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U.S. Supreme Court curbs affirmative action in university admissions
- known 3y ago[dead]
- prpl 3y agoIt seems this will end quotas, but it seemed like there would always be workarounds or proxies admissions (especially deep pocketed ones) could use to meet their goals that they were not using. (I realize quotas were suppose to be illegal too, but obviously there’s some race based formula that these places has implemented)
- jupp0r 3y agoI would like to point out that any discrimination based on race (and thus affirmative action) is forbidden by law in lots of other countries, for example Germany.
- b0sk 3y agoI mean, in a vacuum, it makes no sense but in this case, I agree with KBJ's dissent. In a country with a historical baggage like US, something like this is needed.
- sp527 3y agoPlenty of other identity groups have suffered heavy discrimination across US history (Irish, Italians, Japanese, Jews, to name a few). They don't seem to require a policy like affirmative action to ensure they obtain a fair proportion of seats at top universities. Plenty of highly impoverished immigrants arrive in the US and have children that academically outperform the kids of very privileged parents. What's needed is not affirmative action but a more honest appraisal about what the real obstacles are for Black and Hispanic students. And perhaps we'll discover that those obstacles cannot in fact be legislated out of existence.
- prottog 3y ago> a more honest appraisal about what the real obstacles are for Black and Hispanic students Different cultural and ethnic groups value different things. Virtually nobody who clamors for more black and Hispanic representation in Harvard's undergrad class, for example, also clamors for more Asian representation in the NFL, even though that disparity is much, much greater, with only a single-digit number of current players.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoAffirmative action is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul. The beneficiaries weren't discriminated against, the people losing out weren't discriminators. There is a problem--but it's a matter of why they aren't as qualified. Pretending they are isn't going to fix the actual problem.
- bodhi_mind 3y agoI understand your perspective, but it's essential to consider the historical context and systemic impact of discriminatory practices such as redlining. While affirmative action aims to address the long-standing inequalities faced by marginalized communities, it's not about "robbing Peter to pay Paul." Redlining, a discriminatory practice prevalent in the mid-1900s, systematically denied access to housing loans and opportunities to minority communities based on race. As a result, neighborhoods predominantly inhabited by minorities were deprived of investment, economic growth, and wealth accumulation. This created a cycle of limited opportunities and limited access to resources that persists today. Over time, this has led to a significant wealth gap between racial groups. Affirmative action seeks to address this imbalance by providing opportunities for marginalized individuals to overcome historical disadvantages and achieve upward mobility.
- Kranar 3y agoThis is simply untrue and you are unlikely to find any country that has such absolute policies codified in their law. The example you give, Germany, has its own form of affirmative action codified under the Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz which permits employers to give preferential treatment to ethnic groups subject to structural disadvantages or underrepresentation. Germany uses the term "Positive Action" in their legislation: http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/docs/ELECTRONIC/77201/93329/F695840346/DEU77201.pdf http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/docs/ELECTRONIC/77201/93329/F6...
- jupp0r 3y agoYour rebuttal is simply not true. Article 3 of the German constitution (Grundgesetz): "No person shall be favoured or disfavoured because of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith or religious or political opinions. No person shall be disfavoured because of disability." https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h... Job ads in Germany often state that disabled applicants will be favored because this is explicitly allowed.
- NoRelToEmber 3y ago> Germany uses the term "Positive Action" Interesting how they never call it "racial discrimination" when it's something they like. I guess they had to come up with a euphemism to avoid the Pavlovian response they instilled.
- raxxorraxor 3y agoIt is also called positive discrimination if you translate directly, which I believe is an oxymoron and I believe it should be revised as well for modern times.
- hoppyhoppy2 3y agoSee also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36520658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36520658
- prottog 3y ago"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
- jfengel 3y ago[flagged]
- Jackpillar 3y agoThis is stupid
- bequanna 3y agoAgreed. Affirmative action was a bad idea. We should never be giving special advantages or holding someone back based on their race.
- endisneigh 3y agoI think everyone would agree that blacks shouldn’t have been enslaved and white people not conferred special advantages during the Jim Crow era, yes. The question is such things did happen. How will you resolve the disparity, if at all? Clearly a very inflammatory topic.
- okdood64 3y ago> How will you resolve the disparity, if at all? Look for other signals of this disparity aside from race; this isn't a new concept.
- endisneigh 3y agoWhy would you look for other signals when race in this example was the signal used for discrimination? Suppose you use income. There are more poor white people than black people period. You could certainly help them instead of any black person. That may be more optimal depending on what your goal is, but if the goal was to combats racial inequality clearly that’s not useful.
- rvz 3y agoGood. Affirmative action policies in university admissions was nonsensical to begin with.
- oluwie 3y agoIt was there and implemented for a specific reason. That reason wasn't nonsensical to begin with.
- last_responder 3y agoThe person you replied to did not say if the reason was nonsensical or if the policy implemented to address the reason was nonsense.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoIt made sense originally to break the cultural pattern of discrimination. It's done that, while there are still racists out there they don't have the power to keep people down that they used to. Yet we continue to use it to solve a problem that isn't caused by discrimination and thus can't be cured by efforts against discrimination.
- theonlybutlet 3y agoFor university applications, why not strip any potential bias out of applications. An intermediary that removes any potential indicator, name, school, location. Any historic disadvantage should be addressed at the source. Like if school grades are lower, that needs to be fixed at the school level. Otherwise it only helps the privileged few that are applying to college and not all who have been wronged, it'll be the case whereby the most underprivileged stay the most underprivileged.
- glimshe 3y agoA great step against racism and for respecting our constitution, while maintaining safeguards to revert situations where actual anti-minority racism took place.
- meee 3y agoI don't have a deep understanding enough to have a strong opinion on this but don't the roles seem reversed? It's my understanding that Asian people are underrepresented at Harvard due to affirmative action. The photos I've seen for this story feature Asian people protesting the decision. Is this a case of people coming together against their own interests to protest a decision they think is unfair? It feels too political for me to get a sense of what is right here. In the long run, since colleges are still free to consider race though writings, isn't this what you would want to see in a healing society? We understand that the pendulum should swing in the direction of helping the underserved and once that footing is there, the goal is always to be agnostic of race. This seems like a baby step to see if the affirmative action worked. Is there something that has happened since the 60s that indicates this should last forever or that the program was reaching it's goals?
- FreshStart 3y agoA healing society? This is the only society who embraced the melting pot and got greatly rewarded for this. There are no wounds, compared to the old world stratified layers and Asia's invisible caste systems&racism. there are working class grievances becoming racism but even that is pretty universal. No wounds but those inflicted by the divide and conquer on all sides.
- orf 3y agoAmerica doesn’t have any implicit caste system, racism or “wounds”? A huge percentage of the population would disagree with you. People still fly the confederate flag.
- FreshStart 3y agoSome parts of the middle east are a living confederacy right now. There are segregation signs in some shops in china (plus enslavement of poor/woman) and invisible segregation by race in south American politics. People learn about history, people try to avoid repetition of that history and the flag is mostly a symbol against the reintroduction of "caste" in the US. Nazi like shit heads are pretty universal and the US is shining beacon for those escaping these circumstances. "US always evil exceptionalism"is a plague among the authoritarian left.
- dwallin 3y agoThe use of race in elite college admissions was never about increasing the diversity of lived experiences, it was about being able to maintain a university filled with people from high-status backgrounds while outwardly appearing to be representative of the society they exist in. It's trivial for them to get the diversity they want by prioritizing applicants from underrepresented school districts and giving a boost to applicants of lesser means, but this would result in them needing to make significant compromises in the prevalence of students from upper class backgrounds.
- pxmpxm 3y agoOne of the justices alluded to just that in the majority opinion - colleges could clearly forego "legacy", major-donor and athletic admissions, but they seem to prefer non-rich asians, whites and indians to carry the downside of the agenda.