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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

#401

Post by ineedasername »

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..…

But Harvard is a private school, which I think makes a difference. I also don't know how you maintain a diverse student body with different cultural perspectives if you aren't in some way filtering on cultural background, of which race is a part. Honestly, I don't know. I don't think it's an easy question. However, I think there's a decent case that, if Harvard is making decisions like this, it's ability to receive funding under title IX is called into question. Not that it would really adversely impact them, but it's a valid complaint that they maybe shouldn't be eligible. However, again I don't know! I don't think these are black & white matters.

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

#402

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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…

I'm guessing if you took age into account (i.e. the average age of a white person is older than the average Hispanic person and the average Harvard attendee will be younger than the average person) then the positions on the bottom two might swap over.

The average age of people who identify as two races is markedly lower than other groups though they're a relatively small group, so not sure how that works out. But there's roughly as many people who identify as both white and native American as just native American. If Harvard only lets them choose one, which I guess they must if it adds up to 100%, then that could have a big impact on those numbers depending on how people react to that.

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

#403

Post by [deleted] »

manfredo wrote: post #334
pj_mukh wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Intel started to withhold a portion of bonuses unless engineering departments achieved percentages of diverse employees, and other companies have followed suit [1]. Microsoft gives hiring managers incentives to hire people of certain genders and ethnicities, which was brought into question recently [2]. I can personally confirm that this results in discriminatory behavior when my previous company instituted these pol…

[deleted]

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

#404

Post by dba7dba »

I am readying stories about legacy admissions. Let me tell you about a little conversation I had about legacy admission to IvyLeague/Stanford.

A family I know (both mom/dad are children of immigrants) had a kid who got into Harvard and/or Stanford. (not specifying which one to protect identity). Both parents went to public college for undergrad and then went to top school for law/medicine.

Their kid went through K-12 in private school.

When their child got into the top college for undergrad, I asked how many from that same high school got into the top Harvard/Stanford.

Mom said 3 got into that college.

And later, dad said 6 from the high school got into same college, and mentioned 3 out of 6 were legacy admissions.

As far as the mom was concerned, the legacy admissions didn't even count as real admittance. :)

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

#406

Post by nql »

zarro wrote: post #391
lozenge wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because life sucked for black people in the 60s and they managed to change the law?

I don’t see how that has anything to do with forcing a private institution into serving customers it doesn’t want to. The argument is: Imagine you and a friend have a private tutoring business. You should be able to have the freedom to pick whatever customers you want, your not a slave, your not obligated to provide a service for someone if you don't want to. Over time if there is demand for private tutoring that you…

Why should that logic only apply to colleges and not businesses in general?

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

#407

Post by yostrovs »

ineedasername wrote: post #401
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..…

But Harvard is a private school, which I think makes a difference. I also don't know how you maintain a diverse student body with different cultural perspectives if you aren't in some way filtering on cultural background, of which race is a part. Honestly, I don't know . I don't think it's an easy question. However, I think there's a decent case that, if Harvard is making decisions like this, it's ability to receive…

Since Harvard receives federal funds, it has to play by the same anti discrimination rules as the Federal government.

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

#408

Post by cloverich »

tathougies wrote: post #267
cloverich wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly all racial and ethnic sub-groups were discriminated against to various degrees in the US (and elsewhere). I distinctly remember being taught this (including about several of your bullet points) in the Texas suburb I grew up in. But its not comparable in scope or legacy to that of Black Americans, and by your own admission if Asian American's "basically own the United States" -- do they actually need help? Its…

> not so much between asians and whites. What are you even talking about? https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... Basically all post-slavery discrimination against blacks happened to Asians. Can you please cite anything that can support the opposite claim? It's typically better to argue with facts than making shit up, or worse, misrepresenting the facts due to a systematic removal of history f…

I should have said "as much". My implication is that the gap between asian's and whites is both smaller and closing more rapidly than that between black's and whites, based on what I've read and experienced. It doesn't mean there isn't discrimination (etc).

> Basically all post-slavery discrimination against blacks happened to Asians. Can you please cite anything that can support the opposite claim?

I'm not arguing that point. I'm saying that the thing you are excluding from your argument -- hundreds of years of slavery -- has a legacy that goes beyond the discriminatory practices you highlight and likely requires a larger corrective action to fix.

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

#409

Post by habnds »

rohit2412 wrote: post #298
dwoozle wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harvard and UC are trying to do different things. Harvard is trying to admit the future leaders of the world, so it can point to them and say “They are Harvard men.” UC is trying to give an academically rigorous education to the most academically qualified students.

So, asians are less likely to be leaders because of their race? African-Americans are more likely to be leaders because of their race?

No but it might be possible that an African american with the same grades as an asian american is much more likely to be successful in the future because they got the same results from what is likely a much more difficult starting point. The context of someone's acheivements matters and race is part of that context.

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

#410

Post by [deleted] »

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'.

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