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

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

#111

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.

The Doctor that has performed the most open heart surgeries, which is probably one of the two that passed the state's medical school.

[deleted]

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

#112
post #55

Here's a great response to how colleges can ensure diversity since this will likely get struck down. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/20/opinion/affirmative-a... Edit: TLTR: Dump standardized college admission tests as an admissions requirement, end legacy admissions and tap corporate activism.

> The fact that we get any Black students in under-resourced neighborhoods testing within 100 points of White students, who have been prepping for the test since the eighth grade, that is a miracle of over-performance That is disgustingly, outrageously racist.

Could you elaborate?

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

#113

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.

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?

The one with more As. Standardized tests are actually one of the most fair ways to evaluate two candidates. y = mx + b regardless of your skin color or family wealth. Is it perfect? no; is it more fair than the alternatives? I think so

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

#114
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.

It strikes me as naive to think it would ever work otherwise. Justices are political appointees and political actors. I see no reason to expect anything different. Believing they are somehow "above politics" strikes me as similarly fanciful to believing in the divine right of kings.

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

#116

I’m of two minds here. Obviously race based admissions is unfair. But Harvard isn’t trying to admit the next generation of scholars, it’s trying to admit the next generation of power. Will that generation be 75% Asian, the way a class would be if formed with standardized testing? Doesn’t seem likely.

Yeah, but the Supreme Court isn't trying to help Harvard accomplish its goals. It's trying to determine the legal principles to resolve an issue. Whether that helps or hurts Harvard shouldn't be a concern.

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

#117
post #29

The oral arguments are an excellent listen: - https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/live.aspx (live) - https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2... (recorded)

Thank you for this.

Are news outlets not allowed to include links to actual source material or something? Why is it that I almost always find these links in HN comments rather than the article itself? It's really annoying and I genuinely don't understand why this is so common, just like not linking to the actual studies for "science" news. To me it just seems sneaky, like if the article is correct, why not link the source so I can verify that myself? I know most people won't do that, but it feels like including the source when once exists and is already publicly available should be a hard requirement for any piece of journalism.

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

#118
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Harvar…

"socio-economic status" means nothing. This is so often used after race (discrimination) apparently is no longer a good argument "yeah but it's socio-economic". It's not falsifiable and therefore it should be dismissed as an argument. If you mean poor, say poor.

> if you mean poor, say poor

I literally said "poor" in my example in the second paragraph.

Also, "socio-economic status" is a spectrum between poor and wealthy, including all of them. Just like "race" includes all races. We don't call it "non-white-and-asian-based affirmative action", so i dont see why you have an issue with me not calling it "poor-based affirmative action". It is a sliding scale, with all groups within it having different weights attached. So calling it "poor-based affirmative action" makes zero sense to me.

The weight is decided based on the socio-economic status, hence why we refer to it this way.

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

#119

> 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 se…

> they could always expand the size of their enrollment There are reasons beyond manufactured exclusivity for why this doesn’t work. College education isn’t just about students soaking up material. We need more online vocational schools where that’s the sole purpose. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water.

Compare say, Berkeley to Stanford, and you'll see why this could work.

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

#120
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?

The term "socioeconomic" is really malleable, when in actuality you probably meant "low income" or "poor". This might be a better measure, but can be gamed also as you point out. This however doesn't necessarily mean the measure is bad.
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