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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

#851

Post by az226 »

az226 wrote: post #841
xyzelement wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How big a deal and how common is it in reality? "We have one fewer spots because we admitted the son of a donor" and "we won't accept you based on race" are different magnitude.

If Harvard were to go from a race and legacy aware policy to a race and legacy blind policy, 20 minority students who would have been accepted would not for every legacy student that similarly would not. That is, racially discriminating is 20x times larger of an effect than legacy discrimination.

A typical class at Harvard has 2,500 student admits. Of those, 700 are black or Hispanic. If Harvard did away with legacy admissions, 25 additional Hispanic or black applicants would be admitted, so 725. However, if they did away with affirmative action, 450 would not be admitted, so you would be down to 275. Most of these 425 spots would go to Asian applicants and a chunk would go to white applicants.

http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#852

Post by athenaRising »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #628
flowerlad wrote: post #47

It is important to note that Harward’s admission policy that is the subject of this case was designed to favor White students over Jewish ones [1]. Today it is being used to discriminate against Asian Americans. Colleges are already prepared for this ruling. Many, such as the University of Washington have abandoned standardized tests because such tests compell universities to admit the kinds of students universities…

[flagged]

There's several Jewish ethnicities. The largest are Ashkenazi (Euro; 90% of American Jewry) and Mizrahi (MENA; majority of Israeli Jewry). Judaism is a religion, so people who aren't ethnically Jewish can convert, but it's also an ethnic identity, so Jews who drop Judaism or convert to another religion (like nearly all famous 19th century Ashkenazim) are still Jewish.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#853

Post by pyuser583 »

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…

Modern affirmative action is not about helping disadvantaged groups up. It’s about ensuring diversity.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#854

Post by ajmurmann »

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…

Lex Fridman had a very good discussion of the topic with Harvard professor and author Randall Kennedy: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3WRIDTV6l5WcbNt2aaO02K?si=f... The discussion of affirmative action starts at 2:22. The entire episode is very much worth listening to if you want to get hear a nuanced perspective on race problems in the US.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#855

Post by kuchenbecker »

ellisv wrote: post #165
kenjackson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t love the decision, but I actually like the process. And I don’t think it is legislating. It is interpreting the law. I’d like term limits on Supreme Court justices. But I think the arguments on both sides of this debate are well thought out. Again I don’t love the decision, but Im OK with it. That said I’d love to see universities stop giving weight to legacies. But the money is just too strong.

> I don’t love the decision, but I actually like the process. And I don’t think it is legislating. It is interpreting the law. I think this is naive. Roberts is not "calling balls and strikes" despite what he would have you believe. The conservative wing of the court has been willing to adopt a range of interpretations to accommodate their outcome. It's not just setting aside precedent but their increased use of emer…

I see this opinion regularly, can you give an example?

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#856

Post by coliveira »

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…

You misunderstood the intention of the program. The problem is not to help poor people, there are other programs available for that. The problem is to fight racial based discrimination, which is rampant in the US. Until the 60s, universities were out of reach for African Americans and other minorities, not just because of economic issues. This type of programs came to revert this situation.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#857

Post by proxiful-wash »

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…

ROFL. This is the Communist Propaganda machine of pit the free people against the free people so the liberate media aligns with this message.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#858

Post by ckemere »

az226 wrote: post #670
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…

Legacy is always brought up in these discussions. The amount of students who get into Harvard because of the boost from their race outnumbers the number of legacy students who get boosted from their status 20 to 1. Basically a race and legacy blind policy would reject 20 times more minorities than legacy applicants and then if the policy is race and legacy discriminatory.

Status please? My understanding is that something like 50% of white students had a non academic boost (including legacy and "athletics"). *Harvard specifically, not UNC

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#859

Post by morepork »

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…

To add in a slightly different angle, this sort of thing is not exclusive to America.

For example, in New Zealand, a couple of weeks ago there was a bit of a kerfuffle due to reporting on those of certain ethnicities being prioritised on surgical wait lists.

Those against it were arguing (validly) that prioritisation should only be based on clinical need.

However, the data over many years was showing that for people with the same clinical need, those from the minority ethnicities were not getting the same prioritisation.

So how do you resolve this? In an ideal world you will dig into the details, and figure out why that was happening, and resolve the underlying issues. But as with a lot of these problems with a human element there's no quick and easy solution.

Instead you get a "hack" like this to increase the weight of the minorities to even things out overall, hopefully to be removed later while you resolve the trickier issues.

Sometimes just targeting things to those in most need doesn't always fairly target across ethnic groups.

You can read a bit more detail about the NZ situation here: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ethnicity-a-factor-in-surgery-wai...

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#860

Post by coliveira »

mistrial9 wrote: post #625
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…

> the US had formal, legal discrimination against black people this is misinformation; State laws had complete jurisdiction over certain matters, by design. "The US" is calling Washington State the same as Alabama. So, no.

States can do many bad things because the US constitution designed by the founders of the country lets them do it. So, no this scapegoat is not available. The discrimination is 100% an issue of the US as a country.
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