Live data from Hacker News

Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

wsj.com

581–590 of 624 posts

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "mainstream Progressive (sic) justification" for discriminating against Asians, because there is no progressive political platform built on discriminating against Asians. Many progressives believe in affirmative action, which doesn't say anything about the particulars of the groups that aren't being explicitly included. Nobody at all is interested in exclusion ; they are interested in more inclusion .

I know Asian Americans who have inquired about AA and are turned away because they aren't the "right kind" of minority.

Reminds me of this: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/05/22/eugene-chun...

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#582
post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AA and other background-accounting factors have some place as an input into the system. You simply can't possibly claim that poor white rural kids in the south or black urban kids in poor neighborhoods (and all similar such situations) have the same chances at success of getting into harvard/yale/MIT as a rich white/asian kid from NYC who went to the best public/private schools (and SAT tutors) money could afford. Th…

"Rich white/asian kid from NYC" I've seen this sort of characterization a lot here. I can understand it, but it doesn't really reflect reality. I don't know a lot about other areas, but in NYC, most asians are not "wealthy". Far from it, Asians in NYC have a substantially lower median income ($53k household, $25k per capita) than whites ($69k household, $50k per capita ). More importantly, the asian kids being discri…

> Those that come from well off families tend to have all the extra-curriculars that white kids from wealthier families do. It's the ones from poor families.

Or even just middle class families. I send my kids to private school with family money WASPs where we have a second winter break in February for ski trips. My kids will know how to navigate a system that puts more emphasis on writing an essay about how her grandfather grew up in a Bangladeshi village than on her SAT scores. But when my parents and I were recent immigrants to the country I certainly didn’t have that kind of cultural capital.

And it’s not just an immigrant thing. My (American) wife was noting that her dad, who grew up objectively poor would never have suggested he suffered adversity growing up, because after all they lived in a “stick built house” (a framed house as opposed to a mobile home).

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to understand, this is the last dying throes of a liberal fire that has been raging for hundreds of years. Liberalism has achieved great things in the west, including expanding the rights of women, minorities, and LGBT individuals. We are all better off for its achievements. However, the low hanging fruit is taken, and now the same activists that once fought for noble goals are reduced to taking ever more di…

You make it seem like the US no longer has an issue when there's an entire class of people who are not being educated, has high crime, and ending in mass incarceration. I can accept that some people have an issue with current liberal ideas because they think they don't work. If so, what is going to work? Or is the current state inevitable in order to have the high-functioning economy that the US has? Certainly more H…

> You make it seem like the US no longer has an issue when there's an entire class of people who are not being educated, has high crime, and ending in mass incarceration.

It’s the fault of liberalism. It’s also the fault of conservatives pushing disadvantaged minorities into the arms of liberals (often against their own cultural inclinations) but the root cause is liberalism. History of course plays a role, but liberalism is what perpetuates the problem generation after generation.

A stark realization I had after having my own kids is that my democrat-voting immigrant parents were deeply conservative, from child discipline to staying in an unhappy marriage to avoid any disruption to their kids staying “on track.” The biggest advantage immigrants have is that even when they’re democrats they’re not raised with liberal American attitudes.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the bar was lowered for the express purpose of lowering the population of asians at TJ. that is plainly discriminatory and racist - "there are too many of you asian folk here so we're just gonna trash our admissions to get rid of you"

The above post said "lowered the bar for one person..." The bar in the new system was the same for everybody. It was simply a different method of judging candidates. There was no "these groups get a lower bar because they are black or hispanic." Notably a group whose admission went up with the policy change was poor asian people .

The purpose of the policy was explicitly to lower the Asian population. It's there in the emails. Now the policy may have failed or ended up back firing but that doesn't make it any less of a racist policy.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#585

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. If you look at those particular stats, sure, it doesn't sound particularly objectionable. But if you look at others: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/15/politics/harvard-affirmative-... > Under questioning from SFFA lawyer John Hughes, Fitzsimmons detailed some of…

No, that amounts to "we have way too many people of your color, we're going to invite more people of other colors to apply". Says nothing about making it harder to get in. The "personal" ratings might: > Lee said Students for Fair Admissions had misconstrued data, and that race was used only to a student’s advantage in certain circumstances, and never to his or her disadvantage. which sounds like a weird argument sin…

Fair, there's some other articles showing the SAT score spread. It's similar, albeit the delta between highest and lowest ethnicities isn't drastic.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#586

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…

Beyond "not everyone out and saying stuff like this", Collins was practically run out on a rail for it, losing a recall vote in a landslide, in San Francisco. Collins is a pretty good example of the limitations of this way of thinking: the Internet showcases and amplifies the stupid shit people say, but Twitter isn't reality.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is very true, you cannot force all parents to become crackheads, so you will always have different outcomes. We have the same problem with wealth in that regard. You can only improve education in a way that is offers support for people in difficult homes. Perhaps their difficult childhood will ultimately hinder them from becoming the best. But then perhaps their children will fare better.

This is why we can do things to make up for the fact that society has failed these children. If you make it so that only “merit” is considered - you’re only gonna get rich kids. (And I see this already through SV - it’s nothing but rich or well educated parents for the children here) What is the argument against letting children who have had a rough lot in their life get a slight lessening of their handicap when appl…

Agreed that there is a need of support system. Disagreed on making the denominator racial, religious or cultural. That is particularly evading the root causes in my opinion.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#588
post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or fix the demand side. Right now, megacorps are abusing colleges as a filter to weed out people who can't cope with high stress environments or keep deadlines and, even more egregious, load the cost for a lot of what used to be employer-paid on-the-job training onto the students via student loans. A "bullshit job" should not require a college degree.

How would that "fix" look like? Awareness campaigns? "ban the box"?

Ban companies from requiring college degrees unless they can prove a college degree and the associated skills/knowledge are mandatory to fulfill the job.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Race can and is absolutely gamed all the time. Case in point: Senator Elizabeth Warren. Just because it can be gamed doesn’t mean it’s not a good metric

Yes, but it’s harder to game. Income is vastly more fluid than racial identity, especially since in this situation it’s more advantageous for your income to go down.

How is income vastly more fluid than a “racial identity” checkbox on a form? At least it’s sort of possible to verify.

It’s easy to lie and claim to be black, nobody will perform tests on you to verify this. You can be the whitest person in the world and get away with this (so many do).

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Even if you believe there is such a thing as human races, how would having a African American parent not make you African American? Dividing humans into different races just an insane concept that has no place in the 21st century.

These aren't the divisions I would make, I was specifically referring to your question in the parent post about an Asian simply claiming to be black to bypass discrimination. I was pointing out that other factors, such as names, would be used whenever possible to still be able to discriminate against even those who tried to hide or falsify their race. I am not arguing that such discrimination or racial categories are…

But there must be some less arbitrary way to apply this discrimination? If there's no clear definition how are they falsifying their race? An Asian American could claim their ancestors came from Africa and they would not be wrong...

Other countries have official recognized minorities which you get from your parents, or use the birth nationality of your (grand)parents.

Post reply on HN