In Supreme Court brief, Yale and peers defend use of race in admissions • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by TimTheTinker » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #31

ceejayoz wrote: post #10

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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…

> supporting systems which encourage systemic preferences for certain groups

The newest definition is "systems that do not ensure equal outcomes between ethnic groups".

I'm sure you can discern the dark side of that statement. The idea is that we should ignore the problem at the source - injustice, unequal treatment, real racism (by your first definition) -- and instead correct it via racial quotas wherever there's supposed to be an objective, impartial test of one's fitness for a role.

One of the USA's great mottos used to be "equal opportunity". Not anymore, sadly -- between nepotism, promised donations, and racial quotas it's become nigh on impossible for some otherwise highly qualified but poor kids to go to an ivy-league school.

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

#82

Post by macspoofing » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #23

vorpalhex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't give one racial group a disadvantage (Asians) to give another one an advantage. The phrase "robbing Peter to pay Paul" comes to mind.

Why not? While Asian immigrants certainly face discrimination they have also certainly experienced much less than black Americans have over the last 300 years.

>Why not? While Asian immigrants certainly face discrimination they have also certainly experienced much less than black Americans have over the last 300 years.

Well .. you have to be careful when talking about groups, because at the individual level it's not clear that this is true. In fact, it isn't true.

For example, Ilhan Omar, a Congresswoman from Minnesota, is a black American. Her ancestors didn't suffer American discrimination. She was born in Somalia to a well-connected, upper-class Somali family. Her personal experience still had trials and tribulations that was unique to her, but it was different than the experience of other black Americans.

Couldn't we give a 'hand-up' to the people that need it by focusing on class, instead of race?

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

#83

Post by zmgsabst » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #67

zmgsabst wrote: post #51

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I get your confusion on the topic. But your approach fails to consider that the removal of privilege of a socially preferred group feels like discrimination to members of that group. This means the nuance is a distinction with difference.

We’re not talking about “removing privilege”, ie, ending a racist program that favors Asians.

We’re talking about discrimination against an 18 year old Asian kid who has done nothing on the basis of race.

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

#84

Post by akomtu » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #23

vorpalhex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't give one racial group a disadvantage (Asians) to give another one an advantage. The phrase "robbing Peter to pay Paul" comes to mind.

Why not? While Asian immigrants certainly face discrimination they have also certainly experienced much less than black Americans have over the last 300 years.

And this is called the crab mentality: "My family struggled so much in my childhood, so I want you to struggle as much. I'm miserable and you too should live in misery." People with this mentality really want some company, but this is turned into the crab mentality by their sick minds.

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

#85

Post by _-david-_ » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

svnpenn wrote: 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…

Which is more diverse:

1. Admiting a black boy who is living with both parents and who have a net worth of over $100 million

2. Admitting a white boy who grew up in poverty in Appalachia and lived in a single parent household

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

#86

Post by samatman » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

btilly wrote: 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…

It's not Asians primarily. They are discriminated against more stiffly, but are far outnumbered in the US by Whites, who also get the thumb placed on the wrong pan of the scale.

The focus on Asians is because of a doctrine that discriminating against Whites is very good and correct, because they deserve it.

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

#87

Post by president » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #3

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We can look back at history and come up with a thousand reasons to support any cause that exists today. Asians were discriminated when they were brought in to work on the railroads, are we going to factor that into the admission process too? So in the end, is it just going to be a battle of which race had the worst time in history?

The point is, instead of chasing the fool's dream of finding who was hurt the most in history, we can just make sure everybody has the opportunity to be successful. It's not perfect today but it is still better than hurting one group of people in order to boost another.

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

#88

Post by rndgermandude » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #8

vorpalhex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't give one racial group a disadvantage (Asians) to give another one an advantage. The phrase "robbing Peter to pay Paul" comes to mind.

>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.

I am pretty sure a lot do. First, a lot of immigrants came to pursue the "American Dream", trying to break free from poverty, or oppression, or both.

Then you have specific instances of Asian people (systematically) being mistreated in the US. Chinese railroad construction workers come to mind, who were basically treated as serfs and whose lives were considered "expendable". People with Japanese origins were put into concentration camps during WW II, along with societal repressions against anybody who "looked" Japanese, on top of the general racist stance of the time.

Asian-Americans were effectively as segregated as Black Americans for a long long time. While the Asian-American population might not have experienced slave-labor to the same degree, Asian-American communities certainly were for a long time pushed to the edges of society, usually even physically segregated, systematically and ideologically denied access to upwards social mobility, and so on.

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

#89

Post by buscoquadnary » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:43 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #72

aceHN wrote: post #48

If your goal is equal opportunity you can look at socioeconomic class without considering race. Fundamentally the idea that race must be considered to achieve diversity is an inherently racist idea - you don't believe some races will get in without help.

It should be noted that neither class nor race is a reindeer-style glowing red nose. There's an recent trend in England of people faking lower-class roots to take advantage of targeted programs, and there are indicators that white Americans are pretending Native ancestry for college admission.

I can imagine the political cartoon right now, a school administrator boasting that 98% of the student body is from a minority group, to a room full of white male students who lied about their ethnicity on the college admission process.

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

#90

Post by TameAntelope » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 3:43 PM UTC

zmgsabst wrote: post #66

TameAntelope wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not racism, as for it to be racist it would have to support the idea that people of one race are inherently superior in some form or another to another race. Adjusting representation is not making any claim whatsoever about ability around members of any race, it's attempting to adjust for those kinds of claims that have already (falsely) been made. Nobody who is implementing these policies in any of these Ivy L…

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