Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process • Hacker News Board

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#181

Post by shawnz » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

charliesharding wrote: post #59

moate wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's so much to unpack here, IDK where to even start. "I don't see color" doesn't feel helpful to many people of color. If you believe that there are prejudices, and you want to fix them, saying "everyone immediately needs to stop being prejudice and everything will be better" isn't actually a solution we can enact. What if people don't suddenly decide it's in their best interest to not be racist? *Edited to remov…

It doesn't feel helpful to be viewed as an individual as opposed to simply a member of a group? Not every person with x skin color has the same experiences... You're taking racism and running the other way with it instead of just rejecting the premise of viewing people as tribe members as flawed. You shouldn't judge people by the groups they happen to belong to. Individuals should be judged on a case-by-base basis.

I don't think you're seeing what the parent is saying. What you are suggesting isn't actionable. We already have legislation to make discrimination illegal and it hasn't been effective at stopping it.

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#182

Post by cm2187 » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

umeshunni wrote: post #10

Wow - this sets a bad precedent. This might now encourage companies to now discriminate against Asias in hiring as well. There are already murmurs in the Valley about how there are too many Asians in tech.

But even if companies are completely blind to race, if you reduce the % of asians in top universities, you mechanically reduce the hires of asians by companies, since the most sought after firms typically restrict their hiring to a small list of colleges.

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#183

Post by tooltalk » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #119

umvi wrote: post #19

It's like we have these two irreconcilable ideas: - Diversity is good - Discrimination is bad When 50% of the world's population is from China/India, how do you both promote diversity and not discriminate?

I think the debate from progressives is the definition of the term discriminate. We all agree choosing an unqualified person over a person who is qualified based on their race is discrimination. However is it discrimination to choose the diverse candidate when presented with two candidates that are equally qualified in every other regard? Because that is often the situation. There is no shortage of people who are qua…

> ... when presented with two candidates that are equally qualified in every other regard? ... Because that is often the situation

Is that the case? I always thought that the case is brought on because the diversity candidate is NOT often "equally qualified,"

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#184

Post by wendyshu » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #149

whamlastxmas wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's people saying there's too many whites and males in tech too.

Well, the difference being that white males hold institutional power in the United States, whereas that isn't true for Asian males (or females).

Interesting claim but it's vague in a way that I really don't know what it means.

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#185

Post by jhawk28 » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #149

whamlastxmas wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's people saying there's too many whites and males in tech too.

Well, the difference being that white males hold institutional power in the United States, whereas that isn't true for Asian males (or females).

Are you saying that it is ok to be racist depending on the status of the person?

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#186

Post by colpabar » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

magic_beans wrote: post #79

baggy_trough wrote: post #2

Absolute madness. Of course they discriminate against Asians.

There are thousands of amazing universities in the US that are not Harvard.

Is that what you'd say if a baker refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding?

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#187

Post by filoleg » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #161

How about: who cares? Isn’t this hacker news? Aren’t we all supposed to be hackers who are upending the existing system? How about we build our own Harvards where anybody who wants to study can come and learn whatever they want? And the network comes from being surrounded by other people who cared enough to learn. We don’t need these places anymore. We’ll find our own funding and do our own research and screw the sys…

Or you can just attend a school in CA, where this kind of admission process has been made illegal [0].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_California_Proposition_20...

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#188

Post by 40acres » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

When it comes to affirmative action cases like these people need to think a bit deeper than Harvard or even race in general. This involves our own collective notion of what is 'fair' and what is 'justice'.

I recently heard that the Spanish government is offering citizenship to a subset of the Jewish population that was kicked out of Spain during the Inquisition. Is this 'justice' for the descendants of those Jews? Is this 'fair' for migrants to Spain who have arrived legally but may be denied the benefits of Spanish citizenship? Has your child ever stomped their feet and crossed their arms when they perceived to be on the negative end of a 'fair' or 'just' ruling by you? Is it fair to the spouse and child of someone who has been committed of a crime that they are institutionalized? Is it fair to the employees of WeWork that they won't get to exercise their shares because it's CEO is a fraud?

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#189

Post by namdnay » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

newfoot wrote: post #14

Harvard does tend to favor wealthy legacies though: "According to The Harvard Crimson, 43.2% of legacy students and 20% of athletes in Harvard’s Class of 2019 come from households that earn more than $500,000 a year, compared to just 15.4% of the overall class. Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said that many of the legacy students applying to the university would be in the most desirable applicant pool regardless of…

Yes it is interesting to see that the focus is on the racial aspect, when to me as an outside it is the classist aspect that really screams out

Re: Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

#190

Post by opportune » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #152

dbjacobs wrote: post #141

I think its clear that Harvard's selection process is more about predicting (and admitting) those who will be successful than those who are most deserving (by some definition of deserving). This is how they increase their brand's value. I'm not sure how you realign an institutions incentive's to change this priority.

It's pretty clear that Harvard's selection process is more about letting in wealthy and legacy students. This population tends to be more successful in life.

Elite institutions need to juggle a few responsibilities:

They need to let in the children of the ultra wealthy for the status symbol, money, and networking for students.

They need to let in the children of high paying donors (not always the same group as above) for the money.

They need to let in a lot of smart students to give legitimacy to the above groups and create new families of donors.

They need to have a demographic profile that roughly approximates the US demographic profile to not appear racist. They also need to have a balanced gender ratio, not overly favor a single region, etc.

They want to have a balanced class, i.e. not everyone studying computer science and economics, people who can play trombone, people for the Fencing team.

You can argue that it's basically all about giving legitimacy and prestige to the ultra donors and wealthy, but it's also about introducing high-achieving people from less privileged backgrounds to those from more privileged backgrounds in the hope that you will get new generations of wealthy donors.