Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 660 posts

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

#91

Post by Miner49er »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #87
Miner49er wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people in the Black bucket are way behind economically because people in the White bucket have been stealing from them for 100s of years, and the people in the White bucket created the buckets in the first place to do the stealing. So how do you make that right without continuing to use the buckets? The only way is to either completely dismantle Capitalism, and start over with it or something else again from scra…

"So how do you make that right without continuing to use the buckets? " 2 wrongs don't make it right.

How is paying someone back for a crime a wrong?

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

#92

Post by deogeo »

metzby wrote: post #73
deogeo wrote: post #37

For perspective, here are the Harvard vs US demographics, sorted by most to least represented [1,2,3,4]: Jewish: 14.0% vs 2.6% (5.38x) Asian American: 25.3% vs 5.3% (4.77x) Native Hawaiian: 0.6% vs 0.2% (3.00x) Native American: 1.8% vs 0.7% (2.57x) African American: 14.3% vs 12.7% (1.13x) Hispanic or Latino: 12.2% vs 17.6% (0.69x) non-Jewish white: 33.0% vs 58.9% (0.56x) [1] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/adm…

I didn't see "non-Jewish" white in the source. Did you add up the rest and subtract from 100? I think these should be able to add up to more than 100. E.g., someone who is both Hispanic and Black.

I subtracted Jewish from white, since "Out of this 2,831,000 religious Jewish population, 92% are non-Hispanic white": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews#Assimilation_and...

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

#93

Post by nradov »

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.

This was a district trial court ruling so technically no binding legal precedent has been set. Presumably the plaintiffs will appeal to the First Circuit, and if they take the case they will eventually establish an actual precedent.

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

#94

Post by prolepunk »

umvi wrote: post #19

It's like we have these two irreconcilable ideas: - Diversity is good - Discrimination is bad When 50% of the world's population is from China/India, how do you both promote diversity and not discriminate?

Its not about absolute numbers, it's about admitting people from historically underrepresented or oppressed groups.

I think the name 'Race Conscious' is not a great description where it actually means race and oppression.

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

#95

Post by ravitation »

Just so people are aware, this doesn't "set a bad precedent." It doesn't set any kind of precedent, because the precedent is extremely well established. This ruling is directly in line with numerous SCOTUS decisions: Fisher v. University of Texas (2016), Grutter v. Bollinger, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, etc... These cases are cited throughout the opinion. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that race is admissible as part of an admissions decision as long as that admissions process stands up to strict scrutiny.

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

#96

Post by habosa »

deogeo wrote: post #37

For perspective, here are the Harvard vs US demographics, sorted by most to least represented [1,2,3,4]: Jewish: 14.0% vs 2.6% (5.38x) Asian American: 25.3% vs 5.3% (4.77x) Native Hawaiian: 0.6% vs 0.2% (3.00x) Native American: 1.8% vs 0.7% (2.57x) African American: 14.3% vs 12.7% (1.13x) Hispanic or Latino: 12.2% vs 17.6% (0.69x) non-Jewish white: 33.0% vs 58.9% (0.56x) [1] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/adm…

As a Jewish person I feel weird seeing "whites" being broken into Jewish and non-Jewish. What about other religions? Why include religion at all?

In particular with respect to Harvard and Boston I'd think Catholicism might deserve a mention if we're going to bring religion into this.

In the end I think religious diversity is important but it doesn't belong in the same conversation. You can choose your religion and also turn it on/off at different phases of your life. You also can't see religion from the outside (with some exceptions for example a Sikh turban).

That's not true for race.

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

#97

Post by sct202 »

deogeo wrote: post #37

For perspective, here are the Harvard vs US demographics, sorted by most to least represented [1,2,3,4]: Jewish: 14.0% vs 2.6% (5.38x) Asian American: 25.3% vs 5.3% (4.77x) Native Hawaiian: 0.6% vs 0.2% (3.00x) Native American: 1.8% vs 0.7% (2.57x) African American: 14.3% vs 12.7% (1.13x) Hispanic or Latino: 12.2% vs 17.6% (0.69x) non-Jewish white: 33.0% vs 58.9% (0.56x) [1] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/adm…

Some of those things are linked to the applicant pool, for example normal White people (non-legacy/athlete/deans list/faculty child) only make up 40% of the normal people applicants to Harvard. ( http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf page 42 Panel B: Racial Distribution of Applicants by ALDC Status)

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

#98

Post by NeoBasilisk »

charliesharding wrote: post #59
moate wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 remov…

It doesn't feel helpful to be viewed as an individual as opposed to simply a member of a group? Not every person with x skin color has the same experiences... You're taking racism and running the other way with it instead of just rejecting the premise of viewing people as tribe members as flawed. You shouldn't judge people by the groups they happen to belong to. Individuals should be judged on a case-by-base basis.

>You shouldn't judge people by the groups they happen to belong to.

And yet, in this country we did just that for hundreds of years. You don't just wave your hand and erase that legacy. We are in a transitional period that will hopefully help ease us into a society where these measures will truly have no place. We are not there yet.

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

#99

Post by buboard »

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.

Considering that a degree opens doors to employment, not giving them the degree (all other things being equal) is guaranteed to result to hiring discrimination

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

#100

Post by ameister14 »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #22
munchbunny wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A judge just said it is ok discriminating at admission, another one will say it is ok to discriminate on hiring. It is just a logical path of thinking.

It isn't really a logical path of thinking - admissions policy at Harvard doesn't have anything to do with normal hiring policies nationwide
Post reply on HN