
Justice Dept. To Take on Affirmative Action in College Admissions - nbmh
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/trump-affirmative-action-universities.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&pagewanted=all
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averagewall
I hope this isn't too political, but I wonder why "disadvantaged groups" are
defined by things like race rather than poor academic performance, poverty,
criminal history, mental health, not being interested, not desiring
prosperity, etc. There are so many reasons people don't get education and so
many ways to slice and dice the population into groups.

~~~
troupe
There are efforts aimed at people whose parents didn't go to college and they
don't have anything to do with race. But to answer your question, I think many
of the groups that ostensibly were founded to fight racism are more aimed at
getting better treatment for their particular race than actually doing away
with racism overall. As long as we are trying to treat some people better
because of their race, we are necessarily treating other people worse because
of their race.

If people want to fight against racism we'd be better off with groups that are
fighting against people being treated differently because of their race--
regardless of what race they happen to be. Imagine an organization that is
just as upset about Asians needing higher test scores to get into Ivy League
schools as they are about a black person being treated worse by the police
than someone with lighter skin in the same situation.

~~~
tptacek
_I think many of the groups that ostensibly were founded to fight racism are
more aimed at getting better treatment for their particular race_

Sure. For instance: the NAACP is actively working to improve conditions for
black people. The reason they do that is that as recently as my own birthday
(I'm 40), African Americans were actively excluded from American life; for
instance, they were redlined out of neighborhoods across Chicago and
concentrated into lower-income neighborhoods that were allocated poorer
services. And that's just what happened within my lifetime. Go back just a few
years earlier and black people couldn't reliably vote, and were beaten and
attacked with dogs for marching for their own rights.

It's not surprising that someone without African American heritage would look
at this and see only an effort to improve outcomes for black people.
Obviously, that's what it is. Also, though, what it is is necessary: a
corrective for multiple centuries of --- let's call it what it is, I guess:
institutionalized oppression.

~~~
troupe
> Also, though, what it is is necessary: a corrective for multiple centuries
> of --- let's call it what it is, I guess: institutionalized oppression.

It sounds you feel that the way to right the wrongs of racism against blacks
in the past is to practice racism against other races today. I know you aren't
alone in this view, but I disagree for the following reasons:

First of all, if we agree that racism is morally wrong, then I don't see how
practicing racism today can be considered a morally right solution to racism
in the past.

Second, even if we can morally justify penalizing the descendants of slave
owners in order to create benefit for the descendants of slaves, categorizing
people based on the color of their skin isn't a good way to do this. There are
white people whose lineage had nothing to do with owning slaves and there are
people whose African ancestors owned, captured and sold people into slavery.

~~~
tptacek
Basically what your argument appears to boil down to is: if white people
oppress black people for 2 centuries, leaving them in a state of enduring
poverty, it is unfair to correct that in any way, because any such correction
would be race-based and thus "racist".

~~~
troupe
I'm all for giving people opportunities to get out of poverty. I do not think
such opportunities should be limited to a particular race. Pell Grants are a
good example. The grants aren't racist in that everyone can apply. However,
the odds of a randomly selected Pell Grant student being black are twice as
high as what should be expected if Pell Grants are evenly distributed amoung
college students, but it isn't a race-based opportunity. You can give people
opportunities to get out of poverty without practicing racism.

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ithinkinstereo
"The Trump administration is preparing to redirect resources of the Justice
Department’s civil rights division toward investigating and suing universities
over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against
white applicants, according to a document obtained by The New York Times."

The applicants who are most discriminated against are Asian applicants. Asians
are basically the Jews of yesteryear when it comes to college admissions.

A common criticism is that Asian applicants "game" the system by getting good
grades, scoring well on standardized exams, and loading up on
extracurriculars. Compare that with sending your kids to an elite private
feeder high school. That's not gaming the system at all /s

Affirmative action in today's implementation is less about equal opportunity
and more about equal outcome. I don't even see it as a race thing as even the
POC applicants that benefit from these policies are almost always economically
advantaged. What we need is economic affirmative action. If you come from
property you should get second consideration. Infinitely harder getting good
grades while impoverished vs a 4.0 at the local 40k/year private high school
Ivy feeder.

~~~
lr4444lr
It may please you to know that there are some coordinated efforts on this
front, such as
[http://asianamericanforeducation.org/en/home/](http://asianamericanforeducation.org/en/home/)

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lr4444lr
Article takes too long to huff and puff and fluff before it gets to the heart
of the matter (and then veering off into tangents shortly thereafter):

 _The Supreme Court has ruled that the educational benefits that flow from
having a diverse student body can justify using race as one factor among many
in a “holistic” evaluation, while rejecting blunt racial quotas or race-based
point systems. But what that permits in actual practice by universities —
public ones as well as private ones that receive federal funding — is often
murky_.

It would have also behooved a general audience to be given some history:
[https://www.britannica.com/event/Bakke-
decision](https://www.britannica.com/event/Bakke-decision)

It's not an easy issue.

~~~
troupe
> It's not an easy issue.

It is impossible to provide easier admission to college for one race without
making it harder for other races. Treating people differently because they are
of a certain race is the definition of racism. That part is simple.

Now there are all kinds of arguments about whether letting in lower scoring
students of one race are actually beneficial to their race and there are lots
of people arguing that if someone was descended from slaves they should be
given preferences that exceed what they would get based on their own skill,
but it doesn't change the fact that affirmative action is a way to create a
type of racism. People can argue that _this_ type of racism is a good thing,
but it is still treating people differently based on their race.

~~~
provost
Assuming that a merit-based system is appropriate for admissions, can we
remove race & name (so race can't be derived) from the admission forms?

Then have a third party verify the student's ranking at how the student
performed via local peer group (could be a derivative of their neighborhood,
school, county, state, etc).

The local peer group rank calculation could influence the decision without
revealing any advantage/disadvantage (perhaps a statistician could discuss the
mechanics of how to make this most appropriate)

Example admission summary: Candidate XYZ graduated top 12% from their school,
top 10% from their county, and top 24% from their state. Candidate played no
sports, but participated in two academic societies, and accumulated 200 hours
of volunteer service. The candidate was employed for 3 years before applying
for university.

~~~
troupe
Sounds like a good way to make sure that admission decisions are not being
made based on race. Sadly there are a lot of people who are explicitly trying
to make sure that admission IS based on race.

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simonsarris
Oh dear, the NYTimes should have really gone with "anti-white and anti-asian
bias" in their title (as mentioned in the article) instead of just anti-white.
Otherwise they are somewhat priming their audience. And well, everyone who
will only read the title.

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edison85
I think making it about race just creates more division and is really really
dumb. Scores should be normalized by income, stability of household, then
holistic factors such as extraneous circumstances, health, etc. Race should
have no impact except in extraneous circumstances in rare cases

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Scores should be normalized by income, stability of household, then holistic
> factors such as extraneous circumstances, health, etc.

Why?

~~~
babesh
Opportunity is not even: a classmate prepared for classes by studying the
material in the summer. Some classmates took SAT classes. On the flip side, a
classmate had trouble studying because he had no quiet place to study at home.

In my college, at least differences in opportunity were somewhat recognized
resulting in release of all old tests instead of it being hoarded by HKN, a
quiet place to study for everyone, and financial aid so that a student
wouldn’t have to take basically a full time job to pay for school.

We need to ensure opportunity all along the educational path. The current US
system is blindingly obviously tilted.

~~~
thaumasiotes
And when I turn in a bad year of work because my two sisters-in-law and their
eight children have moved into my home, should my performance review reflect
that, or should it be normed for my circumstances?

~~~
babesh
I didn’t say anything about norming performance. I just said that there should
be equality of opportunity.

Edit: I also said that there isn’t equality of opportunity for education in
the US.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Normalizing test scores is norming performance. They're not different.

~~~
babesh
I didn’t say norming test scores either. I said norming opportunity. Quote
where I said that.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I quoted it in my first comment:

> Scores should be normalized by income, stability of household, then holistic
> factors such as extraneous circumstances, health, etc.

Did you want to refer to hypothetical admission scores? There used to be US
colleges that admitted on a points system (and some very low-prestige ones
still do), but they've stopped doing that since giving objective points based
on race was ruled illegal for public schools.

~~~
babesh
That wasn’t my post!!!!!! How many times do I have to repeat myself?

~~~
thaumasiotes
Fair enough.

You responded to the question "Why should scores be normed?"; I think it's
fair to interpret that as providing a reason, in your own mind, that scores
should be normed. If you don't want "because" read into your answer to "why?",
you need to bring up the fact that your comment is not intended as a response
to its parent.

> How many times do I have to repeat myself?

Not as many times as you seem to want to. Why post three separate replies, all
saying the same thing, within five minutes of each other?

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adamsea
Make higher education a national priority, and free for everyone, and this
issue would go away (though systemic racism and class-based oppression would
not). There are lots of benefits to having an educated populace.

~~~
csa
I humbly suggest the opposite.

1\. Stop making a college degree a requirement for relatively pedestrian jobs.

2\. Make education at any level widely available and very cheap or free to
those who want it and demonstrate the motivation to perform well in their
studies.

Most current education, even that at the high school level, is completely
wasted because the participants and their communities simply don't value it
(or worse, negatively value it). Note that this disdain for education is
largely race-blind.

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yuhong
I suggest getting rid of anti-discrimination laws completely for things like
college admissions. Affirmative action is probably not bad enough to be worth
the effort either.

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sp527
I'm sure they'll find a way to screw this up (because it's Trump), but
affirmative action does need reform. In its present state, it can
theoretically benefit affluent under-represented minorities at the expense of
impoverished Midwestern whites (and especially screws over disadvantaged Asian
applicants). Affirmative action should be predicated on family income/net
worth. As they presently stand, such programs are literally racist.

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scarface74
Can they also "take on" legacy admissions? Why should someone get a better
chance at going to college because their parents went to the same college?

[http://www.collegeconfidential.com/admit/legacy-
applicants-h...](http://www.collegeconfidential.com/admit/legacy-applicants-
have-admissions-advantage/)

