Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 235 posts

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#111

Post by rtpg »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #23
Analemma_ wrote: post #17

To the people complaining about this: this is actually a very positive development that I welcome and you should too. This entire time, elite U.S. colleges have been carefully steering conversations about admissions in the direction of racial quotas, to avoid talking about how by far the largest driver of unfairness in the admissions process is legacy admissions and donation quid pro quo arrangements. If you want to…

And this will be very very good popcorn-munching drama. I mean, I do think that students getting in because daddy gives a couple million isn't the end of the world. The college I went to 20 years ago went away from need-blind admissions, which basically meant if you can pay you get some preference. Now THAT was bad, because it affected the general student population. If instead you have a reserved number of "bribe" s…

I don’t understand how being bought in with your parents money is ok yet an athelete actually doing a thing themselves with their own bodies shouldn’t “get a pass”. Especially given that they still have to, you know, pass classes!

Let’s not pretend all those legacies are showing up to class and working hard.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#112

Post by honeybadger1 »

bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #52
LarryMullins wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time this sort of class-awareness trend got started in America was Occupy Wall Street, and the corporate media killed it by platforming and showcasing the looniest most alienating fringes of that movement, starting the descent into the 'racist' style of progressive activism which most of the public find alienating ( https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ... ) I think they'll do it again…

Occupy Wall street was not really about equality of opportunity. It was more about equality of outcome.

Completely agree

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#113

Post by rayiner »

leereeves wrote: post #90
latency-guy2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you have been led to believe any of those things were popular. Occupy Wall Street had participants that counted at most 30,000 cumulatively across demonstrations in NY and surrounding areas. Impressive number? Not in my opinion. Admittedly, I have no idea what the hell 'Piketty's tome' is, so I won't talk about it, seems like its related to a few books that sold 1.5m copies, pretty successful, that's it from…

43% of the vote in democratic primaries is quite popular. And Bernie is a great example because identity politics was specifically used against him; his supporters were derided as mostly white male "Bernie Bros". Sounds like exactly what GP was talking about: steering conversations to race and sex to avoid talking about economic inequality.

> And Bernie is a great example because identity politics was specifically used against him; his supporters were derided as mostly white male "Bernie Bros".

And the abiding irony of that was that most of the people who did that supported Elizabeth Warren, who had vanishingly little support from actual minorities. She finished behind Tom Steyer in South Carolina and behind Mayor Pete in Nevada (states where the democratic base is heavily black and hispanic, respectively).

Even the New York Times acknowledged that Warren's campaign was a "demographic cul-de-sac" dominated by "college-educated white people." And those people had the gall to paint Bernie--who has invested enormous time and energy in reaching out to Hispanics and did well among that group--as racist.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#114

Post by jonstewart »

AlbertCory wrote: post #102

> Lawyers for the schools said in a court filing that the "plaintiffs' goal in pursuing such discovery is to harass and embarrass, rather than because it is relevant to their actual antitrust claim." > The defense lawyers also called the demand for admissions and development records "intrusive and burdensome." Prediction: the schools lose, and have to turn over the data. Maybe if their argument was on privacy of the…

Discovery happens before a trial. The plaintiff gets to ask the defendant for relevant documents. This can be clearly weaponized—the plaintiff can request everything and make the defendant spend a lot of time and money on it. A common recourse is for the defense to argue the initial discovery request is overbroad and burdensome. Often there’s some negotiation but of course the judge makes the ultimate call. I won’t opine on the merits of this particular claim, but it’s a common claim.

It also works both ways. The defendant can dump all sorts of papers on the plaintiff and say, “be careful what you ask for, good luck wading through this!”

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#115

Post by dumbotron »

This is a problem markets can fix. The only way you get into an elite school is you donate a lot of money, you were admitted for color, or you know how to play the game. None of these abilities are things businesses should value, and I'd rather take a top student from a top state school because they're competent at the right things.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#116

Post by dumbotron »

AlbertCory wrote: post #102

> Lawyers for the schools said in a court filing that the "plaintiffs' goal in pursuing such discovery is to harass and embarrass, rather than because it is relevant to their actual antitrust claim." > The defense lawyers also called the demand for admissions and development records "intrusive and burdensome." Prediction: the schools lose, and have to turn over the data. Maybe if their argument was on privacy of the…

> embarrass

I don't even disagree with this, but I'm not sympathetic towards the schools, either.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#117

Post by dumbotron »

angmarsbane wrote: post #35

Isn’t part of the benefit of getting into these universities the fact that you get to interact with people from a wealthier economic class? You have the opportunity to meet people who can invest in your ventures or who can introduce you to people who can.

It's the other way around. People from poorer backgrounds are brought in for the education of the rich students. It's like a zoo. Or it's so the rich students can take advantage of your talents once you leave.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#119

Post by mrdrozdov »

angmarsbane wrote: post #35

Isn’t part of the benefit of getting into these universities the fact that you get to interact with people from a wealthier economic class? You have the opportunity to meet people who can invest in your ventures or who can introduce you to people who can.

No.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#120

Post by csa »

dumbotron wrote: post #115

This is a problem markets can fix. The only way you get into an elite school is you donate a lot of money, you were admitted for color, or you know how to play the game. None of these abilities are things businesses should value, and I'd rather take a top student from a top state school because they're competent at the right things.

> you know how to play the game

As a business owner, I value this trait highly.

It’s very rare that “be highly competent” alone is enough to optimize for (ethical) success.

People, including one’s customers, often have drivers other than competence (e.g., significance or likability). Knowing how to cater to those drivers while also being competent is a fairly common and consistent recipe for success.

Post reply on HN