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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

#491

Post by ryandrake »

cdmcmahon wrote: post #427
spacephysics wrote: post #335

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…

Equality of opportunity after centuries of slavery and then legal discrimination in a society that allows (and even outright promotes) inherited wealth and opportunity is not possible. Imagine my ancestors stole all of your ancestors stuff and I still get to keep it all and anything I've built using it. We've stopped stealing your stuff now, though, so we have "equality of opportunity."

That's a very good way of framing it: Opportunity is largely inherited, therefore there cannot be real equality of opportunity.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#492

Post by sanderjd »

losvedir wrote: post #41

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…

I love this confessional personal anecdote of ambivalence. I often wonder how so many people seem to be so sure about how they feel about seemingly everything. But you, I relate to.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#493

Post by fullshark »

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.

I'm against building an entire education system around having children excel at standardized tests. Which is basically what will happen if it's the sole determinant of ability for universities.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#495

Post by nyolfen »

cogman10 wrote: post #412
thereisnospork wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, liber…

what about admittance to a restaurant?

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#496

Post by dcow »

djur wrote: post #387
spacephysics wrote: post #335

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 can only be enforced currently by a tyrannical government. It’s wholly doomed unless we can identify and correct for every hidden variable affecting outcomes.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#497

Post by peterfirefly »

jl6 wrote: post #391

One question I have is: did it work? These types of policies have been in place for decades. We have data on inequality between different demographics over time. So can we detect a measurable improvement attributable to the policy?

More recent immigrants from Africa with an Ivy League degree, yes. That looks superficially like an improvement to many.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#498

Post by camgunz »

dcow wrote: post #460
spacephysics wrote: post #335

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…

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 ca…

LBJ gave the commencement speech at Howard more than 50 years ago and said:

That beginning is freedom; and the barriers to that freedom are tumbling down. Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society—to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others.

But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.

Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.

---

It's gonna take a very long time. Reparations are valued in the trillions. Truly insane violence has been perpetuated on racial minorities in America. It's gonna take more than ~60 years of Jim Crow-free America to make things right.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#499

Post by makomk »

pjc50 wrote: post #222
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 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…

Legacy admissionss are part of the problem with Harvard's affirmative action scheme that made it really blatantly discriminatory - basically, they kept those legacy admissions and balanced them out by putting a thumb on the scale against other groups that didn't benefit from legacy admissions either, primarily Asian candidates.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#500

Post by topposter32 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #315
topposter32 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only hear complaints from either side when the tables are turned against them. When its in their favor it's just the right thing to do.

Perhaps there are pro-slavery people still complaining about the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment?

Those amendments were made by the legislature.
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