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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

#411
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racial discrimination in the US significant enough that, for example, merely having a "Black" name leads to worse results from job applications, regardless of other factors [1]. Merely focusing on wealth levels won't counteract that kind of effect. [1]: https://www.businessinsider.in/policy/economy/news/distincti...

They never run these experiments right and this one looks to be no different. What they choose as "Black" names are those associated with lower class blacks but they do not do the same with "White" names. In this case, they use names like Latonya for blacks and Heather for whites. You never see them use names like Cletus or Billy Bob or other names associated with lower class whites.

This is incorrect.

The names in the NBER study were drawn from actual birth certificate data correlated with race. It was not a subjective choice from researchers. Latonya was used because Latonya was the first name given to 4.7% of the black female babies born during the study period. Just like Allison was 4.7% of white female babies in the same data.

If you perceive common African American names as lower class than equally common white names, I believe that's part of what the study is trying to demonstrate and not a flaw of its design.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not just.. well, let poor people come first? Mostly it was a justice thing. The US spent decades disadvantaging people based on race and this was a step to try and reverse some of that. I agree that changing it from race to economic class is probably the right move at this point. That being said, I don't like that the SC is legislating from the bench. They are striking this down for purely political reasons.

> They are striking this down for purely political reasons. On its face affirmative action is pretty blatantly a violation of the 14th amendment: Which to a trivial reading would come out as 'All persons [black, white, rainbow] shall have equal rights to attend [state funded school], and as such a right to a fair and impartial admissions process'. Affirmative action adds the clause: "except those whose skin color we…

No, it isn't. From a strict textual reading, the 14th says

> No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Admittance to a school is not a deprivation of life, liberty, or property. Nor is this "equal protection of the laws".

Where in the 14th does it say anything about school attendance? When did school attendance become a right? Which amendment does that come from?

Seems like a pretty liberal reading of the 14th to come to the conclusion that prestigious school attendance is somehow a right for white people.

Oh, and this ruling also said that "private schools are allow to discriminate on race if they so choose, this only strikes down the federal law tailored to roll back institutional racism."

But hey, if you want to make the argument that higher education should be a right funded by the public I probably could get behind that. I just don't think there's constitutional or historical backing for that conclusion.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#413
I applied to university as African American/Black because I'm 1/4 Egyptian. I am very white. Some people may guess I'm Jewish (I'm not) but no one guesses African American.

I got into a nice school and I was enrolled in the "minority engineering excellence program". The program was like 25% white kids with "1/16 native American" or "1/8 Spanish". We got free tutoring and we all took an exclusive class just for the program and 100% of us got an A. It was definitely unfair.

Half of the minority engineers just left the program. They were clearly capable of passing engineering school and the minority program was culty and a bit weird. The kids who stayed were dragged through the system with copious free tutoring and paid staff helping them stay on top of their course work. These kids dropped out at Juniors when they would have probably otherwise dropped out as Freshman.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've come understand it to mean "positively discriminate based on race, so long as it's a minority race" - please correct me of I'm wrong. More or less, but not precisely. How do you define a "minority race"? Universities in America discriminate against Asian Americans despite them being a minority of the American population generally, ostensibly because they're over-represented in universities.

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Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#416
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poor White and Asian kids still beat out poor Black and Hispanic kids academically on average Why is that the case? For Asians, I don't see what systemic privilege they could have that would need to be compensated away?

Asians spend much more time than others on homework. [1] 1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07311214221101...

So hard work should be punished?

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things of "why not class only" is because in America race matters a lot. I mean it quite literally: studies have shown simply having a black-sounding name makes you equivalent to a white-sounding name of an order of magnitude less qualification. In some cases black people with a college degree have job prospects similar to a white person with a felony record.

> studies have shown simply having a black-sounding name makes you equivalent to a white-sounding name of an order of magnitude less qualification. Can you link to a study showing this? How did this study define what an "order of magnitude less qualification" means?

http://thecrimereport.s3.amazonaws.com/2/fb/e/2362/criminal_...

Here's a PDF. White people with a criminal record are received more positively than noncriminal black-sounding people.

"Employment discrimination against people with criminal records, especially in entry-level positions, is rampant, as demonstrated by a 2005 report produced by the Commission called “Race at Work: Realities of Race and Criminal Record in the NYC Job Market” written by Drs. Devah Pager and Bruce Western. [1] The report relied on results from matched pairs of testers of young white, Latino, and African-American men who applied for 1470 entry-level jobs throughout New York City. Not only were whites more likely to get a callback or job offer than Latinos or African-Americans, African-Americans were nearly half as likely to be considered as whites.[2] When white testers presented with a recent felony record, they were as likely as Latinos and much more likely than African-Americans to receive a callback or job offer.[3] Overall, people with criminal records are only half as likely to get a call back than those without; for African-American applicants, the likelihood is reduced to one-third.[4]"

from https://www.cssny.org/news/entry/testimony-in-support-of-tes...

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#418
post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying important question is what do you define as equality? Equality of outcomes, or equality of opportunity? This is a very slippery slope when some definitions are not equal, or stated, as we’ve come into a recent crisis of definitions being rewritten unnaturally (I understand the meaning of words change over time, but there have been recent inorganic changes, I’d argue) The classic opportunity of outcome…

How exactly has equality of outcome been "proven to be doomed"? At the aggregate level, at least?

Equality of outcome is just a fancy way of saying tyranny. Freedom can only exist and only be freedom if you have the right to fail or succeed, if no one can fail or succeed because everyone is made the same there is no freedom, there is no choice.

Those that advocate for equality of outcome desire to make again a slave state, where they as "superior educated white people" can ensure that black people are "taken care of" by ensuring they all have jobs, they all have housing, they all have healthcare, they all have food, and that they have no freedom.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#419
post #222

The concept of affirmative action is foreign to me (quite literally so). I only know it from American media, and I've come understand it to mean "positively discriminate based on race, so long as it's a minority race" - please correct me of I'm wrong. But anyway, my question for the Americans here who grok this stuff: I assume the intent is to help disadvantaged people have opportunities that more priviledged people…

> I assume the intent is to help disadvantaged people have opportunities that more priviledged people have already. Right? I mean, I can get behind that. But then why the entire detour with race? Up until about 1971 (possibly later, but that's the date of Loving vs Virginia ), the US had formal, legal discrimination against black people. On finally removing that, there was at various times discussion of whether peopl…

This legacy system in likes of Harvard boggles me. If someones parents went to Harvard it might be actually logical to be harder for him to get into not easier. His educated parenting is already a huge plus for him and if he is unable to get into the same university it's on him.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could racially discriminatory hiring strategies be next? I'm no fan of regulation and government intervention in private business, but its gotten out of control in tech and the corporate world. I've flat out heard hiring managers say they'll only hire a woman, lgbtq, or [certain minority] for certain roles. I've sat in hiring committees where candidates preform horribly, esp compared to others being reviewed at the…

While I agree with your assessment of the situation, even then I wouldn't have a government policy which forces the DEI policies out. If the management, board, and ultimately shareholders of business want to run the most "progressive"/"woke" hiring and HR policies imaginable: they have the right to do so. Mind you I probably wouldn't want to even be a customer of such a company let alone work for it, but a private en…

> If the management, board, and ultimately shareholders of business want to run the most "progressive"/"woke" hiring and HR policies imaginable: they have the right to do so

What about title VII banning discrimination on the basis of race (among other factors)? That's outright illegal

There's likely enough ammunition on social media rn for plenty of litigation wrt this

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