In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions • Hacker News Board

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

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Post by btilly » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 2:15 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #268

quantumwannabe wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because schools withhold a large percentage of their spots for "legacy students", a White kid who isn't rich or well-connected is less likely to get into these elite schools than an Asian kid with the same grades. Half of the White students at Harvard are legacy students [1] and White students make up 44% of the Harvard student body. 50.9% of Gen Z is White [2], meaning that slightly less than 51% of the population i…

Of the 44% white students, about 20% are ethnically Jewish. [1] Jewish people make up about 2% of the population, leaving even fewer slots, if you take that view. However, nobody is entitled to a slot in a private university. Public schools should optimize for equality of opportunity, but private schools should be free to use other measures as long as they dont go against civil rights act. This includes maximizing pr…

Correction. About 44% of Harvard students are white, and about 20% of them are Jewish. Therefore Jews represent about 45% of the 44% that are white.

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

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Post by cato_the_elder » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 2:28 AM UTC

dukeofdoom wrote: post #20

How many Yale students are there because of donations or connections. Nepotism is often the source of preferential treatment.

Admission because of donations isn't really as bad as affirmative action. Each possibly undeserving rich kid admitted probably funds many deserving but poor ones.

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

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Post by cato_the_elder » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 2:33 AM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #53

dukeofdoom wrote: post #20

How many Yale students are there because of donations or connections. Nepotism is often the source of preferential treatment.

Why not be honest and outright auction those slots for highest bidders. Pay x number of millions and we guarantee access to Yale for x number of years.

The same reason they don't do it the "honest" way for affirmative action. It would significantly decrease the prestige and legitimacy of degrees awarded to people who fill those slots.

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

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Post by slowmovintarget » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #127

aceHN wrote: post #48

If your goal is equal opportunity you can look at socioeconomic class without considering race. Fundamentally the idea that race must be considered to achieve diversity is an inherently racist idea - you don't believe some races will get in without help.

In the US, race is very much tied to socioeconomic status and class. It's not a 100% indicator, but its essentially what the quoteunquote CRT in schools was meant to show. Many black communities are not poor simply because they're poor, but of on-the-books policies of redlining, discrimination, and overpolicing that enabled a wealth gap to form in the post-war period. Many white families were able to buy houses, buil…

Then how do you explain immigrants who within two generations begin generating wealth? What the economics show is that they come here with nothing. They scrape by, working whatever jobs they can. They make sure their kids do well in school. Their kids go to college and start businesses, become doctors, become lawyers... all in the same system you're claiming is holding people that look just like them down.

Something about the assertions made by CRT must be incorrect given what we see of the facts.

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

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Post by slowmovintarget » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

xiande04 wrote: post #142

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it leads to absurd results, where the black daughter of two doctors, with 500K+ in annual family income is given preferential treatment, while the Chinese-American son of a janitor is discriminated against.

Do you have any proof of that being the case? If the Chinese son makes it clear to the admission team about the hardships he overcame, surely that would be to his advantage. Completely anecdotally, but I had two Asian colleagues from poor households. One got a full ride to Harvard and the other to MIT. Whereas, the smartest person I've ever personally known was accepted to Harvard but not given any financial aid. He…

You're advocating an arbitrary system over a rules system. Who decides whether the sob story the janitor's son tells is sufficient? Is having two drug-addled parents better than one?

In a rules based system, you get in or don't based on your qualifications and prerequisites. You can predict how the system will act in restricting you. It is fairer.

In a system where everyone must be judged, it leads to exercises in capriciousness, which is what we're seeing now. "We have too many that look like you, we need a different assortment of appearances." That's arbitrary. "Your story made me sadder than his story, you get in." That's an awful way to run a system.

That's how you get aristocracy with arbitrary power. It's what every monarch of the old systems lorded over the peasants. We're just recreating it in technicolor in all of our non-governmental systems, and it just seems so utterly foolish. The claims for why we're doing it seem noble, but they always seem that way. What this arbitrary mechanism always achieves is the opposite of its stated intent.

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

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Post by gamblor956 » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #312

gamblor956 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand it because your understanding of it is wrong. The point isn't that the "hijab empowers women." The point is that a woman should be able to choose for herself whether to wear the hijab or not. Autonomy, and all that. Telling a Muslim woman she can't wear a hijab is just as oppressive as telling one she must wear it.

Nobody is talking about a ban. I'm talking about there being no backlash in America against hijab in liberal circles. A hijab and a confederate flag are equally symbols of oppression but only one is frowned upon in liberal circles. Why?

Again, you're just arguing at strawmen of your own creation.

A hijab is a religious garment. The confederate flag is a symbol of treason and slavery. Liberals leave it up to the individual to practice their own faith as they wish, so it's not frowned upon any more than a rosary is.

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

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Post by lliamander » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 3:18 AM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #252

lliamander wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I think I follow. If I might rephrase, you are talking about the difference between philosophical libertarians vs. reflexive "don't tread on me" libertarians, correct? > The little (l) libertarians in the US are, recently in the age of Trumpism, conservatives embarrassed with the GOP as a conservative party and their support for authoritarianism/traditionalism. I find it interesting when people associate Trumpism…

Trumpism is a symptom of the underlying authoritarianism present since the Southern Strategy. I think we agree more than we disagree there. Otherwise, yep.

Equating Trumpism with the Southern Strategy makes little sense. Trump won a larger share of the black vote than any Republican presidential candidate since Goldwater.

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

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Post by btilly » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 3:56 AM UTC

slashdev wrote: post #328

hintymad wrote: post #256

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, For this statement alone the left can label you as far right. In the past 10 years or so, I repeatedly hear a consistent message: we fight for equal outcome. And of course, identity is a critical factor, if not the only factor, in this fight. I'm actually very curious how the A…

I always thought of myself as quite left of center. Now I find myself on the right, and I don't understand if I became more conservative as I got older, or if the center moved past me to the left.

You are far from alone.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519735033950470144 is relatable for a lot of people.

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

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Post by SpicyLemonZest » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 3:56 AM UTC

apress wrote: post #234

hotpotamus wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that to say the California and Washington schools now have the appropriate demographics? I'm curious to know what those numbers are.

In CA at least, there is a large gap: Despite those changes and others, the proportion of freshmen from underrepresented racial groups, including Blacks, Latinos and women, attending the UC campuses, averaged 20% before Prop 209, then dropped to 15% in 1998, then slowly increased over the next 20 years, reaching a peak of 37% in 2016, according to the system. However, the percentage of underrepresented students gradu…

The analysis checks out (excepting the "women" part, which I assume is some kind of typo), but the "underrepresented racial groups" framing hides important parts of the story. Both black and white students are accepted in proportion to public school demographics; Hispanic students are the single largest ethnic group despite being underrepresented. (https://apnews.com/article/education-race-and-ethnicity-79f7..., https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/ad/ceffingertipfacts.asp)

So unless you take the perspective that colleges ought to engage in direct racial balancing against local graduating classes, it's very hard to tell a story about diversity or implicit bias here.

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

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Post by tomrod » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 4:39 AM UTC

_-david-_ wrote: post #327

tomrod wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you may have missed the term "all else equal" (or ceterus paribus) somewhere along the way. Your point is "well, duh" because your comparison is not valid. The way you are proposing, it compares apples and oranges. To my understanding, the folks that study these kinds of things would split the situations you are describing into two groups, then compare group outcome statistics outcomes by race. Racism exist…

I don't believe there are any situations that are equal, except perhaps twins. No other situation can have "all else equal". This may be the crux of our disagreement. Black people may have worse outcomes as a whole, but an individual black person may not be worse off. You cannot assume an individual is identical to the group. Black people commit more crimes. Does that mean if you see a black person you can assume the…

You're mixing correct things (individual outcomes aren't representative of a group) with incorrect things (therefore we can say nothing about average outcomes for a group).