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Re: 3 ... the level of misunderstanding about what affirmative action is and means is so wide and so deep that "the public doesn't like this" is more or less a

Re: 3 ... the level of misunderstanding about what affirmative action is and means is so wide and so deep that "the public doesn't like this" is more or less an information-free observation. Most of the public has only a strawman in place when it comes to understanding affirmative action, and sure, if the strawman was accurate, most of the people who do support it would drop their support.

overrun11 2y ago
Its more common for proponents to obscure what affirmative action actually is. The idea when plainly stated is deeply unpopular and the magnitude of the affirmative action effect is much larger than popularly known. Here's the Harvard data from the somewhat recent SCOTUS trial: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1199/222325/20220502145522418_20-1199%2021-707%20SFFA%20Brief%20to%20file%20final.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1199/222325/202... Asians in the top academic decile are half as likely as African Americans in the 5th decile to be accepted. I highly doubt exposing Americans to this data would make them more favorable to affirmative action– the very opposite is more likely.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  > The idea when plainly stated is deeply unpopular When stated by opponents seeking to strawman it, certainly. But: "when faced with multiple equally qualified candidates for a position, it is permissble and perhaps even desirable to use demographic factors such as race or gender to select among them" generally doesn't get much opposition. It's not absolutely impossible that this is a steelman version of affirmative action, but it's also the one I grew up hearing from the actual proponents of the concept.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    We all heard that but it was never really true and was the camel's nose under the tent. "Equally qualified" is meaningless given how interview processes work in the tech industry: you keep interviewing until you find the first person that passes the bar and then make an offer. Holding offers back in the hope that someone more demographically attractive comes along is a bad policy that results in lost candidates who get tired of the BS, but is a natural consequence of this definition of affirmative action. Regardless it took only a few years for what I heard to go from "we should use gender/race as a tie breaker" to "our next head of sales must be a woman", stated openly on a recorded all hands video call. And that's inevitable because the moment someone accepts the claim that there's a problem that must be solved, they lose the ability to push back on ever more extreme solutions. The only way out is to argue that there is in fact no problem to be solved and never was, which results in people being targeted and fired for -isms of whatever kind. So in practice affirmative action is deeply unpopular and it's not due to people being idiots. It's because the "cost free" framing that proponents like to use is misleading. There is always a cost.
    - master-lincoln 2y ago
      >"our next head of sales must be a woman", stated openly on a recorded all hands video call. I my country openly saying you want a specific gender for a job position would violate the law. Is that not the case in the US? > the moment someone accepts the claim that there's a problem that must be solved, they lose the ability to push back on ever more extreme solutions That doesn't seem to be the case for other problems. I don't see what makes this problem special so there can be no push back on extreme solutions. > The only way out is to argue that there is in fact no problem to be solved and never was What about using non-extreme steps to try to mitigate the issue. > So in practice affirmative action is deeply unpopular and it's not due to people being idiots. It's because the "cost free" framing that proponents like to use is misleading. There is always a cost. Idiots is a word that originated in ancient Greek and was used for the people who did not care about the matters of the Polis. Everybody is born an idiot until they participate in public matters. That costs (time and effort to familiarize yourself). In that sense maybe the people you are talking about are idiots...
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - j4coh 2y ago
        I guess it must not violate the law as the last president vowed that men would be ineligible and he would only select a woman: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/15/politics/joe-biden-woman-vice-president/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/15/politics/joe-biden-woman-...
        master-lincoln 2y ago
        Is that comparable though? It's not an open job position with requirements listed that anybody can apply for. I don't know how that works in the US, but according to wikipedia the president can nominate a person and a majority vote in both houses of congress can confirm that. It's not like the best candidate wins...this is politics...
      - Jensson 2y ago
rayiner 2y ago
It’s actually the other way around. Most people like “affirmative action” when you use that term. But most people dislike it when you ask whether race should be considered in college admissions or hiring decisions: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans-and-affirmative-action-how-the-public-sees-the-consideration-of-race-in-college-admissions-hiring/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans... “In that survey, 74% of U.S. adults said that, when making decisions about hiring and promotions, companies and organizations should take only a person’s qualifications into account, even if it results in less diversity.”
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  The Pew survey did not find that most people like "affirmative action": > Among those who had ever heard the term, 36% said affirmative action is a good thing, 29% said it is a bad thing and a third weren’t sure. It was a preceding Gallup poll that found the result you're thinking of: > By comparison, Gallup has asked U.S. adults whether they “generally favor or oppose affirmative action programs for racial minorities.” In 2021, the last time Gallup asked this question, a 62% majority of Americans favored such programs. The disconnect between this sort of response with the one you cited at the end of your comment just serves to underline my point about the public's lack of clear understanding of what "affirmative action" means (and they cannot be entirely blamed for this, since in the culture, it has come to mean different things). Institutions like Harvard will (for the foreseeable future) always have vastly more fully qualified applications than they can accept. The concept of affirmative action was originally intended by its proponents to be used only when tie-breaking between equally qualified candidates. Harvard and the other Ivies have this situation in extremis. The idea was that when faced with the question "well, we have 26 people all fully qualified, how are to pick between them?" that using race was a legitimate choice as long as the racial demographics of the institution did not match those of the overall population. They have (for a while) used gender in a similar way, and arguably could use favorite ice cream flavor if they chose, because the candidates are all qualified to be selected. There was never a suggestion that "affirmative action" meant selecting less qualified candidates because of their racial status. However, the conservative right has claimed that this is what affirmative action really means in the world, and this idea has been broadly picked up by the media and public at large. Whether there is actually any evidence that this has happened on a significant scale is not something I've seen adequately addressed. From what I have read, including the Harvard case, I'd say it was much more an unfounded grievance on the part of people who felt they had a right to be admitted or hired than what actually happens. I could be wrong.

overrun11 2y ago

Its more common for proponents to obscure what affirmative action actually is. The idea when plainly stated is deeply unpopular and the magnitude of the affirmative action effect is much larger than popularly known. Here's the Harvard data from the somewhat recent SCOTUS trial: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1199/222325/20220502145522418_20-1199%2021-707%20SFFA%20Brief%20to%20file%20final.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1199/222325/202... Asians in the top academic decile are half as likely as African Americans in the 5th decile to be accepted. I highly doubt exposing Americans to this data would make them more favorable to affirmative action– the very opposite is more likely.

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
> The idea when plainly stated is deeply unpopular When stated by opponents seeking to strawman it, certainly. But: "when faced with multiple equally qualified candidates for a position, it is permissble and perhaps even desirable to use demographic factors such as race or gender to select among them" generally doesn't get much opposition. It's not absolutely impossible that this is a steelman version of affirmative action, but it's also the one I grew up hearing from the actual proponents of the concept.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  We all heard that but it was never really true and was the camel's nose under the tent. "Equally qualified" is meaningless given how interview processes work in the tech industry: you keep interviewing until you find the first person that passes the bar and then make an offer. Holding offers back in the hope that someone more demographically attractive comes along is a bad policy that results in lost candidates who get tired of the BS, but is a natural consequence of this definition of affirmative action. Regardless it took only a few years for what I heard to go from "we should use gender/race as a tie breaker" to "our next head of sales must be a woman", stated openly on a recorded all hands video call. And that's inevitable because the moment someone accepts the claim that there's a problem that must be solved, they lose the ability to push back on ever more extreme solutions. The only way out is to argue that there is in fact no problem to be solved and never was, which results in people being targeted and fired for -isms of whatever kind. So in practice affirmative action is deeply unpopular and it's not due to people being idiots. It's because the "cost free" framing that proponents like to use is misleading. There is always a cost.
  - master-lincoln 2y ago
    >"our next head of sales must be a woman", stated openly on a recorded all hands video call. I my country openly saying you want a specific gender for a job position would violate the law. Is that not the case in the US? > the moment someone accepts the claim that there's a problem that must be solved, they lose the ability to push back on ever more extreme solutions That doesn't seem to be the case for other problems. I don't see what makes this problem special so there can be no push back on extreme solutions. > The only way out is to argue that there is in fact no problem to be solved and never was What about using non-extreme steps to try to mitigate the issue. > So in practice affirmative action is deeply unpopular and it's not due to people being idiots. It's because the "cost free" framing that proponents like to use is misleading. There is always a cost. Idiots is a word that originated in ancient Greek and was used for the people who did not care about the matters of the Polis. Everybody is born an idiot until they participate in public matters. That costs (time and effort to familiarize yourself). In that sense maybe the people you are talking about are idiots...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - j4coh 2y ago
      I guess it must not violate the law as the last president vowed that men would be ineligible and he would only select a woman: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/15/politics/joe-biden-woman-vice-president/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/15/politics/joe-biden-woman-...
      - master-lincoln 2y ago
        Is that comparable though? It's not an open job position with requirements listed that anybody can apply for. I don't know how that works in the US, but according to wikipedia the president can nominate a person and a majority vote in both houses of congress can confirm that. It's not like the best candidate wins...this is politics...
    - Jensson 2y ago

rayiner 2y ago

It’s actually the other way around. Most people like “affirmative action” when you use that term. But most people dislike it when you ask whether race should be considered in college admissions or hiring decisions: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans-and-affirmative-action-how-the-public-sees-the-consideration-of-race-in-college-admissions-hiring/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans... “In that survey, 74% of U.S. adults said that, when making decisions about hiring and promotions, companies and organizations should take only a person’s qualifications into account, even if it results in less diversity.”

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
The Pew survey did not find that most people like "affirmative action": > Among those who had ever heard the term, 36% said affirmative action is a good thing, 29% said it is a bad thing and a third weren’t sure. It was a preceding Gallup poll that found the result you're thinking of: > By comparison, Gallup has asked U.S. adults whether they “generally favor or oppose affirmative action programs for racial minorities.” In 2021, the last time Gallup asked this question, a 62% majority of Americans favored such programs. The disconnect between this sort of response with the one you cited at the end of your comment just serves to underline my point about the public's lack of clear understanding of what "affirmative action" means (and they cannot be entirely blamed for this, since in the culture, it has come to mean different things). Institutions like Harvard will (for the foreseeable future) always have vastly more fully qualified applications than they can accept. The concept of affirmative action was originally intended by its proponents to be used only when tie-breaking between equally qualified candidates. Harvard and the other Ivies have this situation in extremis. The idea was that when faced with the question "well, we have 26 people all fully qualified, how are to pick between them?" that using race was a legitimate choice as long as the racial demographics of the institution did not match those of the overall population. They have (for a while) used gender in a similar way, and arguably could use favorite ice cream flavor if they chose, because the candidates are all qualified to be selected. There was never a suggestion that "affirmative action" meant selecting less qualified candidates because of their racial status. However, the conservative right has claimed that this is what affirmative action really means in the world, and this idea has been broadly picked up by the media and public at large. Whether there is actually any evidence that this has happened on a significant scale is not something I've seen adequately addressed. From what I have read, including the Harvard case, I'd say it was much more an unfounded grievance on the part of people who felt they had a right to be admitted or hired than what actually happens. I could be wrong.