I think its clear that Harvard's selection process is more about predicting (and admitting) those who will be successful than those who are most deserving (by some definition of deserving). This is how they increase their brand's value. I'm not sure how you realign an institutions incentive's to change this priority.
Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
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Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
#142It'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.
Everyone who's downvoting me. Please explain why simply stating this is so controversial?
Hasan Minhaj did a pretty informative episode on the lawsuit against Harvard affirmative action -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm5QVcTI2I8
Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
#143This feels reminiscent of 'diversity hires' where females and/or members of the LGBT+ community are preferred not because of competency/merit but to improve a company's diversity metrics. Disclaimer: I haven't experienced this myself. I only read/heard of these complaints from other people.
This ends up hurting females and L/G/B/T people in our industry because people will have a preconception that they may have been hired for reasons other than merit.
To bring it back to the article, imagine being a black harvard graduate. People may judge you as lesser compared to asian harvard graduates, because they know that you've been held to different standards, even if you had the merit and deserved your placement in that university.
Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
#144For 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…
These numbers are next to meaningless, Harvard doesn't just accept people from the US, so we should be looking at population percentages of the world. I assume that people who don't fit in any category are shunted into one of them based on skin color. For example a Jamaican is, I assume, counted in the African American bucket, and compared against the African American population, even though they're neither American…
Fyi about 1/10 of Harvard College students are international
Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
#145Nobody is entitled to go to Harvard and focusing on one institution does a disservice to folks (including Asian Americans like myself) who didn’t get into any elite institutions unlike many of the plaintiffs
Indeed no one is entitled to go to Harvard, but Harvard is also not entitled to federal research grants that are being funded by taxing Asian Americans under the same laws as other Americans, so I guess we are at an impasse.
Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
While IANAL... There is a difference between general admission and "programs or activities that receive Federal financial assistance". While I'm not saying this is right, it appears to be the current letter of the law. If, for example, race were a determining factor in who works on one of the R&D projects at Harvard that is funded by federal money it would be different than this situation. Does each student at Harvar…
Almost every college is subject to this law because they accept federal grants and loans for students during the admissions process.
There are only a few conservative religious schools that are exceptions. They refuse all federal funds to prevent such laws applying. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_City_College_v._Bell
Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
#147It'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?
I think the debate from progressives is the definition of the term discriminate. We all agree choosing an unqualified person over a person who is qualified based on their race is discrimination. However is it discrimination to choose the diverse candidate when presented with two candidates that are equally qualified in every other regard? Because that is often the situation. There is no shortage of people who are qua…
Yes it is discrimination, because it gives people of that race systematically fewer chances of having a life.
The difference is when it is systematic. It is currently systematic in most universities and schools.
Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, w…
"White people" is a vast generalization, it includes people that came in US much later than the history you are talking about. How can you even consider punishing them for something they did not do, just because they are the same race as the people that did something bad a long time ago? This is racism in the purest form.
Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
#149Wow - 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.
Well, the difference being that white males hold institutional power in the United States, whereas that isn't true for Asian males (or females).
Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't really a logical path of thinking - admissions policy at Harvard doesn't have anything to do with normal hiring policies nationwide
There are laws against discrimination for both. Someone else just posted the link for the legislation for admission.
Unlike college admissions, the Supreme Court has since 1964 never upheld the idea that race could be an acceptable element of hiring practices.
Hiring =/= college admissions. Just because they both contain 'discrimination' in the complaint doesn't mean they are logically all that linked.