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In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

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Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#51
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You and I probably agree on the principle. I just want to call attention that this sort of snipe doesn't communicate well, in my opinion. I feel like the term racism has been split between race-based bigotry (which most people argue when they say "I'm not racist!") and supporting systems which encourage systemic preferences for certain groups. As I mention in another comment, I wish I understood this topic more, beca…

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Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#52
post #30

I think considering race is fine, depending on how you use that information. If you use it to make the group less diverse, that is bad. If you use it to make the group more diverse, that is good. Does that mean that some students with higher grades/income/whatever get excluded? Yes. However grades shouldn't be the only factor in this decision. It seems that the schools are taking a holistic approach to admittance, an…

I have a few other comments in this thread on this. Can you define what you mean by diversity (background or thought or something else)? Also, how do you measure its improvement?

My speculation is that, because these are hard terms to nail down but easy to say, this becomes a perennial topic.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#53

How many Yale students are there because of donations or connections. Nepotism is often the source of preferential treatment.

Why not be honest and outright auction those slots for highest bidders. Pay x number of millions and we guarantee access to Yale for x number of years.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#54
post #7
post #2

I didn't realize college admissions' affirmative action had reached SCOTUS. I wonder what the outcome will be. Key summary: > "Today Yale joined peer institutions in stating emphatically that student diversity is essential to the missions of American universities and promotes educational excellence for all students,” President Peter Salovey said. “Our amicus curiae brief makes clear that the way we consider race and…

With this court? I don't wonder.

If a conservative Supreme Court were really drunk with power, don't you think the Ivy League institutions would have changed more than this?

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#55
post #2

I didn't realize college admissions' affirmative action had reached SCOTUS. I wonder what the outcome will be. Key summary: > "Today Yale joined peer institutions in stating emphatically that student diversity is essential to the missions of American universities and promotes educational excellence for all students,” President Peter Salovey said. “Our amicus curiae brief makes clear that the way we consider race and…

The Ivy leagues today are anything but diverse in thought, this should be obvious. What actually exists is a repressive liberal orthodoxy, and no dissent is tolerated. I ought to expand on this since this comment will surely be controversial. I make no comment on which view is right or wrong; but suppose the conservative view were favored, and any disagreement with the ideology got your fired from your job, publicly…

I'm reminded of https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1526975113597489154:

Yale is the epicenter of the woke mind virus attempting to destroy civilization.

Paul Graham's immediate chime of support shows it isn't just a piece of random silliness on Elon Musk's part. And other things I've seen (eg the harassment of Amy Chua) certainly fit.

This amicus brief speaking up for racism and discrimination (as long as it is against those funny looking Asians) is a minor piece of the general pattern.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#56
post #3

Quoted post unavailable.

>Why do we suddenly have a problem now that it's advantageous?

Something about judging someone based on the content of their character, and not color of their skin.

I never really understood why we couldn't reach our societal goals by simply focusing on class, instead of race. A poor black American has much more in common with a poor white American, then with an affluent black American, especially as it pertains to access to academic opportunity. Put another way, it isn't clear what problems we're solving by focusing on race, that we couldn't solve better by focusing on class.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#57
post #19
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The phrase "robbing Peter to pay Paul" comes to mind. Asian immigrants are not struggling to escape the clutches of centuries old intergenerational poverty. It's not even remotely the same thing.

You are suffering from the same optimistic delusion that the Supreme Court suffered from in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003): > In her majority opinion, O'Connor wrote that "race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time," adding that the "Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today." AA will not permit anyone to escape…

So, even if it did work, the SC expected it to be dropped by 2028?

"But it doesn't work, so we should keep doing it forever!" seems to be the colleges' position.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#59
post #33

To quote from the brief. Unlike applicants whose identities have been affected mainly by their socioeconomic or geographic circumstances, applicants whose formative experiences relate to race or ethnicity would be denied the opportunity to convey their full, authentic selves when competing for admission to selective schools like Amici. And so we guarantee that millions of Americans will have a formative experience th…

This is the danger of focusing on equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. In my opinion, the former is not possible anyway, it's not a good goal. People are different and they're going to have different outcomes, even if only considering chance. But they should have the same opportunities regardless of race, gender, etc. Making policy to address this is tackling the root of the problem instead of the symptoms.

Re: In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions

#60
How can it be known with certainty that a group will be diverse, and thus have the benefits of diversity, simply by using race as a datapoint?

Is every individual of a particular race innately imbued with some magical ability or perspective?

What if you have a Chinese father and a Russian mother and you grew up in Kenya?

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