at how well advocates manipulate everyone to get what they want. Liberal white people are ridiculously easy to guilt trip, and they keep falling for the same old shit time after time. It's pathetic.
- renonn 4y ago“Liberal white people are ridiculously easy to guilt trip” It’s more that they are terrified to talk about it because they risk being fired from their job and losing everything for talking about it. And they’re also not allowed to talk about how they are not allowed to talk about it. So this is the way it comes out.
- secondcoming 4y agoYup, keep your head down. Accept everything you're told even if you agree with it or not. There is nothing to be gained by asking questions.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoThis frightens me because it sounds like the setup for a preference cascade, where everybody realizes that they aren't alone, that everybody else thinks as they do. Suddenly the familiar order inverts almost overnight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification#Generating_surprise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification#Gener...
- int_19h 4y ago
- 015UUZn8aEvW 4y agoWhy does this article capitalize the word "Black" but not "white"?
- abeyer 4y agoNot this publication, but most discussions I've seen of this use essentially the same points: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php
- bequanna 4y ago> White carries a different set of meanings; capitalizing the word in this context risks following the lead of white supremacists. Just… wow. This is some next level nonsense.
- int_19h 4y agoAt the end of the article there's a little note: "This piece has been updated for clarity. An earlier version included an explanation that was off-base". I got curious and looked up the initial version on the Internet Archive, and it was that paragraph that changed in the most drastic way. The original said: "AT THE COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW, we capitalize Black, and not white, when referring to racial groups. Black is an ethnic designation; white merely describes the skin color of people who can, usually without much difficulty, trace their ethnic origins back to a handful of European countries." As you've noticed, this became: "AT THE COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW, we capitalize Black, and not white, when referring to groups in racial, ethnic, or cultural terms. For many people, Black reflects a shared sense of identity and community. White carries a different set of meanings; capitalizing the word in this context risks following the lead of white supremacists."
- zugi 4y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong but this seems to have just started a few years ago? Suddenly news publications all started capitalizing "Black". Maybe it was to provide parity with ethnic groups named after locations with proper nouns, like Asians, Hispanics, Indians, Pacific Islanders, etc.? Of course a decade or two ago there was a push towards "African American", which has two capital letters, but that didn't quite catch on. If White people want to be capitalized, maybe we can call them "Euros"?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- incomingpain 4y agoThe nature article, moreso political opinion, fails to point out: The supreme court isn't even ruling on this opinion take. The supreme court has already ruled its illegal if an unqualified person receives benefits over a qualified person. Which is an important point the article completely fails to address. The current case is in such situations where that law was violated. Which is common knowledge now. Affirmative action placing unqualified people into schools they should not be in, leads to them racking up debt and flunking out of the school. This has been detrimental to the minorities they propose to be helping. The large problem of racism is when you ban the racist, they imagine a new legal way to harm minorities. These racists need to be stopped and banning affirmative action is how you do it.
- UberFly 4y agoAdmissions everywhere should be blind to color and privileged influence. There's no way to apply affirmative action without racial discriminating. Scholarships though should be weighted towards those who actually need it.
- nerdponx 4y agoThere is a school of thought that specifically decries being "color blind" as complicity in oppression.
- bequanna 4y agoThose sound like the same people who would like to make “micro aggressions” illegal.
- 627467 4y agoThere's school of thoughts on many (infinite?) things.
- nerdponx 4y agoBut only a few of them have taken hold over institutional decision makers.
- annexrichmond 4y agoLol being “color blind” went from being championed to deemed racist itself so quickly in the US
- nathanaldensr 4y agoThat's because it's not--and never was--about any kind of logical, rational argument. There is only people seeking power, looking to exploit any historical injustice, differences between people, and institutional behavior to gain power over others.
- 4y ago
- wnevets 4y agoThere is going to be a certain percentage of the voting population who is going to be very upset in a few years after they found out just how much AA has been helping their admission numbers [1]. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-affirmative-action-and-asian-americans https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-uncomfortable-t...
- koheripbal 4y agoThe ivy league admissions process is incredibly corrupt and broken. I worked as the IT person in an top ivy league admissions department when I was younger and got to know the admissions officers very well. There are many factors in admissions, but race is a very key factor. I remember one choice comment one of the admissions officers said to me ("If I see one more white kid from New York with a 4.0, I'm going to start throwing them straight in the trash"). None of the admissions officers were white, Asian, or Indian (as I was), and all were very comfortable talking about how they tried not to admit such candidates. After all, incoming classes need to have a certain percentage of specific minorities. Interestingly, because these schools look to raise GLOBAL leaders, those quotas must represent global race proportions (with a couple of exceptions). The other revelation was the vast number of students admitted from "the list". A list of students whose application is pre-approved for admission by the dean. These are children of benefactors, employees, and teachers, and each of their close friends and relatives. It doesn't sound so bad until you realize it amounts to about 20% of each incoming class! Such students can only be rejected if the admissions officer writes a letter to the dean explaining why. None of the admissions officers had ever written one. Of course, since most of the students on the list are white, they become the majority of white students admitted.
- robg 4y agoHonest question: why don’t universities use socioeconomic status (SES) alone for admissions? Don’t they get IRS docs for financial aid? And given that disparities tied to SES affect child development and opportunities.
- sokoloff 4y agoThey get information from the FAFSA form from some students. (If I don’t expect to get any substantial aid, I don’t plan to participate in FAFSA process as it’ll have no benefit to our family and is none of the schools’ business otherwise.) To the extent any SES-sourced disparities have left a given student less scholastically prepared than the school’s standard, should the admission action be to admit or reject? FAFSA - https://studentaid.gov/apply-for-aid/fafsa/filling-out https://studentaid.gov/apply-for-aid/fafsa/filling-out
- twobitshifter 4y agoThere are structural inequities in society than benefit one group more than another. Jamal’s family could make the same money as John’s but the world they meet at birth is not the same.
- bequanna 4y agoJust say what you really want: Equality of Outcome You know, the system that puts less qualified people over more qualified people for no other reason than virtue signaling. The feel good system that kills competitiveness, decreases efficiency and slows progress.
- twobitshifter 4y agoWhy is looking at income disparity okay, but not other disparities? I understand a less stratified and segregated society provides a better life for everyone, and do think that education is the tool to counteract bias. There’s typically 5 types of stratification, economic, social, gender, race, and ethnicity. To just choose economic as the only focus really does not make sense to me.
- greenthrow 4y agoWow this is the worst comments section I have seen in the history of HN. How about people take a minute to look at what the actual effects of affirmative action at universities had been instead of just trotting out tedious talking points? All the comments about "I thought Nature was a science journal" are so silly. Sociology is a science.
- mancerayder 4y agoHard science or soft science? Biology and Physics are hard sciences because you can make falsifiable claims and predictions. Sociology and criminal justice aren't, because they don't lend themselves to the same. It doesn't mean they're invalid. Most liberal arts disciplines involve a lot of essay writing and reading opinion pieces. Sure, there is the analytical argumentation, there are sound and unsound arguments, interesting claims worthy of consideration.
- goodrubyist 4y agoTrying to influence the racial make-up of a class is, let's admit it, loathsome racial engineering.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- yieldcrv 4y agoSince people keep getting the implementation of affirmative action wrong, it should be scrapped and replaced with something else. Most people's experience and opinions of affirmative action are based on bad implementations. You aren't supposed to hire candidates based on any form of quota or race or protected class. This is what keeps happening and has sowed disdain across all society. The guidance is lacking and the people with power to change it are all afraid of talking about it.
- rayiner 4y agoIt’s going to be really cringy watching liberals call out Thomas for having “internalized white supremacy” for agreeing with the majority of Black people that race should “not be a factor” in college 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...
- leoh 4y agoReminder that the UC system hasn't had affirmative action for decades -- not saying good or bad, just a source of data