3 ms·

Expanding the size of enrollment isn't just something that can flipped like a switch. One cannot simply build a high-rise dormitory without increasing the capac

by btown 4y ago

Expanding the size of enrollment isn't just something that can flipped like a switch. One cannot simply build a high-rise dormitory without increasing the capacity of all other facilities in lockstep - and a university designed to be fully walkable can only accommodate so much simultaneous construction. And more generally, you have the use of applicants' race backwards - the entire point of affirmative action is to take into account an applicant's merit-based performance relative to the opportunities they received growing up - and it is difficult to evaluate this fairly without taking into account the opportunities that might have been denied to the applicant as a result of their race. To put it another way, two hypothetical applicants from two families with different races but equivalent wealth etc. in the same community may have been treated incredibly differently based on their race. An admissions office forced to be "blind" to an applicant describing this discrepancy in opportunity would be less effective at evaluating applicants based on merit.

Overtonwindow 4y ago
Ivy schools have some of the largest endowments, rivaling the GDP of some small countries. If Harvard, and Yale were serious about diversity, they would let people attend for free.
- legitster 4y ago
  Ummm, they largely do.
- naniwaduni 4y ago
  If they admit you in the first place, they pretty much do, which was indeed a pretty salient perk of the top-tier colleges among the Asian immigrant parent crowd, at least a decade or two back. For a particular cohort of second-gens, you were going to an "elite" institution or you were going to state—the family finances weren't going to support sticker price without a near-full scholarship.
legitster 4y ago
> A university designed to be fully walkable can only accommodate so much simultaneous construction. Well, your implication here is that accessible, affordable colleges are clearly a second-rate experience. I'm not necessarily disagreeing here, but it's something academia themselves have not admitted. Your example forgets that they are still allowed to look at financial/hardship data to determine merit. So presuming that someone with identical upbringing must have had a harder life because of the color of their skin only exists to perpetuate bias.
- btown 4y ago
  Financial and legal hardship data are often insufficient. For instance, see the various examples listed in https://twitter.com/samspital/status/1587084634193596419 https://twitter.com/samspital/status/1587084634193596419 (citations in footnotes around PDF page 23 of https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022-07-22-FINAL-Harvard-Student-Alum-Orgs-Amicus-Brief.pdf https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022-07-22-FINAL...). I'd certainly like to live in a world where students of the same age, with the same family income/savings etc., with the same teachers and classrooms, with equally supportive parents, would have equivalent opportunities throughout their K-12 careers. In such a world, I would indeed be the one "perpetuating bias" with my comment. But we live in a world where the race of those students, controlling for everything else, is statistically shown to have an impact on things we'd generally agree are an important part of a child's learning experience. Now, we might reasonably disagree on whether admissions departments are overreaching in trying to ensure that their merit-based decisions take these factors into account. And we might reasonably disagree as to whether the government should have the ability to intervene if such overreach were found to exist. But the idea that any of this is only being done to perpetuate bias, ignores the fact that bias already exists.
JamesBarney 4y ago
> relative to the opportunities they received growing up There are so many better ways to do this than race, and they have zero interest in looking at any them. Measures that are both more accurate and more objective like. Do your parents have a college degree? What's you family income? What opportunities that affect GPA/SAT are going to be denied to anyone because of their race?

by btown 4y ago

Overtonwindow 4y ago

Ivy schools have some of the largest endowments, rivaling the GDP of some small countries. If Harvard, and Yale were serious about diversity, they would let people attend for free.

legitster 4y ago
Ummm, they largely do.
naniwaduni 4y ago
If they admit you in the first place, they pretty much do, which was indeed a pretty salient perk of the top-tier colleges among the Asian immigrant parent crowd, at least a decade or two back. For a particular cohort of second-gens, you were going to an "elite" institution or you were going to state—the family finances weren't going to support sticker price without a near-full scholarship.

legitster 4y ago

> A university designed to be fully walkable can only accommodate so much simultaneous construction. Well, your implication here is that accessible, affordable colleges are clearly a second-rate experience. I'm not necessarily disagreeing here, but it's something academia themselves have not admitted. Your example forgets that they are still allowed to look at financial/hardship data to determine merit. So presuming that someone with identical upbringing must have had a harder life because of the color of their skin only exists to perpetuate bias.

btown 4y ago
Financial and legal hardship data are often insufficient. For instance, see the various examples listed in https://twitter.com/samspital/status/1587084634193596419 https://twitter.com/samspital/status/1587084634193596419 (citations in footnotes around PDF page 23 of https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022-07-22-FINAL-Harvard-Student-Alum-Orgs-Amicus-Brief.pdf https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022-07-22-FINAL...). I'd certainly like to live in a world where students of the same age, with the same family income/savings etc., with the same teachers and classrooms, with equally supportive parents, would have equivalent opportunities throughout their K-12 careers. In such a world, I would indeed be the one "perpetuating bias" with my comment. But we live in a world where the race of those students, controlling for everything else, is statistically shown to have an impact on things we'd generally agree are an important part of a child's learning experience. Now, we might reasonably disagree on whether admissions departments are overreaching in trying to ensure that their merit-based decisions take these factors into account. And we might reasonably disagree as to whether the government should have the ability to intervene if such overreach were found to exist. But the idea that any of this is only being done to perpetuate bias, ignores the fact that bias already exists.

JamesBarney 4y ago

> relative to the opportunities they received growing up There are so many better ways to do this than race, and they have zero interest in looking at any them. Measures that are both more accurate and more objective like. Do your parents have a college degree? What's you family income? What opportunities that affect GPA/SAT are going to be denied to anyone because of their race?