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What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

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Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#71

Post by venomsnake »

Someone1234 wrote: post #21

One issue with affirmative action which rarely gets addressed: What is the definition of a certain race anyway? If someone is from two black parents, fine, they're black. But what if one parent was black and one was white, are they black? Are their children black? What about their children's children? Are we going to spin out genetic testing, color cards, or start looking at people's family tree to decide eligibility…

> It also solves another issue we're seeing: Second generation kids of minorities whose parents are college educated and or professionals. The affirmative action program is designed to give kids with a disadvantage a more fair shake, but it is being used by minority kids who are by all definitions from middle class or from affluent households even more of an advantage, which is stealing spots from poor minority kids that actually need it!

Not only that but it can get worse. It creates an ample opportunities for discrimination. You can never be sure if someone's credentials got some boost along the way, so the wiser course of action is to hire the default. Yeah the default could get her boost by being kid of generous donors, but at least she is well connected.

Almost any anti racism policy can be perverted to perpetuate racism.

Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#72

Post by Someone1234 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #67
Someone1234 wrote: post #21

One issue with affirmative action which rarely gets addressed: What is the definition of a certain race anyway? If someone is from two black parents, fine, they're black. But what if one parent was black and one was white, are they black? Are their children black? What about their children's children? Are we going to spin out genetic testing, color cards, or start looking at people's family tree to decide eligibility…

As an outsider looking in, it seems that the one thing the US hates more than affirmative action is exactly the kind of "socialist" interventions you describe. I'm also wondering what would stop a structurally racist society from simply choosing poor people from their preferred race? You're begging the question if you assume that people will be chosen fairly with no regard to race under this system.

> I'm also wondering what would stop a structurally racist society from simply choosing poor people from their preferred race?

It is illegal in the US. Also colleges could simply stop asking about race on applications.

Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#73

Post by curryst »

T2_t2 wrote: post #31

As a non-american, your obsession with race confuses me for one very specific reason: it is all about involvement, and never about achievement. I wonder if this is a consequence of the "every kid gets a trophy" phenomenon, where merely showing up is seen as the key. Not once in that article were graduation rates from colleges, or post-college outcomes, mentioned. Surely, that is the most important factor in improving…

> it is all about involvement, and never about achievement.

The ultimate goal is achievement, but that's much harder to achieve without creating more borderline racist policies. Unless you're going to adopt affirmative action for grades as well, and punish professors for fair grading, it's hard to affect those rates.

> the US has made the goal to close it in opportunity, assuming (hoping?) that will improve outcomes

Affirmative action is meant to be a way to help reverse some of the ill effects of slavery and racism that have had long lasting impacts that even today can depreciate the opportunity of racial minorities. The goal is to even out that playing field and provide an equal opportunity, not an equal outcome. What an individual chooses to do with that equal opportunity is up to them.

> Seems to me that more blacks and hispanics at college who don't graduate or, almost worse, choose easier subjects with worse career options, perpetuates the problem rather than solves it.

This is partly a difference in what you see as the problem. Is your goal equal opportunity or equal outcomes? If your goal is equal opportunity, what someone does with that opportunity is up to them. They may choose to go to a university where they are in over their heads, but that's a choice that they made and doing poorly is a consequence of that choice. They may also choose to take an easier degree than to go to a less selective college, again, that's up to them.

Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#74

Post by yummyfajitas »

taco_emoji wrote: post #70
yummyfajitas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's because building systems like this is pretty easy. Just use a point system based entirely on grades/extracurriculars/SAT/etc. For example, google the old U-Mich point system - it was entirely meritocratic except for the +1.0 boost to GPA given to non-Asian minorities, a much smaller alumni preference and some "women in engineering" boost.

Is that what meritocracy looks like to you? Kids whose circumstances are highly negatively correlated with grades and test scores get shafted?

Yes, "meritocracy" and "no one has a hard life" are different concepts. A person having bad parents and therefore having bad grades has less merit than a person with good parents and good grades.

It sucks that some people have bad parents (or whatever the specific issue is), but that's a different problem than lack of meritocracy.

Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#75

Post by Lawtonfogle »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #52
drabiega wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true, this is irrelevant. Things like affirmative action do not exist as revenge or compensation for some past act, they are there to undo some of the still present damage from those acts.

There are many asian people who have had ancestors wronged in some way, and many black people who's ancestors had nothing bad done to them (in the US, at least). Why do you focus your attention entirely on the latter category and also include African/Carribean immigrants into the beneficiary group? Do asian children who are still suffering from wrongs done to their ancestors not deserve help?

>Do asian children who are still suffering from wrongs done to their ancestors not deserve help?

This is why SES is the better standard as it helps those who still need help, regardless if it was due to past systematic discrimination or if some more recent event created the economic harm. (It isn't perfect as it only aids based on economic harm, but it is better than other measures which attempt to measure economic harm with some other proxy.)

Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#76

Post by kefka »

tadfisher wrote: post #50
Steko wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it's racist to hold one race down for centuries and then claim the system is entirely meritocratic.

Please be careful with your attribution; the GP presumably does not own slaves and did not prop up Jim Crow.

Good point.

How long does it take for us to rid the sins against blacks by our ancestors?

3 generations? 5 generations? Never?

Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#77

Post by dghf »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #74
taco_emoji wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that what meritocracy looks like to you? Kids whose circumstances are highly negatively correlated with grades and test scores get shafted?

Yes, "meritocracy" and "no one has a hard life" are different concepts. A person having bad parents and therefore having bad grades has less merit than a person with good parents and good grades. It sucks that some people have bad parents (or whatever the specific issue is), but that's a different problem than lack of meritocracy.

Well, that kind of depends on how you define merit. One could argue that someone who gets reasonable but not stellar grades in spite of bad parents, a deprived background, etc. displays more merit than someone from a privileged background with every advantage who attains perfect grades.

Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#78

Post by dragonwriter »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #43
rmxt wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The converse of this is that 23% of non-Asian minorities are only there due to affirmative action, and would not be there under a meritocratic system." AA and meritocratic systems are not mutually exclusive. Some combination of the two is what is currently used in most college admissions processes. It is inaccurate to say that none of the people in question would be there were it not for AA.

It is inaccurate to say that none would be there without AA. It's completely accurate to say that only 77% of those currently present would be there without AA. It's true that AA is a non-meritocratic hack on top of an otherwise meritocratic system (modulo other small hacks, e.g. large donations and alumni preferences).

> It's true that AA is a non-meritocratic hack on top of an otherwise meritocratic system

I'm not sure that's true, and am fairly certain its not supportable as true. While the exact models used in admission have evolved, even fairly recent studies have shown that many of the objective factors considered in admission aside from AA and contributor/alumni preferences have fairly weak predictors of success, and some of them (particularly standardized admissions tests) are measures which are very strongly tied to race/ethnicity, disadvantaging traditionally-disadvantaged groups when they are used. (Now, some schools have adapted their admissions processes to eliminate some of the more problematic factors, but that leaves them with systems that are unproven -- which is an improvement over systems that are proven to be biased rather than meritocratic, but not the same as demonstrably meritocratic.)

Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#79

Post by dragonwriter »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #66
taco_emoji wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The converse of this is that 23% of non-Asian minorities are only there due to affirmative action, and would not be there under a meritocratic system. Your curiously unstated but obviously logically necessary premise that non-AA systems are already magically meritocratic is what's racist. Hope that clears it up for you.

Non-AA systems primarily look at grades, SAT, extracurriculars and the like. They tend to also include small alumni preferences and the occasional "this guy's dad donated $20M" preferences. Why do you believe they are not predominantly meritocratic?

> Why do you believe they are not predominantly meritocratic?

What is the concrete merit being assessed, and where is the evidence that the measures used provide a race, ethnicity, and gender-blind predictor or measure of the that concrete merit?

Re: What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions

#80

Post by anigbrowl »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #33

The article presents an interesting fact. The article claims minority (presumably non-Asian) enrollment drops 23% when AA is banned. The converse of this is that 23% of non-Asian minorities are only there due to affirmative action, and would not be there under a meritocratic system. I was previously told it's racist to believe things like this. The article also begs another question: “The Court expects that 25 years…

This assumes that alternative systems (eg ranking people by SAT scores) is meritocratic, and not subject to structural biases. I like standardized testing myself, but that's because I perform well in those situations. I'm not so sure it's necessarily a good way to measure merit; I perform less well in more open-ended contexts, for example.
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