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Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

nytimes.com

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Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#101

Post by BadassFractal »

octopoc wrote: post #79
ejstronge wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your assumption is wrong Perhaps... > It is because the extremely high percentage of Black kids living under single parenthood family [1] This is wildly unsourced - what data do you have (ideally across nations/racial categories) for this?

According to the link, 65.3% of black kids live in single parent families vs 34.8% of all kids living in single parent families. This is for America only, which is the context of this story and this thread.

And, interestingly enough, AAs only have 17% of kids in single parent homes, the lowest out of every race.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#102

Post by TangoTrotFox »

vkou wrote: post #40
mberning wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that is bonkers. Let’s use some actual racism to fix some other deficiency, which we assume is the result of some previous racism.

If the deficiency is not the result of previous racism, what is it the result of?

Take a completely random sampling of 1 million people from populations all across the world. And in fact, take them from the day of birth to avoid any sort of early biases (actually 'harbor' the parents from the day of conception to avoid any sort of prenatal differences). And now put all of these million people on a completely homogenous and equally fertile chunk of land on an island. Raise each and every single one of them identically until they are of an age to take care of themselves. Give each and every one of them the exact same amount of starting 'capital' and set them free to achieve as they will.

200 years later, with a population that's multiplied several magnitudes over - would you expect to still see a completely equal people? I wouldn't. People are different. And each child that is born is different, even when born to the same parents. Even identical twins are no longer completely identical by the time of birth. These differences express themselves in different ways (and wow was that the most tautological statement ever), but the point is that I think it's highly illogical to expect to see equality.

Out of genuine curiosity, do you disagree?

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#103

Post by mirajshah »

nostrademons wrote: post #47
40acres wrote: post #7

This argument, while important, is the low hanging fruit of the affirmative action debate in my opinion. We would not need affirmative action if legacy based admissions wasn't so prevalent in top schools. We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes, test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school…

"The best elementary schools in the nation are driven by property taxes, how many people do you know bought their house because of the school district?" Sometimes I wonder how much of this is everyone mistaking causation vs. correlation. School districts with high property taxes tend to have a number of other features in common, like: stable 2-parent households; high incomes; ability to afford private tutors and enri…

Check out my comment below about Dobbie and Fryer 2011 (AEJ Applied Economics)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17878703

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#104

Post by zacharytelschow »

40acres wrote: post #7

This argument, while important, is the low hanging fruit of the affirmative action debate in my opinion. We would not need affirmative action if legacy based admissions wasn't so prevalent in top schools. We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes, test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school…

So your solution to past injustices is systemetized injustices in the other direction?

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#105

Post by castlecrasher2 »

sanitizer wrote: post #92
octopoc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the link, 65.3% of black kids live in single parent families vs 34.8% of all kids living in single parent families. This is for America only, which is the context of this story and this thread.

Even so, I want this to be a country where single parents can thrive and get the help they need. I think all children are entitled to health care, food, and school. I would add shelter, but that is a tougher nut to crack, and that free food (at school) and free health care for kids are themselves low-hanging fruits when it comes to supporting the children and making an environment where they can thrive.

> Even so, I want this to be a country where single parents can thrive and get the help they need.

Why do you think single parenthood is rising, or that adoption opportunities are drying up? I doubt there has been a time in the history of mankind that is more accepting of single parenthood, or where it's been more possible to raise a child on your own. Women by and large aren't financially obligated to give up their children in this day and age, and with society becoming more secular it's socially more acceptable to be a single parent.

Further, what makes you think any institutional policy, or anything at all, can fix single-parent households having worse outcomes than two-parent ones? It's just simple logic: two parents tend to meet children's needs better than one because there are two of them.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#106

Post by zacharytelschow »

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #100
40acres wrote: post #7

This argument, while important, is the low hanging fruit of the affirmative action debate in my opinion. We would not need affirmative action if legacy based admissions wasn't so prevalent in top schools. We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes, test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school…

>We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes, test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school extracurriculars, both academic and non-academic to prepare them for college. What counts as proper funding given many school systems get massive amounts of money that is lost to corruption and past debt…

> how will money fix the problems of lack of parental involvement and a culture that disparages seeking further education.

Bingo.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#107

Post by pc86 »

jcranmer wrote: post #82
pc86 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have examples of what some of these special needs would be?

In general, school districts in poorer neighborhoods need to spend more money on things like subsidizing lunches and before/after-school child care. Bad school districts also can have a spiral effect where parents with means take their children out of public schools and put them in other schools, leaving the public school with a higher baseline of children with learning disabilities or other adverse conditions for le…

School lunch programs are largely federal, aren't they? The school itself isn't paying most (or any) of the bill, and I'm not aware of any link between socioeconomic status and learning disabilities.[0] Even if it did, does having a larger proportion of learning-disabled pupils negatively effect a school's funding?

[0] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022219476009009...

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#108

Post by dominotw »

fipple wrote: post #77
ejstronge wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your assumption is wrong Perhaps... > It is because the extremely high percentage of Black kids living under single parenthood family [1] This is wildly unsourced - what data do you have (ideally across nations/racial categories) for this?

This is such a well known fact that calling it unsourced is like calling a claim that the sun rises in the east unsourced. https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in...

I know couple of people who are unwed couples but they claim to be single mom and work partime so they get daycare assistance. Not sure how widespread this because that might be inflating the single mother numbers.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#109

Post by eslaught »

nostrademons wrote: post #47
40acres wrote: post #7

This argument, while important, is the low hanging fruit of the affirmative action debate in my opinion. We would not need affirmative action if legacy based admissions wasn't so prevalent in top schools. We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes, test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school…

"The best elementary schools in the nation are driven by property taxes, how many people do you know bought their house because of the school district?" Sometimes I wonder how much of this is everyone mistaking causation vs. correlation. School districts with high property taxes tend to have a number of other features in common, like: stable 2-parent households; high incomes; ability to afford private tutors and enri…

Well of course. Property taxes are high because property values are high, and if property values are high then the only people who can afford to buy (or even rent) are going to be wealthy or relatively wealthy. So what we're really saying is that wealth is correlated with academic outcomes, which I think is non-controversial.

What I found insightful about GP's post is that it explains the mechanism by which wealth transfers from residents to schools, i.e. property taxes. When I was younger I had wondered if it was e.g. donations. Now that I'm older and less ignorant of the housing market, I appreciate much more exactly how large property taxes can be in the more expensive areas....

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#110

Post by _m96l »

The key facts of this story is that Harvard has been discriminating against Asian-Americans based on race, which is illegal in the US.

Harvard knows they've been acting unlawfully, which is why they desperately try to resort to evasive tactics, such as claiming their admission process is a "trade secret" and should never be discussed in court:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/harvard-university-is-figh...

The DoJ is right to conclude that Harvard has been acting illegally.

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