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Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

latimes.com

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Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#81
post #38

> Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. But this is affirmative action. What did they strike down? Also god damn I hate this supreme court for overruling their own decisions. Even the ones I would personally benefit from. This is going to ruin the…

> I hate this supreme court for overruling their own decisions

Yeah. Based off the various deep dives I heard about a year ago, the court is supposed to strongly favor leaving prior court rulings in place, but the current justices decided that they were fine changing prior rulings since it's a convention, not a rule.

The current SC really dislikes all the prior rulings that were based off the 14th amendment, so I fully expect this same behavior to continue.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#83
post #38

> Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. But this is affirmative action. What did they strike down? Also god damn I hate this supreme court for overruling their own decisions. Even the ones I would personally benefit from. This is going to ruin the…

I guess you can consider an individual's hardships (whatever they may be) but not a blanket consideration based on race or religion or ...

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#84
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The population of the US is roughly ~330M

But don't forget to add corporations to the total, because they are people too according to SCOTUS.

Corporations have had certain characteristics of people as long as they've existed. Do you want a corporation to be able to enter a contract that isn't with a specific person within the corporation, for example? Corporations also have freedom of the press/freedom of speech. The question in that decision was whether political spending by corporations was part of the free speech right. There's no question more broadly that corporations can put out a press release saying more or less anything (truthful) that they want.

This is a really lazy trope whatever you think of the specific decision's result (or the reasoning).

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#85

As someone of Hispanic descent this is very interesting to me. Affirmative Action probably helped my father, whose father was a construction worker and mother a homemaker both of whom dropped out of high school, get into college and ultimately become a doctor. But because my father was a doctor, I had a fairly privileged upbringing. I'm a generation removed, but growing up in California always had to indicate my back…

If your family benefited from it and taking it away is now 'good' then it sounds like you're saying you couldn't care less about any future generations who could've used this ladder to better their lives. As the immigrant, much like your father, whose father is a construction worker, that's how it reads.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#86
post #38

> Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. But this is affirmative action. What did they strike down? Also god damn I hate this supreme court for overruling their own decisions. Even the ones I would personally benefit from. This is going to ruin the…

The court changing their mind feels like a feature not a bug. The court represents people, and those people change their mind from generation to generation.

I don't want to live in a world where we can't overturn bad decisions. Would America be better off if we legalized slavery 300 years ago, and could never undo it?

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#87
post #4

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I think he might be talking about "Racism in US college admission has been banned" which sounds like a good thing. Do you argue that Asian and Indian students should be rejected because of their race in favor of less qualified black or Hispanic students? I would love to hear your case for why that is ok.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#88

As someone of Hispanic descent this is very interesting to me. Affirmative Action probably helped my father, whose father was a construction worker and mother a homemaker both of whom dropped out of high school, get into college and ultimately become a doctor. But because my father was a doctor, I had a fairly privileged upbringing. I'm a generation removed, but growing up in California always had to indicate my back…

If your family benefited from it and taking it away is now 'good' then it sounds like you're saying you couldn't care less about any future generations who could've used this ladder to better their lives. As the immigrant, much like your father, whose father is a construction worker, that's how it reads.

This. “I got mine so no one else needs it”. And sorry GP but you absolutely got into MIT partly because of your ethnicity - along with your grades of course. I benefited from that as well and it was fairly clear.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#89

Whatever your opinion about recent supreme court decisions, this has all underscored what has been true for a long time: Legislating via the judicial branch is a bad idea. If it only takes 5 out of 9 people to make laws for 600 million, it only takes one seat change to revert them. (Edit: sorry, 300 - pre-caffeine posting)

I don’t love the decision, but I actually like the process. And I don’t think it is legislating. It is interpreting the law. I’d like term limits on Supreme Court justices. But I think the arguments on both sides of this debate are well thought out. Again I don’t love the decision, but Im OK with it. That said I’d love to see universities stop giving weight to legacies. But the money is just too strong.

When a neoconservative spends his life petitioning courts for this exact result instead of petitioning anyone in congress... it feels like dirty legislating. Part of it is because our congress is dreadfully inept.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#90
post #71

I can see the social good of admitting disadvantaged groups, but how does it help the individual colleges? I can't come up with a clear path from increased diversity to increased profitability. I must be missing something because for profit entities don't do things out of the kindness of their heart.

yes but Harvard is not a for profit entity.
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