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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

#131

Post by ravitation »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #127
ravitation wrote: post #95

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.

The first line of the opinion's conclusion is that Harvard's admissions process survives strict scrutiny. If it were found to be dependent on quotas, this would likely not be the case, based on the previously mentioned well established precedent.

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

#132

Post by ctroein89 »

habosa wrote: post #96
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 al…

The distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish whites has been contextually important when discussing the history of discrimination in college admissions. The original move towards subjective ranking of applicants was in part a way to limit the number of Jewish applicants: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-d...

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

#133

Post by notyourday »

finolex1 wrote: post #115
notyourday wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What "school" inspects every single arriving Freshman? Pretty much every single school that makes freshmen live on campus, which is pretty much every single school. > Additionally, there is not much overlap between Orthodox Jewish and African-American surnames. I'm going to make an educated guess you do not happen to live either in any of the urban areas with large Jewish and African-American populations or you at…

In my experience this is not the case. You could live on campus, but I've never seen any member of the admissions committee in person, and any faculty living in your same dorm have no idea what you wrote on your application.

Oh you misunderstood or I was not clear -- i meant the spreadsheet that listed who was assigned to where that is used by the staff to deal with the move in.

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

#134

Post by _fq4v »

40acres wrote: post #42

Unfortunately this is bigger than Harvard and the Asian American students are 'collateral damage'. Fundamentally, the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow permeates every facet of American life, education especially. You can't fix hundreds of years worth of discrimination without tipping the scales in a way that seems discriminatory to others, seems like the Judge in this case understands that.

Asian Americans were as discriminated against as African Americans under Jim Crow. The fact is that we have forgotten the rampant bigotry against Asian Americans because us Asian Americans now basically own the United States of America.

Asian Americans had to put up with (among other things):

* Being ineligible to become citizens of the United States well after the passage of the 13th Amendment. There was a time in this country when both the white and black man could enjoy citizenship and voting but neither the brown nor yellow man could.

* A good portion of Asian Americans (the Japanese) who were American citizens were enslaved by the government for three years, after having all their land and businesses taken away. This was in the 1940s.

* Being victims of hate crimes. There was an entire gang in New Jersey in the 80s dedicated to beating up and murdering Indians (dotbusters). This is not a new phenomenon. The labor movement in Seattle also organized a mob to rid Washington state of cheap Indian labor in the early 1900s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingham_riots)

* The stereotype that Asians prevent 'real American' people from achieving their wealth goals is oddly persistent. It is highly reminiscent of the blame that Hitler laid upon the Jews as preventing real Germans from achieving their potential. The Asiatic Exclusion League in the United States had its first meeting in 1907.

* Moreso than black people, Asian Americans are constantly cast as being perpetual foreigners. Americans whose families have been in this country decades are still treated as Asians, rather than 'full' Americans.

I think it is especially telling that the organizations in favor of affirmative action are also the ones that started the Asian exclusion leagues. The labor movement in this country spearheaded affirmative action. Affirmative action discriminates against asians. This continues a long line of labor movement participation in Asian Exclusion Leagues, and it needs to end now.

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

#135

Post by ilikehurdles »

ridaj wrote: post #21

What I don't get is, what happens if you don't declare a race, or declare "Other", during admission? Why wouldn't Asian candidates do that?

A colleague of mine declared African-American when applying to a US medical school, being from Egypt, a country in Africa, despite also being visibly white and a US citizen. The medical school paired him with a black African-American interviewer for the interview, who was visibly surprised and possibly annoyed at seeing the person he was interviewing.

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

#137

Post by munchbunny »

ummonk wrote: post #53
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.

No it isn’t. Affirmative action programs in employment are legal.

No, they are not.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/

Diversity efforts sit in a gray area that is nowhere close to race quotas.

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

#138

Post by tathougies »

nannePOPI wrote: post #68

Reading about things like this I love the way we select people for university in Italy. There is a written test, multiple-choice questions. Those who score higher, pass. Yes, it sounds like a system that favors test takers, but there are so many seats to take that if you don't score enough you really don't deserve the place (I say this as a person who was never smart not good at tests). Nobody will consider anything…

> There is a written test, multiple-choice questions

So we have this in the United States but it has been accused of being discriminatory because the outcomes differ by race. You can't make this stuff up people!

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

#140

Post by GhettoMaestro »

munchbunny wrote: post #123
sieabahlpark wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When it comes to questions of "degrees" of racism in the US I believe the root of it goes to the news cycle. And in the news business there is a very old expression "If it bleeds, it leads."

Whatever the reason for one group having more violent crime over another - I guarantee you that the more violent groups' activities will be more closely covered due to the "bleed" factor.

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