Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination • Hacker News Board

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#451

Post by sct202 » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

donatj wrote: post #411

rayiner wrote: post #311

I attended TJ, back when it was about 30% Asian. I’ve always felt like the school should do more to get more underrepresented minorities. I’ve found the recent efforts very off-putting however. It’s based on a modern strain of social justice ideology that adopts some very ugly assumptions about Asians. I’m reminded of Alison Collins in San Francisco, who called Asians “house n—-ers” and said they use “white supremaci…

I was with you right up to > But it’s a few thousand dollars if that (as low as under $1,000) which is reachable to all but destitute families. Selling my blue collar parents on $1,000 to slightly improve my chances of getting into a slightly better school so I could spend even more money? That’s absolutely not happening. I’d have gotten a pat on the back and told there’s no shame in community college. I think you mi…

It is a much better school if your goal is to get your kid into Harvard/MIT/Princeton. Thomas Jefferson is comparable to schools like Phillips Exeter ($38k/year) on Polaris List for the number of kids they send to those schools. https://polarislist.com/

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#452

Post by SyzygistSix » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #432

SyzygistSix wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some cultural differences are different than others. And the ones that are especially detrimental won't change unless people of that demographic are exposed to and learn from successful people who engage in beneficial habits that solve the issue.

I don't think most people would change their behaviors even after they are exposed to other cultures. There is an opposite force to prevent you from engaging in "beneficial habits". In Blacks kids, there is a commonly known term called "acting White". Kids can actually be laughed at for studying hard.

Do you think normalizing the successful behaviors will increase the backlash? I would think it would do the opposite. And I would disagree with anyone that said that becoming highly educated, at least in the modern sense, necessitates giving up one's culture.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#453

Post by Mavvie » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #140

Mavvie wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't formed a strong opinion on affirmative action yet. > You cannot justify holding Asian-Americans to a higher level because "they can handle it." The person you're replying to didn't say anything like that. > It disgusts me that you can say "this is good for America" when Asian-American children have to go through a nightmare to have a chance at opportunities comparable to their peers, simply because of the c…

How do we know what 'race' someone is, do we just ask them or do we test for DNA. The more you drill down into the race question the more absurd it seems, and you quickly realize people either mean culture or some DNA pseudo-science.

Yeah, I agree with this. At a high level it sounds obvious ("there's black people, white people, asian people, aboriginal people, ..."), but it gets impossibly complicated (and invasive) when you look closer.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#454

Post by zer0-c00l » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #363

shadowgovt wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The law of unintended consequences" ... what are they going to do if the target demographic (in this case Asians) start their own merit-based and academic-based colleges and universities? You're asking what people would do if those who couldn't get into university address the issue by building a new university, thereby increasing supply? "Celebrate," I'd assume.

One of the reasons why MIT has the reputation it has, is because MIT admitted lots of smart Jewish students who couldn't get into Harvard... because they were Jewish. (Keeping the Jews out was once largely the point behind Harvard's selective admissions process.) If, today, Harvard is keeping Asians out, it means more smart, eager Asian students to be recruited by other universities, which just might rise in status f…

100%. So many people in this thread are out here acting like going to an Ivy League school is a guaranteed right afforded to those who score well on tests. That’s never been the case. These institutions have been discriminatory from the start and IMO more or less historically exist to provide a path to success for privileged, mediocre, old money scions.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#455

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #436

SyzygistSix wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. And test taking may not be the best criteria to judge people by.

I put in an explicit edit at the bottom of my post now to clarify – I think test prep is terrible to. The important part was cultural factors valuing STEM enough to pay for test prep, not the prep itself.

[deleted]

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#456

Post by brippalcharrid » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #373

actuator wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what affirmative action will look like. If you want to see the context of such an action happening somewhere for long time, take the example of India. There it is much more explicit and written in the law. For some subjects, the criteria it takes for one cohort to get admission in the top college is the same one in which the other cohort will not even get admission in any college in the top 20. You can see th…

The argument isn't against Asians, it's in favor of other groups.

We're talking about policies that favor some groups against others in a competition for scarce resources (college places, scholarships), so it clearly is going to have a negative effect on the people that are not in the favored groups. And even if the policies weren't so openly discriminatory (eg. SAT scores, quotas), the disparate impact on Asian-Americans would still be obvious.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#457

Post by someguydave » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

quantum_solanum wrote: post #439

someguydave wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people-groups have endured horrible abuses and have not turned into a criminal underclass. Therefore, other groups are not responsible for any particular group’s criminality. As to what might work I would consider medicine or genetic augmentation maybe?

> As to what might work I would consider medicine or genetic augmentation maybe? you're a fucking nazi freak, foh with this Mengele shit

If there was an injection that made you less criminal, are you saying it should not be mandated? I fully agree.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#458

Post by someguydave » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #433

someguydave wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing that the first part of the first amendment does not only apply to political speech. The court was wrong and will be wrong again. I would ask how progressives square two contradictory interpretations of the first amendment but then I realized they don’t really support the freedom of non-progressive speech anymore.

Sorry, that was an error on my part: freedom of association (in the context of providing public accomodation) was curtailed by the Civil Rights Act, not assembly. And your beef isn't with progressives if that's something you're taking issue with; it's with a couple generations of the Supreme Court, which is considered a relatively conservative branch of the government. (IANAL disclaimer) The freedom of association ha…

> I don't think you'll find a receptive ear

Yes, anyone neutral or right of center knows all about that unreceptive ear.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#459

Post by UncleMeat » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

ipnon wrote: post #100

It's discrimination any way you slice it. You can't lower the bar for one person without raising it for another so long as the class sizes remain the same. If elite universities are about providing education (a valid point of critical contention), then systematically barring Asians from entry is the same class of injustice litigated in Brown v. Board of Education. It's not enough to say you can learn calculus just as…

The article calls out the TJ admissions policy, which was explicitly race-blind and did not lower the bar for anybody else.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#460

Post by cuteboy19 » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 4:26 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #309

Gareth321 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ultimately, I can't justify the idea of rejecting students based on race, but when I look at those demographics I just don't see much to get worked up about. Really? I find it very easy. Racial discrimination is wrong. Period. You're pointing to a social discrepancy and saying "eh, maybe racial discrimination is okay because it might make the demographics more equal." I urge you to fully consider what this entails.…

Claims of discrimination in top schools are often based around the incorrect belief that admissions are based mostly on academic qualifications. That hasn't been true for a while now. I'm not sure where I heard it, but the admissions departments aren't looking for well rounded students, they are looking for a well rounded class.

Why is racial discrimination acceptable in creating "a well rounded class"?

If racial discrimination is acceptable in this case, why not other cases?