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> “Harvard College welcomes talented students from all backgrounds, including Asian-Americans… The admissions committee does not use quotas of any kind.” Yes,

> “Harvard College welcomes talented students from all backgrounds, including Asian-Americans… The admissions committee does not use quotas of any kind.” Yes, because using quotas would be illegal. But I don't understand how "does not use quotas" translates into equal treatment. Wasn't the whole point of the UC v. Bakke case to say that quotas are illegal, but race is still a legitimate factor to consider in admission? This sentence means nothing.

twoodfin 13y ago
Would quotas be illegal for a private university?
- OGinparadise 13y ago
  They accept government funds and grants so I think that the government can force them to do almost anything.
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    That's not true. They couldn't, for example, demand editorial constraints on the Harvard Crimson. Private organizations don't give up their rights, including their right to free association, just by accepting government dollars.
    - wfunction 13y ago
      You misunderstood what the parent was saying. By "force them to do X" he meant the government can refuse to fund them if they didn't do X (which forces them to abide by the government's rules if they are accepting its funds), not that the government can legally mandate them to do X unconditionally.
      - twoodfin 13y ago
        Conditions placed on the recipients of government expenditures are not unrestrained by Constitutional limitations. Witness the Supreme Court throwing out some of the strings attached to ACA's Medicaid expansion.
        OGinparadise 13y ago
        You are going on tangent after tangent as if to prove something. No one said that "unrestrained by Constitutional limitations" are ok. Suppose you have the right to exclude Blacks or Asians from your college (freedom of speech, associations or whatever) Once you take even a penny of federal dollars, directly or indirectly, you may have to agree not to discriminate. So YOU give up that right voluntarily. No one forces you to take the government's money.
    - mseebach 13y ago
      No, but the government could attach strings to the money. Now, freedom of speech is well understood and well protected, so it would probably be difficult for the government to gag the Crimson this way, but it's not hard to see how certain "equal opportunity" or "diversity" requirements for admissions could find its way in.
    - evanhr 13y ago
      see Rumsfeld v. FAIR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumsfeld_v._Forum_for_Academic_and_Institutional_Rights,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumsfeld_v._Forum_for_Academic_.... Those government dollars most certainly can be conditioned on associating with certain people (military recruiters, in that case).
    - OGinparadise 13y ago
      You picked one narrow thing that no one even suggested. No one even hinted that the government would tell the Crimson not to criticize, say, Obama but that's the route you went. Now more on topic, the being able to discriminate as a private uni one: http://www.hillsdale.edu/admissions/faq/faq_list.asp?iSectionID=1&iGroupID=45&iQuestionID=108 http://www.hillsdale.edu/admissions/faq/faq_list.asp?iSectio... Q: Why doesn’t Hillsdale accept any federal or state taxpayer subsidies? A: In 1975, the federal government said that Hillsdale had to sign a form stating that we did not discriminate on the basis of sex. Hillsdale College had never discriminated on any basis, and had never accepted federal taxpayer subsidies of any sort, so the College felt no obligation to comply, fearing that doing so would open the door to additional federal mandates and control. Our trustees pledged two things: first, that the College would continue its long-standing policy of non-discrimination, and second, that it would not accept any encroachments on its independence. The case went to court, and Hillsdale College won a partial victory, but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals did rule that Hillsdale College was an “indirect recipient” of federal funding because of participation in federal grant and loan programs. In 1984, Grove City College in Pennsylvania fought and lost a similar legal battle. The case then went to the Supreme Court, and in Grove City v. Bell, it was determined that if even one student received a federal grant or loan, it made that institution a direct recipient of federal funds. To avoid the hassles of government control, Hillsdale College announced its decision to end participation in all federal financial aid programs in 1985. In 2007, Hillsdale announced that it would no longer accept State of Michigan taxpayer subsidies earmarked for student financial aid, thereby making the College completely independent of taxpayer support. Basically once you take their money you agree to their strings.
      - twoodfin 13y ago
        With no limiting principle?
        OGinparadise 13y ago
        Hang on, I am going to ignore the topic at hand and spend the next 4-5 weeks to discuss every possible constitutional /anti-constitutional scenario just to please you. sorry for the sarcasm but he keeps going
- wfunction 13y ago
  I don't think this has ever been challenged in court, so technically I guess we don't know. But "In the 30 years since this ruling, public and private universities have crafted affirmative action programs consistent with Bakke's requirements" [1], so I assume it probably would be, otherwise they wouldn't go through the trouble. 1. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_regents.html http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_regents...
- jsnk 13y ago
  Even for completely private businesses that receive 0 public funding, there is stringent anti-discrimination laws already.
  - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
    There is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but that only applies to employment. It doesn't apply to something like students. Most universities are covered by Title VI, which applies to students at institutions that receive federal funding, but theoretically, they could avoid all federal funding, including federal grants and loans for their students, and then they would be allowed to discriminate based on race.
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race to programs receiving government money. Even were a given university to forgo all government money, it would lose it's tax exempt status if it discriminated on the basis of race (see Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983)). So as a practical matter -- yes.
tsotha 13y ago
>But I don't understand how "does not use quotas" translates into equal treatment. You don't understand it because it doesn't translate into equal treatment. "Diversity" is a legal dodge they use to keep out Asians and whites and accept less qualified people of other races. It's a de facto quota system that would never survive a court challenge if you rearranged the races a bit.
- wfunction 13y ago
  I think you just confirmed my point.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  >"Diversity" is a legal dodge they use to keep out Asians and whites and accept less qualified people of other races. The problem with this reasoning is that it presumes that GPA + test scores is the definition of merit. These schools say this isn't the case. They want the stand-outs. If you are a part of a group that all has perfect GPA/SATs, then that simply isn't enough anymore. Cluster analysis is a valid technique to identify outliers.
  - wfunction 13y ago
    > The problem with this reasoning is that it presumes that GPA + test scores is the definition of merit. So let me get this straight: GPA + test scores don't show merit, but race does? > These schools say this isn't the case. They want the stand-outs. So let's accept less qualified people just because they're doing better than even the lesser-qualfied people of the same race, even though there are perfect candidates we could be choosing instead? I think you (like many Americans) are completely misunderstanding the point of affirmative action. It has nothing to do with "encouraging diversity" or anything like that. It's trying to right a historical wrong, discrimination against certain groups based on race. "Diversity" is just a nice word to use to appeal to emotion so they just use that, but it's irrelevant to the purpose of affirmative action.
    - hackinthebochs 13y ago
jsnk 13y ago
If this kind of practise were done against Blacks, Aboriginals, LGBT or women instead of Asians, would you still say it was ok? Instead of universities, if it were some restaurants in your neighborhood practicing policy akin to this, would you still say it was ok?
- wfunction 13y ago
  I never said it was okay (or for that matter, not okay) against Asians to begin with. I was just stating the facts behind the Bakke case, not attempting to take a stance.
- newnewnew 13y ago
  It is wrong to discriminate against any non-white racial group.
anonymoushn 13y ago
Is there any functional difference between a system that considers race and a system of racial quotas? As far as I can tell, the difference is that one of them will have a very slight random deviation from the other. It is simple to construct a non-quota admissions system from a desired set of quotas (though one would probably do well not to write down the desired set of quotas). Each year one could adjust the bonus/penalty assigned to each race to target admissions levels at the hidden quotas. Conversely, given a set of per-race bonuses and penalties and admissions data for a particular year, one could calculate what (non-quota) admissions level was most targeted by the set of bonuses and penalties. Edit: It is perhaps even more troublesome to hear "There is no formula for admission. We look at the academics, leadership, activities and references about the applicant's character." If a school explicitly states that it is not looking for anything in particular in its candidates, it would be very difficult for any investigation to find that it is turning away qualified candidates on the basis of race.

twoodfin 13y ago

Would quotas be illegal for a private university?

OGinparadise 13y ago
They accept government funds and grants so I think that the government can force them to do almost anything.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  That's not true. They couldn't, for example, demand editorial constraints on the Harvard Crimson. Private organizations don't give up their rights, including their right to free association, just by accepting government dollars.
  - wfunction 13y ago
    You misunderstood what the parent was saying. By "force them to do X" he meant the government can refuse to fund them if they didn't do X (which forces them to abide by the government's rules if they are accepting its funds), not that the government can legally mandate them to do X unconditionally.
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      Conditions placed on the recipients of government expenditures are not unrestrained by Constitutional limitations. Witness the Supreme Court throwing out some of the strings attached to ACA's Medicaid expansion.
      - OGinparadise 13y ago
        You are going on tangent after tangent as if to prove something. No one said that "unrestrained by Constitutional limitations" are ok. Suppose you have the right to exclude Blacks or Asians from your college (freedom of speech, associations or whatever) Once you take even a penny of federal dollars, directly or indirectly, you may have to agree not to discriminate. So YOU give up that right voluntarily. No one forces you to take the government's money.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    No, but the government could attach strings to the money. Now, freedom of speech is well understood and well protected, so it would probably be difficult for the government to gag the Crimson this way, but it's not hard to see how certain "equal opportunity" or "diversity" requirements for admissions could find its way in.
  - evanhr 13y ago
    see Rumsfeld v. FAIR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumsfeld_v._Forum_for_Academic_and_Institutional_Rights,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumsfeld_v._Forum_for_Academic_.... Those government dollars most certainly can be conditioned on associating with certain people (military recruiters, in that case).
  - OGinparadise 13y ago
    You picked one narrow thing that no one even suggested. No one even hinted that the government would tell the Crimson not to criticize, say, Obama but that's the route you went. Now more on topic, the being able to discriminate as a private uni one: http://www.hillsdale.edu/admissions/faq/faq_list.asp?iSectionID=1&iGroupID=45&iQuestionID=108 http://www.hillsdale.edu/admissions/faq/faq_list.asp?iSectio... Q: Why doesn’t Hillsdale accept any federal or state taxpayer subsidies? A: In 1975, the federal government said that Hillsdale had to sign a form stating that we did not discriminate on the basis of sex. Hillsdale College had never discriminated on any basis, and had never accepted federal taxpayer subsidies of any sort, so the College felt no obligation to comply, fearing that doing so would open the door to additional federal mandates and control. Our trustees pledged two things: first, that the College would continue its long-standing policy of non-discrimination, and second, that it would not accept any encroachments on its independence. The case went to court, and Hillsdale College won a partial victory, but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals did rule that Hillsdale College was an “indirect recipient” of federal funding because of participation in federal grant and loan programs. In 1984, Grove City College in Pennsylvania fought and lost a similar legal battle. The case then went to the Supreme Court, and in Grove City v. Bell, it was determined that if even one student received a federal grant or loan, it made that institution a direct recipient of federal funds. To avoid the hassles of government control, Hillsdale College announced its decision to end participation in all federal financial aid programs in 1985. In 2007, Hillsdale announced that it would no longer accept State of Michigan taxpayer subsidies earmarked for student financial aid, thereby making the College completely independent of taxpayer support. Basically once you take their money you agree to their strings.
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      With no limiting principle?
      - OGinparadise 13y ago
        Hang on, I am going to ignore the topic at hand and spend the next 4-5 weeks to discuss every possible constitutional /anti-constitutional scenario just to please you. sorry for the sarcasm but he keeps going
wfunction 13y ago
I don't think this has ever been challenged in court, so technically I guess we don't know. But "In the 30 years since this ruling, public and private universities have crafted affirmative action programs consistent with Bakke's requirements" [1], so I assume it probably would be, otherwise they wouldn't go through the trouble. 1. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_regents.html http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_regents...
jsnk 13y ago
Even for completely private businesses that receive 0 public funding, there is stringent anti-discrimination laws already.
- TheCoelacanth 13y ago
  There is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but that only applies to employment. It doesn't apply to something like students. Most universities are covered by Title VI, which applies to students at institutions that receive federal funding, but theoretically, they could avoid all federal funding, including federal grants and loans for their students, and then they would be allowed to discriminate based on race.
bradleyjg 13y ago
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race to programs receiving government money. Even were a given university to forgo all government money, it would lose it's tax exempt status if it discriminated on the basis of race (see Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983)). So as a practical matter -- yes.

tsotha 13y ago

>But I don't understand how "does not use quotas" translates into equal treatment. You don't understand it because it doesn't translate into equal treatment. "Diversity" is a legal dodge they use to keep out Asians and whites and accept less qualified people of other races. It's a de facto quota system that would never survive a court challenge if you rearranged the races a bit.

wfunction 13y ago
I think you just confirmed my point.
hackinthebochs 13y ago
>"Diversity" is a legal dodge they use to keep out Asians and whites and accept less qualified people of other races. The problem with this reasoning is that it presumes that GPA + test scores is the definition of merit. These schools say this isn't the case. They want the stand-outs. If you are a part of a group that all has perfect GPA/SATs, then that simply isn't enough anymore. Cluster analysis is a valid technique to identify outliers.
- wfunction 13y ago
  > The problem with this reasoning is that it presumes that GPA + test scores is the definition of merit. So let me get this straight: GPA + test scores don't show merit, but race does? > These schools say this isn't the case. They want the stand-outs. So let's accept less qualified people just because they're doing better than even the lesser-qualfied people of the same race, even though there are perfect candidates we could be choosing instead? I think you (like many Americans) are completely misunderstanding the point of affirmative action. It has nothing to do with "encouraging diversity" or anything like that. It's trying to right a historical wrong, discrimination against certain groups based on race. "Diversity" is just a nice word to use to appeal to emotion so they just use that, but it's irrelevant to the purpose of affirmative action.
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago

jsnk 13y ago

If this kind of practise were done against Blacks, Aboriginals, LGBT or women instead of Asians, would you still say it was ok? Instead of universities, if it were some restaurants in your neighborhood practicing policy akin to this, would you still say it was ok?

wfunction 13y ago
I never said it was okay (or for that matter, not okay) against Asians to begin with. I was just stating the facts behind the Bakke case, not attempting to take a stance.
newnewnew 13y ago
It is wrong to discriminate against any non-white racial group.

anonymoushn 13y ago

Is there any functional difference between a system that considers race and a system of racial quotas? As far as I can tell, the difference is that one of them will have a very slight random deviation from the other. It is simple to construct a non-quota admissions system from a desired set of quotas (though one would probably do well not to write down the desired set of quotas). Each year one could adjust the bonus/penalty assigned to each race to target admissions levels at the hidden quotas. Conversely, given a set of per-race bonuses and penalties and admissions data for a particular year, one could calculate what (non-quota) admissions level was most targeted by the set of bonuses and penalties. Edit: It is perhaps even more troublesome to hear "There is no formula for admission. We look at the academics, leadership, activities and references about the applicant's character." If a school explicitly states that it is not looking for anything in particular in its candidates, it would be very difficult for any investigation to find that it is turning away qualified candidates on the basis of race.