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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

#271

Post by smashthepants »

charliesharding wrote: post #197
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…

Which wealth statistics? From this article, 90% of family wealth is lost by the third generation. http://money.com/money/3925308/rich-families-lose-wealth/

There are so many studies on this if you're actually interested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

Regardless of whether family wealth is lost over time, non-black families still hold more wealth than black families by several multiples.

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

#272

Post by Steven_Vellon »

notyourday wrote: post #154
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…

That's because Americans fixate on Ashkenazi.

The US Jewish population is 90-95% Ashkenazim. It's unfortunate that Americans sometimes forget about the minority of Sephardim and Mizrahim, but for the most part the assumption that Jewish American == Ashkenazi holds true.

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

#273

Post by pj_mukh »

rr-geil-j wrote: post #89

This 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.

Who’s actually doing this? In a way that is actually documented? Most evidence I’ve seen of this happening has been hearsay.

Note: Trying to make the applicant pool more diverse is not the same as hiring someone solely because of diversity.

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

#275

Post by dmix »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #203
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a personal rating not a personable rating.

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

#276

Post by jessriedel »

paulcole wrote: post #248
opportune wrote: post #221

I wanted to go to Harvard, and didn't get in, so I went to a slightly less prestigious school instead. I had perfect test scores and grades so I potentially could have been part of this lawsuit, and I used to be super bothered by affirmative action. But now I don't really care. Even if you don't get into your favorite top school, if you're actually a strong applicant you're likely to get into at least one, or if not,…

> I had perfect test scores and grades If Harvard wanted to admit 1,000 kids with perfect test scores and perfect grades they’d just take the first 1,000 applicants and call it a day. They can be and are much choosier than that. Why wouldn’t they be? If you have the choice between a 4.0/1600 kid and a 4.0/1600/world-class pianist, who would you take? When applying to Harvard grades and test scores aren’t even worth m…

Sort of. They certainly could take a class that had only perfect scores, and they also certainly select based on other criteria, but selecting on these other criteria seriously impact the typical scores of admits. I think Caltech students do noticeably better on every quantitative metric, both in terms of means and medians.

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

#277

Post by pessimizer »

streb-lo wrote: post #228
mruts wrote: post #212

As a person living in Africa, this is probably because Africans are willing to work much much harder than American blacks. Also the culture is less toxic.

We're offering personal anecdotes as facts on here now? Really?

The comment is illustrative of the fact that a portion of the people counted as remediation for American slavery and discrimination are not only not the descendants of American slaves, but actively parrot bigoted attitudes against them.

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

#278

Post by defen »

rohit2412 wrote: post #256
defen wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basketball is zero-sum, undergrad college admissions mostly aren't. As long as Harvard lets in enough students who are "good enough" to not fail out or besmirch their reputation, it can continue indefinitely as a prestige-generating institution. Put another way - the "Michael Jordan" of undergraduate academics doesn't really exist (in other words, there is no individual undergraduate you could admit who would instant…

So, Bill gates, Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page etc etc did not bring their amla mater's any extra fame? Is your bar just "do not besmirch the good name of this institution"? Then I guess nobody should care for or covet International olympiad winners.

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard. Neither Brin nor Page went to Harvard and are both more famous for their connection to Stanford as graduate students IMO

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

#279

Post by bluecalm »

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.

Would everyone be satisfied if a restaurant or a store discriminated based on race even if it doesn't take any federal funds? Racist policies are racist. Hopefully Supreme Court takes it and strikes it down.

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

#280

Post by bsder »

paulcole wrote: post #248
opportune wrote: post #221

I wanted to go to Harvard, and didn't get in, so I went to a slightly less prestigious school instead. I had perfect test scores and grades so I potentially could have been part of this lawsuit, and I used to be super bothered by affirmative action. But now I don't really care. Even if you don't get into your favorite top school, if you're actually a strong applicant you're likely to get into at least one, or if not,…

> I had perfect test scores and grades If Harvard wanted to admit 1,000 kids with perfect test scores and perfect grades they’d just take the first 1,000 applicants and call it a day. They can be and are much choosier than that. Why wouldn’t they be? If you have the choice between a 4.0/1600 kid and a 4.0/1600/world-class pianist, who would you take? When applying to Harvard grades and test scores aren’t even worth m…

> If you have the choice between a 4.0/1600 kid and a 4.0/1600/world-class pianist, who would you take?

Which would be fine.

Unfortunately, they take the 3.4/1420/Tennis Player instead.

All of these schools have been proven over and over to reduce their standards when an athlete is involved.

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