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Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

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Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#431

Post by hnboredhn »

elil17 wrote: post #430
dionidium wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. I just don't see this. In our society we believe it to be illegitimate to discriminate on the basis of race. We believe that to be a special kind of uniquely harmful prejudice, one that fractures the deepest structures of society, and that it therefore clears the very high bar required for limiting freedom of association…

But favoring legacy status in admissions is a form of racial discrimination because non-white people are much, much less likely to have legacy at elite institutions.

Harvard posted that 70% of their legacy admits were white and 30% non-white. That's higher than the population of 18 year olds but maybe not as extreme as some would think.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#433

Post by Clubber »

dionidium wrote: post #412
te_230349493 wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legacy admissions discriminate by class (if you are well off to be part of a donor family, you get a leg up) or by birth right (if you were a lucky enough sperm to be part of the family of a prior attendee, you get a leg up). How is the principles of giving preference to a particular class or birth right any different than giving preference to race? All three fly in the face of meritocracy. Yet to not allow this mean…

Whatever you think in theory, in practice we have an actual legacy of the extraction, relocation, and enslavement of a particular group of people on the basis of race. We fought a civil war about it and it remains the most enduringly contentious and difficult conflict -- the defining conflict, in many ways -- in our nation's history (right up through today). It will always be a topic deserving of special dispensation…

>The question, therefore, is really quite simple: 1) does that legacy justify a similarly special set of rules designed primarily (and maybe exclusively) for the group most harmed by that racial legacy; or 2) does our Constitution in fact demand that no such racial preferences ever again be practiced on this soil?

Yes to both conflicting ideas, how about that. AA was under consideration in the mid aughts and the SCOTUS essentially said it was a special exception, and not to be permanent, but they would allow it at the time.

https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/publications/w...

In her opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor concluded that affirmative action in college admissions is justifiable, but not in perpetuity: “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest [in student body diversity] approved today.”

We conclude that under reasonable assumptions, African American students will continue to be substantially underrepresented among the most qualified college applicants for the foreseeable future. The magnitude of the underrepresentation is likely to shrink—in our most optimistic simulation, somewhat over half of the gap that would be opened by the elimination of race preferences will be closed by the projected improvement in black achievement.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#434

Post by vkou »

rayiner wrote: post #417
yannyu wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we might as well admit that "merit" is heavily influenced by starting conditions instead of pretending that everyone has "equal opportunity". How many times have I heard from people that the USA is about "equality of opportunity" and not "equality of outcome"? Legacy admissions is directly contrary to equality of opportunity, and undermines the idea of meritocracy in university admissions that people have been c…

Why does legacy admissions being bad justify racial preferences? Two wrongs don’t make a right.

> Two wrongs don’t make a right.

This is nonsense, in any moral framework worth its salt.

Consider a simple situation:

1. Lying is wrong.

2. Someone's running from a mob that wants to kill them. They went right.

3. The mob stops, and asks you if the person in question went right.

4. Two wrongs don't make a right, so you tell the truth. Or don't say anything, and let the mob go off in the correct direction and chase that person down.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#435

Post by chaostheory »

hunson_abadeer wrote: post #424
chaostheory wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this wasn't mentioned more often but it's because of donor money. Donor money that funds things like new cafeterias and other facilities ultimately benefits everyone at school and helps keep tuition prices in check, also complicates the ethics ie if they didn't have enough donors, then tuition will go up and it'll be even less affordable

Yeah, it would be sad for Harvard to get unaffordable.

Noted your sarcasm, but it would be sad for Harvard and its ilk to get EVEN MORE unaffordable for anyone not upperclass.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#436

Post by bilbo0s »

Larrikin wrote: post #359
chmod600 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff“ Athletes have merit. Arguably more than some academic departments.

Why should a top high school baseball prospect take up a spot at a college instead of a spot on a local A league team?

Because money.

Sorry. That's the reality that everyone fails to talk openly about when discussing athletics. It brings in a lot of money for the top schools like Stanford, Michigan, Texas, Alabama and so on. You find a way to replace that revenue, a lot of schools would be happy to get rid of it. But until then?

I mean the B1G has a tv split of almost 100 million a year "per". Once all the former PAC12 schools unite with the B1G, that amount will be even larger.

All that to say this, no one is throwing away 100 million a year. Maybe the elite schools you can get to stop athletic admissions? But that 2nd tier of state flagships that are taking all that in? I'm not sure they would go down without an epic fight.

Now of course, we can question whether or not you need a men's baseball team to bring that money in? You probably don't. But they will all probably fight tooth and nail to keep football and basketball.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#437

Post by randyrand »

elil17 wrote: post #430
dionidium wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. I just don't see this. In our society we believe it to be illegitimate to discriminate on the basis of race. We believe that to be a special kind of uniquely harmful prejudice, one that fractures the deepest structures of society, and that it therefore clears the very high bar required for limiting freedom of association…

But favoring legacy status in admissions is a form of racial discrimination because non-white people are much, much less likely to have legacy at elite institutions.

I don't think racial discrimination is the right term for discriminating based on things that happen to correlate with race.

Everything correlates with race. Height, disease, money, eye color, divorce, number of pokemon cards, you name it.

You may as well call it eye-color discrimination, height discrimination, pokemon card discrimination, etc, as well. It just makes no sense at that point.

So what exactly is the point of calling it racial discrimination then? Isn't every single policy racist then?

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#438

Post by s17n »

dionidium wrote: post #394
julienchastang wrote: post #187

Good. With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. [0] The number of kids entering elite universities via non-meritocratic avenues is incredible. > "[The researchers] examined four kinds of nonracial preferences—for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff. The researchers found that more than 43% of…

> With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. I just don't see this. In our society we believe it to be illegitimate to discriminate on the basis of race. We believe that to be a special kind of uniquely harmful prejudice, one that fractures the deepest structures of society, and that it therefore clears the very high bar required for limiting freedom of association…

The point is that legacy admissions have always been an egregious injustice. One effect of affirmative action was to (partially and imperfectly) ameliorate the admissions situation. Now that's gone.

As far as the freedom of association goes, that's not an argument in favor of legacy admissions but it is possibly an argument that the government should stay out of it. Given the central role that universities play in our society, and the fact that they depend on government support, I think it's a complicated question. Ultimately I think it's also an uninteresting question - the important thing is building a societal consensus legacy admissions are wrong and should end.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#439

Post by ericmcer »

julienchastang wrote: post #187

Good. With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. [0] The number of kids entering elite universities via non-meritocratic avenues is incredible. > "[The researchers] examined four kinds of nonracial preferences—for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff. The researchers found that more than 43% of…

Why did they lump athletes in with those other three groups. Athletics is the ultimate meritocracy. If athletes are a significant portion of that 43% it dilutes the whole argument.

If 10% were alumni/donors/faculty it would still be outrageous, no need to pump up the numbers.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#440

Post by nradov »

dionidium wrote: post #394
julienchastang wrote: post #187

Good. With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. [0] The number of kids entering elite universities via non-meritocratic avenues is incredible. > "[The researchers] examined four kinds of nonracial preferences—for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff. The researchers found that more than 43% of…

> With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. I just don't see this. In our society we believe it to be illegitimate to discriminate on the basis of race. We believe that to be a special kind of uniquely harmful prejudice, one that fractures the deepest structures of society, and that it therefore clears the very high bar required for limiting freedom of association…

From a purely legal standpoint, the affirmative action issue is really about government funding and has little to do with limiting freedom of association. Schools that take federal funding can't violate the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Private schools that wish to continue their affirmative action admission programs are free to do so provided they forgo government funding.
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