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

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

#321

Post by dcolkitt » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

lordgrenville wrote: post #315

dcolkitt wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was under the impression that Jews commonly don't think of themselves as being white whereas the rest of the 'white' groups did. In the Anglosphere, Jews have pretty much always been considered "white". For example, both the Confederacy and Apartheid South Africa, two regimes obsessed with racial classification, never even considered that Jews might not be white. The conception of Jews as a separate race, has his…

>For example, both the Confederacy and Apartheid South Africa, two regimes obsessed with racial classification, never even considered that Jews might not be white. Not true about South Africa: "Shortly after the Union of South Africa received dominion status in 1910, the new Boer rulers proposed to re-classify the Jews as "coloured" because they originally came from the Middle East, and hence were not really European…

Do you have a citation for that other than Quora?

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

#322

Post by travisoneill1 » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #191

tathougies wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed no one is entitled to go to Harvard, but Harvard is also not entitled to federal research grants that are being funded by taxing Asian Americans under the same laws as other Americans, so I guess we are at an impasse.

Harvard's endowment is around $40 billion. They're awarded about $600M in Federal grants per year. Though I'm sure they'd prefer to keep receiving them, they'd be just fine without them. It seems like turning down Federal grants and handling admissions as they like would satisfy everyone.

The real money is paid directly to students through federal student loans and then to the university.

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

#323

Post by metzby » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

deogeo wrote: post #92

metzby wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't see "non-Jewish" white in the source. Did you add up the rest and subtract from 100? I think these should be able to add up to more than 100. E.g., someone who is both Hispanic and Black.

I subtracted Jewish from white, since "Out of this 2,831,000 religious Jewish population, 92% are non-Hispanic white": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews#Assimilation_and...

Where did you get the number of white? I'm saying you can't sum ethnicities because many people are multiple ethnicities.

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

#324

Post by rohit2412 » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

omegaworks wrote: post #33

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.

Slippery slope is a sloppy parallel to make here when the gatekeepers in tech are overwhelmingly white men. Please don't burn programs won in the Civil Rights struggle to the ground. That is making an alliance with and performing a service for white supremacy.

But are you not the one championing for discriminatory policies? The ones against this ruling are looking for merit based systems, not discrimination.

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

#325

Post by CivBase » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

"Race-Conscious Admissions" obviously implies that a candidates race influences the criteria they must meet for admission to the university. So Harvard is obviously trying to balance the racial demographics of their students according to some ratio.

What I really want to know is what ratio they are balancing towards and why that particular ratio is better than any other.

I could pick any arbitrary ratio. How about a ratio that matches the modern demographics of Cambridge? Or Massachusetts? Or the United States? Or North America? Or all of Earth? Or the demographics of the US in 1636 when Harvard was established? Or the demographics some designer thinks looks good in pictures? Or the demographics of the wealthiest 5% of US citizens? Or the demographics of the poorest 5%? So on and so on.

What is the incentive? Is it political? Is it just a ratio that Harvard admins think will keep them safe from political criticism? That clearly didn't work. Are they getting a kickback somehow? Is it a personal agenda to promote education in places the admins agree lacks it? Is it simple bigotry?

I doubt the answers would change my mind, but I'm still very interested.

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

#326

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

dwoozle wrote: post #126

throwawaysea wrote: post #12

This ruling is a travesty and I hope the Supreme Court overturns it when this is appealed. It is very clear that race-conscious admissions are systematically racist and discriminatory. Take a look at the distribution of students by race in the University of California system, where they're not permitted to discriminate in this manner, thanks to Prop 209 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_California_Proposition_20..…

Harvard and UC are trying to do different things. Harvard is trying to admit the future leaders of the world, so it can point to them and say “They are Harvard men.” UC is trying to give an academically rigorous education to the most academically qualified students.

[deleted]

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

#327

Post by steveeq1 » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

40acres wrote: post #264

noetic_techy wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't buy this anymore. Not when Asians, Indians, Nigerians, Lebonese, Cubans, Iranians and Jews all do better than average White households in America and are over represented in education. If it permeates everything, why does it not apply to these groups? Amy Chau wrote a great book on this: The Triple Package. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triple_Package

Perhaps because those groups were not subject to the institutional effects of slavery? If I told you that a people were discriminated against for hundreds of years would you be surprised to learn that they statistically under-perform their peers on certain measures? It's like asking why aren't there more Jews in Spain.

Asians were discriminated against, quite heavily, in america during the 19th and early 20th century. Doesn't seem to be affecting them . . .

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

#328

Post by omegaworks » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

rohit2412 wrote: post #324

omegaworks wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slippery slope is a sloppy parallel to make here when the gatekeepers in tech are overwhelmingly white men. Please don't burn programs won in the Civil Rights struggle to the ground. That is making an alliance with and performing a service for white supremacy.

But are you not the one championing for discriminatory policies? The ones against this ruling are looking for merit based systems, not discrimination.

There is no such thing as a merit-based system. We have pitifully few examples of "merit"-based metrics functioning restoratively or in service of justice.

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

#329

Post by tathougies » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

travisoneill1 wrote: post #322

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harvard's endowment is around $40 billion. They're awarded about $600M in Federal grants per year. Though I'm sure they'd prefer to keep receiving them, they'd be just fine without them. It seems like turning down Federal grants and handling admissions as they like would satisfy everyone.

The real money is paid directly to students through federal student loans and then to the university.

In order to qualify for the scholarship, a student must be attending a university recognized by the federal government. You can't get a government loan or aide to attend tathougies's super cool pottery school -- for good reason. Some educational institutions are illegitimate.

And that is just scholarships. Harvard is a graduate institution, which means the federal government also funds research projects at the graduate school level.

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

#330

Post by kanox » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

throwaway_law wrote: post #170

throwawaysea wrote: post #12

This ruling is a travesty and I hope the Supreme Court overturns it when this is appealed. It is very clear that race-conscious admissions are systematically racist and discriminatory. Take a look at the distribution of students by race in the University of California system, where they're not permitted to discriminate in this manner, thanks to Prop 209 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_California_Proposition_20..…

> It is very clear that race-conscious admissions are systematically racist and discriminatory. Every time the SCOTUS hears one of these cases they acknowledge that, but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. So the e…

> So the end goal even according to SCOTUS is for these measures to eventually become unconstitutional.

This shouldn't be an acceptable justification, "righting historical wrongs" is a highly subjective policy goal which shouldn't be relevant to a verdict of "constitutionality".