
What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions - tyleroconnell
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/heres-what-happens-when-you-ban-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions/
======
T2_t2
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
racial outcomes, getting people into education that improves their lifetime
outcomes.

It is weird to me that the US has made the inbetween goal the only goal, e.g.
rather than aiming to close racial gaps in outcomes like income, lifespan,
likelihood of being a victim of violence etc and promoting policies that can
be shown to achieve that, the US has made the goal to close it in opportunity,
assuming (hoping?) that will improve outcomes. 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. [http://spectator.org/articles/64739/little-understood-
engine...](http://spectator.org/articles/64739/little-understood-engine-
campus-unrest-racial-admissions-preferences) has a good summation of this
argument.

I don't think it is really enough to make every college have the right racial
mix, if what comes out the other end is a graduate pool that divides along not
racial lines, but course lines. If Asians and Whites dominate the degrees that
pay well, and Blacks and Hispanics the lesser degrees, we'll be left with a
population that is educated, sure, but likely in more debt without much
improvement in earnings potential. That hardly seems like a great outcome to
me, and seems the complete opposite of what the goal should be.

~~~
dragonwriter
> As a non-american, your obsession with race confuses me for one very
> specific reason: it is all about involvement, and never about achievement.

As an American, your comment confuses me for one very specific reason: it
doesn't at all reflect the actual dialogue about race I've experienced in this
country (from _all_ sides of the dialogue), in which very much is about
achievement.

> It is weird to me that the US has made the inbetween goal the only goal,
> e.g. rather than aiming to close racial gaps in outcomes like income,
> lifespan, likelihood of being a victim of violence etc and promoting
> policies that can be shown to achieve that, the US has made the goal to
> close it in opportunity, assuming (hoping?) that will improve outcomes.

Attending formal education at a higher level _is_ , itself, an outcome. Its
also an outcome that is _proven_ to improve other outcomes (both for the
person experience it, and in future generations, since not only is education
attainment measured in highest level attended shown to be a significant
influence on income and other outcomes for the person receiving it, its _also_
shown to be a strong factor in educational attainment of that person's
children.)

(And, of course, affirmative action and other diversity efforts in colleges
_aren 't_ the only mechanism, nor is college attendance the only goal, in
improving the condition of historically-disadvantaged groups in the US. So the
whole criticism of this being the only goal -- which seems to be based on
nothing other than the fact that its the focus of the article -- is entirely
misplaced.)

~~~
T2_t2
> Attending formal education at a higher level is, itself, an outcome.

See, there it is again - SHOWING UP. You didn't say "getting a degree" or
"graduating to a high paying job" or even "putting themselves in a position to
succeed in life" \- simply "attending". That's the problem - merely attending
isn't enough to address any historical disadvantage other than "spent at least
a day on a college campus as a student". In a list of historical
disadvantages, this is just above "has used a ski lift at least once" in
importance.

Step back, there are four important factors that make up the value of college:
1\. Attendance - how many people go to college. 2\. Graduation - where total
graduates, not a percentage, dictates success. Because 25% of 4 is worse than
10% of 100,000 in addressing disadvantage. 3\. Degree choice - the choice of
degree is almost as important as getting one. 4\. Post-graduation outcomes -
like career earnings, opportunities, stability etc.

Attendance does not address true disadvantage unless the other three also
improve - and specifically I think what society wants is more absolute numbers
of graduates of good degrees, who go on to great post-graduate success. That
seems, to me, a pretty uncontroversial summation of the issue.

The goal of uni quotas is to improve 1, so that 2, 3 and 4 improve. It isn't
to address historical rates of attendance. But I could be wrong, and if the
case is that the goal is simply getting more blacks and Hispanics to go to uni
for at least a day/semester, outcomes be damned, then I withdraw my argument.

I think that the idea of addressing disadvantage is a lofty, important and
praise worthy goal. And because it is such an important goal, policy choices
have to be effective, and rigorously shown to be effective, because failure
only fails the most disadvantaged more.

My fear is that a lot of people judge policy by INTENTIONS, not OUTCOMES, and
this leads to inbetween goals of attendance trumping deeper issues.

As an analogy, the push to change people from "I donated so I feel good" to
"my donations DID good" is a huge mental shift that effective altruists are
championing. If quoatas help improve life outcomes, they need to stay. If they
don't, if they put black and Hispanic students in positions to fail or almost
worse, to choose lesser paths, then they should be replaced by something
better.

Rather than quotas, what is needed is policy that puts black and hispanic
students into colleges where they get the largest number of the best degrees
for to improve their lives. Going to an Ivy league school to flunk out is
worse than going to a tier 2 school and graduating with honors.

I could be wrong about the inbetween goals being a focus, and there may be a
whole raft of research that shows these inbetween goals achieve positive
outcomes making them the metric to focus on. I'd honestly like to be proven
wrong, and know that these policies are on the right track, but it seems to me
that the circle of policy to outcomes is rarely fully closed, and with even 15
years of data, the outcomes achieved should be dictating policy, not something
more immediately measurable, but ultimately less important, like attendance
rates.

TL;DR good outcomes dictate the quality of a policy, not intentions.

~~~
dragonwriter
> See, there it is again - SHOWING UP.

Whatever you call it, it is in fact an outcome, and one with a demonstrated
influence on other outcomes of interest, so its one that it make sense to
target as a means of targeting those other outcomes.

> You didn't say "getting a degree" or "graduating to a high paying job" or
> even "putting themselves in a position to succeed in life"

Incorrect. I didn't mention the first. I did mention future income as
something that increased attendance of formal education is _demonstrated_ to
affect, even short of getting a degree.

I didn't mention the third because it is a fuzzy concept, of which the second
(which, again, I did mention) is a concrete operationalization.

> That's the problem - merely attending isn't enough to address any historical
> disadvantage other than "spent at least a day on a college campus as a
> student".

You assert this, but there is considerable evidence that further educational
attainment, even at the level between "graduated high school" and "some
college", has positive influence on other outcomes, including future income
and one's childrens' future outcomes, including their own level of educational
attainment.

> In a list of historical disadvantages, this is just above "has used a ski
> lift at least once" in importance.

I am aware of no evidence supporting that the difference between "some ski
lift use" and "no ski lift use", controlling for other known contributing
factors, has any significant positive contribution to one's future income or
other important outcome measures, either one's own or one's children. So, no,
I don't think this is correct, at all.

> Attendance does not address true disadvantage unless the other three also
> improve

While I'd want graduation and other factors that assume graduation to improve
as well, the actual evidence is inconsistent with the claim that attendance
without graduation has no effect on reducing disadvantage.

~~~
tomp
> Whatever you call it, it is in fact an outcome, and one with a demonstrated
> influence on other outcomes of interest

Maybe, but if you optimize only this metric (enrollment) while disregarding
all others (graduation), then you'll soon get ineffective results and the
"demonstrated" influence will no longer hold true - simply enroll minorities,
regardless of their knowledge or intelligence, and make sure most fail the
next year. Will you be satisfied? Will it still correlate with the desired
outcome?

------
yummyfajitas
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 from
now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the
interest approved today.” But that decision was only 12 years ago, and the
data suggests that we’re still a long way from having proportional minority
representation on large public college campuses._

Supposedly AA and similar programs were supposed to solve this problem, and
colleges have been engaging in them for many years. At what point can we
conclude that perhaps goals like getting a critical mass of minority students
will simply not be effective, and conclude that the real problem lies
elsewhere (and out of the control of college)?

~~~
taco_emoji
> 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.

~~~
yummyfajitas
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?

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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?

~~~
yummyfajitas
To check that such measures are race, ethnicity and gender blind, just run the
following unit test on your admission procedure:

    
    
        allow_admission( x.copy(race=a) ) == allow_admission(x.copy(race=b))

~~~
dragonwriter
That proves that your admission procedure does not consider race separately
from the measures (and could be extended to do the same for gender and
ethnicity, _mutatis mutandis_ ), it does not prove that the measures
themselves are race, ethnicity, and gender-blind measures of the concrete
merit which they are designed to assess.

If you want to make the case that they are meritocratic, it would be more
convincing with a concrete definition of the merit they are intended to
measure, evidence that they do measure that merit, and evidence that the
manner in which they do is not sensitive to race, ethnicity, and gender.

Assuming that there is an objective, measurable merit being addressed, these
are all empirically testable, and the claim can be assessed based on the
evidence for it; if there is no such merit being addressed, the claim that
they are meritocratic is empty.

------
bitwize
"A society which has for hundreds of years done something special against the
Negro must now do something special for the Negro." \--Martin Luther King, Jr.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
Whomever you are, you have had ancestors that enslaved and ancestors that were
enslaved.

~~~
drabiega
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.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
>they are there to undo some of the still present damage from those acts.

In which case income/wealth/SES are the better metrics, as they ensure those
who are damaged get help instead of relying on some other measure as a proxy
for damage.

~~~
scott_s
Income is easy to measure, but it does not capture wealth very well. Even if
we measure all total assets, there is still an enormous amount of unmeasured
wealth: can you go to a family member or friend for financial help in an
emergency? Even when we compare people with the same income and total assets,
that latter question tends to be different for white people versus black
people.

In America, black people suffered organized, systemic oppression for
generations which prevented them from accumulating wealth. That fact is not
well capture by just looking at someone's income, or even all of their assets.
That's also a question of all accumulated assets of all of their family and
close friends.

A recent Pro Publica piece covers this very well: "The Color of Debt: How
Collection Suits Squeeze Black Neighborhoods",
[https://www.propublica.org/article/debt-collection-
lawsuits-...](https://www.propublica.org/article/debt-collection-lawsuits-
squeeze-black-neighborhoods). I originally heard it on This American Life:
[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/573/s...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/573/status-update)

I also think Ta-Nehisi Coates' famous piece covers the history of systemic
financial oppression well, "The Case for Reparations",
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-
case...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-
reparations/361631/)

------
venning
Why is 538 selecting public _research_ universities? Is that the full,
technical name for typical US colleges, or is there a specific distinction
here that would imply they are excluding whatever "non-research" universities
are?

~~~
rmxt
I imagine the distinction that they are trying to make is between research
universities and liberal arts colleges (most of which are private, though
there are some public). The term "research university" has connotations of a
place with four-year undergraduate programs, with few or no two-year degree
options, and likely the presence of graduate or PhD programs on campus, as
well. In many ways, "research university" is the typical US college
experience, though there are still many people who only attend "community
colleges" or local public institutions where no research is performed and
there may only be two-year degree programs.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_the_United_States#Liberal_arts_colleges)

------
ThrustVectoring
IMO, the real problem with differences in educational opportunity is the
knock-on effects in hiring decisions. If there were many more jobs that could
not discriminate on college degree, then Affirmative Action doesn't matter
(since the net present value of a college degree goes down). As a nice side-
effect, a college education is often a positional good in hiring decisions, so
we're often better off as a whole if we stop consuming it. (That is, instead
of looking at 5 college graduates for a firefighting job, we look at 5 non-
graduates, and we get to save 20 person-years of education costs)

------
cygnus_a
In other words, not using racial preferences in admissions decisions lets the
black college enrollment trends continue; though, as the article doesn't point
out, 'not using mandated racial preferences (banning aff. action)' is not the
_cause_ of disproportionate representation.

I think the argument against affirmative action is more, morally speaking,
addressing the question, "should we use racial preference to fight racial
preference?".

~~~
MisterBastahrd
There's no moral question here. We have a disadvantaged group of people who
are being actively discriminated against by a majority group. The easiest way
as a society to make sure that we treat the group fairly is by creating a
system that ensures that they are being represented in the university
population. It's good for them, it's good for their classmates, it's good for
the university, and it serves long-term goals by putting more educated people
in their demographic.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Why does the majority discriminate against themselves and in favor of other
minorities (Asians, Jews)?

~~~
MisterBastahrd
Because innovation happens faster when there are more perspectives in the mix,
and communities improve faster when there are more successful people in them.

------
Steko
I'd be interested in seeing the underlying data because there's a lot of noise
you introduce by just equally weighing all colleges as data pts and then
teasing out a weak trend. You could boil down the entire ban and non-ban
populations to a single number for each group which would probably tell you
more than these graphs do. Better yet do it over time.

------
kelukelugames
I looked at the graphs earlier and couldn't understand them. Can a stats
wizard please help me understand how significant the difference between ban
and no-ban are?

------
gadders
I'd like to see research on whether banning affirmative action benefits Asian
students, who are typically discriminated against.

~~~
finance-geek
Not sure what sort of research you want to see, but the Michigan case opened
up the books on who gets the raw deal. Summary here:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2014/04/23/hidden-b...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2014/04/23/hidden-
bystanders-in-michigans-affirmative-action-case-asian-americans/)

------
Someone1234
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?

Honestly I think the US has the right idea, but has the wrong implementation.

People who are from disadvantaged households SHOULD be given a leg up. They
don't get the expensive tutors, and their parents might have to work longer
hours, they cannot afford that trip to Europe the rich kid wrote their essay
about, and their home life could be a lot more disruptive.

And the nice "perk" of discriminating based on household income and or poverty
is: A lot of minorities will benefit because they're already in that group.

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!

So I would like to see affirmative action based on race scrapped. Base it on
income. It will still largely benefit minority applicants, but we won't have
to answer awkward questions like "how white is too white to be a minority?"

~~~
ZeroGravitas
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.

~~~
Someone1234
> 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.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Is it illegal for Asian Americans to be discriminated against when applying to
top colleges, because it seems to be widely accepted that it happens all the
time? And even if the form didn't explicitly say "Chinese-American" on it, I'm
guessing the people who scrutinize every detail of their academic and personal
development for admissions purposes can find some clues, like their name, to
give them a chance to continue with their discrimination.

------
omonra
Seems like a pretty ludicrous analysis. Can be summed up as 'If you ban
quotas, the people who get in because of quotas will not be as represented'.
Uhh - duh? Will they have another post 'What happens when heavy objects are
thrown up in the air - do they fall to the ground or float away?'

There is actually a much more interesting analysis of effects of AA on its
recipients I read recently here: [http://spectator.org/articles/64739/little-
understood-engine...](http://spectator.org/articles/64739/little-understood-
engine-campus-unrest-racial-admissions-preferences)

~~~
Lawtonfogle
I think the argument was 'if you ban quotas based on race in favor of other
measure which should still help increase diversity, you don't get as good an
effect as just quotas'.

That it is lower shouldn't be surprising, but how much lower or higher than
the expected lower might be surprising.

~~~
gareim
>which should still help increase diversity

I think quotas by income would be a much more interesting experience for
college students than quotas by race.

~~~
bduerst
You would still have people complaining that it's not entirely merit based.

The point is that socioeconomic status (correlated with race and family
income) has already impacted someone by the time they reach college
application age. The idea behind quotas in public institutions is that it
gives opportunity to those who did not have them previously.

A better analysis would be based on graduate performance, rather than
admission rates, for demonstrating success.

