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Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process

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

#341

Post by dhairya »

deogeo wrote: post #37

For perspective, here are the Harvard vs US demographics, sorted by most to least represented [1,2,3,4]: Jewish: 14.0% vs 2.6% (5.38x) Asian American: 25.3% vs 5.3% (4.77x) Native Hawaiian: 0.6% vs 0.2% (3.00x) Native American: 1.8% vs 0.7% (2.57x) African American: 14.3% vs 12.7% (1.13x) Hispanic or Latino: 12.2% vs 17.6% (0.69x) non-Jewish white: 33.0% vs 58.9% (0.56x) [1] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/adm…

It's worth noting that religion is not a demographic category that explicitly factors into admissions or collected. Students are not required to disclose their religion (sexuality for that matter as well). Those figures are collected through various student surveys and may not fully representative.

Also international students are counted separately from the race/ethnicity categories. This is due to how the government classifies and collects information about race and ethnicity (see IPEDS definitions below).

https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/report-your-data/race-ethnicity-de...

I used to work at Harvard as an institutional research analyst. I actually submitted the final reports (institutional demographics and other stats) to US Department of Education. If anyone is curious, a large portion of the aggregate demographic statistics is open and available to the public: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data

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

#342

Post by lozenge »

zarro wrote: post #253

I don't get why a private University can't decide who it wants or doesn't want to attend its school regardless of the metrics it chooses. For instance, I don't think that matching a Universities demographics to the "national" or "global" demographics is likely to produce highest caliber candidates. What if Jewish and Asian candidates consistently outperform other candidates, why shouldn't a private school be allowed…

Because life sucked for black people in the 60s and they managed to change the law?

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

#343

Post by asdf21 »

smashthepants wrote: post #300
tomschlick wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 under that thought process... when does the temporary measure end? Is there a specific goal? Or is it something unachievable like "when income inequality is fixed".

Income inequality is only "unachievable" exactly because of thinking like this. If people were genuinely invested in equality they would be asking "what can i do to get us there faster?" instead of being defeatist and calling it unachievable because you didn't personally create the problem.

You didn't answer his question, created a strawman, put words in his mouth, implied he doesn't care about equality (isn't treating people equally, regardless of race equality?)... goodness.

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

#344

Post by Vomzor »

Miner49er wrote: post #129
AdrianB1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are you paying back to? The person who did the crime or some other people based on similarities with the criminal? How about putting on the death row everyone in the neighborhood of a murderer? This is your logic.

I'm saying that white people have inherited a lot of wealth at the cost of black people. Wealth statistics clearly show this. The average black family is 10x poorer then the average white family. The stealing was done through Jim Crow, slavery, red lining, etc. If you inherit money that your parents stole, that money is taken away from you by the police and given back to the person it was stolen from. In this case, w…

>Irish immigrants, many of whom were very poor, were more of an underclass than the Germans. In Ireland, the English had oppressed the Irish for centuries, eradicating their language and culture and discriminating against their religion (Catholicism). Although the Irish had a larger population than the English, they were a subordinate group. This dynamic reached into the new world, where Anglo Americans saw Irish immigrants as a race apart: dirty, lacking ambition, and suitable for only the most menial jobs. In fact, Irish immigrants were subject to criticism identical to that with which the dominant group characterized African Americans. By necessity, Irish immigrants formed tight communities segregated from their Anglo neighbors. The later wave of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe was also subject to intense discrimination and prejudice. In particular, the dominant group—which now included second- and third-generation Germans and Irish—saw Italian immigrants as the dregs of Europe and worried about the purity of the American race (Myers 2007). Italian immigrants lived in segregated slums in Northeastern cities, and in some cases were even victims of violence and lynchings similar to what African Americans endured. They worked harder and were paid less than other workers, often doing the dangerous work that other laborers were reluctant to take on. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/re...

- So I take it Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans and Americans of Eastern-European descent, most of them having arrived in states without Jim Crow laws, won't have to pay?

- Will white people who's ancestors fought and died for the union side in the civil war have to pay or maybe they get a discount?

- Will white people who arrived in the last 20 years have to pay?

- Will poor white people have to pay?

- Does this cover rich African Americans or does the money only go to those with less money than white people?

- The average black family is 7x poorer than the average asian family. Does that mean Asians have to pay too?

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

#345

Post by tomp »

habosa wrote: post #96
deogeo wrote: post #37

For perspective, here are the Harvard vs US demographics, sorted by most to least represented [1,2,3,4]: Jewish: 14.0% vs 2.6% (5.38x) Asian American: 25.3% vs 5.3% (4.77x) Native Hawaiian: 0.6% vs 0.2% (3.00x) Native American: 1.8% vs 0.7% (2.57x) African American: 14.3% vs 12.7% (1.13x) Hispanic or Latino: 12.2% vs 17.6% (0.69x) non-Jewish white: 33.0% vs 58.9% (0.56x) [1] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/adm…

As a Jewish person I feel weird seeing "whites" being broken into Jewish and non-Jewish. What about other religions? Why include religion at all? In particular with respect to Harvard and Boston I'd think Catholicism might deserve a mention if we're going to bring religion into this. In the end I think religious diversity is important but it doesn't belong in the same conversation. You can choose your religion and al…

Depending on context, Jewish can be either ethnicity or religion (or both). I believe in this context, ethnicity is more important (and it’s also a proxy for higher IQ of Askenazi Jews).

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

#346

Post by mikelyons »

smashthepants wrote: post #300
tomschlick wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 under that thought process... when does the temporary measure end? Is there a specific goal? Or is it something unachievable like "when income inequality is fixed".

Income inequality is only "unachievable" exactly because of thinking like this. If people were genuinely invested in equality they would be asking "what can i do to get us there faster?" instead of being defeatist and calling it unachievable because you didn't personally create the problem.

Income equality is outcome equality, which is unenforceable.

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

#347

Post by ravitation »

thrill wrote: post #293
gnicholas wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Kennedy is gone and was replaced by Kavanaugh. Kennedy was in the majority (pro-AA) in the 2016 case, and I would venture to guess (based on nothing more than the discussions in the legal circles I'm in) that Kavanaugh would not be as friendly to affirmative action as Kennedy was. If I were a betting man, I'd put the odds north of 2:1 that this will be overturned if the current SCOTUS sees it.

Kagan, an Obama nominee, skipped the Texas case. I think it'd be ruled the same way this time.

It was a 4-3 decision in a 8 member court (with Justice Kagan recusing herself, as you mentioned). It's a 5-4 reverse decision now based on ideology alone.

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

#348

Post by slg »

xenihn wrote: post #261
slg wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to who? If you're referring to the census designations, Jews are considered white too which just goes to further underlines my point.

The government and thus US law.

Again, this further underlines how strange it is the Jews are separated out above when they are considered white according to things like the census. The numbers from the top comment would look a lot less scary to the average white person if Jews were lumped into that group.

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

#349

Post by travisoneill1 »

aquadrop wrote: post #220
ridaj wrote: post #21

What I don't get is, what happens if you don't declare a race, or declare "Other", during admission? Why wouldn't Asian candidates do that?

I don't understand why do you even have to declare a race during admission? Does it happen in all US universities?

If you don't claim a race they will just put you in as white.

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

#350

Post by [deleted] »

deogeo wrote: post #37

For perspective, here are the Harvard vs US demographics, sorted by most to least represented [1,2,3,4]: Jewish: 14.0% vs 2.6% (5.38x) Asian American: 25.3% vs 5.3% (4.77x) Native Hawaiian: 0.6% vs 0.2% (3.00x) Native American: 1.8% vs 0.7% (2.57x) African American: 14.3% vs 12.7% (1.13x) Hispanic or Latino: 12.2% vs 17.6% (0.69x) non-Jewish white: 33.0% vs 58.9% (0.56x) [1] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/adm…

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