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

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#481

Post by parineum » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

shanecleveland wrote: post #341

kelipso wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't think a lottery system is a replacement for affirmative action, it would still not be representative of the racial makeup of our population. And if rewarding hard work were the only criteria for admission, then legacy preferences wouldn't exist, either. That is the sort of thing affirmative action attempts to balance out. I don't have an answer, and I hope that all who have earned an opportunity are rewarded.…

> it would still not be representative of the racial makeup of our population.

I think the point is that it doesn't need to. College admission is 18 years late for trying to correct racial and social disadvantages.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#482

Post by senthil_rajasek » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:20 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 am from India and have lived in the U.S for over 2 decades. I have observed "affirmative action" arguments in two continents.

I am going to answer your specific questions,

>Why not just.. well, let poor people come first?

Racial justice issues are separate from economic justice issues.

Shouldn't this just be run-of-the-mill social democratic "lets hand out some extra opportunities/benefits to the poor" program?

Racism is a complex issue and in listening to Black/Asian/Brown Americans I have come to the realization that such programs have to be specific to each and every race because they experience racism in different ways.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#483

Post by mc32 » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:20 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…

At some point, you have to declare the war against something, over. The war against polio, the war against dengue fever, etc. even while there may continue low-grade outbreaks. Perfect is the enemy of the good.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#484

Post by wk_end » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

ThatGeoGuy wrote: post #429

mcv wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, every time the discussion comes up about, for example, reparations for the descendants of slaves, I start out thinking: it's been 150 years! Some of those descendants are very successful now and some descendants of slave owners are probably very poor now. And some people are descendants of both. And then I learn about the Jim Crow period, and then you hear that even the GI bill explicitly excluded black people,…

> Yeah, every time the discussion comes up about, for example, reparations for the descendants of slaves, I start out thinking: it's been 150 years! Well, that might be a bit disingenuous. The "last chattel slave" was only freed around September 1942. I've seen this reference in several places, but the most direct one is a footnote on a wikipedia page [0]. Regardless, it is probably not worth putting a time limit on…

I think you may have misread the comment you're responding to.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#485

Post by fundad » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:21 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…

It's foreign to most American college students too, almost all US colleges accept almost all applicants.

A very small number of private, public and military colleges attract so many applicants they have to select students for admission.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#486

Post by Der_Einzige » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

ricardoplouis wrote: post #62

Worth noting that while affirmative action has been banned, we still have proxies for race (aka legacy admissions) which overwhelmingly favor rich and white students. And given the historical discrimination of elite universities, this ban on affirmative action without addressing legacy admissions or historical harm will only increase the number of white students at universities. We can't pretend that eliminating race…

This ruling will overwhelmingly help Asians and only marginally help white people

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#487

Post by w10-1 » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #323

ecshafer wrote: post #291

The best method of college entrance is whats done in east asia. China does the Gaokao (hard SAT), and students list their university preferences and filters students into colleges based on their score and their preferences. Japan takes entrance exams for a university. These seem like infinitely fairer methods than the US where they try and correct for disadvantage in a variety ways.

In the U.S.: go to shitty school, get shitty SAT score, disallowed from college. Repeat.

In California: 10% of each shitty school gets in to the top-tier UC system

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#488

Post by arbuge » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

danabrams wrote: post #478

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…

For 350 years of US history africans and their descendants were enslaved. Native Americans were ripped from their land and relocated, often with genocidal levels of casualties. After that, these two groups were substantially discriminated against in law, and other races were added to the mix to be given less rights than others. Today, there are huge disparities between outcomes for different races in large part due t…

> it is definitely the case that poor people of color have a harder time getting ahead than equally poor white people

Do you have any sources for that?

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#489

Post by 0xcafefood » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

EatingWithForks wrote: post #417

0xcafefood wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Got it, so not studies in the sense of a peer reviewed publication. Maybe something more like a "position paper."

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#490

Post by naasking » Thu, Jun 29, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #255

pjc50 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yeah, every time the discussion comes up about, for example, reparations for the descendants of slaves, I start out thinking: it's been 150 years! Some of those descendants are very successful now and some descendants of slave owners are probably very poor now. And some people are descendants of both. And then I learn about the Jim Crow period, and then you hear that even the GI bill explicitly excluded black people,…

> And then I think: you can't just stop doing a bad thing and pretend it didn't happen. You've got to try to make things right.

You're implicitly assuming it can be made right. That seems doubtful. The people who had been harmed by those policies are not the ones seeking admission to Harvard. Everyone seeking admission to Harvard has been born into circumstances through no fault of their own, so just help the financially less fortunate to provide more equal opportunities across the board. Black people are disproportionately represented among the poor, so this would disproportionately help them anyway.