Live data from Hacker News

In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

news.yale.edu

161–170 of 363 posts

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#161
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? While Asian immigrants certainly face discrimination they have also certainly experienced much less than black Americans have over the last 300 years.

Here’s a good reason: people don’t deserve to be discriminated against on the basis of their race.

No one deserves anything. Things happen anyway. Clearly everyone has their own definition of fairness. Seems to me that someone at admissions office for the ivy’s has read kendi and was reasonably convinced that his take on reverse racism is correct. You can disagree, but since fairness isn’t a concept that even make sense metaphysically it’s hard to say they’re wrong.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#162

Kuntz Law: in ANY/ALL resource constrained systems, giving advantage to 1 individual directly gives disadvantage to another. This is true whether it is seats on a bus, distribution of aid money, or college admission. You cannot give race based preference without simultaneously race based discrimination

In a purely meritocratic system, the result is the same as well due to the effects of crowding. If you have 100 applicants for a position, 90 of them from one background and 10 of them from another, the odds are that under a pure meritocratic position that all of your hires will end up being of one specific background.

Which results in a downstream effect of other perfectly good candidates being filtered into lower quality institutions due to no reason of their own.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#163
post #157

How does this kind of race-based admission actually work in practice when it comes to “mixed race” individuals? (Scare quotes because I’m not even sure mixed race is a coherent concept). How far back in time can you go in search of an advantageous ancestry? This whole area seems rife with absurdities.

[deleted]

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Everyone is better off if we live in a society where you can do well and be rewarded for it, which is what affirmative action supports Affirmative action is sins of they father by another name. It's judging people, and sending the message that it is okay--even righteous--to judge people not on who they are, but on from whom they are born. It also creates justified racial animus between ethnic groups anew, and does…

The fact that you think the source of the racial discrimination is college admissions and not centuries of violence and hatred is sad, but unsurprising.

You are not immune to history, what happened before you were born does matter, and it effects/hurts people all the time. Affirmative Actions is just one way we can try and figure out how to heal that immense damage. It's not the only thing we can do, but it is something, and it can be done in a way that helps everyone.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#166
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We discriminated against blacks in the past, so whites and asians deserve to be discriminated against in the present. Is this your position?

> We discriminated against blacks in the past, so whites and asians deserve to be discriminated against in the present. Is this your position? White people took everything for hundreds of years. Then, they turned around and said "Oh look, we own everything but let's just forget about skin color now". Discrimination resulted in massive inequality. The median net worth of a white family is $200k. The median net worth o…

What did Asians do? Were they involved in this taking of everything or should they just be clumped in as white because they don't meet the narrative that discrimination means you will be poor?

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is better off if we live in a society where you can do well and be rewarded for it, which is what affirmative action supports Affirmative action is sins of they father by another name. It's judging people, and sending the message that it is okay--even righteous--to judge people not on who they are, but on from whom they are born. It also creates justified racial animus between ethnic groups anew, and does…

The fact that you think the source of the racial discrimination is college admissions and not centuries of violence and hatred is sad, but unsurprising. You are not immune to history, what happened before you were born does matter, and it effects/hurts people all the time. Affirmative Actions is just one way we can try and figure out how to heal that immense damage. It's not the only thing we can do, but it is someth…

> the source of the racial discrimination is college admissions and not centuries of violence and hatred is sad

They're both acts of prejudice on the basis of race. There's a view that there is some dimension of racism where racism in "one" direction can be negated by racism in the "other" direction. But this relies on a stable concept of race across time and space, which doesn't exist, because people mix and move and change how they identify.

> what happened before you were born does matter

I wasn't born in America. Neither were my Asian friends. Isn't it convenient that they're asked to bear the burden of America's heritage of slavery?

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#168
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? While Asian immigrants certainly face discrimination they have also certainly experienced much less than black Americans have over the last 300 years.

And this is called the crab mentality: "My family struggled so much in my childhood, so I want you to struggle as much. I'm miserable and you too should live in misery." People with this mentality really want some company, but this is turned into the crab mentality by their sick minds.

I think you’ve got a lot of soul searching to do if you legitimately believe affirmative action proponents support it in order to punish people.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#169
post #118
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the danger of focusing on equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. In my opinion, the former is not possible anyway, it's not a good goal. People are different and they're going to have different outcomes, even if only considering chance. But they should have the same opportunities regardless of race, gender, etc. Making policy to address this is tackling the root of the problem instead of the…

I largely agree, but here's an attempt at a "steel man" of the opposing point of view: Unjust discrimination is complex, often subconscious, and deeply rooted in institutional structures and culture. It's too complex and elusive to address directly beyond the obvious removal of explicit regulations (desegregation) and finger wagging. Those things have already been done and yet extreme inequalities persist, so address…

BS.

It starts at kindergarten and before. Minority children should enter schools where they have a chance, with the resources to take advantage of that chance. But we don't. And here in California, blacks graduating high school on average only read as well as 8th grade blacks.

Attempting to create equality of outcome after that is a lost cause.

I can think of a dozen policies that would be more effective at helping blacks than discriminating against Asians at elite universities. My favorite example is that research says that homework provides little net benefit on average, but specifically hurts children in disadvantaged families where parents themselves lack the skills to help their children understand the material. Therefore dramatically reducing homework will help blacks. (And will also make families with teenagers much less stressful places.)

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#170
post #2

I didn't realize college admissions' affirmative action had reached SCOTUS. I wonder what the outcome will be. Key summary: > "Today Yale joined peer institutions in stating emphatically that student diversity is essential to the missions of American universities and promotes educational excellence for all students,” President Peter Salovey said. “Our amicus curiae brief makes clear that the way we consider race and…

I think the goal of using race in admissions is more about giving disadvantaged people an advantage rather than increasing "diversity of thought".

or perhaps the upper class seeks to divide and rule the working class and so therefore initiated racial discriminating in hiring and admissions in order to further the divide and rule strategy?
Post reply on HN