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Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

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Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#11

Post by moate »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #7

They ought to do more to at least make students feel less discriminated against. The question is really how to add transparency and systemization to the process in a way that cannot be gamed. I don’t think everyone believes standardized testing is the answer, so what is it? My personal opinion is that they will actually create separate admissions pools, under the cover of the School of Engineering and Applied Science…

>>The question is really how to add transparency and systemization to the process in a way that cannot be gamed.

You can't make a system that can't be gamed if there's people making judgement calls involved. You can't build a perfect system that makes everyone happy. You just need to build a system you're happy with. No matter what you do, someone with a 4.0 isn't getting into Harvard, and they're going to be pissed about that.

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#12

Post by throwawaysea »

This ruling is a travesty and I hope the Supreme Court overturns it when this is appealed. It is very clear that race-conscious admissions are systematically racist and discriminatory. Take a look at the distribution of students by race in the University of California system, where they're not permitted to discriminate in this manner, thanks to Prop 209 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_California_Proposition_20...) - it is very different (more Asians) compared to private schools like Harvard.

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#13

Post by munchbunny »

umeshunni wrote: post #10

Wow - this sets a bad precedent. This might now encourage companies to now discriminate against Asias in hiring as well. There are already murmurs in the Valley about how there are too many Asians in tech.

Why do you think that? Discriminating by race for hiring is explicitly illegal, so wherever it's happening, it's already happening despite the law.

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#14

Post by newfoot »

Harvard does tend to favor wealthy legacies though:

"According to The Harvard Crimson, 43.2% of legacy students and 20% of athletes in Harvard’s Class of 2019 come from households that earn more than $500,000 a year, compared to just 15.4% of the overall class.

Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said that many of the legacy students applying to the university would be in the most desirable applicant pool regardless of their status.

“Their applications tend to be well put-together," Bacow told NPR. "They have deep knowledge of the institution. So it's a self-selected pool, which, as a group, by almost any metric, looks very, very good relative to the broader applicant pool.” "

https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/09/penn-upenn-philadelphi...

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#16

Post by whamlastxmas »

umeshunni wrote: post #10

Wow - this sets a bad precedent. This might now encourage companies to now discriminate against Asias in hiring as well. There are already murmurs in the Valley about how there are too many Asians in tech.

There's people saying there's too many whites and males in tech too.

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#17

Post by moate »

yucca_plant wrote: post #3

The entire problem is that we categorize people into different buckets. "White", "Black", "Asian", etc. Admissions must be race blind. In general our society must be race blind. "White" people were once Polish, Italian, German, etc. Yet these identities have melted away over generations in large part because society did not and does not actively reinforce these identities. By forcing people into these buckets we rein…

There's so much to unpack here, IDK where to even start.

"I don't see color" doesn't feel helpful to many people of color. If you believe that there are prejudices, and you want to fix them, saying "everyone immediately needs to stop being prejudice and everything will be better" isn't actually a solution we can enact. What if people don't suddenly decide it's in their best interest to not be racist?

*Edited to remove off topic comment

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#18

Post by javagram »

munchbunny wrote: post #13
umeshunni wrote: post #10

Wow - this sets a bad precedent. This might now encourage companies to now discriminate against Asias in hiring as well. There are already murmurs in the Valley about how there are too many Asians in tech.

Why do you think that? Discriminating by race for hiring is explicitly illegal, so wherever it's happening, it's already happening despite the law.

Discriminating by race for college admissions is also explicitly illegal. (Edit: see https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/hq43e4.html )

The law only matters inasmuch as it can be enforced. If judges decline to enforce the law when they believe it’s in the interest of diversity to discriminate against a specific race like Asians, it could equally apply to employment where similar diversity initiatives are taking root.

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