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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

#751

Post by rrauenza »

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'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.

In theory, but in practice it often includes “unless you are Asian.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-american-fight-school-dis...

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#752

Post by lolinder »

asimpletune wrote: post #452
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, be…

OP's point is still important, though: you're talking about the wrong kind of diversity. If you go to a school with a bunch of kids who grew up in upper-class neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., who cares if a few of those kids have black skin? They're contributing ~nothing to the diversity on campus, because they grew up in the same place and come from the same income level.

On the other hand, if your admissions policies make a point of drawing from many income brackets or many countries, suddenly you have a whole world of people who you likely would never have associated with and who are actually different than you in meaningful ways.

Country of origin and socioeconomic status are a much bigger deal when it comes to diversity than race, because race isn't real. It's a proxy for things that are real, and continuing to use it as a proxy perpetuates a subtle form of racism.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#753

Post by gnicholas »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #581
kenjackson wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court tends to rule narrowly. If no one takes the case to the Supreme Court then they won’t decide on it. I’m curious how this case would play out if some males applying to CalTech did this against female applicants. That said I’m not sure how much gender based affirmitive action there is in science/engineering today.

It's not a matter of ruling narrowly. Gender and sex based discrimination is already illegal in admissions.

Really? Gender-based discrimination is subject to intermediate scrutiny, not strict scrutiny (which is used for race). I thought it was well-known that some schools give boys a leg up because otherwise they would be 60/40 girls/boys.

This article [1] indicates that state schools cannot discriminate, but private schools can. It's a decade old, but I can't think of any intervening laws/cases that would have changed this analysis (IAAL).

1: https://fedsoc.org/commentary/publications/affirmative-actio...

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#754

Post by TrackerFF »

mahdi7d1 wrote: post #419
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…

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.

What you need to know about Harvard is that they are a business. Their business is to amass donations from alumni and the likes. Their endowment fund is currently over $50 billions.

Rich and successful alumni means more donations, so it makes sense to take in the kids of rich and successful people.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#755

Post by [deleted] »

concordDance wrote: post #594
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,…

> 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. Here's where your thinking goes askew, you can't simply draw a boundary around a subset of people and declare that an agentic thing. Groups of people don't have guilt or automatic responsibility, only individuals do. Thinking of very diverse groups of people as single entities is how you get…

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#756

Post by kylerush »

lolinder wrote: post #744
kylerush wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism tells us that the white race is superior to all other races. If you reject that, you expect to see that white people (or “model minorities” like Asian race) are not disproportionately receiving access to opportunity or disproportionately controlling the wealth. In the USA, it’s the opposite. You can invent whatever system you want, like the one you proposed here, but if the outcome is disproportionate then it…

This is an extremely simplistic take on a very complicated topic. While race may be a social construct, it has correlations with a number of other, less artificial factors. A random sample of people with the characteristics we associate with Asian race will tend to have more ancestry that traces back to Asia than would a random sample of people with Caucasian characteristics. This ancestry brings with it cultural and…

The point you’re making is that some cultures devalue educational achievement and success? So much so that we should expect to see members of those cultures disproportionately lacking access to opportunity because they “don’t want it?”

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#757

Post by govg »

throwawayXX1X wrote: post #522

India had a caste system for a long time. The lower castes were relegated to menial jobs while upper classes enjoyed ruling. After India got independence in 1947, a new legislation was passed with 20% seats given to the lower castes. Soon, people demanding more and more seats, A classic case of vocal minority. Now, In 2022, almost 70% of all seats reserved for the "lower" castes with a small population. The rest popu…

The Mandal Commission in 1980 determined the fraction of OBCs to be 50%, a later sample survey in 2006 showed it to be around 40%, [0] current reservation policies for this category are around 30%.

The Indian Census of 2011 shows that SC/ST category accounts for roughly 25% of the population. [1]

I agree with people making the point that these designations have now been used as a political tool, and that sometimes cases arise where people fake credentials. But to claim that they are a lower population is absurd, given that SC/ST/OBC would account for more than 50% of the population.

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Backward_Class

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Castes_and_Schedul...

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#758

Post by thworp »

kylerush wrote: post #735
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…

Racism tells us that the white race is superior to all other races. If you reject that, you expect to see that white people (or “model minorities” like Asian race) are not disproportionately receiving access to opportunity or disproportionately controlling the wealth. In the USA, it’s the opposite. You can invent whatever system you want, like the one you proposed here, but if the outcome is disproportionate then it…

But it could be cultural. All the facts point to that being the cause. If there is so much racism against black people how could Nigerians and Carribean Blacks be some of the most prosperous ethnic groups in the US?

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#759

Post by j45 »

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 a part of the equation because the Equation is so designed to be against it by the variables that are included and excluded.

I promise if you spend even an iota of time digging into this you will find some meaningful substance that resonates wi the buoy without asking other (indirectly or unintentionally) to do your mental labour for you and to your satisfaction to be convinced otherwise.

This itself is an example of the type of variables and equations that exist that seem second nature because of how they are conditioned into most people from a young age without awareness.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#760

Post by aredox »

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…

Because the US uses race as a trigger to keep the poor fighting amongst themselves.

That's why.

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