4 ms·

Hm. I'm not sure why you would assume that AA tries to address or single-handedly solve the problem of primary education. It's aimed specifically at the problem

Hm. I'm not sure why you would assume that AA tries to address or single-handedly solve the problem of primary education. It's aimed specifically at the problem of admissions. Other programs should and do target primary education at large, as well as the problem of minority students' performance in college. Arguing that AA doesn't fix all the problems of race and education is a straw man argument. the least effective way...to fix problems of race bias in college admissions. What are the more effective ways?

lojack 15y ago
> What are the more effective ways? Eliminate everything to do with race from college admissions. When I applied, I never met with any admissions in person. The only reason any school I applied to would know my race would be from the question on their application. Affirmative action is inherently a cause of racial bias (decisions are made based on the color of ones skin). If AA didn't exist, skewed numbers for college admissions would merely be an effect of other, real problems. You don't fix ethnic disparities by introducing more racial bias.
- OpieCunningham 15y ago
  Eliminate everything to do with race from college admissions. A relatively simple way of determining race with a high degree of probability is through a person's name (1). Next would be a person's location. After that, a person's primary school location. Or any lists of a person's interests/extracurricular activities. You cannot eliminate determination of race in college admission (or nearly any other application process). Affirmative action is inherently a cause of racial bias (decisions are made based on the color of ones skin). Yes, that's right. And on the other side there already exists racial bias. The analogy is steering a car, when you have a car that pulls to the right, you counter steer it to the left in order to go straight. In a car you can eventually address the root cause of the steering issue by taking it to a mechanic (assuming you drive straight to get there!). There is no mechanic to solve the root cause of racism - you can only address the symptoms and promote awareness. With no other alternatives to address racism in the application review process, the only solution is to apply equal and opposite bias to address the symptom of inequality. AA is specifically intended to discriminate against non-minorities in order to counter balance the discrimination that already exists against minorities. (1) http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/spring03/racialbias.html http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/spring03/racialbias.htm... The authors find that applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to get called for an initial interview than applicants with African-American-sounding names. Applicants with white names need to send about 10 resumes to get one callback, whereas applicants with African-American names need to send about 15 resumes to achieve the same result. In addition, race greatly affects how much applicants benefit from having more experience and credentials. White job applicants with higher-quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower-quality resumes. Having a higher-quality resume has a much smaller impact on African-American applicants, who experienced only 9 percent more callbacks for the same improvement in their credentials. This disparity suggests that in the current state of the labor market, African-Americans may not have strong individual incentives to build better resumes.
  - dbeardsl 15y ago
    Affirmative action is idiotic, likely from the start. It seems entirely wrong applied to most every situation. For example, would it make sense to force restaurants to always have a demographically aligned percentage of black patrons at any given moment? How about local little-league baseball teams? school clubs? technology events? > "discriminate against ... in order to counter balance the discrimination" Doesn't that sound like a bad idea?
  - guest53214 15y ago
    > You cannot eliminate determination of race in college admission In many countries university admissions rely only on standardized test scores. Name, location and previous education don't matter.
    - zasz 15y ago
      Not in the United States, which is the country I assume OP was talking about.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    You cannot eliminate determination of race in college admission (or nearly any other application process). Sure you can. Just don't show the admissions committee real names, inform the committee only of a school ranking (not the specific school), and blank out specific extracurriculars that give away racial information. Even better, you can just use a point system where everything is objectively measured. Strangely, many colleges dropped point systems after the supreme court ruled you cannot racially bias a point system (but you are allowed to racially bias a non-point system). AA is specifically intended to discriminate against non-minorities in order to counter balance the discrimination that already exists against minorities. If this were the true intent, you would expect that the college grades of AA beneficiaries and normal students would be similarly distributed. Do you believe this to be the case?
    - OpieCunningham 15y ago
      If this were the true intent, you would expect that the college grades of AA beneficiaries and normal students would be similarly distributed. As a natural result of AA or as an AA policy? The existing discrimination is with access/opportunity. The intent of AA is to counter balance access/opportunity discrimination. Over (much) time, results of counter balanced access/opportunity will equalize and AA will become less essential. The goal is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Perhaps college admission practices might be limited to a point system, but then you ignore the bias that exists in primary school. A point system itself is discriminatory against minorities. AA counter balances that.

lojack 15y ago

> What are the more effective ways? Eliminate everything to do with race from college admissions. When I applied, I never met with any admissions in person. The only reason any school I applied to would know my race would be from the question on their application. Affirmative action is inherently a cause of racial bias (decisions are made based on the color of ones skin). If AA didn't exist, skewed numbers for college admissions would merely be an effect of other, real problems. You don't fix ethnic disparities by introducing more racial bias.

OpieCunningham 15y ago
Eliminate everything to do with race from college admissions. A relatively simple way of determining race with a high degree of probability is through a person's name (1). Next would be a person's location. After that, a person's primary school location. Or any lists of a person's interests/extracurricular activities. You cannot eliminate determination of race in college admission (or nearly any other application process). Affirmative action is inherently a cause of racial bias (decisions are made based on the color of ones skin). Yes, that's right. And on the other side there already exists racial bias. The analogy is steering a car, when you have a car that pulls to the right, you counter steer it to the left in order to go straight. In a car you can eventually address the root cause of the steering issue by taking it to a mechanic (assuming you drive straight to get there!). There is no mechanic to solve the root cause of racism - you can only address the symptoms and promote awareness. With no other alternatives to address racism in the application review process, the only solution is to apply equal and opposite bias to address the symptom of inequality. AA is specifically intended to discriminate against non-minorities in order to counter balance the discrimination that already exists against minorities. (1) http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/spring03/racialbias.html http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/spring03/racialbias.htm... The authors find that applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to get called for an initial interview than applicants with African-American-sounding names. Applicants with white names need to send about 10 resumes to get one callback, whereas applicants with African-American names need to send about 15 resumes to achieve the same result. In addition, race greatly affects how much applicants benefit from having more experience and credentials. White job applicants with higher-quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower-quality resumes. Having a higher-quality resume has a much smaller impact on African-American applicants, who experienced only 9 percent more callbacks for the same improvement in their credentials. This disparity suggests that in the current state of the labor market, African-Americans may not have strong individual incentives to build better resumes.
- dbeardsl 15y ago
  Affirmative action is idiotic, likely from the start. It seems entirely wrong applied to most every situation. For example, would it make sense to force restaurants to always have a demographically aligned percentage of black patrons at any given moment? How about local little-league baseball teams? school clubs? technology events? > "discriminate against ... in order to counter balance the discrimination" Doesn't that sound like a bad idea?
- guest53214 15y ago
  > You cannot eliminate determination of race in college admission In many countries university admissions rely only on standardized test scores. Name, location and previous education don't matter.
  - zasz 15y ago
    Not in the United States, which is the country I assume OP was talking about.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  You cannot eliminate determination of race in college admission (or nearly any other application process). Sure you can. Just don't show the admissions committee real names, inform the committee only of a school ranking (not the specific school), and blank out specific extracurriculars that give away racial information. Even better, you can just use a point system where everything is objectively measured. Strangely, many colleges dropped point systems after the supreme court ruled you cannot racially bias a point system (but you are allowed to racially bias a non-point system). AA is specifically intended to discriminate against non-minorities in order to counter balance the discrimination that already exists against minorities. If this were the true intent, you would expect that the college grades of AA beneficiaries and normal students would be similarly distributed. Do you believe this to be the case?
  - OpieCunningham 15y ago
    If this were the true intent, you would expect that the college grades of AA beneficiaries and normal students would be similarly distributed. As a natural result of AA or as an AA policy? The existing discrimination is with access/opportunity. The intent of AA is to counter balance access/opportunity discrimination. Over (much) time, results of counter balanced access/opportunity will equalize and AA will become less essential. The goal is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Perhaps college admission practices might be limited to a point system, but then you ignore the bias that exists in primary school. A point system itself is discriminatory against minorities. AA counter balances that.