4 ms·

About time. The whole idea behind it is stupid and racist... "if you're a certain skin color, you're too stupid, to compete on merit"... then when people compl

About time. The whole idea behind it is stupid and racist... "if you're a certain skin color, you're too stupid, to compete on merit"... then when people complain, they add the "socioeconomic" factors: "if you're a certain color, you're too poor to compete on merit, but instead of looking at your family income, we'll look at your skin color". I have no idea how something like this gets support in developed western countries.

tyho 4y ago
That is because the gaps persist when controlling for income. The gaps actually increase the higher up the income scale you go! This happens in a democracy because whilst a tiny minority of people care about principles, most people care about power. AA empowered the right people so happened. It's a mistake to try to understand its justification from a first principles approach.
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  On average, yes. But many things are multimodal and the average doesn't actually represent very many real people.
petilon 4y ago
> "if you're a certain skin color, you're too stupid, to compete on merit" Hold on. You realize Harvard's policies have historically been designed to favor Whites, right? The whole "holistic review" process was invented to favor Whites. See https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/history-privilege-elite-college-admissions/585088/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/histor...
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Sounds like they've been excluding Asian students for a long time then.
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  Specifically, it was invented because Jewish people performed too well on objective metrics and of course we cannot have too many Jews. So they did away with those pesky objective metrics and came up with an opaque system that no one could easily audit but at the same time they could easily apply their racial biases On a completely separate and unrelated note Harvard is also getting rid of objective metrics now.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Overtonwindow 4y ago
It gets support because it gets votes. If Democratic voters weren’t asking for affirmative action, the Democratic Party would not pursue it, regardless if it’s bad policy or not, it’s pandering to the base.
jimbokun 4y ago
> I have no idea how something like this gets support in developed western countries. In the US at least, it doesn't. Affirmative action proposals are consistently rejected by voters and in opinion pools, across races. Seems like it mainly has support in university admissions offices.

tyho 4y ago

That is because the gaps persist when controlling for income. The gaps actually increase the higher up the income scale you go! This happens in a democracy because whilst a tiny minority of people care about principles, most people care about power. AA empowered the right people so happened. It's a mistake to try to understand its justification from a first principles approach.

snovv_crash 4y ago
On average, yes. But many things are multimodal and the average doesn't actually represent very many real people.

petilon 4y ago

> "if you're a certain skin color, you're too stupid, to compete on merit" Hold on. You realize Harvard's policies have historically been designed to favor Whites, right? The whole "holistic review" process was invented to favor Whites. See https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/history-privilege-elite-college-admissions/585088/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/histor...

hot_gril 4y ago
Sounds like they've been excluding Asian students for a long time then.
cuteboy19 4y ago
Specifically, it was invented because Jewish people performed too well on objective metrics and of course we cannot have too many Jews. So they did away with those pesky objective metrics and came up with an opaque system that no one could easily audit but at the same time they could easily apply their racial biases On a completely separate and unrelated note Harvard is also getting rid of objective metrics now.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Overtonwindow 4y ago

It gets support because it gets votes. If Democratic voters weren’t asking for affirmative action, the Democratic Party would not pursue it, regardless if it’s bad policy or not, it’s pandering to the base.

jimbokun 4y ago

> I have no idea how something like this gets support in developed western countries. In the US at least, it doesn't. Affirmative action proposals are consistently rejected by voters and in opinion pools, across races. Seems like it mainly has support in university admissions offices.