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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

#491

Post by akhilcacharya »

thereare5lights wrote: post #483
akhilcacharya wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't get into _any_ elite schools. That's a reflection on me. Elite schools judge 17 year olds by their future worth. That's perfectly fine by me. I was diligent enough in school to know that if I didn't do as well on a test I should blame myself for being lesser , not the institution.

That has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the system is rigged. You are giving a non-answer.

The system isn't rigged if it's slightly harder (if even that!) to get into 1 school with a 4.7% acceptance rate.

It's rigged if a hard working daughter of an immigrant has limited paths to social mobility because their community college is underfunded or because their Cal State school has too few slots for her major. That's when I'll say it's "rigged".

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

#492

Post by simmanian »

dwoozle wrote: post #126
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..…

Harvard and UC are trying to do different things. Harvard is trying to admit the future leaders of the world, so it can point to them and say “They are Harvard men.” UC is trying to give an academically rigorous education to the most academically qualified students.

Are you arguing that Asians inherently make worse leaders than people of other races? To me, Harvard keeping Asians out would create a negative feedback loop where Asians are not perceived as leader materials.

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

#493

Post by FakeComments »

CivBase wrote: post #325

"Race-Conscious Admissions" obviously implies that a candidates race influences the criteria they must meet for admission to the university. So Harvard is obviously trying to balance the racial demographics of their students according to some ratio. What I really want to know is what ratio they are balancing towards and why that particular ratio is better than any other. I could pick any arbitrary ratio. How about a…

Every group but whites and Hispanics are over represented at Harvard. Whites are the most under represented group.

Whatever their goal, it’s not matching the demographics of the US and constitutes purposeful racism to accomplish a social agenda.

See other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21130080

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

#494

Post by droithomme »

mawpmawp wrote: post #260
jdoliner wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers are next to meaningless, Harvard doesn't just accept people from the US, so we should be looking at population percentages of the world. I assume that people who don't fit in any category are shunted into one of them based on skin color. For example a Jamaican is, I assume, counted in the African American bucket, and compared against the African American population, even though they're neither American…

That's wild statement, shunted into a category based on skin color? Nobody is shunted anywhere, you are asked on the application what race are you, or if you are biracial, or if you identify as anything else. It's your choice what to put on the application. Everything is determined from your responses. Nobody is "shunted" anywhere.

Have you ever seen an application where Jewish is a racial option?

I have not, yet comments here assert that it is.

It makes me question the legitimacy of their data sources.

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

#495

Post by Invictus0 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #465
danans wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Africa is a huge continent of 54 countries with a population of 1.2 billion people, so it makes perfect sense that such a huge geographic area like that would have many excellent schools compared to the areas of concentrated and persistent poverty in the US. The two areas aren't remotely comparable, unless you were thinking of something else?

The comparison isn’t all of Africa with areas of concentrated and persistent poverty in the US. It’s sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean with the black population of the US. Given that the US black population does better on the PISA tests than the only black majority country that participated, Trinidad and Tobago, it seems unlikely there are better educational systems. A quick check does not find a single country in…

No, we are not interested in the total averages of the SSA nations, which obviously will not compare to America: we are interested in the elite high schools of the SSA nations. We are comparing economically disadvantaged African Americans to the economic elite of SSA.

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

#496

Post by danans »

barry-cotter wrote: post #465
danans wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Africa is a huge continent of 54 countries with a population of 1.2 billion people, so it makes perfect sense that such a huge geographic area like that would have many excellent schools compared to the areas of concentrated and persistent poverty in the US. The two areas aren't remotely comparable, unless you were thinking of something else?

The comparison isn’t all of Africa with areas of concentrated and persistent poverty in the US. It’s sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean with the black population of the US. Given that the US black population does better on the PISA tests than the only black majority country that participated, Trinidad and Tobago, it seems unlikely there are better educational systems. A quick check does not find a single country in…

> It’s sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean with the black population of the US.

So 1 billion in subsaharan africa vs 42 million african americans - still on totally different scales.

Subsaharan Africa has plenty of educational institutions of sufficient quality to prepare motivated (and likely more well off) students for admission vs relatively small number of seats at Harvard.

That doesn't in any way contradict with the possibility that general education systems in subsaharan africa aren't great.

Foreign undergrads at elite US universities are likely themselves to be privileged in their countries of origin, not the least because the ability to understand English and pass tests administered in English is a huge filter for privilege in many developing countries.

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

#497

Post by wavefunction »

packet881 wrote: post #490
bigendian1234 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I'm a white person who used to think of affirmative action as unfair discrimination. That was true until I spent time volunteering teaching technical skills to kids in poor immigrant neighborhoods. Now that I have had an up close experience with these communities, I'm here to tell you institutional racism is real and we're far from it making sense to end these programs. There simply is not a quick easy solution…

Feel free to make your voice heard by your vote and donate from your paycheck. This is a zero sum game and my ancestors were not oppressing either latinos or Africans. I'll make my voice heard by not voting for Democrats.

This Judge was confirmed by the Senate which has been in Republican hands for some time.

You should go start your own Harvard and you can exclude or admit anyone you want.

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

#498

Post by jrs235 »

bigendian1234 wrote: post #459
tomschlick wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the justification is that these classes are/have been historically discriminated against and constitutional admissions which take race into consideration are a temporary measure to right these historical wrongs by leveling the playing field. So under that thought process... when does the temporary measure end? Is there a specific goal? Or is it something unachievable like "when income inequality is fixed".

FWIW, I'm a white person who used to think of affirmative action as unfair discrimination. That was true until I spent time volunteering teaching technical skills to kids in poor immigrant neighborhoods. Now that I have had an up close experience with these communities, I'm here to tell you institutional racism is real and we're far from it making sense to end these programs. There simply is not a quick easy solution…

I'm like you. White and use to think the same. Love him or hate him, the last chapter, A Jamaican Story, in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers really pierced my heart. I can't fathom what it must be like. I think those that despise affirmative action take things personally. They are right, sometimes it's not fair since they busted their butt, paid their dues, etc but lose out possibly because the color of their skin. It sucks and I'm sorry.

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

#499

Post by ilikehurdles »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #235
ilikehurdles wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A colleague of mine declared African-American when applying to a US medical school, being from Egypt, a country in Africa, despite also being visibly white and a US citizen. The medical school paired him with a black African-American interviewer for the interview, who was visibly surprised and possibly annoyed at seeing the person he was interviewing.

Did he get in?

No he didn’t, anywhere actually. He ended up spending a few years doing tangentially medical related stuff (research, not sure if he did grad school) before reapplying and getting in.

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

#500

Post by underpand »

ikeboy wrote: post #312

Of course it's constitutional, Harvard is a private organization and basically none of the constitution applies to them. The question was whether it violates federal law - specifically Title VI. The confusing part is that Title VI prohibits actions by private entities receiving government funding that would violate the constitution, were they carried out by a state entity. The opinion uses "constitutional" as a short…

I always thought that it was illegal for private organizations to racially discriminate. I know it is illegal for them to racially discriminate for employment. Is discriminating against customers/users (students in this case) fair game?
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