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Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

latimes.com

461–470 of 1001 posts

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#461
post #63

If you agree with this decision on the grounds of supporting meritocracy, consider that the real travesty with regards to meritocracy in college admissions are legacy admissions.

How big a deal and how common is it in reality? "We have one fewer spots because we admitted the son of a donor" and "we won't accept you based on race" are different magnitude.

It's the difference between "we're setting aside this slot specifically for you because of who your parents are" and "we're placing you in this competitive pool that will make up a certain percentage of the overall class."

They're vastly different in terms of magnitude.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#462

I think universities can probably come up with a different set of non-protected criteria to lift underrepresented communities out of social/financial oppression. This might even provide greater access to some equally needing students that are looked over by racially-based criteria. In a perfect world, everyone would have equal opportunity and support throughout their primary education, and college admission could be…

> lift underrepresented communities out There already is, though - study hard!

*study harder than the rich legacy admissions

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#463

The concept of affirmative action is foreign to me (quite literally so). I only know it from American media, and I've come understand it to mean "positively discriminate based on race, so long as it's a minority race" - please correct me of I'm wrong. But anyway, my question for the Americans here who grok this stuff: I assume the intent is to help disadvantaged people have opportunities that more priviledged people…

Because we did harm to African Americans and Native Americans as groups, so the remedy has to be to them as groups.

So what had Asian Americans done to deserve being treated worse?

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#464
post #244

The concept of affirmative action is foreign to me (quite literally so). I only know it from American media, and I've come understand it to mean "positively discriminate based on race, so long as it's a minority race" - please correct me of I'm wrong. But anyway, my question for the Americans here who grok this stuff: I assume the intent is to help disadvantaged people have opportunities that more priviledged people…

European naturalized American here and yes I do agree with you. In the few EU countries where I lived before settling in the US it would be unthinkable to include race in these policies. Just help poor people and that's it. I'll put on my tin foil hat here, but I genuinely believe that "race" (and now "gender") is being weaponized by the American elites/politicians to form nice clear camps/teams for voters. People ne…

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Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I went to MIT ... I was valedictorian [presumably in high school] and had a perfect score on the SATs > I've always wondered if being Hispanic helped me get into college or into jobs I've been on plenty of hiring committees for engineers and product owners. The fact that you have stellar academics and went to MIT stands out well more than your name or whatever your skin color is. Good for you for your accomplishmen…

>The fact that you have stellar academics and went to MIT stands out well more than your name or whatever your skin color is. But his dad did use it to their advantage. OP then gets to grow up in an upper-class city with a great school district. Meanwhile some white or asian person gets bumped off, and instead of their kids growing up in that area, they grow up in a worse school district.

When his dad was coming through it was probably necessary. His dad capitalized on it and made seemingly good use of it by becoming a doctor.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#466
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume the intent is to help disadvantaged people have opportunities that more priviledged people have already. Right? I mean, I can get behind that. But then why the entire detour with race? Up until about 1971 (possibly later, but that's the date of Loving vs Virginia ), the US had formal, legal discrimination against black people. On finally removing that, there was at various times discussion of whether peopl…

To me - very simply put - merit doesn’t make much sense when one set of people didn’t get any of the opportunities the other set did. It’s like comparing height with one person standing atop a stool. The nuance here is to find the lost potential in marks and tests due to a lack of opportunity. Race is a crude proxy and it really doesn’t have to be based on just race. But it’d mean admins spend more time interviewing…

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Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've come understand it to mean "positively discriminate based on race, so long as it's a minority race" - please correct me of I'm wrong. More or less, but not precisely. How do you define a "minority race"? Universities in America discriminate against Asian Americans despite them being a minority of the American population generally, ostensibly because they're over-represented in universities.

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Claiming it's a myth and has been debunked is not the same thing as actually debunking.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#469
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume the intent is to help disadvantaged people have opportunities that more priviledged people have already. Right? I mean, I can get behind that. But then why the entire detour with race? Up until about 1971 (possibly later, but that's the date of Loving vs Virginia ), the US had formal, legal discrimination against black people. On finally removing that, there was at various times discussion of whether peopl…

This legacy system in likes of Harvard boggles me. If someones parents went to Harvard it might be actually logical to be harder for him to get into not easier. His educated parenting is already a huge plus for him and if he is unable to get into the same university it's on him.

Well if your parents went to Harvard then they had money to pay for Harvard. And they probably have money to pay for their children.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do "white" hispanics face the same issues as those of say Indian heritage?

I’m a white Latino and no, we don’t. Maybe on paper if someone assumes I’m mixed or Afrolatino, but I get all the privilege of being white passing. Not only that, if I’m hanging with brown Latinos they feel safer with me. I’ve often seen my friends stopped by police or given looks when alone but not with me. The whole Hispanic thing is a mess in the US. Not only due to color of skin but culture and class. I have frie…

It also doesn't help that

1. Latinos are extremely colorist in their own countries and have serious racism from the "European" heritaged ones vs the "indigenous" ones. This dynamic is a big deal in latin america

2. Latinos in the USA voted more heavily from Trump in 2020 than in 2016, and iirc trump got like 39% of the latino vote in 2020. Latinos are extremely conservative and are straight up abandoning catholocism and embracing evangelical protestantism due to the "liberalisation" of the catholic church.

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