
Are Elite Colleges Biased Against Poor Whites? - cwan
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/07/yes_elite_colleges_are_biased.html
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starkfist
I'm not sure they do anymore, but elite colleges and elite prep schools used
to have a hillbilly quota. In this sense they are biased against poor whites,
and they know it, so they provide(d) an "affirmative action" program for some
of them. My father was born and raised in a town of about 1000 in Montana and
received full-ride scholarships to Philips Andover and Princeton, which he
believed were mostly due to this quota. He turned both down because he was
into football, and eventually received a full-ride scholarship to play college
football.

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hugh3
I doubt they do any more. America's "elite" seem to have lost all respect for
America's poor whites; they're "rednecks" and "white trash" who live in
"trailers" or "McMansions" and shop at Wal-Mart and watch NASCAR and blah blah
stereotype stereotype. If you're a poor non-white you're a victim of society,
but if you're poor and white you're an ignorant hick. Poor whites are pretty
much the only group upon whom it is socially acceptable to look down,
nowadays.

~~~
credo
This seems to be a fairly popular view among people who see "reverse racism"
in America, however I think it is mistaken to assume that poor blacks have it
easy and that the so-called "elite" only look down upon poor whites.

Btw several powerful establishment figures seem to think of "rednecks" as far
more important than the so-called "elite". Sarah Palin and mother politicians
use Redneck jokes to endear themselves and identify themselves with their core
constituencies. It is hard to imagine someone like Obama or Deval or some
other mainstream black politician use n-word jokes for political benefit or to
describe themselves.

~~~
anamax
> I think it is mistaken to assume that poor blacks have it easy

Good for you, but no one is assuming that.

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kenjackson
The book seems to say a fairly obvious point, which is:

If you attempt to diversify by socioeconomic status (including race), those
that are overrepresented be SES and race will appear to be penalized. This is
due to the fact that admission to elite colleges is a zero sum game. There are
X number of spots. If you somehow diversify to get Z more members of group A
then there will be Z less spots to go around.

Not really rocket science.

To me the two big questions really are: 1) Are race and SES the right things
to seek diversity, if anything at all? This is oft debated. 2) Is merit the
right measuring stick for admission in general? This is rarely debated.

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yalurker
You've missed the point. The "fairly obvious point" would be that ALL whites
are disadvantaged by providing a certain quota or advantage to non-white
applicants, but that's not the point here.

The significance of the recent research is that low-income, rural, red-state
whites face discrimination relative to high-income, urban, blue-state whites.
That is, given two white students of equal merit, the admission is more likely
to go to the one born in Manhattan than the one born in Iowa.

The tragic thing is that apparently this is new information to some people,
when everyone in the midwest has known this for years. I was valedictorian of
my high school, had very high standardized test scores and a dozen extra-
curricular activities with leadership roles.... but I didn't even both to
apply for any Ivy/prestigious schools because I knew being from a small town
in the midwest I had no chance. How's that for institutionalized
discrimination (or bias inherent in the system)?

~~~
dgabriel
This isn't new, and has little to do with diversity programs. Frankly, it's
not the unqualified poor minority students keeping you out, it's the
unqualified wealthy legacy students. That group is almost certain to gain
admittance to a prestigious school, while the minority group member has to
fight just as hard as you did.

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sprout
The thing is, there is a substantial bias that _aids_ poor people in general,
not in the admission process, but in the process of actually going to school.

Even though the private colleges have price tags up in the $40k+ range, the
average middle-class family will end up paying around $20k, and truly poor
people generally pay as much if not less than they would for a state school.

The admission process is a crapshoot, and I don't really see any reason to
whine about arbitrary stuff like this. They have to rule some people out, it's
mostly random once you get past a certain point, and even if it isn't, I don't
think it's particularly harmful. Not everyone can get in.

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eli
I agree that class should be more important than race in making these
decisions, but it's also true that, on average, poor minorities have more
disadvantages and more to overcome than poor whites.

~~~
tcskeptic
That is an interesting assertion, what is it based on? My experience working
for a year in Appalachia (late 90s) tells me that rural poor whites have a
pretty rough time of it, my experience tutoring in Cabrini Green (when it was
still enormous, early 90s) taught me that poor minorities have it terrible as
well.

I have no idea how to compare the disadvantages each has to overcome, let
alone quantify one set vs. another. I think the experience of the rural poor
in this country is often overlooked compared to the inner city. They are in my
experience both utterly pathological societies, I cannot imagine having the
sustained discipline to escape either one.

~~~
eli
Like I said, I think it should be based on class primarily (if not
exclusively) instead of race.

But there is still racism in this country and it overwhelmingly is against
minorities.

~~~
endtime
>But there is still racism in this country and it overwhelmingly is against
minorities.

The only racism I have ever experienced in the US has been _from_ "minorities"
(i.e. non-white people), usually directed _toward_ white people.

~~~
dgabriel
That's because you are not a minority, and of course you don't see it on a
daily basis. Out of curiosity, what sort of racism have you experienced?

~~~
rick888
"That's because you are not a minority, and of course you don't see it on a
daily basis. Out of curiosity, what sort of racism have you experienced?"

Right. There's so much racism in the US. Every job I have ever had has had a
mix of different races among its employees (not to mention the president of
the United States).

I've experienced racism first-hand as someone who is a non-minority. A couple
of years ago, I went to a big boy in Atlanta, Georgia. The majority of the
staff and patrons were black. It took them 45 minutes to an hour to get my
food (people that clearly were there after me got their food much earlier). I
also got a lot of stares.

If this was the reverse, Al Sharpton would have been picketing outside to get
the waitress fired.

When will it end? I'm wondering when the minorities in this country will end
their self-segregation.

What I want in this country is equality (everyone has an equal shot at getting
into things like universities IE: no extra points on the SATs/quotas based on
race), but I don't think this will ever happen.

It's also funny that Greek organizations are allowed to have entire
fraternities based on race (asian, african-american, etc), but if a caucasian
frat was founded, it would be considered racist. This isn't equality.

~~~
wan23
Without addressing your points specifically, you sound angry about the
situation of race in America. Many people of all races have issues with the
status quo. Some people express it directly, like for example taking longer to
get your food. In America, it's safe to say that if you cross racial
boundaries enough, you'll eventually run into some racism no matter what race
you are. So yes, there is much racism in America, and you've seen it yourself.

Only problem is, it's asymmetrical. You experienced it at a restaurant. Other
likely places for someone like you might be at the laundromat, at school, at a
party, at the post office. But it's unlikely at places like, at the bank, at a
job interview (for a good job - not McDonalds), driving down the highway, etc.
Because even though in America anyone can be racist, the people in positions
that matter are more often white.

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codva
The 4H example in the article was odd. If you are president of 4H and want to
go into some sort of agricultural field, what they hell are you going to do at
Harvard or Yale anyway? You aren't even applying to those schools. You are
going to a large land grant university, where the top agricultural programs
are located. In a sense the deans at these elite colleges are correct. The
odds of the 4H President being happy at Harvard are probably quite low.

~~~
yalurker
And why the heck would a kid in band go to Harvard? He should be getting in a
van and going on tour. And why would a kid in the chess club go to Yale? He
should be playing chess. And why would a kid on the baseball team...

The typical over-achieving student is going to be in dozens of activities,
none of which necessarily correlate with their future career. Agriculture
might seem really weird or foreign to you, but for much of America being in
FFA/4H/Eagle Scouts/whatever is just as normal as band, chess or sports.

~~~
william42
Actually, I seriously doubt a good baseball player is going to be going to an
Ivy League school, for a simple two-word reason. Athletic scholarships. Ivy
League schools have none.

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theoden
Not to mention the fact that the rich/urban whites admitted to elite colleges
are actually mostly Jews:
[http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Connelly-
Harvar...](http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Connelly-Harvard.html)

Also see this excellent article on the same subject:
<http://theoccidentalobserver.net/tooblog/?p=2923>

"When lower-class whites are matched with lower-class blacks and other non-
whites the degree of the non-white advantage becomes astronomical: lower-class
Asian applicants are seven times as likely to be accepted to the competitive
private institutions as similarly qualified whites, lower-class Hispanic
applicants eight times as likely, and lower-class blacks ten times as likely.
These are enormous differences and reflect the fact that lower-class whites
were rarely accepted to the private institutions Espenshade and Radford
surveyed. Their diversity-enhancement value was obviously rated very low."

~~~
Mod_daniel
Really? A link to an article that opens with a quote from Kevin Macdonald? I
knew that the comments for this one would probably be a minefield but this is
absurd. Take the antisemitism elsewhere.

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spamizbad
This looks like a legit organization but it appears to be a project of the
Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

~~~
jerf
So, because it's a conservative thinktank talking about the issue, poor whites
are _not_ in fact being discriminated against? I _wish_ I could cancel issues
just by getting a partisan organization to talk about it!

I mean, the point is simple math. If you have a certain number of people you
are going to admit, and you give bonuses to certain groups, you are equally
penalizing others. People shouldn't be permitted to pretend otherwise because
that's disingenuous; if you're going to do that, do it forthrightly and
honestly. The fact that it's a challenge to forthrightly and honestly say "We
want to discriminate against poor white people" sounds like a feature to me,
not a bug.

~~~
eli
No, it is not that simple. The question isn't "Does a poor white applicant
have the exact same odds as a poor black applicant?" The question was, "Are we
_biased_ against poor whites?"

If you believe, as many do, that there are fewer minority applicants because
of institutional racism and therefore you decide to weight their applications
higher is that biasing you selection process? Or is it cancelling out bias
present elsewhere in the system?

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chc
If A and B are two rivals that are the same modulo one factor, but A has worse
odds than B, then we must conclude that the system has a bias against subjects
with that particular set of properties. You may justify it as an attempt to
cancel out some other bias, but it seems mathematically incontrovertible that
a negative bias exists with a set of numbers like that.

