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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

#211

Post by cm2187 »

blhack wrote: post #161

How about: who cares? Isn’t this hacker news? Aren’t we all supposed to be hackers who are upending the existing system? How about we build our own Harvards where anybody who wants to study can come and learn whatever they want? And the network comes from being surrounded by other people who cared enough to learn. We don’t need these places anymore. We’ll find our own funding and do our own research and screw the sys…

Well, there is a growing movement of conservatives that are unimpressed with this and with the general politics of universities, and who are becoming anti-college (and the booming cost of the said colleges provides additional arguments). I think it is a bit dangerous, but in essence it joins your argument.

I personally think that the education aspect of colleges is massively overrated, that the quality of the university pretty much all comes from the quality of its recruitment (its students). The teaching is typically very average (researchers aren't necessarily good professors). But if the game is that this badge is required to land a high paying job, a kid today doesn't really have a choice. It's kind of a prisonner dilemna.

We could have a system where the name of the university wouldn't matter that much. That's pretty much how Germany works if I understand correctly.

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

#213

Post by oarabbus_ »

jhawk28 wrote: post #185
oarabbus_ wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the difference being that white males hold institutional power in the United States, whereas that isn't true for Asian males (or females).

Are you saying that it is ok to be racist depending on the status of the person?

No, I'm saying there's a difference between people saying "there's too many Asians in tech" and "there's too many white males in tech".

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

#214

Post by wendyshu »

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.

Plausible but to turn this assertion into an actual argument there'd need to be a causal statistical analysis. I'd be interested in receiving a pointer to the relevant literature.

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

#215

Post by goatinaboat »

mrrrgn wrote: post #124
40acres wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 injus…

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.

Such as being 1/1024 Native American, that technique is known to work at Harvard

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

#216

Post by CallOfTheWilde »

Glyptodon wrote: post #58
cpr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a truly hard problem. I read somewhere (citation needed) that if truly race-blind admissions were used in the UC system, they'd have 98% Asian students. (As a dead white male, that's amusing. Just shows how culture affects outcomes.)

Does this mean 98% of the students meeting guaranteed UC admission thresholds are Asian or is that something California did away with? (IE ~98% of the top 9% however that's defined I think.)

This only applies to the "least elite" UC schools (Merced and Riverside, or perhaps just Merced at this point).

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

#217

Post by southphillyman »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #148
Miner49er wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They immigrated to a country built on the free labor of blacks correct? Once here they were given preferential treatment in terms of unionization and local government correct? The narrative that later immigrants didn't benefit from or engage in Jim Crow is kind of ludicrous.

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

#218

Post by brlewis »

dwoozle wrote: post #157
slg wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Professional sports have well-defined skills and roles to compete for. Diversity of backgrounds/perspectives/ideas is not as valuable in athletes as it is in an academic community.

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

#219

Post by astine »

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 culturally and context dependent grouping of people based on ancestry and geographic origin.

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

#220

Post by aquadrop »

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?

I don't understand why do you even have to declare a race during admission? Does it happen in all US universities?
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