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Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

latimes.com

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Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#471

Post by brodouevencode »

falcolas wrote: post #160
brodouevencode wrote: post #96

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…

> AA had a purpose and place at some moment in time. I think that moment has passed. Given how women and people with disabilities are still largely absent from these discussions and who still face massive challenges in breaking into some industries - let alone leadership roles in those industries - I think AA still had a place. I think it's a mistake to say that absent AA we have a pure meritocracy. Instead the discr…

How are women absent from these discussions? And what industries are you referring to?

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#472

Post by goatlover »

earthboundkid wrote: post #305
skrebbel wrote: post #162

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.

Who's we and how do you delineate those groups?

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#473

Post by dcow »

BobbyJo wrote: post #457
spacephysics wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying important question is what do you define as equality? Equality of outcomes, or equality of opportunity? This is a very slippery slope when some definitions are not equal, or stated, as we’ve come into a recent crisis of definitions being rewritten unnaturally (I understand the meaning of words change over time, but there have been recent inorganic changes, I’d argue) The classic opportunity of outcome…

>The underlying important question is what do you define as equality? Equality of outcomes, or equality of opportunity? On an individual level, the obvious answer is opportunity, but how do you measure that? Generally via outcomes. If two groups are equally capable and have equal opportunity, you would expect similar outcomes.

[flagged]

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#474

Post by goatlover »

mcpackieh wrote: post #399
prossercj wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many in America, the race issue is more about who we are as a nation than it is about practical results. We want to identify as abolitionists, who defeated the slaveholders and moved toward "a more perfect union" (a line from the Constitution which Lincoln echoed in relation to the war). The disagreement is essentially about the best way to achieve equality, which though a nebulous term is accepted as a goal with…

Equality has fallen out of vogue, the new hot term is equity.

Because the focused has shifted to outcome over equal opportunity or treatment in the present. Some of us think that's misguided and the equal opportunity approach was working.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#475

Post by peterfirefly »

commandlinefan wrote: post #380
cpascal wrote: post #118

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!

And choose your parents well!

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#476

Post by akomtu »

cdmcmahon wrote: post #427
spacephysics wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying important question is what do you define as equality? Equality of outcomes, or equality of opportunity? This is a very slippery slope when some definitions are not equal, or stated, as we’ve come into a recent crisis of definitions being rewritten unnaturally (I understand the meaning of words change over time, but there have been recent inorganic changes, I’d argue) The classic opportunity of outcome…

Equality of opportunity after centuries of slavery and then legal discrimination in a society that allows (and even outright promotes) inherited wealth and opportunity is not possible. Imagine my ancestors stole all of your ancestors stuff and I still get to keep it all and anything I've built using it. We've stopped stealing your stuff now, though, so we have "equality of opportunity."

This example is about generosity. In this case you don't owe anything to your less fortunate peer, but not sharing it is greed and when greed is the driving force of our society, it's not surprising nobody wants to share his wealth. In a society of a far future that will run on generosity, being obsessed about possessions will be seen as a weakness. It seems that some proponents of the "affirmative action" sense that future society, and try to implement it here, but since they poorly understand human nature, and since their own nature is imperfect, they pervert the high ideal.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#477

Post by dionidium »

whinenot wrote: post #439
skrebbel wrote: post #162

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 the US has systematically disenfranchised ethnic minorities over the course of its history. Any time there was a non-white person or community that was starting to become prosperous, the power of the state could be used to crush them. At times it was overtly murderous[0], but as that became unfashionable, it was relegated to more subtle methods. Some of the most blatant examples include: - Want an interstate…

> - Want an interstate in your city? Run it through a black or brown neighborhood.[1]

A lot these debates really come down to just how impressed one is by arguments like this. It so happens that an Interstate was built through the neighborhood my entire family occupied in St. Louis in the 1950s. Some of them were "displaced." I can't for the life of me figure out how this is supposed to be relevant to my life today. I'd wager that I'm the only one of my cousins to even know about it, since I'm interested in local history and bugged my grandparents about this stuff before they died.

It just doesn't amount to anything. My family members had a trillion decisions to make -- big and small -- both before and after that singular event and the sum of those decisions had a much bigger impact on familial wealth -- note: there was none -- than that one time in the 1950s they were forced to move.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#478

Post by danabrams »

skrebbel wrote: post #162

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…

For 350 years of US history africans and their descendants were enslaved. Native Americans were ripped from their land and relocated, often with genocidal levels of casualties.

After that, these two groups were substantially discriminated against in law, and other races were added to the mix to be given less rights than others.

Today, there are huge disparities between outcomes for different races in large part due to this historical discrimination. There's also an ingrained culture of stereotyping and discrimination that's hard to lift. It doesn't matter if you're the first generation of Americans descended from African immigrants who came in the 1980s... you still are impacted by this legacy.

The concept of affirmative action was to specifically counteract the effects of these negative, historical circumstances and provide a countervailing effect.

I can't speak to other countries, but in the US, it is definitely the case that poor people of color have a harder time getting ahead than equally poor white people. (I suspect it's similar elsewhere, but we are also a pretty racially diverse country, so the effect is larger)

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#479

Post by tdonoghue »

Georgelemental wrote: post #398

Clarence Thomas's concurrence does not mince words: > This, [Justice Jackson] claims, locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers, rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood. [...] What it cannot do is use the applicant’s skin color as a heuristic, assuming that be…

Clarence Thomas is the epitome of what makes America the greatest country on earth.

Re: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions

#480

Post by w10-1 »

jl6 wrote: post #391

One question I have is: did it work? These types of policies have been in place for decades. We have data on inequality between different demographics over time. So can we detect a measurable improvement attributable to the policy?

The improvement was clear and obvious in many aspects of society, but the question is whether the cost was worth it, and whether it's really a long-term solution, since it may exacerbate some aspects.

Further, it left open the question of the goal: is it to assimilate cultures? To ensure equal resources? participation? representation? respect? understanding? freedom to be different?

Which means different affirmative-action programs had different cost/benefit and no one really knows the path.

In logic, not-not-A is A, but it's anything but in reality.

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