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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

#121

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 will almost certainly be overturned on appeal, in appellate court if not the SCOTUS.

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

#122
post #96
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 al…

I was under the impression that Jews commonly don't think of themselves as being white whereas the rest of the 'white' groups did. Maybe I'm wrong? Jewishness is a more closely knit identity which Jews are lucky enough to have, whereas even whiteness is an ever expanding identity leaving many white people with nothing but 'American'.

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

#123

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.

They already have been doing this. Asians are probably the most discriminated against group but no one ever talks about it. It's always about latino or blacks.

That doesn't pass the smell test.

Ask pretty much any Asian(-American) I know, myself included, and none of them would choose to switch places with a Latino or Black friend who went to the same college and has a similar job, because we all know the problems are overall worse on the other side.

Racism against Asians in the US gets less coverage because it's generally less bad.

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

#124
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immoral and unethical nonsense.

Is it really? Think about the often used phrase in regards to subjects like this: 'equality of opportunity' vs. 'equality of outcome' think of all it would take in America to come close to equality of opportunity: you would need vast levels of education and housing reform at the minimum. That reform would no doubt 'disadvantage' those who have benefited from the discrimination and lack of access that others have deal…

There's no way that you can form a tally from the sum total of a person's entire lineage in order to equalize them according to their ancestors struggles. Attempts to do this seem mostly to act as a laundering scheme for financial privilege. Now all someone from a wealthy family needs to do to justify their admission to elite institutions is to find some great great grandparent who plausibly suffered a systemic injustice.

I see the good intentions here, but I get the impression that well meaning rule oriented people are being used to further the very injustices they mean to solve.

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

#125
post #57

"Race-conscious" is a handy euphemism.

It's not though. Although you may disagree, in common usage when referring to policy that affects groups: "Racism" is continuing to disadvantage a group that is already at a disadvantage -- blatantly unfair. A "race-conscious" policy seeks to give advantage to a group that is at a disadvantage, which necessarily will disadvantage a group that is at an advantage. In this thinking, once the disadvantage goes away, then…

Racism is discrimination on the grounds of race.

Stop re-inventing language.

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

#126

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..…

Harvard and UC are trying to do different things. Harvard is trying to admit the future leaders of the world, so it can point to them and say “They are Harvard men.” UC is trying to give an academically rigorous education to the most academically qualified students.

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

#127

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…

Bakke established that specific quotas are not legal, but race as one of multiple factors is permissible. If Harvard's admissions policies include any kind of quota, they will probably be ruled illegal.

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

#128
post #96
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 al…

>What about other religions? Why include religion at all?

The Supreme Court has ruled that in fact Jewish people are a race...at least for purposes of Civil Rights/anti-discrimination laws.

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is paying someone back for a crime a wrong?

Who are you paying back to? The person who did the crime or some other people based on similarities with the criminal? How about putting on the death row everyone in the neighborhood of a murderer? This is your logic.

I'm saying that white people have inherited a lot of wealth at the cost of black people. Wealth statistics clearly show this. The average black family is 10x poorer then the average white family. The stealing was done through Jim Crow, slavery, red lining, etc.

If you inherit money that your parents stole, that money is taken away from you by the police and given back to the person it was stolen from.

In this case, white people's ancestors stole from black people, and therefore, white people should take responsibility for that and pay back black people since they are still benefiting from that theft at the cost of black people today who would have otherwise inherited the stolen wealth.

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