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

bbc.com

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

#141

Post by eli »

robertlagrant wrote: post #104
kube-system wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of liberal reasons to dislike race-based admission processes as well. I agree with the spirit of what these programs are trying to accomplish, but punishing Asian applicants for their race is a perfect example of what is wrong with this solution from a fundamental level.

This is the distinction between old-school liberal (judge by content of character not colour of skin; what you do behind closed doors is your business as much as possible; free speech) and more recent liberal, which seems far more likely to keep the middle of those three, but jettison the others. Bill Maher's journey over the last 2 years has been interesting to watch as he tries to berate the modern left into return…

Are you conflating liberal and libertarian?

MLK, of course, coined the phrase "content of character not color of skin" and he was very much in favor of affirmative action.

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

#142

Post by dragonwriter »

HWR_14 wrote: post #130
legitster wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a conservative, outcomes-driven court. I find this view to be pretty naive. The vast majority of judges in the US legal system are naturally going to be conservative in that the job is to follow the letter of the law. To the extent that progressive justices move up through the legal system is only through political appointments. It seems easier to me to say the vast majority of progressive opinions from the…

> To the extent that progressive justices move up through the legal system is only through political appointments. All federal and most state justices only move up through political appointments. The rest of state justices are directly elected, which is even more political.

> All federal and most state justices only move up through political appointments.

Federal justices have either 0 or 1 steps they can move up, and of the ones that can move up, there is only 1 position for them to move into, that of Chief Justice.

Judges, OTOH...

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

#144

Post by [deleted] »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #108
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…

> Notice that they don't care about diversity of viewpoints or politics Ever talked to someone from Harvard? (they'll usually tell you in the first 4 minutes you meet them telling you they went to school in Boston). They admit quite a number of conservative people if that's what you're worried about, and even their more left people are pretty center-right, as in they really don't want to pay more taxes. > they could…

[deleted]

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

#145

Post by notacoward »

kennend3 wrote: 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?

The problem with "meritocracy" has always been that so many of its proponents never define "merit". Often they don't even have a specific definition in mind; they just know it as a term that's aligned with other parts of their favorite ideology. Sometimes they do have a definition, but also know that it's too obviously tied to legacies of inequity and discrimination. Nobody likes to admit that they're a neo-feudalist.

True merit is hard to define and even harder to measure. As another commenter has already pointed out, that measurement has to include challenges and circumstances overcome. Unfortunately, those don't easily reduce to numbers. Sure, we can measure income or wealth, but how do we measure the impact of being denied opportunities to prove oneself? Of being dragged down by family and friends who need help because of the discrimination they also face? Of living in a place with poor schools, poor food, poor health care, for the same reasons? Note that some of these can apply to (especially rural) white people as well as others, but they remain hard to measure.

All we're left with is statistical measures and proportions, which will inevitably result in some errors. No matter what policy is enacted, those errors make it easy to complain about quotas and tokenism. Responses are possible, but less compelling. So we end up back to the fake meritocracy of grades and test scores. "What can we do" say the people who have already benefited and will continue to benefit from a system that ignores systemic inequality.

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

#147

Post by nsxwolf »

fassssst wrote: post #66
kennend3 wrote: 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?

Equal opportunity is more important than whatever “merit” means.

What is the opportunity being equalized? To physically occupy the same buildings as high achieving individuals?

Lower performing applicants aren't going to be taking the same classes and are not going to be achieving the same scores.

I wasn't a high performing student either. Where was my equal opportunity to attend an Ivy League?

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

#148

Post by arberx »

adastra22 wrote: post #84
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.

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

Imagine if our meritocracy valued basketball skills above anything else.

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

#150

Post by kennend3 »

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?

Is it legal to discriminate on race where you life?

Let's say i own a company and refuse to hire [ethnic minority]. Is this legal?

Isn't that what is taking place here? Asians are being denied entry simply because they are Asian.

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