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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

#201

Post by tomschlick »

throwaway_law wrote: post #170
throwawaysea wrote: post #12

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 is very clear that race-conscious admissions are systematically racist and discriminatory. Every time the SCOTUS hears one of these cases they acknowledge that, but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. So the e…

> but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field.

So under that thought process... when does the temporary measure end? Is there a specific goal? Or is it something unachievable like "when income inequality is fixed".

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

#202

Post by gnicholas »

thrill wrote: post #104
ummonk wrote: post #51

This ruling was expected. The judge had been stalling on making a ruling to make it take time to work its way through the appeals courts and get to the Supreme Court where the policy might actually get ruled unconstitutional.

Unlikely to be ruled unconstitutional with the current makeup of the Supreme Court. A case brought against the University of Texas in 2016 ruled 4-3 basically the same way, with one justice recusing and another justice had died and not yet been replaced.

Really? Kennedy is gone and was replaced by Kavanaugh. Kennedy was in the majority (pro-AA) in the 2016 case, and I would venture to guess (based on nothing more than the discussions in the legal circles I'm in) that Kavanaugh would not be as friendly to affirmative action as Kennedy was.

If I were a betting man, I'd put the odds north of 2:1 that this will be overturned if the current SCOTUS sees it.

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

#203

Post by TulliusCicero »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #159
muh_gradle wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Well it's simple you see, Asians are simply less personable, as a group, than white folk. No no no, it's not blatant discrimination at all, I assure you! It's just science, I swear!"

I really don't see how anyone justifies this kind of thing in 2019. This is like the barest possible fig leaf over obvious prejudice. They could rename it to "Cromulence Factor" and it'd make as much sense.

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

#204

Post by whatshisface »

conradfr wrote: post #165
strikelaserclaw wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't Jews a race and a religion? Plenty of non religious Jews out there.

What is a race exactly for humans?

A race is a "folk science" version of an ethnicity (it's defined culturally instead of scientifically). An ethnicity is a genetically similar group of people that often come from the same geographic origin.

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

#205

Post by tathougies »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #191
tathougies wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Harvard's endowment is around $40 billion. They're awarded about $600M in Federal grants per year. Though I'm sure they'd prefer to keep receiving them, they'd be just fine without them. It seems like turning down Federal grants and handling admissions as they like would satisfy everyone.

I mean that's fine. I'm not out to get Harvard. They have every right to their private wealth. Just don't expect governmental recognition and public praise.

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

#206

Post by TulliusCicero »

throwawaysea wrote: post #70
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

The wiki says the UC system has about 40% Asian American students. This suggests race conscious admissions do indeed (as the name suggests) discriminate based on race, at institutions like Harvard.

Nitpick: Comparing UC to Harvard isn't that straightforward. The UC system is California's, it disproportionately takes people from California, and California does have more Asians than the country as a whole, as well as more than the Northeast region in which Harvard is based.

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

#207

Post by [deleted] »

ravitation wrote: post #131
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#208

Post by xenihn »

slg wrote: post #162
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…

A lot of the responses here are talking about ethnicity or Jewish identity, but I think when it comes down to it, Jews are considered white mainly when other white people want to consider them as such. I would bet that your average Ashkenazi Jew (it is worth noting there are multiple different Jewish ethnic groups) has more genetic commonality with an average person of Ukrainian descent than that Ukrainian person has…

Arabs, Armenians, North Africans, and Persians are all considered white in the US.

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

#209

Post by Jun8 »

throwaway_law wrote: post #170
throwawaysea wrote: post #12

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 is very clear that race-conscious admissions are systematically racist and discriminatory. Every time the SCOTUS hears one of these cases they acknowledge that, but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. So the e…

Jews were also historically discriminated against, e.g. "Dean Milton Winternitz's instructions were remarkably precise: 'Never admit more than five Jews, take only two Italian Catholics, and take no blacks at all.'" (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota#United_States)

Also related: California Alien Land Law of 1913 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1...), targeting mostly Asians (Japanase, Chinese, and Koreans). SCOTUS reaffirmed this law in 1923, it was finally invalidated in 1952.

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

#210

Post by Meekro »

Others here have pointed out, quite correctly, that this ruling follows a long string of precedents. But with the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court, I wouldn't be surprised if we see affirmative action knocked down in the next few years.

Fisher v UT (2016) gave us a look at where the justices stand, and the three most conservative justices at the time (Roberts, Alito, Thomas) wanted to strike down UT's affirmative action policy. If the new conservatives (Gorsuch and Kavanaugh) join them, we could have a new majority that believes affirmative action at a public college is always unconstitutional.

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