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Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

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Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#161

Post by FT_intern »

laurencerowe wrote: post #130
srssays wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely fine to give extra advantages to people with low incomes. That's economic progressivism. It's wrong to give extra advantages based on genetics, essentially saying that some people "genetically poor" or "genetically rich", which is what Affirmative Action does.

There are clearly multiple axes of inequality in our society beyond the economic, including race and sex. A fair and equal admissions policy should account for all of those.

Affirmative action is quantifiable and blatant racism/sexism.

> multiple axes of inequality in our society beyond the economic, including race and sex

is not clear or quantified at all.

Since affirmative action is provably bad because it is literal sexism/racism, the supposed inequality that AA offputs must be proven and quantified

Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#162

Post by FT_intern »

acchow wrote: post #121
downandout wrote: post #113

Programs like this promote the very discrimination that they are intended to counteract. People of all other races will see this and argue - correctly - that black students at Howard now have an advantage over them at one of the premier employers in the tech industry. This is wonderful for Howard students, and probably for black CS students looking for employment at Google in general, but not so great for everyone el…

Very few engineers in Silicon Valley interact with black engineers. That's a problem. You can't have positive experiences to remove your bias if you have zero experiences.

> Very few engineers in Silicon Valley interact with black engineers.

There is little diversity to be gained from black engineers. Black engineers end up in the category of another nerdy American.

Race is not a good metric for diversity.

Diversity would be Arabians, African immigrants, Thai, etc.

Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#163

Post by tomlock »

FT_intern wrote: post #160
tomlock wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly why affirmative action exists: It's wrong to give extra advantages based on genetics. Therefore, giving an extra advantage to someone who is not given those other extra advantages, evens the score.

Race is being used as a proxy for income. Why not just use income? There won't be glaring unfairness in the system where an upper middle class black kid gets preference over the child of poor, uneducated Fujian immigrants who can barely speak English

If there's an imbalance along racial lines, any reversal to that trend is better than nothing. The ideal world is one where there's no glaring unfairness, but maybe we can address at least some of that unfairness.

I'm of the opinion that university should be free.

Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#164

Post by CoachRufus87 »

nsxwolf wrote: post #155
CoachRufus87 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this really a school that only allows people of a certain race? No.

Ask an honest question, get stupid one word non answers and downvotes.

I'm not sure what I could've said to make my 'non-answer' to that specific question any clearer.

Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#165

Post by burkaman »

downandout wrote: post #154
burkaman wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing the world we all wish we lived in. There are plenty of studies showing that employers are less likely to consider a resume with a black-sounding name, regardless of their qualifications. The effect is usually subconscious and marginal, but it's there. You're right, it is a shame for race to play a part, but we have a responsibility to work for the betterment of our society and not ignore the bad par…

I am describing a very specific part of the world that we do live in. Google applicants with any chance at all of being hired tend to be exceptional people that have already overcome most of the challenges that their socioeconomic background may have imposed upon them. Google recruiters aren't likely throwing out resumes with black-sounding names, if the resume their resume stacks up well against competing resumes of…

I don't know why you think tech companies would be immune to this kind of thing. I'm not talking about cartoonishly racist people ripping up resumes from black people, I'm talking about unconscious biases that make a recruiter think a white candidate seems like a more polished "better fit" for reasons they can't quite put their finger on. They aren't bad people, this is just a fact of life that we need to actively combat, not ignore.

And like I said, even if Google recruiters are somehow completely free of bias, that doesn't solve the problem. Black people are less likely have the necessary qualifications because of lingering effects of racism in the past, which means they're less likely to get well-paying jobs and move up the socioeconomic ladder, which means their kids are less likely to move up and the cycle continues even if racism completely disappears. Obviously it would be nice if we could solve this problem at the source by making education and childhood development completely independent of socioeconomic background, but that's sort of an impossible ideal. I don't think it's unreasonable for Google to try and address the symptoms when the cause is fairly insurmountable.

And one more thing, you're right that anyone hired by Google has exceptional qualifications, but consider what it takes to get your resume in front of a recruiter. When I applied to Google, it was through a friend who had just been hired giving my name to their recruiter. This clearly gave me an advantage over just uploading my resume to a job site. And during the application process, they asked for the names of anyone I knew currently working at Google so they could ask for recommendations. This is a fine step to have in a recruiting process, but you can see how network effects would continue to affect a group that's been discriminated against in the past, even if they're treated completely equally today. They're less likely to have a direct connection to a recruiter, less likely to have internal recommendations, less likely to get that extra boost.

Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#166

Post by oh_sigh »

misterbowfinger wrote: post #52

I want to comment on the anti Affirmative Action arguments here. I went to a really prestigious high school in New York City. For the summer of my junior year, our AP Computer Science teacher hooked up a few of us with internships at the finance firms, specifically in tech (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc.). Now, sure, I did really well and studied really hard to get into my high school. However, I did practically…

What does that have to do with affirmative action though? It sounds like you are advocating that we should be improving our high school curriculum, not using race as a basis for admissions to certain programs.

If you ever bring up the point about, say, how the rate of criminality among blacks in America is so much higher than whites/asians/latinos, you'll frequently hear a response about the lurking variable of poverty(poor people are more likely to be criminal -> blacks are over-represented among poor people).

So, why doesn't that same logic carry over to affirmative action? If you made the test about income levels, and not race, it seems like some of the absurdity of the system that people hate would be lessened. Right now with AA, we implicitly say that a black kid from a multi-millionaire family is disadvantanged, and needs help, relative to the son of a poor Chinese immigrant.

Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#167

Post by oh_sigh »

nsxwolf wrote: post #155
CoachRufus87 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this really a school that only allows people of a certain race? No.

Ask an honest question, get stupid one word non answers and downvotes.

Your honest question got an honest answer - NO. Anyone can apply to Howard, anyone can get accepted to Howard.

Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#168

Post by nsxwolf »

oh_sigh wrote: post #167
nsxwolf wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask an honest question, get stupid one word non answers and downvotes.

Your honest question got an honest answer - NO. Anyone can apply to Howard, anyone can get accepted to Howard.

I know that is true of the regular Howard University campus, but what about the new program that's the subject of the article?

Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#169

Post by CoachRufus87 »

nsxwolf wrote: post #168
oh_sigh wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your honest question got an honest answer - NO. Anyone can apply to Howard, anyone can get accepted to Howard.

I know that is true of the regular Howard University campus, but what about the new program that's the subject of the article?

Did you bother to read the post?

> Rising juniors and seniors in Howard’s computer science (CS) program can attend Howard West, for three months at a time.

Re: Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex

#170

Post by sctb »

jza00425 wrote: post #144
misterbowfinger wrote: post #52

I want to comment on the anti Affirmative Action arguments here. I went to a really prestigious high school in New York City. For the summer of my junior year, our AP Computer Science teacher hooked up a few of us with internships at the finance firms, specifically in tech (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc.). Now, sure, I did really well and studied really hard to get into my high school. However, I did practically…

If you were the one who gets screwed by AA, you would have told another story. This is what liberals do. Already have your piece of pie and play the moral high ground. How about you giving your spot to a black kid?

Please don't start flamewars with unsubstantive personal accusations like this.
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