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Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

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Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#291

Post by paulcole »

mbg721 wrote: post #279
root_axis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A much cheaper state school in a cornfield can get you a quality education. Harvard and Yale are more about getting invited to the right dinner-parties.

Getting invited to the right dinner parties can be worth orders of magnitudes more than a quality education. I should know, I’ve only ever been invited to the wrong dinner parties!

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#292

Post by darkerside »

niemandhier wrote: post #289

It is easy to rage against perceived injustice, but maybe this is just a case of "All predictors become bad if they become the target"? In the end the goal of admission processes is to select a certain type of individual. Since some degree of objectivity is needed they created a system that tried to select the desired people based on objectively measurable factors. Maybe a subset of the american asian culture is over…

Some people get _more_ angry about systemic racism than the old fashioned personal hatred kind.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#293

Post by paulcole »

DocTomoe wrote: post #287
mbg721 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much cheaper state school in a cornfield can get you a quality education. Harvard and Yale are more about getting invited to the right dinner-parties.

If you wanted to rephrase that: The cornfield-state-school teaches you how to be a better serf. Ivy League teaches you how to become a master. It's no coincidence that most founders come from ivy-league schools.

I’m assuming you mean startup founders (be sure to genuflect when you say that) but I can all but guarantee that the overwhelming majority of business founders in the US did not attend Ivy League schools.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#294

Post by avnfish »

I think this is just a logical conclusion of the US's wider mentality towards higher education. It seems to me that the US considers the main purpose of a high quality college education is to produce good economic and cultural elites. Thus, the focus for these colleges is on identifying and fostering 'good citizens' - those that have the highest potential to be shaped into a well-rounded and ethical stewards of this economic and cultural capital. It follows that these citizens are to be drawn from and reflect the diversity of the US.

I suppose the thing that's odd is that - uh - education and academics feels very secondary in all of this?

For example, for college admissions in my country (the UK), you take national subject-orientated coursework and exams at age 16 and 18 on topics like History or Chemistry, write an essay about the subjects you want to study at university and then maybe have an extra exam or interview that's run by the university. And we're not even a particularly academics-driven culture. I'm sure other commenters can more succinctly describe the US college admissions process, but it really does seem to elevate the importance of (1) extra-curriculars + cultural + social action (2) high school class grade percentiles (3) standardised 'IQ-adjacent' testing and (4) motivations and outlook. What's missing from this list is identifying and developing the next top wave of scholars that might have a narrow but deep interest in an academic field.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#295

Post by lelanthran »

shadowgovt wrote: post #271
lelanthran wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, an individual Asian student needs to score much higher to have a chance at Harvard, compared to students of other ethnicities. That's very blatantly racial discrimination. > This amounts to, "sorry, we have enough people of your color, so we're gonna make it harder for you to get in." That's wrong. Period. "The law of unintended consequences" ... what are they going to do if the target demographic (in this case…

> "The law of unintended consequences" ... what are they going to do if the target demographic (in this case Asians) start their own merit-based and academic-based colleges and universities? You're asking what people would do if those who couldn't get into university address the issue by building a new university, thereby increasing supply? "Celebrate," I'd assume.

> You're asking what people would do if those who couldn't get into university address the issue by building a new university, thereby increasing supply?

No, I am asking what you would do if the people discriminated against built their own power structures (out of necessity) that, due to merit, was disproportionately made up of members of their community AND produced superior results for their graduates.

Right now many people are basically ranting that Asians are performing too well, leading them to succeed well above other $GROUP.

What do you think those people will say if the discriminated group sets up structures that further reinforce their success in succeeding generations?

Segregation resulting from discriminating against a particular minority to the level that they go ahead and establish their own structures can backfire immensely.

I've seen this (and currently living it firsthand) happen, to the point that the minority group is around 1.5% of the population but holds around 10% of executive and corporate positions[1].

And of course, the 90% majority is baying for blood...

> "Celebrate," I'd assume.

Segregation is never a reason to celebrate.

[1] Last I checked, anyway, which was about a decade ago.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#296

Post by mbg721 »

DocTomoe wrote: post #287
mbg721 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much cheaper state school in a cornfield can get you a quality education. Harvard and Yale are more about getting invited to the right dinner-parties.

If you wanted to rephrase that: The cornfield-state-school teaches you how to be a better serf. Ivy League teaches you how to become a master. It's no coincidence that most founders come from ivy-league schools.

But not everybody can go and be slavemasters, so if you're going to pick arbitrarily who can do it, why not use race in the criteria?

Everybody can know how atoms work, and read Cicero, and figure out where on the shore a boat traveling diagonally will land if the wind is picking up at a given rate. Increasing the human knowledge pie in that way is what universities claim to do.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#297

Post by SyzygistSix »

ayngg wrote: post #82

I feel like these affirmative action policies are attacking the wrong aspect of scholastic achievement that doesn't need to be addressed as urgently as other problems in the system. These policies benefit students that are already having some degree of success, but they don't help the students that really need help, the students that have serious trouble with their education like those described in [1]. Those student…

Agreed. People in this thread seem to want to throw out the baby with the bathwater just because it is obvious that any kind of equity solution isn't going to be solved by changing the demographics of Harvard grads.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#298

Post by tremon »

ejb999 wrote: post #276
lazide wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grade inflation has made GPA pointless at most schools.

that, and then the highschools where they have 30 or 40 'valedictorians' in one graduating class. Now the term 'valedictorian' has also become meaningless as well. When everyone is a valedictorian, nobody is.

They have 30 or 40 students saying a farewell speech?

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#300

Post by lelanthran »

DocTomoe wrote: post #281
lelanthran wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, an individual Asian student needs to score much higher to have a chance at Harvard, compared to students of other ethnicities. That's very blatantly racial discrimination. > This amounts to, "sorry, we have enough people of your color, so we're gonna make it harder for you to get in." That's wrong. Period. "The law of unintended consequences" ... what are they going to do if the target demographic (in this case…

> what are they going to do if the target demographic (in this case Asians) start their own merit-based and academic-based colleges and universities? I would expect setting up Asian-American universities in which non-Asians need not apply to be highly illegal due to the Civil Rights Act.

> I would expect setting up Asian-American universities in which non-Asians need not apply to be highly illegal due to the Civil Rights Act.

Who said anything about non-Asians? I said "merit-based" and "academic-based".

Is it inconceivable that a university that accepts only on academic performance and focuses only on academic performance will end up disproportionally Asian?

[EDIT: Actually, they can make it so that the "merit" test is not in English, but a selection of Asian languages. That'd very quickly make it into an Asian-only university without specifying Capital-R Race]

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