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Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

nytimes.com

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Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#121

Post by Manicdave »

throwawayfri10 wrote: post #94
ekianjo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IANAL but it sounds like Harvard just admitted that they were guilty. I don't like what they seem to be doing, but Harvard is a private university - they should be able to recruit who they want to based on their own criteria. Of course, it's not a binary thing: universities in the US receive lots of subsidies from local states, so there is a certain expectation of fairness. Maybe the right thing to do would be to c…

That's the actual issue here. Harvard receives around $600 million in federal funds a year [1]. 1. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/22/federal-funding...

Thats a lot of money, what do they do with it?

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#122

Post by Spooky23 »

imranq wrote: post #92
Spooky23 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because employers love credentialism and can discriminate based on college. Your ability to break into the highest levels of many fields depends on that Harvard degree vs a public or 2nd tier private school.

What’s stopping you from making a groundbreaking company of your own and becoming an employer yourself? Employers can hire who they want and if Harvard’s selection of candidates does not meet their standards, you can be sure that employers are going to stop hiring from Harvard.

Nothing. I can’t afford Ivy League people, 90% of the people we fire are from public colleges.

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#123

Post by drankula3 »

ajross wrote: post #109
tuesdayrain wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complaining about any kind of race composition does seem oddly racist to me, even when the poster is trying to reduce racism. I wouldn't go to a university in Africa and say "wow it sucks that there's so many black people here, you need some white people for diversity. Maybe we should tweak the admissions system".

You're missing the point. Let's say you go to your hypothetical "university in Africa", and that your nation had, I dunno, a significant(25%, say) Uzbek minority. Yet the student body was 98% native africans. You seriously wouldn't consider that a problem? You wouldn't ask why the Uzbeks weren't being educated at the same rate as the rest of the population? You'd consider it "oddly racist" to even ask if maybe this w…

> tell me again how that's "oddly racist" to think this is a problem.

They are discriminating due to race, which is literally the definition of racism. You may be able to rationalize it, and you may think the pros of such calculated racist behavior outweigh the cons, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still racism.

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#124

Post by extra88 »

Manicdave wrote: post #121
throwawayfri10 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the actual issue here. Harvard receives around $600 million in federal funds a year [1]. 1. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/22/federal-funding...

Thats a lot of money, what do they do with it?

It’s money for research.

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#125

Post by notyouravgdoge »

It's my understanding that California's Proposition 209 [1] prohibits public universities from considering race in their admissions process.

I'm curious if those who attended public universities in California felt that their education was less "holistic" in any way due to Prop 209.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_209

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#126

Post by jletienne »

verylongname wrote: post #105
spangry wrote: post #45

I thought the ACLU had a rather interesting take on this issue: "Make no mistake: A lawsuit against Harvard that's purported to represent the interests of Asian-Americans would, if successful, primarily benefit white students. #DefendDiversity" https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1051626960537808898

Quite aside from the question of whether or not its okay to discriminate as long as it is principally whites who are harmed, I find this statement from the ACLU to be bizarre. I think it is fairly obviously wrong. Moreover, the plaintiffs commissioned a study on the effect color blind admissions would have on the racial distribution of Harvard's undergraduate population. It should be taken with a grain of salt, as sh…

If the primary goal is to be selected into Harvard, your finding is correct. Is it wrong to optimize for several metrics? What if the goal was to create opportunities that would exist for decades, for generations?

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/03/19/594993620...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-c...

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#127

Post by jungletime »

Pretty sure this is at expense of poor whites, who are under represented under such admission criteria. Since "whites at the bottom 10% of family income distribution, do about as well as blacks at the top 10% of family income on SAT scores".

This video purports to break down the stats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtXjAaxpI2I

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#128

Post by munchbunny »

vageli wrote: post #120
munchbunny wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth in the US correlates strongly along racial lines. The rich getting richer widens wealth disparities between races and communities, which in turn widens the gap in political voice, both because of money and education. There's a reason the EEOC needed to exist.

So why don't we address the issue at its root and use wealth as the primary factor for diversity versus the proxy of race?

Race is by itself a root cause. You only need to look at the white nationalists who've come out of the woodwork recently to see that.

Case in point, do you think this can be fixed by fixing wealth disparities? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/2...

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#129

Post by toasterlovin »

munchbunny wrote: post #128
vageli wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why don't we address the issue at its root and use wealth as the primary factor for diversity versus the proxy of race?

Race is by itself a root cause. You only need to look at the white nationalists who've come out of the woodwork recently to see that. Case in point, do you think this can be fixed by fixing wealth disparities? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/2...

> Race is by itself a root cause.

Racism exists. But there are many black and brown ethnic groups that do better than whites in the US[0]. In fact, the highest earning ethnic group in the US are brown! And immigrants from The Caribbean (who are predominantly indistinguishable from black Americans) tend to earn more income than American born whites. So while race may be an issue, the hypothesis that it is the predominant issue doesn’t seem to line up with the data.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#130

Post by adamiscool8 »

jjeaff wrote: post #119
adamiscool8 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if, e.g. $race_a applicants get +2 to their score, but $race_b applicants are more likely to be +2 in other $admissions_factors[c,d,..n]. Distinct from $race_b-2 and $race_a+2, as this only hurts the subset of $race_b applicants lacking [c,d,..n]

Whether they are "likely" to have better scores in other categories is irrelevant. You are still deducting points based on race.

You're not deducting anything.
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