The population continues to grow while people continue to value a handful of schools with fixed campus sizes. What a nightmare it must be to be a parent or a high schooler these days.
Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
21–30 of 136 posts
Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
#22The complaint argues that elite schools “that use race-neutral admissions” have far higher Asian-American enrollment than Harvard. At California Institute of Technology, for instance, about 40% of undergraduates are Asian-American, about twice that at Harvard. Interestingly, Ron Unz did a lengthy expose on this issue in 2012, and arrived at similar conclusions: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth…
I'm skeptical of the Jewish statistics, which are allegedly based on Hillel documents. Is Harvard really 25% Jewish? Or is that the fraction of domestic students who have some (possibly small) Jewish ancestry? And what's the source that Caltech is 5.5% Jewish? Could that mean 5.5% are actually practicing? Did Hillel actually perform a serious survey/study in these schools, or are these numbers based on some student's…
I assume "Jewish" means self-identifying as Jewish. Practicing or not or the "degree" to which one can be considered Jewish seems irrelevant.
Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
#23Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-American === Harvard Accused of Favoritism towards African-Americans/Latinos/etc.
The former just has a sexy title. The latter we've known all along because these schools openly state that they embrace affirmative action.
The matter of fact is that the school is incredibly strategic in how it makes its admissions decision, taking into account not only race, but geography, and a whole host of other factors. The complaint is utterly silly, because it fails to realize that nowhere is the claim made that the admissions process seeks to select the best students according to the SAT -- it seeks to select the students who best add something novel to that year's entering class.
A VERY STRONG argument could be made that race ought to be something which can't enter into that calculus. And I agree with that. But, from the moment a school adopts Affirmative Action (and the US supreme court upholds it), then this is just the sort of thing we can expect to see.
Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
#24Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-American === Harvard Accused of Favoritism towards African-Americans/Latinos/etc. The former just has a sexy title. The latter we've known all along because these schools openly state that they embrace affirmative action. The matter of fact is that the school is incredibly strategic in how it makes its admissions decision, taking into account not only race, but geography, and a w…
A private school can use whatever criteria it wants if it believes it enhances the experience. But why should Asian American tax dollars go to a university that clearly discriminates against them? Harvard shouldn't be able to get public funds and engage in systemic racism.
Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Harvard is subsidized by the govt (in the form of low interest loans to students) and via grant money for research.
re, the first part: So you're saying that if I run some private business, and the gov't gives a loan to somebody else to buy the product I'm selling, that makes me a publicly funded business and forces me to abide by rules for businesses that are publicly funded? I don't think that makes sense.
If we posted stipulations on all the grant money we give universities, every elite university would quickly follow through with it. It's too much money to throw away, even for Harvard.
Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
#26Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-American === Harvard Accused of Favoritism towards African-Americans/Latinos/etc. The former just has a sexy title. The latter we've known all along because these schools openly state that they embrace affirmative action. The matter of fact is that the school is incredibly strategic in how it makes its admissions decision, taking into account not only race, but geography, and a w…
A private school can use whatever criteria it wants if it believes it enhances the experience. But why should Asian American tax dollars go to a university that clearly discriminates against them? Harvard shouldn't be able to get public funds and engage in systemic racism.
Well, consider your answer to this question:
Why should childless adults pay taxes that go toward a school system that educates children, despite the fact that they don't have children?
Whatever your answer to that is, it is probably closely related to the answer to the question you posed. My own interpretation is that the whole point of paying taxes and building services is to cover the larger society's needs, not simply my own needs.
Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
#27"It cites third-party academic research on the SAT exam showing that Asian-Americans have to score on average about 140 points higher than white students, 270 points higher than Hispanic students and 450 points higher than African-American students to equal their chances of gaining admission to Harvard. The exam is scored on a 2400-point scale." It's odd that affirmative action is basically basing everything on color…
The entire point of affirmative action was to provide unearned opportunities based on the color of your skin. With the theory being that over time it would help boost the well being of minorities (at the time mostly African Americans). That by forcing open opportunities, the next generation would do better, and the generation after that would do even better, and so on.
At the expense of other individuals. I personally don't believe affirmative action continues to serve its original purpose, although I've always been against it and gender discrimination as well.
I only have one life. Being told it's ok that I was denied an opportunity because I'm white and I'll be ok is easier to abstract into a broad formula, but harder to take when, on merit alone, I'd be given that opportunity and my life as a human being would be better for it.
Affirmative action was arguably a way to accelerate towards true unbiased judgement, but any purpose it served has run its course and now it's rather harmful, IMHO.
Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm skeptical of the Jewish statistics, which are allegedly based on Hillel documents. Is Harvard really 25% Jewish? Or is that the fraction of domestic students who have some (possibly small) Jewish ancestry? And what's the source that Caltech is 5.5% Jewish? Could that mean 5.5% are actually practicing? Did Hillel actually perform a serious survey/study in these schools, or are these numbers based on some student's…
I assume "Jewish" means self-identifying as Jewish. Practicing or not or the "degree" to which one can be considered Jewish seems irrelevant.
True, but whether someone self-identifies as Jewish depends on exactly how you ask him. To compare the Jewish representation in the US population, college X, and college Y, it's important that the same definition was used.
Feynman (mentioned in Unz's article) famously objected to being labeled as a Jew or Jewish scientist, since he was unreligious and didn't like the speculations about race and ability.
Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
#29"It cites third-party academic research on the SAT exam showing that Asian-Americans have to score on average about 140 points higher than white students, 270 points higher than Hispanic students and 450 points higher than African-American students to equal their chances of gaining admission to Harvard. The exam is scored on a 2400-point scale." It's odd that affirmative action is basically basing everything on color…
The entire point of affirmative action was to provide unearned opportunities based on the color of your skin. With the theory being that over time it would help boost the well being of minorities (at the time mostly African Americans). That by forcing open opportunities, the next generation would do better, and the generation after that would do even better, and so on.
"Affirmative action programs" differ. But in general, they're to control the racism of gatekeepers, these bureaucrats who choose who gets a decent education.
There are better solutions. For instance: free lifelong quality education to all. But naturally, elites would rather waste society's wealth on wars (international killing) and prisons (the most jailings in the world)... than silly things like knowledge and healthcare.
Affirmative action is a modest, successful effort to chip away at the self-destructive inequalities of society. Naturally, many try to attack it to claw back more unearned white privilege for themselves.
Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
A private school can use whatever criteria it wants if it believes it enhances the experience. But why should Asian American tax dollars go to a university that clearly discriminates against them? Harvard shouldn't be able to get public funds and engage in systemic racism.
Well, consider your answer to this question: Why should childless adults pay taxes that go toward a school system that educates children, despite the fact that they don't have children? Whatever your answer to that is, it is probably closely related to the answer to the question you posed. My own interpretation is that the whole point of paying taxes and building services is to cover the larger society's needs, not s…
I see some strength in your analogy, but two main differences:
1) Tax money spent on sending kids to college helps everyone, even the non-parents, since more educated people = better world. Affirmative action doesn't help Asians in any conceivable way. Does it even help society at large? No one arguing for it shows reliable data that it creates significant community benefit.
2) You can always have a child in the future if you choose to. You can't become non-Asian if you were born Asian.