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

bbc.com

81–90 of 286 posts

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

#81

Is the decision coming today or are they just hearing arguments today?

Oral arguments are today. The justices vote afterwards but we won't know the result until the opinions are issued, which will be several months from now.

Unless it’s useful to leak before the midterm elections

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

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>_only_ due to external factors. You are the way you are because of your DNA and environment. Your DNA is not an "external factor". Rather, it's the most internal factor there is.

Where does your DNA come from if not an external source?

What does that moronic question have to do with what I stated?

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

#83
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.

Two students are under consideration to get into University to become surgeons.

One student went to the most expensive private school and had private tuition. They recieved AAABB. Anothers student went to a poor school and never had private tuition and recieved ABBBB. Which should be accepted for a single University place?

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

#84
post #13
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?

A true meritocracy wouldn't be a friendly world to live in. Think about the current state of education. Parents with resources over-optimize their kids' education because they understand the inefficiencies in the system and/or understand what it takes to become successful in our society.

So it causes parents to optimize their kid’s education. I fail to see the problem here?

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

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those signals are not as important to being a successful surgeon as you think.

The problem with redefining, such as redefining success, is it eliminates any possibility of a conversation.

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

#86
post #57

I'm curious as to why affirmative action in the US has always been race-based and not economic-status or household income based? Asking as someone with no skin in the game; I'm merely curious if anyone has any constructive opinions on why they think economic status based affirmative action may/may not work?

Socioeconomic status is a much better goal if you want to "even the playing field" but it has serious flaws.

The most obvious is it is incredibly easy to game:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/income...

Any ideas on how students with no income managed to own $57 million in houses?

Would these people qualify for a socio-economic advantage when applying for school?

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

#87
post #41

About time. The whole idea behind it is stupid and racist... "if you're a certain skin color, you're too stupid, to compete on merit"... then when people complain, they add the "socioeconomic" factors: "if you're a certain color, you're too poor to compete on merit, but instead of looking at your family income, we'll look at your skin color". I have no idea how something like this gets support in developed western co…

That is because the gaps persist when controlling for income. The gaps actually increase the higher up the income scale you go! This happens in a democracy because whilst a tiny minority of people care about principles, most people care about power. AA empowered the right people so happened. It's a mistake to try to understand its justification from a first principles approach.

On average, yes. But many things are multimodal and the average doesn't actually represent very many real people.

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

#88
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?

> What ever happened to access based on merit?

For the context of this case, don't forget we're talking about Harvard.

This school, if they wanted, could limit themselves to selecting ONLY from applicants with PERFECT test scores, PEREFECT GPA's, ideal extracurriculars and still have far too many applicants than they could admit. They would then have to resort to either a lottery system to select randomly from this pool of perfect applicants or maybe come up with ever more extreme and rarefied criteria to select the "best" from "perfect". Is that the way to go? Many don't think so.

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

#89
The problem is there but the current AA is not helping. Here is what might work:

- Harvard is required to do only merit base admission

- Harvard is required to increase diversity. They will be required to achieve that by investing in high schools in poor areas. Basically university will recruit poor students by helping them during middle and high schools. Something like opening Harvard middle or high school.

(This is one of things what communists did right after WW2)

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

#90
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

From the article: ""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." Do you see the "open to all" statement? Is this true? What about the Asians who were denied entry based on their race? Is this "open to all"?

Harvard obviously can't literally be open to all. They only have so many spots and many applicants.

If admissions were based entirely on GPA, is that a more fair system?

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