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

501–510 of 660 posts

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

#501

Post by shadowgovt »

tomschlick wrote: post #201
throwaway_law wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

Who says fixing income inequality is unachievable?

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

#502

Post by ikeboy »

underpand wrote: post #500
ikeboy wrote: post #312

Of course it's constitutional, Harvard is a private organization and basically none of the constitution applies to them. The question was whether it violates federal law - specifically Title VI. The confusing part is that Title VI prohibits actions by private entities receiving government funding that would violate the constitution, were they carried out by a state entity. The opinion uses "constitutional" as a short…

I always thought that it was illegal for private organizations to racially discriminate. I know it is illegal for them to racially discriminate for employment. Is discriminating against customers/users (students in this case) fair game?

It's illegal in many contexts under federal law if the business is a "public accommodation". It's not unconstitutional. It may be against state laws in other contexts as well.

Note the title here and at NPR originally said that the Judge said it was constitutional.

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

#503

Post by shadowgovt »

packet881 wrote: post #490
bigendian1234 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I'm a white person who used to think of affirmative action as unfair discrimination. That was true until I spent time volunteering teaching technical skills to kids in poor immigrant neighborhoods. Now that I have had an up close experience with these communities, I'm here to tell you institutional racism is real and we're far from it making sense to end these programs. There simply is not a quick easy solution…

Feel free to make your voice heard by your vote and donate from your paycheck. This is a zero sum game and my ancestors were not oppressing either latinos or Africans. I'll make my voice heard by not voting for Democrats.

Education is not a zero-sum game.

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

#504

Post by JPKab »

bigendian1234 wrote: post #459
tomschlick wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

FWIW, I'm a white person who used to think of affirmative action as unfair discrimination. That was true until I spent time volunteering teaching technical skills to kids in poor immigrant neighborhoods. Now that I have had an up close experience with these communities, I'm here to tell you institutional racism is real and we're far from it making sense to end these programs. There simply is not a quick easy solution…

Do you think the kids in poor immigrant neighborhoods are in worse positions than poor kids in eastern Kentucky? Because the current policies treat white kids from trailer parks like white kids from fancy suburbs. And they treat FOB Asians like they are doctor's children. And black kids from fancy suburbs are treated as if they came from poor ghettos.

The idea that "oppression" is limited to dimensions of race and gender, rather than ethnic/economic/geographic/etc is as juvenile as it is political useful.

You have had up close experience with one kind of disadvantaged community, and act as if that is the only group that has it. The difference between urban communities and places like Clay County, Kentucky is that volunteers like you won't ever get sent to Kentucky.

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

#505

Post by mikelyons »

maehwasu wrote: post #461
mikelyons wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income equality is outcome equality, which is unenforceable.

It’s very enforceable. It’s just that it really, really sucks to live in a society that implements that enforcement.

I don't believe you, can you give some examples?

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

#506

Post by simmanian »

rohit2412 wrote: post #469
Anechoic wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would give affirmative action based on economic status, not race But race also matters in terms of starting position.

Yes, a lot in terms of cultural differences. So Asian-americans are being discriminated against because their parents make them study hard?

Isn't it interesting to see so many people being okay with Asians getting discriminated against? It's almost as if it's not institutional racism to funnel Asians to colleges that mass produce worker class people instead of leaders of tomorrow. People will almost directly say that Asians make poor leaders because all they care about is school grades, when in reality Asians are taught to work harder than their peers to overcome exactly that prejudice. Let's try evening out the playing field and see how many Asians flourish in all areas of life in America like they do in Asia.

Asians need to organize like people of other races and take bigger pieces of the pie.

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

#508

Post by chicob »

Non-American here.

I have never witnessed the dynamics of reparation policies. The closest thing we have in Portugal, if it could be so called, is the Jewish Law of Return, a bureaucratic shortcut for granting Portuguese nationality to descendants of 15th and 16th century Portuguese Jews that were forced to flee the country, escaping persecution.

In Portugal, the concept of race has been recognized on the fly, and only in terms of the Constitutional Rights of citizens in the case of discrimination. This might change in the near future. As such, I follow this subject in American politics and news, since the USA are an obvious case-study.

As I see it, the fact that the concept of race is meaningless in anthropological terms, as informative as it can be, is not helpful in fighting prejudice in general or racism in particular. A bit like explaining basic geometry to a flat-earther: in most cases, it is pointless. On the other hand, it seems to me that acknowledging the dynamics of the division of people by racial categories (self-reported or not) is a dead end, and one that might betray its very purpose.

At best, this strategy will sustain the social conscience of the issues of race, without eroding the poisonous constructs associated with it. As in other areas of discrimination, like gender, strategies that favour outcome in detriment of opportunity might have some value to it, as this is a kind of social bailout that could just work. In some European countries, positive discrimination works only as a temporary exception.

But unlike social concepts like gender, or nationality, whose fundamental aspects are less troublesome (there being, as far as I know, no equivalent of transgenderness in race) or whose arbitrariness (like geography) can be critically questioned in different fora, race has the problem of been deep rooted in physical appearance and prejudice.

I don't see how a humanist society can deal in a meaningful way with such a stratification without risking to reinforce racist preconceptions. Am I missing something?

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

#509

Post by CWuestefeld »

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…

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

No, that is not the justification being used.

The argument used to justify this racism is that a rich education requires exposure to diverse people and ideas, and so the educational mission of the school requires that they bring in sufficient numbers of otherwise-underrepresented racial groups. If they can't do this, they say, they won't be able to give their students a good education.

[Note that I'm just playing devil's advocate by citing their view; I actually think it's bollocks. Sure, being surrounded by diverse ideas is important in education. But if they were truly interested in this, then they'd be trying to recruit based on that actual argument, by looking for Protestants and Catholics and Mormons; tall and short people; introverts and extroverts; right-handers and left-handers; city folk and country folk. The fact that the only dimension along which they measure diversity is race reveals that the justification they give is nothing but a convenient rationalization.]

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

#510

Post by thereare5lights »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #491
thereare5lights wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the system is rigged. You are giving a non-answer.

The system isn't rigged if it's slightly harder (if even that!) to get into 1 school with a 4.7% acceptance rate. It's rigged if a hard working daughter of an immigrant has limited paths to social mobility because their community college is underfunded or because their Cal State school has too few slots for her major. That's when I'll say it's "rigged".

> The system isn't rigged if it's slightly harder (if even that!) to get into 1 school with a 4.7% acceptance rate.

That's disingenuous and given all the past responses you've given, leads me to believe you're responding in bad faith. That is clearly not the thrust of this lawsuit.

> It's rigged if a hard working daughter of an immigrant has limited paths to social mobility because their community college is underfunded or because their Cal State school has too few slots for her major. That's when I'll say it's "rigged".

That is not mutually exclusive with what this lawsuit is asserting.

Post reply on HN