US Supreme Court to weigh end to race-based college admissions • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by legitster » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #182

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…

Everything makes sense when you think of Harvard and similar universities as selfish private institutions that want to maximize their reputation. They want the children of world leaders, billionaires, and actual super-geniuses. They don't want to dilute their brand with thousands of extra students with mundane backgrounds that end up being moderately successful professionals who make mid-six-figures. Affirmative acti…

My friend who was in a doctoral program put it best:

"The point of academia is to make more academics. Bachelor and Master degrees are their funding source."

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

#202

Post by trention » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

feet wrote: post #190

marcusverus wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They admit quite a number of conservative people... Nope. Fewer than 10% of students are conservative.[0] > and even their more left people are pretty center-right... Nope. ~65% self-identify as "Very Progressive" or "Progressive"! [0] There is no pretending that this is an accident, given that conservatives outnumber liberals by ~40% in the general population! [1] [0] https://features.thecrimson.com/2022/senior-su…

>conservatives outnumber liberals by ~40% in the general population! [1] You seem to have misunderstood the article you cited, from the article: >The percentage calling themselves conservative has been steadier over time and, at 36%, is the same today as in 1992.

No, he hasn't. Conservatives are 0.36 of the general population, which is ~40% higher than the 0.25 that are liberals.

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

#203

Post by godelski » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

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…

> Really the feds could (and imo should) force them to do so, given a ton of their money come from federal grants.

People frequently tell me I don't understand what endowments are for. Harvard has $51 billion. If we take an average of 5% per year and this assuming they make a $2.5bn return on that investment each year (and raise zero money in addition to it), that would allow them to pay for 25k students (at $100k each. I'm rounding up by like $20k btw). That's more than Harvard has at any given time, by a few thousand.

I get that endowments are supposed to be safety mechanisms and allow funds for things like new buildings, tuition assistance, and gaining more investments. But at what point do we recognize that these are just money making schemes. Many public universities have multi-billion dollar endowments. Money held away and not being used is not adding value to our economy. I'd argue that education adds a lot of value. But that's an argument for cheaper education, not allowing it to become a highly profitable system. Clearly what is happening right now isn't sustainable.

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

#204

Post by hotpotamus » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

dongobongo wrote: post #4

I have a feeling that in hindsight, 30-40 years from now, this will seem like no brainer and that the period prior was heavily anti-meritocratic and counterproductive.

I wonder what the people of 30-40 years ago would have thought of it?

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

#205

Post by emiliobumachar » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

pevey wrote: post #52

kennend3 wrote: post #17

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.

I would want the one with the best track record of outcomes for the specific surgery that I needed.

Me too. Unfortunately new doctors have to start practicing every now and then, or we'll run out of experienced ones. Which new surgeon would you prefer.

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

#206

Post by lukas099 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

throwaway-9000 wrote: post #146

Even if SCOTUS does end affirmative action with this case, how are we going to undo the decades of damage that this policy has caused?

This sounds suspiciously close to one of the main arguments for affirmative action: that it is meant to compensate for past discriminatory policies.

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

#207

Post by hot_gril » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

room505 wrote: 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.

Standardized tests are an opportunity for students to distinguish themselves no matter what school they're stuck in. Yes the wealthier students on average study more for the SAT, but anyone can study for it with widely available materials. UC Berkeley got rid of the SAT/ACT requirement and is making their own test instead; if other schools did this, having so many different tests would ironically favor those with the most resources.

And what's the alternative? There's not a lot else to go off of since GPAs are whatever.

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

#208

Post by cool_dude85 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

hot_gril wrote: post #193

tonystubblebine wrote: post #125

I look at this through the lens of the San Francisco public schools. When I went to the magnet high school there, Lowell, they had explicit race based standards. We all got scores out of 70 based on our standardized tests and middle school grades. The differences were pretty stark. Chinese kids needed a 68, which could mean they got just one B. White kids needed a 62, black and latino even lower. So I totally get why…

> It's complicated, and you can have your own takeaway, but mine is that merit often defined wrong. I'm on the lookout for people who did more with less, or even did equal or near to it with less. To me, that is more a measure of merit than top line measures like test scores. I agree with this, and the problem is how many schools look directly at race for that. This reminds me of predictive policing ML models that ta…

So giving Black students a slightly higher chance to get into Harvard, all other things being equal, reminds you of sending the cops to overpolice neighborhoods Black people live in? I guess they're the same in a way. Doing bad things reminds me of doing good things because things are being done in either case.

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

#209

Post by marcusverus » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #152

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…

> 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. C'mon, who's being naive now? The law was already settled on this issue. This case is being heard with the goal of overturning precedent. It's not because we learned new things about the Constitution in the last 20 years.

Nobody--yourself included--wants us to honor every bad precedent. Should we be stuck with Citizens United for all of eternity? Of course not--everybody wants that sumbitch overturned!. Pretending that you believe precedent to be sacred is both silly and transparently self-serving.

> The law was already settled on this issue.

The idea of "settled law" is a rhetorical device and nothing more. SCOTUS has been overturning precedent on an almost annual basis for centuries[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_overruled_United_State...

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

#210

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #80

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 This is a perfectly fine response to meritocratic pressure. With tuning to ensure the response is productive learning, versus e.g. rote memorisation, the outcome should be a more-productive citizenry. In any event, the case is about r…

I'm not sure about how I feel about Affirmative Action and I do appreciate another member's suggestion to look at socio-economic background. But is this really our goal? > should be a more-productive citizenry I'm not sure I care that much about that. Especially w.r.t college admissions. If you wanted to be more productive you'd not even send many people to college in the first place and just have them go straight in…

> wanted to be more productive you'd not even send many people to college in the first place and just have them go straight into the labor force

This is incorrect. The question of education's impact on GDP per capita is thoroughly researched [1][2][3]. When one broadens to measuring living standards, the results get starker.

[1] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/60b0/ad7223c9ba54c73af7d332...

[2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09654313.2018.14...

[3] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ma-Wadud/publication/48...