7 ms·

I found myself wondering how in the world they'd actually manage this and not be violating the universities' 1st amendment rights, and the answer seems to be:

by dgacmu 2y ago

I found myself wondering how in the world they'd actually manage this and not be violating the universities' 1st amendment rights, and the answer seems to be: > Republicans as well as Democrats in the California Legislature voted for Mr. Ting’s latest proposal, which will punish institutions that flout the law by publishing their names on a California Department of Justice website. and from the latimes report: > Although the California law makes legacy and donor admissions illegal, it does not specify any punishment for universities that violate it. Which answers the question but certainly raises some questions of what it means for something to be "illegal" with no actual consequences.

deleted 2y ago
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Spivak 2y ago
There's plenty of laws like that. They're a statement about what someone oughtn't do in the hopes that people follow it simply because it's the law. I think it's a good solution to the situations where we want to establish a norm but it's beyond the scope of government to enforce it. Assuming laws require enforcement is the secular version of "if you're an atheist and don't fear eternal punishment in hell, why are you good?"
- winwang 2y ago
  Isn't this confounding legality and morality? But I do agree with the idea of trying to establish a norm somehow, since legality is a decent proxy.
  - tourmalinetaco 2y ago
    Well, most laws are made on moral principles.
  - jjmarr 2y ago
    The legal system is partly the codification of society's views on what constitutes unethical behaviour. Specifically, things that harm society as a whole. Making an action against the law expresses a very strong disapproval of that action.
snickerbockers 2y ago
>I found myself wondering how in the world they'd actually manage this and not be violating the universities' free speech One of the primary justifications I keep hearing for Affirmative Action is that legacy admissions are predominantly white, so minorities need an extra edge in non-legacy admissions to balance out the race quotas. If we take this to be true and assume that Affirmative Action is off the table then naturally it's necessary to eliminate legacy admissions. Of course, you're right that there's no real point in enacting laws if they aren't going to punish institutions who violate them.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
scarface_74 2y ago
Well, how is legacy admissions free speech and affirmative action “prejudice” and illegal according to the Supreme Court? Neither is based on merit alone. No I am not arguing for or against affirmative action in college admissions. I am Black and graduated from an HBCU. I haven’t had a reason to think about affirmative action deeply enough to have an informed opinion.
- dgacmu 2y ago
  Don't get me wrong: I think legacy admissions should be eliminated. And my understanding is that my university (Carnegie Mellon) has stopped considering legacy status as part of admissions. But the answer is that legacy is a one-hop removed racial bias instead of a direct one, where the schools engaging in it can claim that it's based on a purely financial incentive and that it applies equally to all of their legacies. It's like money laundering for bias: Finding a proxy metric that happens to correlate extremely well with race but never explicitly mentions it. With the current supreme court, that laundering seems kinda likely to succeed.
  - dmayle 2y ago
    You actually have it backwards. Your claim is that legacy admissions bias in favor of the predominant race might be true for a school that had race-blind admittance criteria. In the opposite case, however, legacy admissions bias against people of the predominant race (for the general student). Since legacy admissions come first, schools which practice affirmative action have a heavy bias against the predominant race (because those slots are all filled by legacy candidate). Which means that if you're of the predominant race, you have next to no chance to be accepted by these universities... (I mean, everyone has next to no chance, but for people of the predominant race, they are discriminated against severely). In general, though, college admissions are pretty terrible... Having spoken with someone who worked in admissions at one of these universities, if you have a bright kid, you're better off moving to the middle of nowhere to make sure they're the valedictorian, rather than trying to send your kid to a great high school where why might only be salutatorian. Why? For smaller schools they rarely take more than one student from that school in any given year, so when the valedictorian who filled out applications to 10 top schools gets in to all 10? The salutatorian doesn't...
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Admittance isn't speech. (There might be an argument for assembly. But we already have precedence in e.g. the Civil Rights Acts that it can be regulated.)
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  It absolutely is assembly. Also, "businesses" have the right to pick their customers (in compliance with laws like fair housing). I don't have a strong preference for/against legacy admissions, but I think it makes no sense that saying "we can admit only people of religion X" is ok but its wrong to say "we can admit people preferentially who have a family connection". Same with affirmative action vs race-based admissions. There are so many sticky issues with the legality and meritocracy of admissions, that targeting a few rich kids seems like the wrong battle.
- dgacmu 2y ago
  I agree, I should have said 1st amendment rights more generally. I've edited my post to update that - thank you.
jjmarr 2y ago
There's still a non-zero cost for compliance because universities have to report their legacy statistics.

by dgacmu 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Spivak 2y ago

There's plenty of laws like that. They're a statement about what someone oughtn't do in the hopes that people follow it simply because it's the law. I think it's a good solution to the situations where we want to establish a norm but it's beyond the scope of government to enforce it. Assuming laws require enforcement is the secular version of "if you're an atheist and don't fear eternal punishment in hell, why are you good?"

winwang 2y ago
Isn't this confounding legality and morality? But I do agree with the idea of trying to establish a norm somehow, since legality is a decent proxy.
- tourmalinetaco 2y ago
  Well, most laws are made on moral principles.
- jjmarr 2y ago
  The legal system is partly the codification of society's views on what constitutes unethical behaviour. Specifically, things that harm society as a whole. Making an action against the law expresses a very strong disapproval of that action.

snickerbockers 2y ago

>I found myself wondering how in the world they'd actually manage this and not be violating the universities' free speech One of the primary justifications I keep hearing for Affirmative Action is that legacy admissions are predominantly white, so minorities need an extra edge in non-legacy admissions to balance out the race quotas. If we take this to be true and assume that Affirmative Action is off the table then naturally it's necessary to eliminate legacy admissions. Of course, you're right that there's no real point in enacting laws if they aren't going to punish institutions who violate them.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

scarface_74 2y ago

Well, how is legacy admissions free speech and affirmative action “prejudice” and illegal according to the Supreme Court? Neither is based on merit alone. No I am not arguing for or against affirmative action in college admissions. I am Black and graduated from an HBCU. I haven’t had a reason to think about affirmative action deeply enough to have an informed opinion.

dgacmu 2y ago
Don't get me wrong: I think legacy admissions should be eliminated. And my understanding is that my university (Carnegie Mellon) has stopped considering legacy status as part of admissions. But the answer is that legacy is a one-hop removed racial bias instead of a direct one, where the schools engaging in it can claim that it's based on a purely financial incentive and that it applies equally to all of their legacies. It's like money laundering for bias: Finding a proxy metric that happens to correlate extremely well with race but never explicitly mentions it. With the current supreme court, that laundering seems kinda likely to succeed.
- dmayle 2y ago
  You actually have it backwards. Your claim is that legacy admissions bias in favor of the predominant race might be true for a school that had race-blind admittance criteria. In the opposite case, however, legacy admissions bias against people of the predominant race (for the general student). Since legacy admissions come first, schools which practice affirmative action have a heavy bias against the predominant race (because those slots are all filled by legacy candidate). Which means that if you're of the predominant race, you have next to no chance to be accepted by these universities... (I mean, everyone has next to no chance, but for people of the predominant race, they are discriminated against severely). In general, though, college admissions are pretty terrible... Having spoken with someone who worked in admissions at one of these universities, if you have a bright kid, you're better off moving to the middle of nowhere to make sure they're the valedictorian, rather than trying to send your kid to a great high school where why might only be salutatorian. Why? For smaller schools they rarely take more than one student from that school in any given year, so when the valedictorian who filled out applications to 10 top schools gets in to all 10? The salutatorian doesn't...

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

Admittance isn't speech. (There might be an argument for assembly. But we already have precedence in e.g. the Civil Rights Acts that it can be regulated.)

vineyardmike 2y ago
It absolutely is assembly. Also, "businesses" have the right to pick their customers (in compliance with laws like fair housing). I don't have a strong preference for/against legacy admissions, but I think it makes no sense that saying "we can admit only people of religion X" is ok but its wrong to say "we can admit people preferentially who have a family connection". Same with affirmative action vs race-based admissions. There are so many sticky issues with the legality and meritocracy of admissions, that targeting a few rich kids seems like the wrong battle.
dgacmu 2y ago
I agree, I should have said 1st amendment rights more generally. I've edited my post to update that - thank you.

jjmarr 2y ago

There's still a non-zero cost for compliance because universities have to report their legacy statistics.