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US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

bbc.com

31–40 of 286 posts

Re: US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

#31
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't familiar with the term outcomes-driven: It is when "a court decides what the outcome of the case should be and then works backward to determine the reasoning that will reach the desired conclusion"

If you think conservatives have a monopoly on this, then take a look at some of the most important Supreme Court cases from FDR through the 1970s or so.

What make you think they view conservatives as having monopoly on misusing the supreme court?

Re: US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

#33
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to it refers to a concept called the meritocracy trap.

Let's say you need open heart surgery. Doctor one has a 3.9 GPA from Harvard medical. Doctor two barely passed your state's medical school Which do you want doing your operation? The "meritocracy trap" often caves into "wealth and privilege" and this is not meritocracy.

Well, someone will get either doctor. Whichever I get is essentially down to luck, so why does this question matter?

Re: US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

#34
> Institutions like Harvard say they consider an applicant's race as one of several factors - including economic status and religious belief - in order to build classes that accurately represent the racial and ethnic diversity of the country.

I mean, this is all kind of window dressing for elite institutions to be elite, right? There are millions of people qualified to attend these university, Harvard gets to hand select from all of them who gets to join their walled garden based on whatever Harvard Admissions is into right now. Notice that they don't care about diversity of viewpoints or politics.

If these universities actually cared about minority enrollment, they could always expand the size of their enrollment. But none of them want to admit that the only real cache of their education is the exclusivity.

Re: US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

#35
post #2

Quoted post unavailable.

What do you think is the conservative outcome? It is not so obvious. The allegation is that Harvard is discriminating against Asians (and thus favoring Whites). California colleges are not allowed to consider race. Check Asian vs. White student percentages at UCSD. Is that the outcome conservatives want?

Re: US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

#36
post #19
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it is ? As-in, is it the right (legal) decision in your view?

No. If I were on SCOTUS I would probably vote to uphold the existing precedent.

How do you feel about the fact that it effectively discriminates against Asians?

(And do you think it is relevant to mention the previous discrimination against Jews, decades ago?)

Re: US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

#37
post #3

I so hope this is struck down. ""Americans have come to view diversity as integral to learning and to trust that the path to leadership is open to all," lawyers representing Harvard University wrote in a court filing." This is not true, and the Asians who were denied entry based on their race would agree. What ever happened to access based on merit?

I think the correct move here is not to go full-on "merit-based access", but change the affirmative action to be based on socio-economic status. Boom, you just solved the issue the race-based AA was claiming to address, but by going directly to the source of the problem (socio-economic inequality).

I am not saying this out of some abstract concern about asian kids with perfect scores failing to get admitted to Harvard. While that's definitely a problem, imagine how much more difficult it is for asian kids from poor socio-economic backgrounds to get literally into any decent college. They dont have the socio-economic advantage of upper-middle class asian kids, but have all the disadvantages of coming from a poor family AND then get shafted by race-based affirmative action on top of that. This is just plain disgusting in my eyes.

I realize that this approach might fail to address everything perfectly, but it is better than race-based AA on literally every single measurable metric. So we might as well switch to that, while in search of a "perfect" solution.

Re: US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

#38
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't familiar with the term outcomes-driven: It is when "a court decides what the outcome of the case should be and then works backward to determine the reasoning that will reach the desired conclusion"

If you think conservatives have a monopoly on this, then take a look at some of the most important Supreme Court cases from FDR through the 1970s or so.

The Supreme Court is a political organization that likes to pretend it's something else. I think that's always been the case and I agree it isn't inherently one party or the other.

That said, with the notable exception of the Warren court, SCOTUS has been conservative for its whole history.

Re: US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

#39
post #3

I so hope this is struck down. ""Americans have come to view diversity as integral to learning and to trust that the path to leadership is open to all," lawyers representing Harvard University wrote in a court filing." This is not true, and the Asians who were denied entry based on their race would agree. What ever happened to access based on merit?

Why is your concern for merit focused on this vs legacy preferences?

Re: US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions

#40
post #3

I so hope this is struck down. ""Americans have come to view diversity as integral to learning and to trust that the path to leadership is open to all," lawyers representing Harvard University wrote in a court filing." This is not true, and the Asians who were denied entry based on their race would agree. What ever happened to access based on merit?

Merit is derided as a concept by people who wish to discriminate to meet a goal.

I view this as misguided because while people who wish to discriminate often have good intentions(theoretically discrimination simply means "recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another" after all) it's emblematic of the difficulties of discrimination that the most prevalent description of discrimination is "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex."

I would say merit is a goal - it's never achieved as an end state and requires constant vigilance to stop entrenched powers from corrupting it.

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