7 ms·

What does this mean in practice?

HDThoreaun 3y ago
more asians, less blacks and a bit less latinos at top schools, especially private ones. Will be interesting to see if they move toward an income based affirmative action.
- zephyrus1985 3y ago
  [flagged]
- breakingrules 3y ago
  [dead]
- pc86 3y ago
  When you say "income based affirmative action" do you mean an increase in need-base grants and scholarships, which already exists, or giving someone preferential admissions treatment because their parents make less money regardless of academic ability?
- purpleblue 3y ago
  Asians are the poorest demographic in NYC, and yet score the highest in testing. So, activists will probably eschew this method as well because it will give Asians preferential treatment which they are loathe to do.
geraldwhen 3y ago
Admissions departments will find proxies for race. The next year of Harvard freshmen will not be majority Asian. The admissions department won’t allow that to happen.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  > Admissions departments will find proxies for race. And that would be the same thing. If someone can prove it, it's illegal.
  - slibhb 3y ago
    If colleges stop considering standardized tests in order to keep the number of Asians down, is that illegal? Could courts force colleges to keep using the SAT?
    - local_crmdgeon 3y ago
      Yes to point one, no to point 2
    - rahimnathwani 3y ago
      Could courts force colleges to keep using the SAT? At least in California, courts forced colleges to stop using the SAT: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-01/uc-may-not-use-the-sat-or-act-for-admissions-scholarship-decisions-for-now-judge-rules https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-01/uc-may-n... (They were going to stop anyway, but this ruling sped things up.)
  - onychomys 3y ago
    A proxy of zip code, maybe. That would be racially blind, a poor white kid in the midst of a poor black neighborhood would be just as likely to get in as their black neighbors would be.
  - supportengineer 3y ago
    What if they required a GPA of less than 4.0?
  - kllrnohj 3y ago
    From the SCOTUS opinion: > “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise,” Roberts wrote. Sure seems like proxies for race are if anything explicitly called out as being OK by SCOTUS rather than illegal.
    - Levitz 3y ago
      Far from it, the point is that the lived experience of the individual matters, just not their race explicitly. The court recognizes the effects of race and recognizes them as valuable when considering a candidate, just not their race per se. If you allow me to be a bit cheeky, it values the content of their character over the color of their skin.
- mchannon 3y ago
  If true, an in-person English fluency and personality interviewing process, even a supposedly race-blind one, tends to skew heavily against a majority of, but not all, Asian college applicants. That’s probably what your theoretical proxy will look like, if you’re correct.
  - sct202 3y ago
    This is something that actually got Harvard in trouble as alumni interviews rated Asians roughly similar to Whites, but the personality scores that the admissions offices gave Asians were lower even though they never met the candidates. "Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial group, often without even meeting them, according to Professor Arcidiacono." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollment-applicants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollme...
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Sounds like the equally-ridiculous "cultural fit" part of company interviews. Even if candidates pass all the measurable, competence-based criteria for the job, companies have the cultural fit card to play against those candidates for whatever unsavory reason the company wants to exclude them.
DeathArrow 3y ago
That discrimination is discouraged in any form or shape.
mchannon 3y ago
Double-digit increases of Asian students at top tier universities, primarily coming from decreases of nonwhite students. Probably a modest reverse version of that at the lower tier universities. Love the policy change or hate it, that’s what’s likely to happen.
- legutierr 3y ago
  > primarily coming from decreases of nonwhite students Given the actual numbers, its more likely that the largest number of applicants negatively affected by this will be white, in absolute terms.
  - mchannon 3y ago
    To the contrary, Stanford, for instance, has ~22% of its student body "White or Caucasian", when it used to be 40% in 2016. This swing didn't occur simply because white students stopped applying. https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-racial-engineering/ https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-racial-engineering/ Stanford might be an outlier, but I don't see white applicants being negatively affected by this decision. Quite the opposite.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  >primarily coming from decreases of nonwhite students. Asians aren’t White.
  - tekla 3y ago
    They are when trying to prove that minorities on the whole are discriminated against.
- csa 3y ago
  > Double-digit increases of Asian students at top tier universities, primarily coming from decreases of nonwhite students. I will gladly bet the under on double digits for Ivies, MIT, and Stanford. 5% max, possibly as little as 2% — that is, 26% might increase to 31%, but more likely 28%-29%. Whatever the number is, the increase for whites will probably be greater in both percentage and absolute number. That said, I agree that the demographics that will lose these spots are non-white, non-Asian groups.
Auracle 3y ago
Universities will come up with other justifications to keep their racial diversity high. If you’re from a certain area, single parent household, went to certain schools, etc. Eventually some university will get sued for that, and we’ll see how the Supreme Court rules. I imagine it’ll depend on how egregious it is, and if there are any internal emails where admissions are openly talking about it.
john013 3y ago
[dead]
kenjackson 3y ago
At top elite schools fewer blacks, fewer Latinos. Slightly fewer whites. More Asians. In relative numbers it probably impacts less than .1% of all students one way or another.
asianavenyc 3y ago
Historically: Colleges were mostly establishment (liberal or otherwise) 1990s and 2000s: Asians do well on exams (and in workplace), take ever greater % of sets from establishment, competitively 2010s: Establishment realize that "BLM" and aim to give Asian seats to PoC, while also conveniently setting proportionately lower quotas for Asians so establishment retains seats they were losing 2020s: New ways found to prevent Asians from competitively winning seats (e.g., roadblocks on registration, etc)
hackeraccount 3y ago
Just to echo what other people replied. Law is over rated. If people are really interested in doing something - whether that's discriminating against Black people or discriminating in favor of Black people - they're probably going to find a way to do it. Laws will make a difference on the margins but if there are motivated people then they are going to start trying to work around this ruling today. The biggest effect of this ruling is that it's a marker to let people know that opposition to affirmative action is serious. That will have more of an impact then the ruling itself.
reducesuffering 3y ago
It is sad that most comments to this continually focus on the racial identity outcomes. What this really means is that some students who had better grades and test scores will get into their more preferred university, and some students who had worse grades and scores will have to settle for a more fitting less-preferred university.
raincom 3y ago
Even though adcoms try to keep the same regime through other proxies, but they have to be very careful: 'But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.' (p. 39)

more asians, less blacks and a bit less latinos at top schools, especially private ones. Will be interesting to see if they move toward an income based affirmative action.

zephyrus1985 3y ago
[flagged]
breakingrules 3y ago
[dead]
pc86 3y ago
When you say "income based affirmative action" do you mean an increase in need-base grants and scholarships, which already exists, or giving someone preferential admissions treatment because their parents make less money regardless of academic ability?
purpleblue 3y ago
Asians are the poorest demographic in NYC, and yet score the highest in testing. So, activists will probably eschew this method as well because it will give Asians preferential treatment which they are loathe to do.

geraldwhen 3y ago

Admissions departments will find proxies for race. The next year of Harvard freshmen will not be majority Asian. The admissions department won’t allow that to happen.

DeathArrow 3y ago
> Admissions departments will find proxies for race. And that would be the same thing. If someone can prove it, it's illegal.
- slibhb 3y ago
  If colleges stop considering standardized tests in order to keep the number of Asians down, is that illegal? Could courts force colleges to keep using the SAT?
  - local_crmdgeon 3y ago
    Yes to point one, no to point 2
  - rahimnathwani 3y ago
    Could courts force colleges to keep using the SAT? At least in California, courts forced colleges to stop using the SAT: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-01/uc-may-not-use-the-sat-or-act-for-admissions-scholarship-decisions-for-now-judge-rules https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-01/uc-may-n... (They were going to stop anyway, but this ruling sped things up.)
- onychomys 3y ago
  A proxy of zip code, maybe. That would be racially blind, a poor white kid in the midst of a poor black neighborhood would be just as likely to get in as their black neighbors would be.
- supportengineer 3y ago
  What if they required a GPA of less than 4.0?
- kllrnohj 3y ago
  From the SCOTUS opinion: > “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise,” Roberts wrote. Sure seems like proxies for race are if anything explicitly called out as being OK by SCOTUS rather than illegal.
  - Levitz 3y ago
    Far from it, the point is that the lived experience of the individual matters, just not their race explicitly. The court recognizes the effects of race and recognizes them as valuable when considering a candidate, just not their race per se. If you allow me to be a bit cheeky, it values the content of their character over the color of their skin.
mchannon 3y ago
If true, an in-person English fluency and personality interviewing process, even a supposedly race-blind one, tends to skew heavily against a majority of, but not all, Asian college applicants. That’s probably what your theoretical proxy will look like, if you’re correct.
- sct202 3y ago
  This is something that actually got Harvard in trouble as alumni interviews rated Asians roughly similar to Whites, but the personality scores that the admissions offices gave Asians were lower even though they never met the candidates. "Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial group, often without even meeting them, according to Professor Arcidiacono." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollment-applicants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollme...
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Sounds like the equally-ridiculous "cultural fit" part of company interviews. Even if candidates pass all the measurable, competence-based criteria for the job, companies have the cultural fit card to play against those candidates for whatever unsavory reason the company wants to exclude them.

DeathArrow 3y ago

That discrimination is discouraged in any form or shape.

mchannon 3y ago

Double-digit increases of Asian students at top tier universities, primarily coming from decreases of nonwhite students. Probably a modest reverse version of that at the lower tier universities. Love the policy change or hate it, that’s what’s likely to happen.

legutierr 3y ago
> primarily coming from decreases of nonwhite students Given the actual numbers, its more likely that the largest number of applicants negatively affected by this will be white, in absolute terms.
- mchannon 3y ago
  To the contrary, Stanford, for instance, has ~22% of its student body "White or Caucasian", when it used to be 40% in 2016. This swing didn't occur simply because white students stopped applying. https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-racial-engineering/ https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-racial-engineering/ Stanford might be an outlier, but I don't see white applicants being negatively affected by this decision. Quite the opposite.
local_crmdgeon 3y ago
>primarily coming from decreases of nonwhite students. Asians aren’t White.
- tekla 3y ago
  They are when trying to prove that minorities on the whole are discriminated against.
csa 3y ago
> Double-digit increases of Asian students at top tier universities, primarily coming from decreases of nonwhite students. I will gladly bet the under on double digits for Ivies, MIT, and Stanford. 5% max, possibly as little as 2% — that is, 26% might increase to 31%, but more likely 28%-29%. Whatever the number is, the increase for whites will probably be greater in both percentage and absolute number. That said, I agree that the demographics that will lose these spots are non-white, non-Asian groups.

Auracle 3y ago

Universities will come up with other justifications to keep their racial diversity high. If you’re from a certain area, single parent household, went to certain schools, etc. Eventually some university will get sued for that, and we’ll see how the Supreme Court rules. I imagine it’ll depend on how egregious it is, and if there are any internal emails where admissions are openly talking about it.

john013 3y ago

[dead]

kenjackson 3y ago

At top elite schools fewer blacks, fewer Latinos. Slightly fewer whites. More Asians. In relative numbers it probably impacts less than .1% of all students one way or another.

asianavenyc 3y ago

Historically: Colleges were mostly establishment (liberal or otherwise) 1990s and 2000s: Asians do well on exams (and in workplace), take ever greater % of sets from establishment, competitively 2010s: Establishment realize that "BLM" and aim to give Asian seats to PoC, while also conveniently setting proportionately lower quotas for Asians so establishment retains seats they were losing 2020s: New ways found to prevent Asians from competitively winning seats (e.g., roadblocks on registration, etc)

hackeraccount 3y ago

Just to echo what other people replied. Law is over rated. If people are really interested in doing something - whether that's discriminating against Black people or discriminating in favor of Black people - they're probably going to find a way to do it. Laws will make a difference on the margins but if there are motivated people then they are going to start trying to work around this ruling today. The biggest effect of this ruling is that it's a marker to let people know that opposition to affirmative action is serious. That will have more of an impact then the ruling itself.

reducesuffering 3y ago

It is sad that most comments to this continually focus on the racial identity outcomes. What this really means is that some students who had better grades and test scores will get into their more preferred university, and some students who had worse grades and scores will have to settle for a more fitting less-preferred university.

raincom 3y ago

Even though adcoms try to keep the same regime through other proxies, but they have to be very careful: 'But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.' (p. 39)