
Asians need to score 140 points higher? - 737min
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2020/06/23/letter-asians-need-to-score-140-points-higher-than-white-applicants/
======
rmk
The alarming aspect of this bill is that it extends to government contracts as
well. Reading the wikipedia article for this at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Assembly_Constituti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Assembly_Constitutional_Amendment_No._5),
I see that one of the primary motivations is to give women and minority-owned
businesses 'their fair share'. If we apportion everything according to race
and sex in this manner, where do we stop? It is reasonable to have affirmative
action to help advance young children (integration in schools, for example),
but is affirmative action for college-goers and government contracts
appropriate?

~~~
uberman
Some people will feel strongly that the answer is yes. Some people will feel
strongly that the answer is no. While I have an opinion, it seems easy to
construct arguments both for an against.

------
uberman
The article essentially comes down to this quote:

" _I am appalled that a student with Chinese heritage must climb a 450-point
hill in order to compete against someone who is Black for a seat at UC
Berkeley._ "

Distilling the issue to either: you support "affirmative action" or you don't.

The author of the article clearly does not. They also coincidentally identify
as a "Political Activist" associated with a party not traditionally supportive
of "affirmative action".

I'm not sure this is the right forum to have a debate on a political issue
like this.

Potentially relevant is that the UC system is going to experiment with
dropping standardized testing starting next year.

~~~
Ghjklov
I don't know, arbitrarily making it more difficult for a certain group of
people to compete against others based on their race smells kind of like
racism to me. Is that even debatable? Where are the pitchforks? I don't think
that's politics. It's racism/discrimination right in front of us. Do Asian
lives matter?

~~~
uberman
_arbitrarily making it more difficult for a certain group of people to compete
against others based on their race smells kind of like racism to me_

Without taking sides, this is also the exact argument that someone in favor of
affirmative action would make.

It is interesting that people can come to the table with essentially the same
argument, but diametrically opposed views.

