Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#451

Post by eli » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

kjfarm wrote: post #76

JustBreath wrote: post #8

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 completely agree with legislation via judicial branch being a bad idea. However, affirmative action isn't legislation. This is judicial review striking down policy (executive branch interpretation and implementation of legislation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action https://www.history.com/topics/us-government-and-politics/af...

Yes, exactly: it's a policy decision. Congress could pass a law altering what affirmative action is allowed if they wanted a different policy.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#452

Post by asimpletune » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #162

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 think it's a mistake to think the intent is to benefit individuals of specific races. This has very much been something where the intended benefactor is American society in general.

As an example, I went to a good public school that had a policy where the top 5% of high school students were automatically given admission to the university. While this was technically race blind, it was de facto affirmative action, because a more poor high school is not as competitive as a rich high school.

At first, I too, thought that affirmative action was bad because racism of any kind is bad. However, it dawned on me one day that if this policy wasn't in place, there just wouldn't be many minorities at our university, and in a way I would be deprived off a well-rounded, diverse college experience.

Simply put, being exposed to a a rich, diverse student body is good for everyone, not just minorities.

I don't think it's really any different in how the American justice system doesn't exist solely to provide justice for victim or the accused. The most important beneficiary of our justice system, is what happens when you have justice for society. Sure, individual cases don't always have what is perceived as the "right" outcome, but that's considered acceptable in our system if the result is justice for society.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#453

Post by mindslight » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

duped wrote: post #158

I admittedly skimmed the opinion, but is this the first case that establishes a private entity like Harvard University is bound by the Equal Protections Clause? I thought existing law and precedent only had it applied to state/state actors (and a few cases where private businesses acted like governments, eg company towns).

Yeah, I do not understand this claimed basis of Equal Protection either.

Taking into account only equal protection, it would still be acceptable for a private institution to say "We want to limit our association with $RACE". Such a policy does not rise to the level of being law (notwithstanding that private institution being considered a de facto arm of the government, which is an argument I'm open to but doesn't seem to have been explored here).

If the reasoning of this decision hinged upon interpretation of the Civil Rights Act as banning "positive discrimination", that would make sense independently (I think a concurring opinion might be based on this?). If Harvard College maintained that it didn't want to be discriminating based on race but was being forced to by Title VI, I would see the link to Equal Protection. But as presented the majority opinion seems like a mismatch trying to somehow tie the issue directly to constitutionality.

edit: I think they're getting there by this chain: Title VI has provisions mandating equality. Due to the Equal Protection clause, Title VI's provisions that prohibit discrimination must also be construed to prohibit "positive" discrimination. Therefore Harvard is bound by this new interpretation of Title VI which prohibits it from engaging in "positive" discrimination. (contrast with simply ruling parts of Title VI unconstitutional and therefore null and void)

Ultimately this feels in line with the continued erosion of separation of powers as every activity gradually comes under the purview of the federal government.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#454

Post by rd » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

ahtihn wrote: post #298

BobbyJo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent is to factor in some unknown "racism" value. Poor White and Asian kids still beat out poor Black and Hispanic kids academically on average, so if you naively stratified by income, you'd still wind up with a mostly white and Asian student population. There are a lot of reasons Black and Hispanic kids underperform, and it's just easier for the school to short circuit all that and choose based on race rather…

> 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?

It's a zero-sum game. There's no such thing as taking privilege "away" from Asian kids. If you increase the acceptance rate of some race, it has to be decreased from somewhere. There's literally nothing else that can be done.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#455

Post by panarchy » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

kneebonian wrote: post #180

skrebbel wrote: post #162

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…

> Why not just.. well, let poor people come first? Would the goal suddenly not be met if poor smart white kids get into good schools, too? This is what I will never understand, why don't we focus on just helping the poor instead of based on race. If people of a certain race are proportionally more poor than people of another race than they will be helped more and it helps out the people of a specific race. However in…

https://indypendent.org/2015/01/the-white-race-was-invented-...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/20/the-invention-o...

I also seem to recall a factory or trade uprising/strike in/around Europe between 1400-1700 where they basically made up whiteness to divide the laborers and get them to argue amongst themselves (successfully), but this may be apocryphal as I cannot seem to find a source.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#456

Post by rd » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

purpleblue wrote: post #250

BobbyJo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent is to factor in some unknown "racism" value. Poor White and Asian kids still beat out poor Black and Hispanic kids academically on average, so if you naively stratified by income, you'd still wind up with a mostly white and Asian student population. There are a lot of reasons Black and Hispanic kids underperform, and it's just easier for the school to short circuit all that and choose based on race rather…

Except it's not mostly poor, hardworking ADOS (African descendents of slavery) students that benefit. It's rich, Black students that are benefiting, especially those from outside the US and no lineage from slavery. The problem with affirmative action is that everyone is only looking literally at skin color, which is the opposite of what we should be doing.

Anyone who's attended an Ivy League school can attest to the truth of this, and I've been vehemently disagreeing with every anti-AA comment in this thread, so that says something.

Pretty much every Black student I see at school is African (immigrant)-American, not ADOS.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#457

Post by BobbyJo » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

spacephysics wrote: post #335

BobbyJo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent is to factor in some unknown "racism" value. Poor White and Asian kids still beat out poor Black and Hispanic kids academically on average, so if you naively stratified by income, you'd still wind up with a mostly white and Asian student population. There are a lot of reasons Black and Hispanic kids underperform, and it's just easier for the school to short circuit all that and choose based on race rather…

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…

>The underlying important question is what do you define as equality? Equality of outcomes, or equality of opportunity?

On an individual level, the obvious answer is opportunity, but how do you measure that? Generally via outcomes. If two groups are equally capable and have equal opportunity, you would expect similar outcomes.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#458

Post by chris_wot » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #162

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…

The problem is, according to my reading of SCOTUS, that you can have affirmative action on anything but race. It occurs to me that it would have been far more effective if Harvard based their selection criteria on socio-economic considerations rather than race.

It seems like a well-intentioned but badly thought through process designed to ensure disadvantaged groups gain access they might not have gotten to their system.

The general idea seems to be - if you are of a particular race, you are automatically disadvantaged over ever other race. There is probably some truth to this. However, perhaps they now need to look at how people of a certain race are disadvantaged (other than because of their race itself) and use this as their selection criteria. This might actually also raise all groups - there are plenty of people in other racial groupings who also are disadvantaged for reasons other than their race.

FWIW, I am not American and I realise this is a sensitive area, so if I am out of line for whatever reason I can just say this is an observation which may not be accurate.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#459

Post by accra4rx » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

mahdi7d1 wrote: post #403

I never understood why are people against standardized testing. I would rather fail test than be judged by someone then deemed not worthy.

exactly. I have a kid in 4th grade . He got bad grades all year in his internal assessments. All the teacher would do is circle out the mistakes for silly mistakes. My kid scored a 96 percentile , toping all the 4th grader in his school My kid knows how to solve and understand the concepts just lack in describing it. I completely favor standardize test as there was no person involved to judge (who can also be biased).

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#460

Post by dcow » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

spacephysics wrote: post #335

BobbyJo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent is to factor in some unknown "racism" value. Poor White and Asian kids still beat out poor Black and Hispanic kids academically on average, so if you naively stratified by income, you'd still wind up with a mostly white and Asian student population. There are a lot of reasons Black and Hispanic kids underperform, and it's just easier for the school to short circuit all that and choose based on race rather…

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…

This is fundamentally the only thing that bothers me about the entire post-modern left narrative. If the goal posts were “equality of opportunity” (as they historically have been) then I’d have no problem continuing to fight until opportunity is provably equal. But if you move the goal posts to “equality of outcome” (what people mean when they say “racial equity”) and say “look we’re still a racist society” I just can’t get behind that definition and framework.

The hard reality is that we have made a lot of progress and it’s almost impossible to argue that we’re missing equality of opportunity anymore. We’ve been legally equal for at least 3 generations. Yes, there are still some poor and intensely disparaged communities of predominately minority populations. I have no problems with people coming together to help those communities. But we can’t let racial equity seep into our legal framework or we’ll literally be discriminating based on race all over again and all the way down. No horrors of the past justify that level of wrongness. It’s hopeless and fruitless to try and design a “racially equitable” society, and you’re going to always just be an angry person if you set out on that path.

All that said, as always with these situations, I ask “what is the end goal and how can I help get there”. 9 times out of 10, there is no end goal and that’s where I draw the line in lending my valuable time, my money, my vote, and/or any mental space for stress and concern to a proposed cause. If you came to me and said every white person has to pay e.g. $5000 this generation, 4k the next, then 3k, and so on to balance out slavery and then we’re done talking about race and we can move on I would pay up immediately even though I disagree with the idea of reparations and holding future generations accountable for the sins of their fathers. I would do it because there’s a clear goal (correct for the past) and path to achieve it (pay money).

What I can’t get behind is being perpetually discriminated against as a white person under a framework of ever-evolving goalposts chasing racial equity of outcomes into the sunset.