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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

#191

Post by vilmosi »

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #102
vkou wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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

I would. South Koreans are 2-3 inches taller than North Koreans, plus a miriad of other biological differences, in a relatively short span of time. This is for the same ethnicity, yet alone race.

For me, that alone is proof we are much more similar than we think, and environmental factors, which your hypothetical scenario accounts for perfectly, has a much greater impact on us compared to genetics.

Which is why, for perfectly randomly selected humans raised identically for 200 years, I would not expect significant differences.

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

#192

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #188
SenseiMaster wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It most definitely is a moral issue when students are racially discriminated against. There is a trade-off between racial diversity and racial discrimination. What you're saying here is that non-Asian leaders who are individually worse leaders take the spot of Asian leaders who are individually better leaders because the race of non-Asian leaders makes them better leaders.

>racially discriminated against But we haven't settled whether they're being racially discriminated against. If some legitimate feature to discriminate or filter against correlates with race, then it will look a lot like racial discrimination when it isn't. Harvard wanting to maximize their future prestige by carefully constructing the makeup of their student body is such an instance. Maximizing leadership potential…

> It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA/SAT necessarily has more leadership potential.

And somehow these "lacking in leadership potential" students happen to be Asian more often than the norm? Year after year? Seems like a convenient coincidence.

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

#193

Post by tartoran »

This is totally against "test takers". Knowing the rules will make them better at taking tests but Harvard wants to be about something else. I may sure be downvoted to say that from my experience asians are the great test takers, and gotta also add that they have amazing rote memory, one of the best imho.

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

#194

Post by sdinsn »

bobmarley1 wrote: post #120
_m96l wrote: post #110

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…

It's actually not at all clear if it's legal hence the court battle. In fact AA is literally legalized discrimination that benefits Minorities so you really don't know what you are talking about.

The use of gender and racial quotas in University admissions is unconstitutional, decided by the Supreme Court case Gratz v. Bollinger in 2003.

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

#197

Post by hackinthebochs »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #192
hackinthebochs wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>racially discriminated against But we haven't settled whether they're being racially discriminated against. If some legitimate feature to discriminate or filter against correlates with race, then it will look a lot like racial discrimination when it isn't. Harvard wanting to maximize their future prestige by carefully constructing the makeup of their student body is such an instance. Maximizing leadership potential…

> It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA/SAT necessarily has more leadership potential. And somehow these "lacking in leadership potential" students happen to be Asian more often than the norm? Year after year? Seems like a convenient coincidence.

You're missing the point. There is no way to quantify leadership potential and so they have to come up with various heuristics. One heuristic is being an outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster. That is, group people by various factors such as race, income, region, etc. Those who are outliers of those groups are likely to have leadership potential: whatever drove them to succeed where others failed in similar circumstances is a strong signal for leadership potential.

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

#198

Post by malcolmgreaves »

tr0ut wrote: post #124
malcolmgreaves wrote: post #50

A lot of commenters here are demonstrating that they do not understand the difference between racism and racial discrimination. Racsim is the systematic oppression of people. It's carried out in instutions, culture, and processes: individual people do not perform racsim. (Individuals can discriminate.) Racism depends on country / region. In the US, racism exits against black and brown people. It is a system set up fo…

Since you posted this exact statement a dozen times. Could you answer, What exactly is the benefit for white people to be racist to black and brown people?

They're so many: being able to get a home loan (redlining), not being killed by police even when you have a gun, having access to generational wealth, being promoted and included in instutions of power and wealth that are run by white people, having family or friends being able to get you high paying jobs because they and their parents were similarily employed, seeing images of people that look like you portrayed as the hero/savior/good guy in media, living in school districts that ate better funded, not having people target or attack you for your skin color, not having laws that were created to incarcerate you (war on drugs, the numerous new Jim crow laws) etc.

And I see that your question implies a confusion: a white person needs to do nothing to participate in racism. By being white, going with the flow means receiving the benefit of these insutions. A white person could never act in a racially discriminatory way and still receive benefit.

White people need to actively dismantle the system that is racism so that it no longer benefits them. (This is the only ethical path forward.) And if white people are scared that they'll be treated the same way that they treated non white people, then they should ensure that the dismantling doesn't prop up a new oppressive system.

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

#200

Post by millermp12 »

At what point will any of the self-professed "friends of science" -- the majority of HN posters for that matter -- sack up and allow themselves to even entertain the possibility that, in modeling disparate outcomes between ethnic groups, that the genetic term is almost certainly non-zero?

The trends in genomics, specifically ever more powerful GWAS studies on complex phenotypes (e.g. height, academic achievement and yes cognitive ability) are not breaking in favor of this blank slate world view.

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/07/game-over-genomic-predi...

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