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What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

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Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#61

Post by dahart »

rayiner wrote: post #58
dahart wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Maybe a little bit like a sports handicap, you’re not trying to give someone a better chance of winning than everyone else, you’re trying to give them equal chances based on historical data. Gemini gave me an okay analogy: “If a pendulum is knocked permanently off-center by a structural bend or a magnetic field, the only way to center it again is to apply an equal and opposite force. Affirmative action policies…

Discriminating against an individual based on their race is a moral wrong, unlike applying pressure to a pendulum. So your example doesn’t work because it doesn’t raise the disputed moral question. Our system of morality and justice operates on individuals, not groups. It’s fundamentally mistaken to view the issue in terms of a pendulum that represents group outcomes.

> Discriminating against an individual based on their race is a moral wrong

People pick partners based on race. Is that morally wrong?

> Our system of morality and justice operates on individuals, not groups.

What do you mean? Class actions don’t exist? Did I imagine the 19th amendment?

Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#62

Post by codedokode »

What's the point of giving preferences to athletes at places like computer science department? Would not it make more sense to create an athletic department and accept all athletes there so they do not have to struggle with math?

Also, they could make a separate department for the riches where there also is no math.

Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#63

Post by dahart »

rayiner wrote: post #54
BrenBarn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends how you conceptualize fairness. If you believe that some people have a pre-existing unfair bias in their favor, then applying a countermeasure is indeed fair.

No, because two wrongs don’t make a right. Where else in our society do we justify imposing a moral wrong on a specific individual on the premise that moral wrongs may have been committed against other individuals?

The death penalty is an example of two wrongs making a right in the minds of many people. It’s also at the same time an example of two wrongs not making a right. Imprisoning people is wrong, unless the government does it? All so-called lawful punishments of individuals are a form of hope that two wrongs do make a right.

Whether affirmative action is a wrong is your presumption, and it’s hotly contested, absolutely not universally agreed upon, which makes your use of ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ a straw man.

There are plenty of things wrong with preferential affirmative action, but I reject the framing that it’s evil, this is essentially an ad hominem attempting to quash any debate of the actual relative merits or the outcomes.

I feel like we can’t make forward progress if you refuse to acknowledge the reasons that history has happened the way it did. See Chesterton’s Fence.

Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#64

Post by aliasxneo »

Yizahi wrote: post #51
digitaltrees wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't think the 50% admit rate for athletes, 40% admit rate for deans interest ie large cash donors, and 35% legacy admit rate were "the whole think"?

Honestly, the combination of extremely discriminatory, extremely corrupt, extremely predatory and then again discriminated differently by the fact if they are a sportsball player or not is rather amusing and at the same time baffling when observed from the other side of the globe. Of course it is too late by now, by have Americans considered maybe abolishing all that and admitting students only based on the exam resu…

> have Americans considered maybe abolishing all that and admitting students only based on the exam results

No, because that's "not fair" to some groups.

Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#65

Post by s1artibartfast »

codedokode wrote: post #62

What's the point of giving preferences to athletes at places like computer science department? Would not it make more sense to create an athletic department and accept all athletes there so they do not have to struggle with math? Also, they could make a separate department for the riches where there also is no math.

Presumably the athletes want it and they have leverage.

Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#66

Post by OLL_IE »

pc86 wrote: post #24
avs733 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So with some searching… In the UK you can apply to upto five colleges. In the US the recommendation seems to be between 5-8

On the sixth application does someone knock on your door?

I know this is probably a /s but in the UK you apply through a service called UCAS not directly to the university, and UCAS only allow you to apply to 5 universities.

Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#67

Post by graemep »

dahart wrote: post #61
rayiner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discriminating against an individual based on their race is a moral wrong, unlike applying pressure to a pendulum. So your example doesn’t work because it doesn’t raise the disputed moral question. Our system of morality and justice operates on individuals, not groups. It’s fundamentally mistaken to view the issue in terms of a pendulum that represents group outcomes.

> Discriminating against an individual based on their race is a moral wrong People pick partners based on race. Is that morally wrong? > Our system of morality and justice operates on individuals, not groups. What do you mean? Class actions don’t exist? Did I imagine the 19th amendment?

> People pick partners based on race. Is that morally wrong?

Depends on their reasoning. If it is that they are attracted to people with a particular physical appearance that correlates with race, then its not morally wrong. If you are doing so because they do not want to pick a partner who they believe is of an inferior race, that is morally wrong.

Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#68

Post by dahart »

graemep wrote: post #67
dahart wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Discriminating against an individual based on their race is a moral wrong People pick partners based on race. Is that morally wrong? > Our system of morality and justice operates on individuals, not groups. What do you mean? Class actions don’t exist? Did I imagine the 19th amendment?

> People pick partners based on race. Is that morally wrong? Depends on their reasoning. If it is that they are attracted to people with a particular physical appearance that correlates with race, then its not morally wrong. If you are doing so because they do not want to pick a partner who they believe is of an inferior race, that is morally wrong.

Exactly. It depends. It’s not a given.

Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#69

Post by rayiner »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #57
dahart wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Maybe a little bit like a sports handicap, you’re not trying to give someone a better chance of winning than everyone else, you’re trying to give them equal chances based on historical data. Gemini gave me an okay analogy: “If a pendulum is knocked permanently off-center by a structural bend or a magnetic field, the only way to center it again is to apply an equal and opposite force. Affirmative action policies…

There were things like redlining, where blacks could only buy housing in certain areas. Those areas also tended to have worse schools, so the next generation of blacks was less well educated than whites of equivalent intelligence. That led to worse jobs, which led to worse financial outcomes, which led to living in worse parts of town, which led to the next generation having less education... So, yes, there was pre-e…

Even if an individual’s condition today reflects historical injustices to groups, that doesn’t justify discriminating between individuals today based on their group. To your redlining example: it’s true a black american who inherits a house may have lower home equity than a white american who inherits a house. But isn’t the white american who didn’t inherit anything worse off than both? You can’t lump white americans together based on a group generalization—that’s the very thing we decided is immoral.

The historical argument also doesn’t survive attempts to generalize its underlying principles to immigrants. Objectively, Black americans are extremely privileged by virtue of being americans. A redlined community in 1950s America was still better than my dad’s village in Bangladesh.

Finally, your argument demolishes how affirmative action is actually practiced. Its biggest beneficiaries are immigrants and their children, in particular hispanics. That produces a very unfair result under your logic, because latin america is solidly middle income, and was even more so in the 20th century. In 1990, Mexico’s GDP per capita was ten times higher than India’s and China’s. Yet colleges and corporations discriminate in favor of “hispanics” descended from Spanish conquistadores, and against “asians” whose parents grew up in third world villages.

Re: What did SFFA vs. Harvard reveal about admissions?

#70

Post by esafak »

rayiner wrote: post #54
BrenBarn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends how you conceptualize fairness. If you believe that some people have a pre-existing unfair bias in their favor, then applying a countermeasure is indeed fair.

No, because two wrongs don’t make a right. Where else in our society do we justify imposing a moral wrong on a specific individual on the premise that moral wrongs may have been committed against other individuals?

If you take something from me and the government takes it back that's two wrongs in your book??
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