7 ms·

I so hope this is struck down. ""Americans have come to view diversity as integral to learning and to trust that the path to leadership is open to all," lawyer

• epgui 4y ago
  What happened to it refers to a concept called the meritocracy trap.
  • kennend3 4y ago
    Let's say you need open heart surgery. Doctor one has a 3.9 GPA from Harvard medical. Doctor two barely passed your state's medical school Which do you want doing your operation? The "meritocracy trap" often caves into "wealth and privilege" and this is not meritocracy.
    • whimsicalism 4y ago
      Those signals are not as important to being a successful surgeon as you think.
      • VLM 4y ago
        The problem with redefining, such as redefining success, is it eliminates any possibility of a conversation.
        • whimsicalism 4y ago
          Your comment is opaque. As far as I know, a successful surgical operation is generally pretty cut and dry. No redefining here.
          • VLM 4y ago
            I mean with reference to a sophistry technique to shut down discussion. Were the individual example to be computer scientists instead of surgeons, then the definition of a successful computer scientist can be redefined to a suitable outcome as proof that racial discrimination does not harm consumers of surgeons or computer scientists. Its avoiding the core discussion via wordplay. Furthermore if no individual example were provided then the sophistry method would be to complain there is no specific example of an individual being harmed therefore there is no harm and racial discrimination is an inherently good process.
            • whimsicalism 4y ago
              Sure, I get the phenomenon you are describing. It is unclear how this relates to my comment. My comment is merely that the criterion you are mentioning is actually not a great one for selecting who to perform surgery on you.
    • anotherman554 4y ago
      Since we're talking about surgery, wouldn't hand-eye coordination be more important than the GPA from Harvard medical?
      • polski-g 4y ago
        If Harvard graded appropriately, then GPA would be a proxy for hand-eye coordination.
        • anotherman554 4y ago
          I don't know why you believe the purpose of medical school is to predict how good a doctor is at surgery. Most doctors aren't going to be surgeons. I've never been to med school but my understanding is you learn how to be a doctor in residency, where there are no grades. Medical school gives you theoretical knowledge but not the practical knowledge you need to actually do the work.
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    • tsimionescu 4y ago
      Well, someone will get either doctor. Whichever I get is essentially down to luck, so why does this question matter?
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      • orangepurple 4y ago
        Lots of people don't care about what doctor they get. I have heard endless stories from doctors that see patients all day where so many patients don't care about their own health to the point of having limbs amputated and shrugging it off like its no big deal. Or having complications from diabetes and declining free-to-them care. Not taking medication. There are so many of these people. They seem to be mostly on Medicare from the stories. If you care about your health there are options out there unless you have to deal with the VA because of your coverage. Then you're genuinely screwed. For those that don't care about their care there are reasonable defaults available.
        • tsimionescu 4y ago
          Are you claiming that only the 3.9 GPA Harvard doctor is able to function in their profession?
          • orangepurple 4y ago
            No
    • nradov 4y ago
      Studies have shown that surgery outcomes are highly correlated with experience in that particular procedure. So if I needed a heart bypass operation, I would want the surgeon who does 5 of them every week and nothing else. Where they attended medical school is unimportant. You might have a stronger argument in other medical specialties where theory is more important. But heart surgeons are more like athletes in a way.
      • kennend3 4y ago
        SO.. tell us what would allow a surgeon to start operating in the first place? You simply presented a chicken and egg problem... Does the mediocre surgeon get all the surgeries and therefor become excellent at it?
        • snovv_crash 4y ago
          We should do what pilots have to do: start with simulators, then move to copilot, then primary pilot with an experienced copilot, then finally primary with inexperienced copilot. The medical system gets the later parts right, but there are no simulation components at the beginning. IMO it would even be helpful for surgeons to do some time as carpenter, mechanic, fitter/turner etc for some time to really drill the hand/eye before they start on humans.
          • kennend3 4y ago
            > We should do what pilots have to do: start with simulators, then move to copilot, then primary pilot with an experienced copilot, then finally primary with inexperienced copilot. T And this is EXACLY what they do, using cadavers, schooling, and internships. Their work on cadavers is graded, much like most of what they do. This goes back full circle, grades do have an input into the quality of a surgeon. It may not be the "best" or "only" indicator but it shouldnt be outright discounted. People with high GPA's work hard to get them and have a high level of understanding of the topics at hand. My ex is excellent in math and always scored very high on tests, but she is not very practical. If i a math problem i'd have full confidence her answer was correct. If i asked her some non-math questions my trust would be adjusted.
    • gilbetron 4y ago
      The Doctor that has performed the most open heart surgeries, which is probably one of the two that passed the state's medical school.
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    • pevey 4y ago
      I would want the one with the best track record of outcomes for the specific surgery that I needed.
      • emiliobumachar 4y ago
        Me too. Unfortunately new doctors have to start practicing every now and then, or we'll run out of experienced ones. Which new surgeon would you prefer.
    • adolph 4y ago
      outcomes > preferences Contrary to the a priori hypothesis that care would be compromised by so many of the top cardiologists being gone, they find that adjusted mortality for high-risk heart failure and cardiac arrest is lower at teaching hospitals during the cardiology meetings than during the rest of the year. And although patients were less likely to get a percutaneous coronary intervention for a myocardial infarction during the convention times, there was no associated decrement on myocardial infarction–associated mortality. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2038976 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
    • CJefferson 4y ago
      Two students are under consideration to get into University to become surgeons. One student went to the most expensive private school and had private tuition. They recieved AAABB. Anothers student went to a poor school and never had private tuition and recieved ABBBB. Which should be accepted for a single University place?
      • dixie_land 4y ago
        The one with more As. Standardized tests are actually one of the most fair ways to evaluate two candidates. y = mx + b regardless of your skin color or family wealth. Is it perfect? no; is it more fair than the alternatives? I think so
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    • fzeroracer 4y ago
      The best engineers I've worked with were ones that performed terribly at college, so I'm not sure about using GPA as a proxy for how well they perform in the workforce.
    • jmull 4y ago
      Uh... I (and everyone else) wants the one who is the best heart surgeon!!! Ask the wrong question and you will rarely get the right answer. Good lord, this really encapsulates the level of this debate, and how it is about anything but actual merit.
    • epgui 4y ago
      This is a funny example because I'm probably the only person in this thread who went to medical school (MD programme in Canada, but did not complete or obtain my degree), and I think this is a bad example. The meritocracy trap obviously does not imply that competence/merit does not matter: it implies only that we should be much more careful and critical about whether we measure competence/merit fairly and properly, especially a posteriori. I would say that your example illustrates a very shortsighted conception of competence/merit.
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• bushbaba 4y ago
  Merit admissions never existed. Affirmative action is just the modern way to discriminate https://news.stanford.edu/report/2022/10/12/task-force-report-jewish-admissions-and-jewish-life/ https://news.stanford.edu/report/2022/10/12/task-force-repor...
• arberx 4y ago
  A true meritocracy wouldn't be a friendly world to live in. Think about the current state of education. Parents with resources over-optimize their kids' education because they understand the inefficiencies in the system and/or understand what it takes to become successful in our society.
  • xdavidliu 4y ago
    some may argue that affirmative action, as it currently is implemented, does not directly address disparities in resources, but rather uses race as a proxy for resources (which would be controversial)
  • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Parents with resources over-optimize their kids' education because they understand the inefficiencies in the system and/or understand what it takes to become successful in our society This is a perfectly fine response to meritocratic pressure. With tuning to ensure the response is productive learning, versus e.g. rote memorisation, the outcome should be a more-productive citizenry. In any event, the case is about race-based affirmative action. Nobody is going after means-based anything.
    • ericmay 4y ago
      I'm not sure about how I feel about Affirmative Action and I do appreciate another member's suggestion to look at socio-economic background. But is this really our goal? > should be a more-productive citizenry I'm not sure I care that much about that. Especially w.r.t college admissions. If you wanted to be more productive you'd not even send many people to college in the first place and just have them go straight into the labor force.
      • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > wanted to be more productive you'd not even send many people to college in the first place and just have them go straight into the labor force This is incorrect. The question of education's impact on GDP per capita is thoroughly researched [1][2][3]. When one broadens to measuring living standards, the results get starker. [1] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/60b0/ad7223c9ba54c73af7d3327476d51fe05933.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/60b0/ad7223c9ba54c73af7d332... [2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09654313.2018.1480707 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09654313.2018.14... [3] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ma-Wadud/publication/4804496_Relationship_between_education_and_GDP_growth_A_mutivariate_causality_analysis_for_Bangladesh/links/02e7e5376ce5d9b26f000000/Relationship-between-education-and-GDP-growth-A-mutivariate-causality-analysis-for-Bangladesh.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ma-Wadud/publication/48...
• filoleg 4y ago
  I think the correct move here is not to go full-on "merit-based access", but change the affirmative action to be based on socio-economic status. Boom, you just solved the issue the race-based AA was claiming to address, but by going directly to the source of the problem (socio-economic inequality). I am not saying this out of some abstract concern about asian kids with perfect scores failing to get admitted to Harvard. While that's definitely a problem, imagine how much more difficult it is for asian kids from poor socio-economic backgrounds to get literally into any decent college. They dont have the socio-economic advantage of upper-middle class asian kids, but have all the disadvantages of coming from a poor family AND then get shafted by race-based affirmative action on top of that. This is just plain disgusting in my eyes. I realize that this approach might fail to address everything perfectly, but it is better than race-based AA on literally every single measurable metric. So we might as well switch to that, while in search of a "perfect" solution.
  • adastra22 4y ago
    That already exists. Universities have quotas for a certain number of poor kids and/or first generation college applicants. Race-based affirmative action is a separate category of discrimination.
  • r00fus 4y ago
    While I mostly agree - can't this be gamed (see what people do to qualify for MediCAL in CA), though?
    • filoleg 4y ago
      Maybe some tiny percentage of wealthy can game it, i honestly dont know much about MediCAL to addres it directly. However, I would much rather have a tiny percentage of wealthy game it, than a much larger number of poor people of the "wrong race" getting shafted and another number of wealthy people of the "right race" "gaming" it. Because race is pretty deterministic, you don't need to game anything. Poor people of "wrong races" get hurt by the current AA system heavily. While under AA based on socio-economic status, at least the poor won't get screwed over.
  • 4y ago
• michael1999 4y ago
  Why is your concern for merit focused on this vs legacy preferences?
• InTheArena 4y ago
  Merit is derided as a concept by people who wish to discriminate to meet a goal. I view this as misguided because while people who wish to discriminate often have good intentions(theoretically discrimination simply means "recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another" after all) it's emblematic of the difficulties of discrimination that the most prevalent description of discrimination is "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex." I would say merit is a goal - it's never achieved as an end state and requires constant vigilance to stop entrenched powers from corrupting it.
• awb 4y ago
  > What ever happened to access based on merit? It’s a complex problem. If the process of evaluating someone’s merits is biased or restricted in some way, then the merits are an inaccurate way of evaluating them. We’ve seen this exaggerated throughout history. If you deny groups the opportunity to learn how to read then they appear less competent based on their “merits”. When you then take those groups and give them the opportunity to learn how to read, then their “merits” improve over time. But it’s complex because no two students are the same, nor are any two reading teachers, nor any two reading tests. So, rather than making it unconstitutional to enfranchise groups, I hope the court comes up with some sort of test to see if a group remains disenfranchised or not. But that’s also an incredibly complex problem.
  • nradov 4y ago
    How do you define a group, and determine whether an individual is inside or outside that group?
    • awb 4y ago
      Right, it can be tricky and no method would be perfect. Sometimes courts when faced with an inherently ambiguous problem use a “reasonableness test”, which is basically taking it on a case by case basis and deferring to the current cultural climate to call BS on suspect claims.
• fassssst 4y ago
  Equal opportunity is more important than whatever “merit” means.
  • weberer 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it means.
  • nsxwolf 4y ago
    What is the opportunity being equalized? To physically occupy the same buildings as high achieving individuals? Lower performing applicants aren't going to be taking the same classes and are not going to be achieving the same scores. I wasn't a high performing student either. Where was my equal opportunity to attend an Ivy League?
• Miner49er 4y ago
  Including race (among other factors) is more of a meritocracy then not, in my opinion. To fully calculate merit, schools should consider challenges and starting points for students. Students who had to overcome more difficulty to get where they are have more merit then students who are at the same place, but had an easier path to get there. I'm not sure how much race plays an impact on difficulty of academic achievement, but I'm sure there's data on it that Universities are using. Black students, on average, probably have to overcome more adversity, since racism does exist. Being able to include that in admissions should mean more of a meritocracy, not less.
• crispyambulance 4y ago
  > What ever happened to access based on merit? For the context of this case, don't forget we're talking about Harvard. This school, if they wanted, could limit themselves to selecting ONLY from applicants with PERFECT test scores, PEREFECT GPA's, ideal extracurriculars and still have far too many applicants than they could admit. They would then have to resort to either a lottery system to select randomly from this pool of perfect applicants or maybe come up with ever more extreme and rarefied criteria to select the "best" from "perfect". Is that the way to go? Many don't think so.
  • geraldwhen 4y ago
    Sounds fair to me. And Harvard admission would mean something.
• fzeroracer 4y ago
  Here's a spicy take: Merit mostly doesn't exist. In order to invent the concept of merit (for college admissions anyways), you need to weigh colleges, universities, high schools etc with varying degrees of power which inherently is extremely subjective. Is someone earning say, a 3.0 at Harvard better than someone that earned a 4.0 at state? What about the highschool student that graduated with perfect As in a lax highschool? Do you consider AP classes more valuable over the student that took college classes instead? How do you address the fact that these sort of things disproportionately affect different minority groups? If you start taking a lot of these factors into mind, you end up with something very similar to affirmative action. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.
• deleted 4y ago
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• kashunstva 4y ago
  > Whatever happened to access based on merit? Families with more resources apply those resources to the creation of apparent “merit.” Violin lessons, Kumon, French tutors, international travel. The mythology that what we call merit arises de novo with each subsequent generation is pervasive indeed. This investment process is intergenerational wealth transfer by another name; it’s just paid on the front end instead of the back end. Whether university admission is the right locus of intervention or not is an open question; but kidding ourselves that merit exists solely as a stand-alone property separate from the developmental opportunities purchased by parents is a commonly-held belief that undermines advancement; but I suppose it makes us feel better about the structure of society. But if we were serious about allowing equal opportunity for merit to emerge we’d intervene much earlier than university admission. But then again, I doubt you’d find a consensus about what a just society would look like.
• notacoward 4y ago
  The problem with "meritocracy" has always been that so many of its proponents never define "merit". Often they don't even have a specific definition in mind; they just know it as a term that's aligned with other parts of their favorite ideology. Sometimes they do have a definition, but also know that it's too obviously tied to legacies of inequity and discrimination. Nobody likes to admit that they're a neo-feudalist. True merit is hard to define and even harder to measure. As another commenter has already pointed out, that measurement has to include challenges and circumstances overcome. Unfortunately, those don't easily reduce to numbers. Sure, we can measure income or wealth, but how do we measure the impact of being denied opportunities to prove oneself? Of being dragged down by family and friends who need help because of the discrimination they also face? Of living in a place with poor schools, poor food, poor health care, for the same reasons? Note that some of these can apply to (especially rural) white people as well as others, but they remain hard to measure. All we're left with is statistical measures and proportions, which will inevitably result in some errors. No matter what policy is enacted, those errors make it easy to complain about quotas and tokenism. Responses are possible, but less compelling. So we end up back to the fake meritocracy of grades and test scores. "What can we do" say the people who have already benefited and will continue to benefit from a system that ignores systemic inequality.