Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.yale.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 363 posts

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

#341

Post by cudgy »

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.

The center has not moved as much as the willingness of journalists and news organizations to ignore their duties to provide a truthful and unbiased service to their readers and constituents. Allowing their built-in left-leaning biases to affect their mission has given the impression that the population has shifted left.

The next few elections will possibly shake some of this out. I just hope it doesn’t swing too far the other way.

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

#342

Post by cudgy »

rjbwork wrote: post #96
samatman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Asians primarily. They are discriminated against more stiffly, but are far outnumbered in the US by Whites, who also get the thumb placed on the wrong pan of the scale. The focus on Asians is because of a doctrine that discriminating against Whites is very good and correct, because they deserve it.

>The focus on Asians is because of a doctrine that discriminating against Whites is very good and correct, because they deserve it. Maybe. I think it's because they are a small population being discriminated against heavily, versus a much larger population being discriminated against mildly. It seems far more egregious in the case of Asians when you look at the disparities in test scores required for admissions to th…

Yet Asians earn more than all other ethnic groups, even the “mildly” discriminated whites, and Asians are far from a small population amongst those applying to these schools. This is another reason why picking and choosing admissions by race or even just test scores is nonsense.

Create a minimum criteria to succeed in a program and simply randomly choose the students from that pool is a reasonable solution that avoids much of the discriminatory issues and likely results in a more diverse student body.

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

#343

Post by cudgy »

gamblor956 wrote: post #336
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, if the effective slavery of women is part of a religion, it is ok?

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

#344

Post by cudgy »

belorn wrote: post #286
news_to_me wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's possible to have meaningful diversity of thought without diversity of background. That spans many attributes—race, economic status, where you grew up, etc. Race is obviously an important one, given how much it changes many people's experiences and perceptions. I think diverse racial representation is important, but is maybe better viewed as an indicator of success rather than a metric to optimize.…

People of the same background can vote for two very different political parties, which seems rather meaningful in term of diversity. Even people within the same house hold can vote for different parties, and its fairly common to hear people complain that other family members do not share their views about the world. I would suggest to give this task of measuring diversity of thought to social scientists. If universit…

Allow the social science academics to determine the fairness of admissions into academics? Wouldn’t this just result in even less diversity?

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

#345

Post by cudgy »

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…

“If the Chinese son makes it clear to the admission team about the hardships he overcame, surely that would be to his advantage.”

It is definitely not an advantage, since the janitor’s kid is unable to pay tuition and unlikely to donate money to the school. These schools are primarily focused on maintaining their huge endowments and their over-hyped reputations.

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

#346

Post by cudgy »

btilly wrote: post #221
tomrod wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this just mean that conservatives believe Marxism is an unacceptable worldview, since it exists? Why would we police evidence-based thought in academia?

If the thought in academia which leads to Marxism was actually evidence-based, then it should be easy to cite evidence for Marxism. You'd just have to read what they say and quote their arguments. But it is not. Evidence for Marxism that I've seen boils down to rhetoric. Evidence against Marxism involves mass famines, low economic productivity, failed predictions, and so on. Therefore a significant fraction of Marxis…

Can’t you say the same for capitalism? Much of the support is rhetorical mentioning freedom and rational decision-making while the evidence against capitalism involves mass homelessness, poverty, poor healthcare, imperialism, militarism, bad predictions, and huge imbalances in the distribution of wealth and opportunity.

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

#347

Post by [deleted] »

news_to_me wrote: post #80
tomrod wrote: post #2

I didn't realize college admissions' affirmative action had reached SCOTUS. I wonder what the outcome will be. Key summary: > "Today Yale joined peer institutions in stating emphatically that student diversity is essential to the missions of American universities and promotes educational excellence for all students,” President Peter Salovey said. “Our amicus curiae brief makes clear that the way we consider race and…

I don't think it's possible to have meaningful diversity of thought without diversity of background. That spans many attributes—race, economic status, where you grew up, etc. Race is obviously an important one, given how much it changes many people's experiences and perceptions. I think diverse racial representation is important, but is maybe better viewed as an indicator of success rather than a metric to optimize.…

[deleted]

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

#348

Post by cudgy »

throwawayjun21 wrote: post #164

I dont know why peoplehate meritocracy but i can say one thing for sure that communities/orgs dont encourage meritocracy go down the drain. I look for the best surgeon not someone with some race to do a surgery on me.

The main issue with meritocracy is how do you measure the level of merit? How does this singular focus upon a predetermined measurement and comparison of people affect society as a whole or social organizations within society?

I believe it can result in hiveminds of similar people, since meritocracy is so focused on measuring and comparing based on a limited set of criteria. Over the long run, narrow groups of similar people do not make an innovative society.

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

#349

Post by cudgy »

al_mandi wrote: post #244
TameAntelope wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Law of large numbers. Plus, getting into medical school is not sufficient. A surgeon cannot fake his track record and experience after residency and working.

Cannot fake? How about Dr Death and the doctors guild that protected him for years?

https://allthatsinteresting.com/dr-death-christopher-duntsch

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

#350

Post by belorn »

cudgy wrote: post #344
belorn wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People of the same background can vote for two very different political parties, which seems rather meaningful in term of diversity. Even people within the same house hold can vote for different parties, and its fairly common to hear people complain that other family members do not share their views about the world. I would suggest to give this task of measuring diversity of thought to social scientists. If universit…

Allow the social science academics to determine the fairness of admissions into academics? Wouldn’t this just result in even less diversity?

Social science on a global scale determining a rigorous and measurable definition?

If you can't measure success then you can't evaluate it, and if you don't write it down then you can't critique it. Right now they use a few single bits of information, a person race, to determine diversity of thought. That would never be accepted in a scientific research looking at diversity of thought from a rigorous definition.

Post reply on HN