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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

#131

Post by eli »

petilon wrote: post #35
eli wrote: 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?

Republicans have been generally against affirmative action since its inception. Trump was explicitly against it. The particulars of this case and this argument don't really matter.

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

#132

Post by [deleted] »

nradov wrote: post #26

We should stop differentiating people by race, but whichever side loses this particular case can take solace in the fact that it won't make a huge difference either way. Studies have shown very little difference in average long-term career outcomes between highly selective and less selective colleges, after controlling for SAT scores and high school class ranking. Let's stop fetishizing schools like Harvard.

[deleted]

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

#133

Post by googlryas »

legitster wrote: post #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 se…

It also seems straight up incorrect. There are way too many international students at Harvard for it to represent the makeup of the country.

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

#134

Post by adastra22 »

danenania wrote: post #114
1980phipsi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Judges are NOT political appointees. Within the civil service a political appointee is one that can be and usually is dismissed in a change of government. Heads of agencies and such. Supreme Court justices serve lifetime appointments specifically so that they are not subject to political interference.

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

#135

Post by JumpCrisscross »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #119
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Compare say, Berkeley to Stanford

Berkeley is highly exclusive [1], albeit 3x less so than Stanford [2]. The class-size difference, about 12,000, is noise against the millions of degrees conferred to Americans every year.

Meanwhile, Stanford produces different graduate as a result of its process. Forcing homogenisation to one model for ideological purity is misled.

[1] https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses-majors...

[2] https://stanforddaily.com/2021/10/14/stanford-admit-rate-dro...

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

#136

Post by kennend3 »

kevinsundar wrote: post #124
kennend3 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Race is easy to game too, in fact far easier. I know people who were around 5% Hispanic who would then write Hispanic on college applications. They're technically not lying. There's also just plenty of people that just straight up lie about their race on college applications. It's not like its being verified at all. I went to high school with a lot of White - Asian mixed kids. None of them wrote Asian on their colleg…

> Race is easy to game too, in fact far easier.

Strongly agree.

Here (Canada) we have a pandemic of "pretendians"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretendian

People who make fake claims to gain an advantage.

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

#137

Post by adastra22 »

eli wrote: post #90
kennend3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes.

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

#138

Post by thelock85 »

silisili wrote: post #74
arberx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's only part of the equation. The fact is, generally, anyone in the US who has a capable brain and really tries can excel. There's no shortage of examples of people growing up poor who did excellent in school and/or careers. Do they have a disadvantage in not having the same resources as a wealthy family? Definitely. But it's only a disadvantage, not a roadblock. I feel like a lot of the argument is little more t…

> The fact is, generally, anyone in the US who has a capable brain and really tries can excel.

This is a great populist message but not sure it can be backed up with enough data at any meaningful enough scale to enact policies. Just like if I posited, "Generally, there are a lot of smart, capable and hardworking people who are just surviving check to check." It feels good and there are plenty of anecdotes to back it up, but it's too vague to make policy decisions upon. Raj Chetty's research [0] on social mobility dives into the complexity of it all.

[0] https://rajchetty.com/publications/

Edit:

> But it's only a disadvantage, not a roadblock.

You really nailed the crux of it here in terms of equality of opportunity vs. equity in opportunity. The unhappy compromise to avoid irreparable divisions in U.S. society lies somewhere between removing roadblocks vs. addressing disadvantages.

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

#139

Post by whimsicalism »

VLM wrote: post #85
whimsicalism wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your comment is opaque. As far as I know, a successful surgical operation is generally pretty cut and dry. No redefining here.

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

#140

Post by kennend3 »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #123
kennend3 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is pretty easy to bypass by looking at parents' tax returns from the past 20 years, plus their assets.

Because no one has ever worked for cash and lied about it?

Do you suspect that someone who launders dirty money for a living did their taxes and listed "money launderer" as occupation and reported their income?

Assets like this are often hidden behind shell companies to prevent law enforcement from taking them under "proceeds of crime" charges.

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