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Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

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Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#191

Post by actually_a_dog »

Ekaros wrote: post #147
actually_a_dog wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pure, 100% anecdote, but, I remember at my first tech job, there were basically 3 teams working on different aspects of the product. I, a white male, was on a team with 3 other white males. There was another team of around 5 or 6 who were all Chinese. The last team was probably 10-15, all Indian. All these people were damn good at their jobs, but it was rather interesting how the demographics fell.

Part of this might be nepotism and networking. Maybe we should ban those from recruitment. Can't recommend anyone anymore. Just purely blind system, maybe text or voice changer, so visuals involved...

Orchestras have blind auditions for precisely that reason, and it apparently works. It's not a perfect system, mostly because the classical music world itself has certain barriers built into it that are tough to navigate, but it certainly does have the intended effect.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#192

Post by TulliusCicero »

j7ake wrote: post #109

Would it be more fair to weight applicants by household income rather than race? For example, given two equally strong applicants, but one is from upper class and the other lower class, it seems clear that the lower class applicant is stronger, because they were able to achieve similarly with fewer resources.

The advantage of race is that it's not easily gamed. Using household income would incentivize families to try and minimize income in the years prior to college admission. Additionally, you'd have to deal with how income relates to cost of living (e.g. 100k in Alabama and coastal California aren't the same).

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#193

Post by TulliusCicero »

TeeMassive wrote: post #2

What is the mainstream Progressive justification for discriminating against Asians?

There isn't one. The progressive response is generally deflection.

I'm a progressive myself (albeit one that disagrees with the party line on this particular issue), and it's blatantly obvious that progressives that support anti-Asian discrimination like this are well aware of how messed up it is and how bad it looks, so they try to deflect, rather than engage directly.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#195

Post by mschuster91 »

com2kid wrote: post #25
goodoldneon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal isn't to disadvantage Asians in particular. It's about balancing demographics by giving advantages to under-represented groups, which inherently means giving disadvantages to over-represented groups. Affirmative action is messy because it's getting in the middle of zero sum games (e.g. college admissions and hiring). But diversity is a significant problem in many parts of American society, and just about eve…

America needs to build more colleges. Based on current wtf pricing and demand, 2xing the number might do it.

Or fix the demand side.

Right now, megacorps are abusing colleges as a filter to weed out people who can't cope with high stress environments or keep deadlines and, even more egregious, load the cost for a lot of what used to be employer-paid on-the-job training onto the students via student loans. A "bullshit job" should not require a college degree.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#196

Post by notch656a »

pl0x wrote: post #182

Quoted post unavailable.

I worry skin-color based discrimination will only become worse from affirmative action. For instance, medicals schools are known to accept, all else equal, lower MCAT and GPA from 'black' persons (or at least those who identify themselves as such). It poisons the well and makes a patient question whether their doctor got into school due to their 'black' or other 'disadvantaged' skin color, a question that could be better eliminated if affirmative action-like considerations were eliminated in medical school.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#197

Post by [deleted] »

hedora wrote: post #90
deepGem wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, standardised tests do not have any bias about your past or about your education. Anyone can start from scratch, prepare and ace them. All other forms of admissions, GPA, essays etc have biases of other parties. Essays and recommendation letters especially. Also they are so easy to game. They should clearly eliminate the test fees and make free prep material available for those who can't afford them. Cond…

The University of California is eliminating them because scores are correlated to race. Ironically, they used to have a set number of seats for people that had bad grades and aced the standardized tests. Blacks, Hispanics and other economically disadvantaged groups were over represented in that admissions pool. (So eliminating the tests will reduce the number of minority kids. According to the WSJ, they did this in V…

[deleted]

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#198

Post by cuteboy19 »

woodruffw wrote: post #39
scythe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I never agreed to artificial scarcity in the form of admission slots, and so I'm not interested in defending any particular consequence of that system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

I don't think there's anything particularly dreamy or fanciful about a more equal educational system. My understanding is that the US, with its uniquely devolved set of educational authorities and standards is alone in the developed world in terms of the inequality of education offered to its children.

Every other country has a similar system. Even the Soviet communists, at the height of their power, had more or less the same system.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#199

Post by notch656a »

carrionpigeon wrote: post #159
j7ake wrote: post #109

Would it be more fair to weight applicants by household income rather than race? For example, given two equally strong applicants, but one is from upper class and the other lower class, it seems clear that the lower class applicant is stronger, because they were able to achieve similarly with fewer resources.

When I was in high school, one student's parents (one doctor and one lawyer --- very financially well-off) took off work for one year just so they could claim having no income on the FAFSA documentation. She got accepted everywhere , winning across the places she applied over $300,000 in scholarships. The upper-middle class and wealthy can easily game this. Edit: I should also add that the student and both parents we…

That is fucking genius. Self identify as '' and then quit your jobs, laughing all the way to the bank as the scholarships roll in.

You could renovate a house or something in the meantime, wrapping up your cash in that endeavor (little money in the bank on paper, except in the 'family home' while simultaneously having no income, offloading it as soon as the scholarships roll in.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#200

Post by cat_plus_plus »

root_axis wrote: post #160
ipnon wrote: post #100

It's discrimination any way you slice it. You can't lower the bar for one person without raising it for another so long as the class sizes remain the same. If elite universities are about providing education (a valid point of critical contention), then systematically barring Asians from entry is the same class of injustice litigated in Brown v. Board of Education. It's not enough to say you can learn calculus just as…

Despite the increased chances of admission, black students make up a modest 5% of the (e.g.) Harvard student body compared to Asian students and white students at 13% and 40% respectively. Ultimately, I can't justify the idea of rejecting students based on race, but when I look at those demographics I just don't see much to get worked up about. From a more cynical angle the problem almost seems like "the total percen…

> It's unfortunate that a quality education is a finite pie.

Good that it's not then? With modern technology, one can get started on ultra cheap automated courses (not necessarily just static lectures, can be interactive/VR experience like good computer games), coupled with one on one help from paid and volunteer tutors around the world. Than those who show potential can in due time be given access to expensive research equipment and world renoun professors. All without a need to make a life making or breaking decision based on a single admission process. Let students decide for themselves if and when to conclude that a subject is not for them. Current system amounts to artificial gatekeeping of success.

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