
No, I Am Not Lost – A Black Woman's Experience in the Stanford CS Major - rmason
http://theodysseyonline.com/stanford/black-women-in-tech/128310
======
tzs
One thing puzzles me. Even if it does not occur to someone that a young black
woman in a CS building might actually be a CS student, _why_ are they asking
if she is lost?

We are talking about Stanford, not Hogwarts. I would expect that the floors
and the rooms are numbered in a fairly straightforward way that comports with
the geometry, and that geometry does not change. I'd further expect that there
is a directory or some such device that tells visitors what people are in what
rooms.

These should be sufficient to allow a visitor, even a first time visitor, to
find their destination. So as long as the person is not gazing about confused,
clearly having no idea how to proceed, isn't the natural assumption that they
are fine, and so you should leave them alone? If they need help, presumably
they can ask someone.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I have no idea how the Stanford CS building is laid out, but my default
assumption of anyone in the building would be there for a reason, not that
they're lost. Even if I didn't think they were a CS student for whatever
reason, I'd figure they knew what they were doing.

~~~
alialkhatib
Slightly tangential, but sometimes people I can only describe as "tourists"
walk around in the publicly accessible areas, so it's not totally
unprecedented.

For what it's worth, I tend to tell these people apart from the people with
business in the building by noting _where_ they're looking (tourists seem to
be looking all over the place like they're taking it all in; people with
business at Gates seem to be looking for numbers and other navigational
indicators in line with tzs's comment).

~~~
plorkyeran
And, as it happens, "Hey, are you lost?" can be a polite way to tell a tourist
that they've wandered in to an area that they aren't really supposed to be.

------
kazinator
She thinks the "are you lost" thing is because she's black; but I suspect the
real reason is that she's an attractive female who cares about her appearance.

Look at the blog photo:

[http://cdn1.theodysseyonline.com/files/2015/06/18/6357024594...](http://cdn1.theodysseyonline.com/files/2015/06/18/63570245948655346519628071_headshot.imgopt1000x70.jpg)

Purely visually speaking, that image doesn't say "I'm a computer science nerd"
\--- but that has nothing to do with race!

Take away the makeup, mess up the hair, add 50 pounds, add glasses with
unfashionable rims, change to a ratty old T-shirt, and nobody will ask, "are
you lost?"

(Stereotypes are a problem regardless; just saying that perhaps it's
misidentified.)

~~~
muglug
> Take away the makeup, mess up the hair, add 50 pounds, add glasses with
> unfashionable rims, change to a ratty old T-shirt, and nobody will ask, "are
> you lost?"

This is utterly ridiculous. That description matched about 10% of my
100-strong CS class.

White and/or male, on the other hand, matched about 98% of it (so if she
really wants to "fit in", gender reassignment surgery & skin lightening would
be far more effective).

~~~
thesimpsons1022
funny how people will come up with any convoluted explanation to avoid the
race issue.

~~~
kelukelugames
I think sometimes it is a race issue. Sometimes it is not an issue. And
sometimes it is partially a race issue.

The problem is it's impossible to perfectly separate the three scenarios
except for in the worst cases. People guess based on their life experiences.
So it's not surprise when certain groups are less likely to think it's a race
issue.

------
kleer001
> Today the culprit is an amicable looking Indian girl I’ve seen from class.

Student not recognizing another student? A minority in the space trying to
help another minority in the space? I wouldn't be able to draw too many useful
conclusions from that.

>Being a woman of color who has graduated CS107 is almost like being a
unicorn, and that’s pretty f'd up.

Yes, but it's also entirely consistent with the last 200 years of western
history.

In the end, yes, I can entirely imagine this happening, and understand why
it's happening, and see that it's not going to change any time soon. That
said, I hope it changes sooner than later and lovely little slice-of-life
articles will help that happen.

edit: It also makes me kinda sad too.

~~~
TheGRS
For sure, and I don't believe the problem is very well known right now either.
Many female friends I've talked to had no idea that software engineering was
such a white male dominated space.

I personally think its in a rut right now. Both college students and working
professionals will look at the space as being male dominated and passively
choose to go a different direction if they are female. When the problem gets
brought up in circles like HN, many rush to defend the space as if nothing is
wrong.

A cultural shift needs to happen and unfortunately that is going to be
extremely difficult to do without a lot of people interested in making it
happen. Why do CS when you can just as easily get into other fields that are
more accepting of women and minorities?

------
kelukelugames
Women complain about a lot of things that some men don't understand.
Minorities complain about a lot of things that some whites don't understand. A
lot of these ungrokkable issues attack our self confidence. And when we
complain about them, we give people a reason to dismiss us.

Being treated like you don't belong sucks. When I am asked "Where are you
from? Where are you born? Where are your parents from?" I have to ignore it.
She needs more life experience if she thinks the average person will have
sympathy because people ask us these questions.

------
pessimizer
Universities have been spoiled for decades by a large number of computer
hobbyists, so they rarely bother to teach students how to program. I grew up
programming, born of two programmers, so although the "Intro" was a class
where they handed you a book and said "learn this", it was a blow off class
for me (and the other hobbyists.) I felt really sorry for everyone else, and
watched them leave for majors where they didn't expect you to know 50% of the
job coming in, like electrical engineering and economics (as to not waste all
of the math classes.)

People who haven't grown up with a computer in the house, or with good AP
classes at their HS are at almost an insurmountable disadvantage IMO.

------
bsder
> Being a woman of color who has graduated CS107 is almost like being a
> unicorn, and that’s pretty f'd up.

The real question is to ask "Why don't more women take CS107?" Only about 20%
of the Stanford CS department is female. If I assume that a CS107 class is 100
people (it probably isn't--CS107 is not a beginner class--it has data
structures as a prerequisite). 20 are women. Stanford racial data suggest that
7% of it's enrollment are African-American.

That means that you get _at best_ 2 "women of color" per year in CS107.

Even if all of these women pass, you're still looking at 10 out of about
10,000? students, at best.

Her experiences may be completely valid, but this is hardly the fault of CS107
or its teacher.

~~~
gleb
From:
[http://sheplusplus.stanford.edu/sheStatistics.pdf](http://sheplusplus.stanford.edu/sheStatistics.pdf)

"At Stanford, computer science is the most popular undergraduate major--220
students declared CS during the 2012-2013 academic year. The introductory
CS106A class is 40% female, but that drops to 30% in the subsequent CS106B and
20% in CS107. The major is approximately 12 percent female."

It would be interesting to see real survival analysis of Stanford CS majors
sticking with it.

~~~
waterlesscloud
That's a very interesting downward progression. By just the 3rd course only
half the percentage of women, which implies more than half the women quit
(assuming the whole class shrunk as well).

Why?

I guess it could be a culture of exclusion, but for it to work that fast it
seems like it would have to be exceedingly toxic.

I wonder if Stanford does exit interviews when people leave a major. I had to
have informal talks with my advisers (at a different college) when I changed
majors, explaining my reasons. I wonder if that data is collected at all? And
if not, why not?

~~~
bsder
> I guess it could be a culture of exclusion, but for it to work that fast it
> seems like it would have to be exceedingly toxic.

It's a failure of experience.

How many people can bake a cake? More on this later ....

My first assignment in data structures is simply: "Here is Eclipse, here is a
project, here are directions for checking that project in, do it. Now use that
to create a second project to print "Hello, World!" _exactly_."

1/3 of the class _CANNOT DO THIS_ and drop. I'm serious. Following directions
_exactly_ appears to be a learned skill that not many learn.

Back to baking a cake. This is the same problem. Cakes have some _exact_
directions occasionally. If you get them wrong, something goes wrong. I cannot
give out several of my cake recipes because people accuse me of giving them
the wrong recipe when the problem is they don't follow it.

And, yet, these recipes were directly out of women's magazines in the 40's,
50's, and 60's. So, it's _not_ an anti-female bias to this characteristic.

It may be more of a fact that women _who can follow directions exactly_ get
pulled off into different areas/fields/hobbies before they reach computers.

------
razwall
Not a very convincing article. Some girl tried to be helpful, a guy tried to
start a conversation because he probably thought she was cute, and she
experienced a bunch of "micro-aggressions" that she doesn't want to bore us
with the details of.

------
JDiculous
So what's the solution? More affirmative action? Make it taboo to offer a
stranger help if they look lost? Make it taboo to make any sort of assumptions
about anyone?

~~~
brohoolio
To live in a society where no one bats an eye that a women is in a CS
building.

~~~
JDiculous
That's not a solution.

------
iofj
It was great to read the good news in this post :

    
    
      All that said, I do enjoy being a computer scientist at Stanford. I love learning how to become self-sufficient when it comes to building out my ideas into actual products and apps. In addition, the race and gender demographic for computer science majors here appears to be slightly more balanced compared to peer institutions. And the Stanford name comes with a ridiculous amount of power. It is a luxury to be able to drop it in conversations whenever I need to immediately be taken seriously. It is my hope that, with some of the projects I am working on this summer, I can put that power to good use by creating more spaces for minorities in technology to thrive and feel welcome.
    

I LOVE the fact that you sound like an enthousiastic cs student. I LOVE to
read that it is in fact possible to be a CS student first, and black and
female is just some detail about you that's pretty much irrelevant when we're
talking about Stanford education and programming and javascript.

------
Nadya
I was traveling abroad in Japan and was asked by a Japanese woman if I was
lost or needed help.

I was looking at the station map looking for how many stops until the station
I had to get off at. I'm fluent in Japanese though - and don't think I was
giving off a "I'm lost" look. She simply assumed I was lost because I don't
look Japanese and was staring at a map.

Instead of assuming she was racist, intentionally or unintentionally, I
assumed she was _trying to be nice and offer me help because she thought I
looked lost_.

But extending hospitality or a helping hand is now seen as a _microaggresion_
against a person.

It's gotten to the point that I let doors slam into peoples' faces less I make
them think I'm being sexist for holding the door for them. After all - if they
want me to hold the door they can ask me to hold it for them. Otherwise
they're fully capable of opening the door themselves.

Once-upon-a-time it was _polite_ to keep a door held open for someone. Not
anymore.

~~~
intopieces
Why do you feel like the topic needs to be about your feelings and not the
feelings of the person who wrote the article?

~~~
Nadya
People can have misplaced feelings. If they feel the world is out to get them
and everyone around them is racist - they'll only ever see actions towards
them as racist.

It's called offering alternative points of view that are more likely than them
being a victim of some form of implicit racism.

Perhaps, maybe it isn't the person is racist, but that the person is a _nice
person who wants to help_.

God forbid someone wants to _help you without you having to explicitly ask for
help_.

Sorry if my post came off to you as more about my feelings than about nice
people not being racist. Nice people will see a person crying and ask them
_what 's wrong?_. Not wait for the crying person to ask for someone to talk to
(crying people will almost never ask a stranger for someone to talk to).

Likewise - nice people will ask if you need directions if you appear lost.

The world would be a better place with more nice people willing to help others
_without having to be asked_. I think most people, not just me, would agree
with that sentiment.

But turning everyone who's just trying to help into some _aggressor_ is
exactly how to make the opposite world.

~~~
intopieces
You responded to a post about a person feeling alienated in their school by
reminiscing about a pleasure trip to Asia while lamenting the death of
chivalry. You missed the point while claiming that a person's opinion in
invalid because you can't relate to it. You remind me of the guy I had in an
econ class who said, "I don't understand why people hate airport security so
much. If it's that bad they can just charter a private jet."

Not only does she feel like she doesn't belong there, she's not even allowed
to _feel like she doesn 't belong there_ because you know better than she does
about how she should feel.

And this is not about asking if you can help. This about the assumption that
the person you see before you _must be lost_ because they don't belong there.
It's about the fact that most white CS geeks aren't used to seeing black women
in their midst. I have a feeling that you picked up on this point (she makes
it pretty plain) but the implications make you too uncomfortable, so you've
taken the pedantic position of 'they're just trying to help' to avoid
confronting the idea that maybe, just maybe, this boys' club we've built for
ourselves ends up excluding some pretty talented people.

Also, the question I asked you wasn't rhetorical: why did you read this
article and immediately decide that your experience, which doesn't relate to
this person's at all (she being asked several times in her school if she's
lost, you being asked once in a foreign country) deserved to be heard? Why do
you insist on covering up someone else's experience with yours? Why do you
feel like you get to dictate whether someone's emotions are correct or not?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting)

~~~
Nadya
I was asked if I was lost consistently for the 6 months I was in Japan on
multiple occasions by multiple people. I shared one occasion because the
number of occurrences for my example does not matter. I could see the laughing
one mattering a bit more if it occurred regularly, but that is a different
example.

Luckily the concept of being lost was shared context for the given example and
number of occurrences is irrelevant so long as they don't come multiple times
from the same individuals.

 _> Not only does she feel like she doesn't belong there, she's not even
allowed to feel like she doesn't belong there because you know better than she
does about how she should feel._

Feelings don't change reality - and yes. I believe that the world should have
more positive beliefs in one another than negative beliefs in one another.
People get along better when they aren't assuming the worst in one another.

Imagine a scenario where a friend tells you they are too busy with work to go
see a new movie with you. Depending on whether you believe them or not - your
_feelings_ will differ. They've been busy for weeks! The movie is now out of
theaters entirely. Have your feelings changed? Sure. Most people would, at
this point, suspect their friend of lying to them. So you feel like shit, you
think your friend is avoiding you, and are sad. Other people have tried to
convince you that your friend was busy, but you refused to listen to them
because your feelings told you otherwise.

Turns out they were _simply busy like they claimed to be_. But now you're
pissy at them for "avoiding you" and refuse to talk to them because you've
convinced yourself, contrary to any evidence, that they were lying to you
because your _feelings_ told you so.

They feel like they don't belong _because_ they feel like they don't belong.
Because they _feel like they don 't belong_ they see other peoples' actions as
_affirming that belief_. It's a matter of perspective that they feel this way.
So yes, feelings can be wrong and assuming the worst will always result in the
worst being visible.

The world needs less negativity - not more.

 _> This about the assumption that the person you see before you must be lost
because they don't belong there._

Statistically true, so it's likely a safe assumption to make that will likely
_benefit more people than it "harms"_. The fact it is asked at all shows that
it is true more often than not. The same reason why I'm not asked if I want a
fork or chopsticks at a Chinese restaurant: more often than not, people
request a fork.

Now - I could assume the Chinese restaurant is racist for giving me a fork
instead of chopsticks. It's a microaggression against me! Why assume I want a
fork? I'm capable of using chopsticks!

But that viewpoint is pessimistic, self-centered, self-victimizing, and feeds
negativity into itself. I prefer to shift my perspective: most people ask for
forks, so they gave me a fork. I don't give myself a victim-complex, I see how
it benefits other people of society (less people have to ask for a fork!), and
it's a rather neutral viewpoint to hold that is _just as reasonable_ and
_probably more likely_ than the former.

So to answer your question: I don't give a shit for their feelings - because
their feelings come from their pre-determined pessimistic viewpoint. They're
looking for a negative reasoning behind an action and found it. They got what
they were looking for, and just like their truth-telling friend, they believe
their friend to be a liar.

~~~
intopieces
You continually emphasize your personal experiences, as if they were relevant
to this conversation. I am asking you now to pretend like you are the person
in this article and explain this:

>their feelings come from their pre-determined pessimistic viewpoint

Reach into what you know about computer science departments and the decline of
women in that field. Reach into what you know about developing professionally
in mathematics as a black woman. Imagine what it's like to have everyone who
you meet assume you don't know what you're talking about or that you only got
where you are because of affirmative action. Imagine having to prove yourself
every day in your chosen field because "statistically" there aren't very many
people like you in this field.

This is 'evidence' you're ignoring.

Now justify:

>their feelings come from their pre-determined pessimistic viewpoint.

You're correct in that the pessimistic viewpoint is predetermined. It's
predetermined by experience.

No one's asking anyone to feel guilty about asking the woman if she's lost.
We're being asked to understand the underlying implications of this recurring
speech event.

------
kelvin0
Wow, how times have changed. Not even a few decades ago seeing a woman (let
alone an African American one) in a university as a student of cutting edge
technology, would have been impossible. Shouldn't we also think of the
progress that is being made? Of course she is frustrated, but I for one see it
as a sign of great evolution on many fronts.

~~~
sonoffett
Are you being sarcastic ?

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-
women-stopped-coding)

------
flippinburgers
Whenever somebody doesn't like something, they can just roll out their
discriminatory flag and wave it around. Just as they are complex humans, the
individuals offering help are complex humans. Sometimes I feel like people
really just need little caps on that ticker tape print the motivation behind
the words they are speaking before we will finally be out of this mess of "my
feelings got hurt". I mean it is supposed to be about motivation after all
right? If somebody is actually trying to be nice that should be ok right? Or
are they just as damned as a racist? In which case maybe the campaign should
be "don't talk to me unless I give signals that indicate that I think you are
attractive/potentially helpful to me". What bullocks.

Its is like the social sphere is splitting into two entities: those who are
approachable and those who fancy themselves so special as to not be
approached.

------
codygman
I think it's important to keep in mind that stereotypes about women not being
as intelligent as well as black people not being as intelligent as non-black
plays a (large imo) part in this as well.

Add the two together and there's an even higher likelihood the next person you
see will think you couldn't possibly have the same major as them, are
incompetent, didn't earn your way to your position, or generally don't belong.

------
socrates1998
Meh, people are just trying to be nice. They aren't trying to be racist or
prejudice or whatever, they are just trying to help someone that is lost.

It happens all the time when you go to a place where people like you don't
usually go.

It happened to me in Asia all the time. Sure it wasn't fun, but acting like
people were being racist isn't helping you at all.

She is making it into a bigger deal than it is.

It's a mild annoyance at best.

~~~
onewaystreet
Google "microaggressions." Yes, people might be trying to be nice, but that
niceness is from the assumption that you don't belong. When it happens
multiple times a day, everyday, it surely can be disheartening.

~~~
protomyth
"but that niceness is from the assumption that you don't belong"

That is a load of crap along with this whole "microagression" movement.

I see a girl that seems interesting to me, screw up my courage, and try to say
something that sounds helpful to start a conversation. Then you come along and
classify that contact attempt like a KKK rally and I'm a racist?!? No wonder
studies are showing that male students are starting to steer clear.

With all these social apps, we pretty much have destroyed anything social in
person.

Now, I should say that my life experience is not white-suburbia, so save time
on the name calling.

~~~
comrh
Cause you're entitled to start a conversation with every girl that seems
interesting to you right?

edit: because people here can't comprehend the view from the other side, maybe
louis ck can help:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDh4qk1Tl8k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDh4qk1Tl8k)

~~~
jakub_h
Aren't people entitled to start a conversation with anyone they want? (Outside
of some very traditional pre-modern societies where certain people are not
even allowed at all to talk to certain other people, mostly by kinship.)

~~~
intopieces
What's your phone number? I think you're on to something, I'd like to call you
and hear more about what you think.

------
brohoolio
As someone who is an office with 30 men and 1 woman, I hope she sticks it out.
Diversity of experience and perspective matters. I've been in IT for 20 years.

Our office is pretty good, but you can see how without strong leadership and
good men it might go all brogrammer and hostile.

------
justonepost
Take it for what it is - great to see a woman of color proud to be a CS Major.

------
samd
First two comments come right out the gate and cast doubt on the authors
experiences. One goes on and says women and minorities, particularly blacks,
are not smart enough to make it through difficult CS classes.

This is pathetic Hacker News, pathetic.

~~~
apsec112
I don't doubt her experiences - I have no trouble believing that people are
more likely to ask black women if they're lost. IIRC, this kind of
stereotyping is well-documented.

I do take issue with her blaming the CS107 professor for contributing to
sexism. She seems to be saying that CS107 is discriminatory merely because it
is difficult and many people drop out. She notes that women seem to drop out
disproportionately often, but this might not be something the professor has
the power to do anything about - she certainly doesn't say anything the
professor does which might be part of the problem, other than just making the
class hard. Watering down core classes in the name of increasing diversity
doesn't help anyone.

~~~
quanpod
Someone can still be a great engineer and struggle through an early class -
there's plenty of reasons for this to happen and universities/colleges need to
address these problems.

For example - someone who has never coded before in their life - there
shouldn't be some expectation that you had a computer growing up, built a
website for peers in middle school and are already an expert by the time you
hit your first class. There's plenty of capable people who a) never had the
advantages/wealth to support some of these things b) haven't discovered their
interest and "weed out" core classes don't help with that. You may take longer
to get up to the same place as someone with the advantages above, but that
doesn't rule you out from being an effective engineer/computer scientist.

~~~
DougMerritt
Friends who majored in music _theory_ (not performance, which is worse) tell
me that you have to pass a competency test to be admitted into the school as a
college freshman.

(At least, at the good schools; this may not be true at third rate schools, I
wouldn't know.)

This requires that someone spent years playing an instrument, typically with
lots of instruction, both of which are very hard to do with no money.

Some may get this free in high school, but the high school _I_ went to had
performance exams to get into _those_ high school freshman classes.

There was no music at all at my junior high.

I got 6 months of instrument training in 6th grade, and that was all that
public schools offered me, and I know that some people had even less than that
from the schools in their area.

The point being that it's not just computers. If we want to give an equal
opportunity to students, there's a tremendous amount that needs fixing that is
not at all limited to computers.

~~~
andrepd
It definitely does need fixing, but not by simply admitting/hiring more
minorities until the statistics are agreeable (easy) but by actually making
those deep structural changes to enable true equality of opportunity for all
(much harder).

~~~
DougMerritt
Yes; I really dislike adjusting statistics, because it's off-target, whether
it's easy or not, but I definitely agree that opportunity is the desirable
thing to equalize.

Each racial group has subsets that trend towards different desires; e.g. as a
white guy I knew lots of other white guys in high school who were anti-
intellectual, and thought that going to college inherently meant you were a
snob.

I don't know how to change subgroup attitudes like that, but at any rate it
sure would be nice to give opportunity to those who want it.

The primary way that that is hard is that it costs hard money. In my example,
money for student instruments and money for music instructors (typically far
more than for the instruments, although both are nontrivial).

(In my areas public libraries have been cutting hours (and days) for decades.
This is part of the ridiculously negative trend that we, as a society, must
stop being foolish about, like these other issues.)

Statistics, OTOH, averages together those who don't want, along with those who
do want, which is clearly unfair to those who do want.

------
LGBT_2000
Thanks for sharing your story Alona. That was very brave of you given the
rampant racism and sexism currently plaguing the tech space.

~~~
codygman
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Anecdotally and in my area I can
confirm racism and sexism (usually in the form of "harmless jokes") is pretty
rampant in tech.

~~~
cpncrunch
I think the downvotes are due to the fact that we haven't seen any evidence of
_actual_ racism or sexism in the tech industry. We see lots of stories like
this where it seems open to interpretation.

And yes, I myself have some personal experience of _real_ racism. If this is
the worst that is happening in the tech space then things are pretty good.

Anyway, this is an important topic, so if you do have any experiences with
racism/sexism it would be good to write an article or blog post about it.

------
paulhauggis
"Stereotype threat and feelings of isolation are huge obstacles many students
of color face in my major"

Have you ever thought you might just look lost and people are trying to help
out? Why do you immediately think everyone is somehow racist by asking you
this question?

"Too often, however, this means that by week six in the ten week quarter
system, the class enrollment makeup drops dramatically from being
optimistically diverse to being exclusively male, white and Asian."

It's because the classes are difficult. I took these classes when I went to
school and if you don't really know your stuff, you will fail.

I don't know the person that wrote the article, but it seems she wants to be
taken seriously immediately. Nobody gets taken seriously immediately, even if
you are white or asian. Everyone has to put the work in.

"I can put that power to good use by creating more spaces for minorities in
technology to thrive and feel welcome"

Why don't you just say African-american students. Asians and Hispanics are
also minorities.

When I went to school, I had many African-american students that were my
classmates. As the classes went from 100 level to 300 level and above (major-
level and weeder classes), many dropped out.

They were never treated any differently in class. We also need to remember
that many universities have quotas for minorities and give extra points on the
SAT for just checking a box.

This however, does not guarantee that a person has the knowledge to actually
pass the classes once they get in.

~~~
zorpner
You really check all the doesn't-want-to-understand boxes with this post. It's
like a textbook in attempting to discredit through non sequitur.

 _Have you ever thought you might just look lost and people are trying to help
out? Why do you immediately think everyone is somehow racist by asking you
this question?_

Second-guessing lived experience (it turns out that people subject to racism
are actually quite good at telling when it's happening to them), check.

 _It 's because the classes are difficult._

Seriously, think for even one second about the implication you're making here.

 _Why don 't you just say African-american students. Asians and Hispanics are
also minorities._

"All lives matter!" It's not the author's responsibility to tackle the perfect
at the expense of the good.

 _They were never treated any differently in class._

You have no idea how they were treated. They do. Let them speak.

~~~
tzs
>> It's because the classes are difficult.

> Seriously, think for even one second about the implication you're making
> here.

Seriously, read the article before commenting. The author said that the class
in question is Stanford's CS "weed out" class.

A "weed out" class is a class designed to be (1) difficult, and (2) come early
in a major. The idea is that if you can get through the weed out class, you
should be able to get through the rest of the classes in that major.

The theory is that by putting one of the hardest classes first, you avoid
students ending up in the terrible position of spending 3 or 4 years majoring
in one field and then have to give up and either drop out or switch majors
when they hit a difficult required class that they just cannot get through.

~~~
zorpner
Despite your numerous edits, you've missed the point entirely, which is that
the GP posited that the reason the class tends towards homogeneity is its
difficulty. The implication is that minorities are not as smart. I really
didn't feel like I had to spell this out, but here we are.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Say you have a class that starts out with 30 students. 18 white, 10 asian, 2
black.

Say the course is very hard and it cuts 2/3rds of the total students. If the
cuts were proportional by race, we now have 6 white, 4 asian, and 0 blacks.

There was no racism involved in the class, the fact that no blacks remain is a
result of the class brutally weeding out 2/3rds of the students and that the
initial number of blacks was very low.

You can quibble over numbers, but the basic idea remains that large percentage
cuts in an unbalanced population can make it tend more toward homogeneity.

~~~
ectoplasm
That's a good numerical analysis. However, you also have to account for the
fact that, on average, black children in the US get a poorer education. There
are studies and statistics and on and on. Is it controversial to think that
somebody might be less smart because they got a worse education? And then is
it so surprising that when they get into Stanford due to affirmative action,
they can't handle the course load? The whole system is a mess.

