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

151–160 of 660 posts

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

#151

Post by gnicholas »

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…

This is somewhat useful, but it would be more useful to know what percent of the total college-going population these racial groups make up. And what percent of the 1600-SAT (for lack of a better proxy) population they make up.

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

#152

Post by oarabbus_ »

dbjacobs wrote: post #141

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.

It's pretty clear that Harvard's selection process is more about letting in wealthy and legacy students. This population tends to be more successful in life.

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

#153

Post by javagram »

munchbunny wrote: post #83
javagram wrote: post #18

Earlier 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…

That's not true the way you claim it to be. I just read the full decision, and there's a pretty decent number of citations of existing case law discussing what does and doesn't count as discriminating by race, specifically within the context of college admissions. It's in the last 1/3 of the document after the findings of fact and discussions of statistical analyses. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzqBPL57yCRWHZGE7…

My point is that case law vs an explicit statement of law is not the same.

Judges in the future may rule that tech companies can pass strict scrutiny if they are discriminating against Asians in favor of other races, using similar arguments to those in education law.

This area of law is slippery because the text of Federal civil rights law doesn’t allow for discrimination, but case law (and arguably the original intent of the law’s authors) does.

There is currently a large movement in favor of “diversity” programs in hiring and I can see judges upholding them.

Absolutely reading the decision will be informative to everyone though.

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

#154

Post by notyourday »

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…

That's because Americans fixate on Ashkenazi.

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

#155

Post by avip »

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…

How about Christians, Jews, or... miscellaneous

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

#156

Post by Edmond »

cobweb1 wrote: post #122
habosa wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

It is the price that "white" identity demands. It is a subtractive identity, ie it abhors identity complication.

You basically have to strip every complicating element of your true identity safe for the absolutely benign forms (ie "Kiss me, I am Irish" tea shirts).

If you pay attention at least in American you can observe intriguing examples of this tension with white identity playing out. For instance being LGBTQ and white presents a problem for many. In fact there are examples now of white gay men who claim to hate "identity politics", what they really hate is that LGBTQ identity jeopardizes their "white" identity and they recognize this, so it is easy to pretend there are no other "blemishes" to their "white" identity....It is a fascinating phenomenon if you pay close attention :)

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

#157

Post by dwoozle »

slg wrote: post #119
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?

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…

Why set a minimum bar at “qualified”? If you try out for an NBA team they won’t say “you are really fucking good at basketball, you’re not as good as these guys but you’re diverse so you’re hired.” You get scarce positions by outcompeting people, not by clearing a bar and then getting selected for your race.

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

#158

Post by dcolkitt »

jdoliner wrote: post #110
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…

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…

> While about 8 percent, or about 530, of Harvard's undergraduates were black, Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Harvard's African and African-American studies department, pointed out that the majority of them -- perhaps as many as two-thirds -- were West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples.

> They said that only about a third of the students were from families in which all four grandparents were born in this country, descendants of slaves. Many argue that it was students like these, disadvantaged by the legacy of Jim Crow laws, segregation and decades of racism, poverty and inferior schools, who were intended as principal beneficiaries of affirmative action in university admissions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/us/top-colleges-take-more...

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

#159

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

muh_gradle wrote: post #71
crazypyro wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harvard has a 25%+ Asian American undergrad class, (edit)~~2.5x (Harvard's is ~60% of UC's) more than the latest number listed on that wiki page, so your final statement is factually incorrect`~. I quoted wrong number. It's 25% vs 40%. https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics

We all know that number should probably be higher if we're actually caring about academic performance. Affirmative action doesn't actually bother me as much as legacy based admissions. Just absolutely idiotic that it's accepted.

Indeed, Harvard's own internal study determined that if academics were all that mattered, 43% of admitted students would be Asian.

The major factors pushing down that percentage are legacy admissions and the vague "personal rating," which seems to be the knob Harvard admissions turns to get the demographic ratios it desires. Asians are systematically given a far lower "personal rating" than other demographics.

Source: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/harvard-admissio...

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

#160

Post by wendyshu »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #67
mfer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring and employment is different from college selection processes. Students attending a university are not employees. There are federal laws on equal opportunity employment and California has enacted additional laws. If anyone is caught discriminating on employment based on race it's directly against federal law.

Morally it is the same. Legally, I don't know, I am not a lawyer and I don't even live in US, someone else can tell what the law is.

Should job seekers be allowed to use prejudice to choose which company to work for?
Post reply on HN