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Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans

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Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans

#101

Post by thrcp971 »

octottoman wrote: post #46

I'm not even going to post this with my real account. I wonder if we'll even be able to have a discussion about this without me getting downvoted into oblivion. Asians have the highest GPAs and SAT scores, followed by whites, followed by Hispanics, followed by blacks. As such, blacks are given the benefit of the doubt, where as Asians are judged more harshly. Statistically, these groups have differing average IQs in…

Of course you aren't going to post this with your real name. This post is full of racist rhetoric. You suggest that blacks are innately inferior to Asians in terms of intelligence, which is nonsense. (Note the post below about IQ issues. There is considerably more research on this point.)

Moreover, many blacks admitted to Ivy League schools aren't black Americans at all--they are Africans, and their scores are on par with Asian students. People like the "Tiger Mom" acknowledge this openly. But educational institutions lump all blacks into the same statistical category--in part because as soon as it becomes evident that some black Americans are getting left behind in favor of Africans, the institutions will have to deal with various groups on that issue.

Ultimately, you fail to differentiate between black students, assuming they are all of one type--and yet you tout your intelligence! Besides, it's hardly surprising that African students fare better in education than Black Americans. Most African students are from an environment where they are viewed as leaders, as equals, and not as inferiors. They see themselves reflected positively for most of their lives. Contrast that with how Black Americans are treated, and it's no surprise that Africans fare better.

Not to mention that among black Americans at Ivy League schools, many get their admission boost from legacy admissions and their family's wealth--they don't even need to benefit affirmative action. Grades just okay but Dad gives enough money to the school? Take a trip to Europe for a year, write about it and come back next year--that's for wealthy kids, regardless of race.

And, finally, just because any racial group has an "average" GPA or LSAT score, doesn't mean that every student in the group does. Drop the pretense: some Asians and whites with lower test scores benefit from affirmative action just like other minorities.

Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans

#102

Post by thrcp971 »

msabalau wrote: post #66
nodiscpls wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discrimination is a bad thing that should be rooted out and stopped. The most insidious is of course the very PC "positive or affirmative discrimiation" - where a group of people decide discrimination is now ok, just because. It ends up with parody situations, like here in the UK, there is the joke about a lady making an absolute fortune, companies being desperate to hire her, because she is disabled, ethnic, lesbian…

The actual purpose of Harvard is to mix the children of the elite (regardless of their ability) with talented children of a broad cross section of the rest of society. One can observe this directly by searching "harvard" on wikileaks: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/04/20/deborah-friedell/how-to... or by, say, observing the life of Barack Obama. The stated mission of Harvard college is to "educate the citizens and cit…

I am glad to see that someone understands this. These schools exist for the benefit of the wealthy.

> Even if it was, the children of tiger moms pursuing meaningless vanity metrics have no standing to complain about it.

Perfectly stated.

Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans

#104

Post by MollyR »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #31

There's bias against Asians everywhere. The difference is remarkably pronounced between asian men and asian women. Hollywood, for example: Asian women? Minority. Asian men? nonexistent.

My younger brother feels this a ton. I wish I could do something for him. Lately he's found some peace in some korean tv shows and movies.

Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans

#105

Post by streptomycin »

geographomics wrote: post #93
streptomycin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't explain my observations, where excellent non-Asian applicants were shoe-ins on their first try and Asian applicants of the same quality had to try multiple times, some of them never making it in at all. If it was just a numbers issue and not everyone could make it in, you wouldn't expect such a clear racial difference. Of course my anecdotes could just be flukes or I could be misinterpreting the quality…

I think that unless you're privy to all the information that the admissions staff are using to judge acceptance, including the quality of the competition and a myriad of other factors that you or I may not have considered, it's a bit of a stretch to assume your friends were racially discriminated against. I don't know how many people you're talking about, but assuming it's a relatively small number, the rejection of…

I would agree for you, except it's well known that Asians are discriminated against in undergrad college admissions, so it's not a stretch for me to imagine the same thing in med school admissions. Indeed, one of the comments replying to me showed MCAT distribution by race for accepted med students is similar to the SAT distribution by race for accepted undergrad students.

Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans

#106

Post by jababaloo »

seiji wrote: post #39

This is the same problem as the housing crisis. What happens when you have limited resources (housing, dorms, teachers) and a group of people who are superior in some way end up wanting to use all your resources (buy all housing, be smartest and get admitted everywhere)? With money, we end up with capitalism doofus blindness and say "you got money, you EARNED that money, clearly, so do whatever you want" even though…

You've got a couple problems in your argument here. Your "thrown in the gutter" argument is pretty silly. People not accepted at harvard (if harvard actually were more honest about qualified admissions) would't fall down a slope into a gutter. They would find their place and ranking elsewhere. Just like you said, you aren't the smartest quickest, you work hard to attempt to make up for it. Clearly you have a place, maybe not at an elite environment where the smarter quicker will save a life or solve a critical failure or set up an infrastructure more efficently. And sure academic testing is flawed and outcomes are chaotic but a school accepting based on various rankings should do so honestly.

The next thing is this. You say, well people of other races might feel uncomfortable if it's too much asian on that campus. So the white or black will feel out of place. But you're being a sort of coddling racist with that kind of thinking. You know what will make somebody out of place in an elite school? Somebody who didn't actually measure up to the standard and got in anyway. Somebody who starts to suspect they don't really deserve to be there and realizes they don't fit and they will take a lot more personal and school resources and probably won't fit much better and so are really a drain on others rather than a contributor.

Because a person who achieves something honestly will have the confidence that they belong and even if the first few days feel weird to them, their work and intelligence will quickly bring them into the fold with their academic peers and teachers. The current biased admission methods will inevitably create tensions too and a bad long term result. If harvard is now confirming a bias, then they leave an elephant in the room. The asians at harvard will look around and notice, say on of their latino classmates is clearly not capable. And that asian will think "my cousin is WAY better than him / her" and she couldn't get in with me. Who is this clown? And so it breaks down their own belief in the school they got into and a tension with their classmates. A non-biased academic admission would mean that conflict or tension like this would be dissolved, the asian would give the latino the benefit of the doubt

It also breaks down the reputation and brand of harvard and so people of minority races with harvard might be suspected as lucking their way in due to color.

Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans

#107

Post by whybroke »

yid wrote: post #83
whybroke wrote: post #72

So if the Ivy league schools are not actually choosing the best students, wouldn't that mean that Ivy League graduates do worse after graduation than alumni form other schools that don't use the Holistic admission process? More simply, if the SAT is the perfect determinate for intelligence and energy, and success in life directly relates to intelligence and hard work then the SAT alone should be the prefect predictor…

> More simply, if the SAT is the perfect determinate for intelligence and energy Nobody, including the College Board, has ever made a claim remotely close to this.

The article only mentions "very subjective Holistic admissions" and only mentions SAT scores, citing them alone as proof of discrimination. By looking at that nothing else, the article is implying SAT scores should be the sole criterion for admission selection. Giving the benefit of the doubt to the author, I assume he believes it corresponds to talent and post graduate success and these are the reasons for selecting candidates.

Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans

#108

Post by whybroke »

asdfologist wrote: post #99
whybroke wrote: post #72

So if the Ivy league schools are not actually choosing the best students, wouldn't that mean that Ivy League graduates do worse after graduation than alumni form other schools that don't use the Holistic admission process? More simply, if the SAT is the perfect determinate for intelligence and energy, and success in life directly relates to intelligence and hard work then the SAT alone should be the prefect predictor…

You're fighting a straw man. Nobody's arguing against holistic admissions. But many people think holistic admissions shouldn't include race.

I am using Holistic in exactly the way the article did and my argument has nothing to do with the normal definition of it anyway. My argument is:

Either the current process in its entirety used by Ivy Leagues produce the most successful candidate or it does not. If it does then either it is already selecting the smartest hardest working candidates whatever the race statistics or success from going to an Ivy League has less to do with brains and effort. If so, we're just arguing about who get's a non-merit based boost in life.

Re: Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans

#109

Post by notsony »

Retric wrote: post #86
caseysoftware wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally I'm not too concerned about this at the undergrad level. But if you accept it here, why not accept it everywhere? Either race-based discrimination is bad and should never be done or acceptable in some cases. If it's bad, Harvard (and others) should stop immediately. End of story. If it's acceptable in "some cases" the next question is: Who determines those cases? And then: Are there a set of fixed criter…

Pick your battles.

True... but what if you are going to have to spend your whole life fighting against silent discrimination?

Reddit CEO Ellen Pao says she is hiring for diversity. Google and IBM are putting hundreds of millions into diversity programmes for hiring and training. Twitter is publishing employee diversity reports.

So if you're a coding genius but you're white or Asian, straight, male, not disabled, guess what?

You're not going to be hired by tech start-ups and companies who are obsessed about showing how "diverse" they are rather than hiring the best candidate for the job.

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