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

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#881

Post by csa » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:08 AM UTC

dbrowne wrote: post #866

Amazed that the people who felt disadvantaged because of the one or two accepted Blacks who were possibly below the cut but had significant systemic societal and economic impediments have no problem with all of the incredibly sub par legacy students who are accepted because of their parent's wealth. I know of a very affluent person who funded two professorial chairs a year before his music school educated son was acc…

> have no problem with all of the incredibly sub par legacy students who are accepted because of their parent's wealth. I know of a very affluent person who funded two professorial chairs a year before his music school educated son was accepted at a top 3 business school

That’s not the typical legacy.

That’s more “z-list” or equivalent.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#882

Post by jankyxenon » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:08 AM UTC

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.

Harvard tries to be a pretty progressive organization - the way they justify legacy admissions is probably by arguing that the large endowments let them fund underprivileged students with needs-based programs.

They’re also in the literal business of prestige. They use mega-donors for mega-endowments which allows them to attract and fund mega-researchers. It’s also why it needs to be super exclusive (small class sizes).

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#883

Post by twobitshifter » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:09 AM UTC

rkagerer wrote: post #805

When I grew up one of the values instilled in me (moreso by society and personal interactions rather than passed on by my parents) was to see human beings as human beings, without cognitive overhead to their race. i.e. To me it was akin to hair color - neat, but not something by which I'd make judgements. Theoretically a world which doesn't distinguish, seems most equitable (and sane, at least to me). I'm genuinely t…

It’s really about handicaps starting out, or if you’re into maths, initial conditions.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#884

Post by bandrami » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:10 AM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #458

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 sys…

The uncomfortable fact is that we're actually very bad at predicting who will thrive at college and who won't. It's like hiring in that way, and I'm not joking when I say a lottery would probably work just as well as what we do.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#885

Post by az226 » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:11 AM UTC

ckemere wrote: post #858

az226 wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In a typical class of 2500 students at Harvard, removing legacy preference would increase the minority population by 25. Removing athletic preference would and another 25. Removing minority racial preference would remove 450.

450 is 18x times larger than 25. But lots of legacy whataboutism. It’s not as big of an impact as people like to think / eat the rich, etc.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#886

Post by huuman1212 » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:16 AM UTC

oluwie wrote: post #331

bouncing wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has long had most of the best universities in the world. Getting rid of all standardized tests and instead relying on (heavily inflated, or not) grades, combined with bullshit essays, is going to significantly undermine that.

Standardized tests have been known for years as an very unfair way of judging students. People with resources to prepare and study for those tests often end up with inflated scores than for people who don't have the resource to prepare for them. High school grades have been consistently found the be #1 leading indicator of how well a student is going to do in college.

[dead]

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#887

Post by DanHulton » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:17 AM 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 not to mention, slavery still happens. Prison work is a thing, and you don't have to look at too many studies to see that Black men are incarcerated at a rate far out stripping the average. Systemic racism leading to incarceratuon is very much a thing, and enforced prison work is very much a thing, ergo modern slavery.

If reparations were being paid, it could be paid to people who are alive right now.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#888

Post by netheril96 » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:17 AM UTC

As an Asian, all I care about is that we should not atone for the crimes committed by someone else (e.g. the white slave owners). That AA disadvantages Asians the most is quite contrary to the whole "atonement" argument of AA.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#889

Post by ec109685 » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:19 AM UTC

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)

Beyond that it took Gore losing in Florida by a handful of votes (butterfly ballot?!), Trump carrying the states he did by less than 100k votes and effectively two Supreme Court Justices to die, and one to retire for this to be overturned.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#890

Post by nonstopdev » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:19 AM 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…

Basically it’s a bandaid. There is a massive problem with the talent pool coming from minority communities.

Look at any school in a lower income area and it’s plagued with issues of attendance, resources of things like access to technology, commitment of parents to help their kids outside of the classroom with homework, and general safety that fails to provide a quality learning space for children to become qualified when they leave school.

Since you can’t put massive school reform with budgets and funding to provide this to schools in a political cycle of 2-4 years, we just keep kicking the can down the road and accept instead of helping build better youth who all can compete for jobs and colleges, let’s just lower the bar and make it seem like we are doing something.