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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

#391

Post by zarro »

lozenge wrote: post #342
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?

I don’t see how that has anything to do with forcing a private institution into serving customers it doesn’t want to.

The argument is: Imagine you and a friend have a private tutoring business. You should be able to have the freedom to pick whatever customers you want, your not a slave, your not obligated to provide a service for someone if you don't want to. Over time if there is demand for private tutoring that you and your friend aren't willing to meet, there will be others who will provide that service because there is profit in it.

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

#392

Post by throwawaysea »

bsanr2 wrote: post #382
dmix wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should historical discrimination matter to the policy? If at all, it should be about discrimination today.

Because Harvard admits on legacy status.

This is unrelated.

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

#393

Post by wefjweokfjw »

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..…

Well, to be fair, the University of California accepts more international students than Harvard, which is generally going to inflate the percentage of Asian students. Not saying this ruling isn't a detriment to Asian applicants, but probably not by as large of an amount as it would seem at first.

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

#394

Post by [deleted] »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #381
ngngngng wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid is mixed race so he can check whatever is fashionable at the time on his college applications.

My kid is also, unfortunately, he probably isn’t going to get many advantages from either white or asian.

[deleted]

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

#395

Post by gatvol »

slg wrote: post #119
umvi wrote: post #19

It's like we have these two irreconcilable ideas: - Diversity is good - Discrimination is bad When 50% of the world's population is from China/India, how do you both promote diversity and not discriminate?

I think the debate from progressives is the definition of the term discriminate. We all agree choosing an unqualified person over a person who is qualified based on their race is discrimination. However is it discrimination to choose the diverse candidate when presented with two candidates that are equally qualified in every other regard? Because that is often the situation. There is no shortage of people who are qua…

> However is it discrimination to choose the diverse candidate when presented with two candidates that are equally qualified in every other regard?

Absolutely discrimination. Unless the definition of discrimination has changed significantly that is.

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

#396

Post by bsanr2 »

daseiner1 wrote: post #311
muh_gradle wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know that number should probably be higher if we're actually caring about academic performance. Affirmative action doesn't actually bother me as much as legacy based admissions. Just absolutely idiotic that it's accepted.

I don't see why academic performance, beyond an institution's decided-upon base threshold, should be the sole or even dominant admissions factor. Especially at a liberals arts college like Harvard.

It shouldn't be. Admission should be a lottery passed a base SAT score. That score should be based on analysis of how capable of Harvard's existing course load a student who receives a given score is, rather than, say, calibrating it specifically to cause the rejection of the majority of a given protected class. Suddenly, you achieve demographic near-parity.

Kid didn't get into Harvard? Donate to the school he or she did get into.

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

#397

Post by rolltiide »

the_watcher wrote: post #281
ravitation wrote: post #95

Just so people are aware, this doesn't "set a bad precedent." It doesn't set any kind of precedent, because the precedent is extremely well established. This ruling is directly in line with numerous SCOTUS decisions: Fisher v. University of Texas (2016), Grutter v. Bollinger, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, etc... These cases are cited throughout the opinion. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled…

Affirming precedent is a part of setting and establishing precedent. It doesn't set a new precedent, but its absolutely a part of establishing precedent for the future.

Then the term precedent is overused and has lost its ability to emphasize the gravity of any situation.

End

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

#399

Post by balls187 »

tomschlick wrote: post #363
balls187 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So under that thought process... when does the temporary measure end? Difficult to answer, and honestly not at all a priority to have an answer.

It is when the courts say as a temporary measure its ok. You have to define temporary or else it just becomes de-facto permanent.

> You have to define temporary or else it just becomes de-facto permanent.

Perhaps, once it becomes settled law. However given Roe v Wade is still up for debate means that defacto permanence is not really a problem.

The answer then is "When the supreme court decides that the argument presented is sufficient to warrant no longer allowing race-concious admissions is a factor."

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

#400

Post by filoleg »

gameswithgo wrote: post #76
umvi wrote: post #19

It's like we have these two irreconcilable ideas: - Diversity is good - Discrimination is bad When 50% of the world's population is from China/India, how do you both promote diversity and not discriminate?

To me the obvious thing is to aim to eliminate racial/national/gender bias as much as possible by blinding admission/hiring processes to those things. Then on top of that offer spots for people who have had to deal with exceptional difficulty. Whether that be physical handicap, racial prejudice, economic, etc. There are companies/grants that take an approach like this. Its going to be subjective but perfect is the en…

Out of curiosity, why not just lump most of it under "socioeconomic disadvantages" category (mostly based on the family's financial situation)? E.g., poor asian kids shouldn't be grouped with the less poor asian kids and shouldn't have been at a disadvantage compared to a rich african american kid for admission purposes. This proposed approach sounds so obvious, I feel like there has gotta be some caveat in it that I am missing. Is it easily gameable or something?
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