Harvard Hit With Racial Bias Complaint 529
An anonymous reader writes: A coalition of 64 organizations filed a complaint against Harvard on Friday alleging the university discriminates against Asian-American applicants hoping to attend classes there. "Many studies have indicated that Harvard University has been engaged in systemic and continuous discrimination against Asian-Americans during its very subjective 'Holistic' college admissions process." One such study shows Asian-Americans had to score an average of 140 points higher than white students on their SAT test to have an equal chance of getting in. The complaint seeks a federal investigation and demands Harvard "immediately cease and desist from using stereotypes, racial biases and other discriminatory means in evaluating Asian-American applicants."
Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't racial discrimination the definition of affirmative action? I'm not sure what makes them think they have any actionable complaints against the university.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
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Affirmative Action's original intent seeks to cease historical racism and racists/sexists from claiming that people of color or sex cannot attend a legal institution. People in power misinterpret that to mean that its reverse racism when the policies put in place to handle the compliance of the declaration are the culprit, not the declaration of Affirmative Action itself.
In any case, money talks. Those who are richer are most likely to get into Ivy league schools regardless of affirmative action.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Affirmative Action's original intent seeks to cease historical racism and racists/sexists from claiming that people of color or sex cannot attend a legal institution
Fuck you!
I am an Asian American and I will tell you to stuff that goddamn 'historical racist/sexist' excuse back where the sun never shines
I never need any affirmative action to get to where I am
I never applied for any aid, and never receive any either
And in academic study I never get - and never even thought of getting - any break just because I am a "minority"
I do not believe in the bullshit that because of some 'historical event' I am in any way 'disadvantaged'
And I will say the same "Fuck You!" to those who say that "Affirmative Action" is still needed
--- --- ---
That said, regarding the TFA, I do not know why they complaint about the 140 point above the White thing when the fact is that the Hispanic and the Blacks are being enrolled into ivy league colleges (and all other colleges as well) with really, and I mean, unbelievably low scores!
What they are doing is that they are forcing the talented individuals to share the same class with idiots, they are actually discriminating against those with genuine talents
I dunno man ... This AA thing is a fucked up thing to begin with and it's 2015 and we still getting stuck with this fucked up thing
When will America grow up?
In Japan, in Korea, in China they do not have AA --- and their economies are growing leaps and bounds and everybody can attest to their technological achievements
America should get rid of this fucked up AA thing, or else we can never catch up to those living in East Asia
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
In Japan, in Korea, in China they do not have AA --- and their economies are growing leaps and bounds and everybody can attest to their technological achievements
In Japan? Economy growing leaps and bounds? Where have you been for the last 20 years?
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
In Japan, in Korea, in China they do not have AA --- and their economies are growing leaps and bounds and everybody can attest to their technological achievements
Wait, you mean in a country with low ethnic diversity, there's no need for special measures to prevent ethnicity-based discrimination?!
Re: (Score:3)
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Yea, well you were not kept as slaves, killed for learning to read, beaten with inch and a quarter thick poles (often to death). Your families were not sold separately to different owners and broken up. You were not systematically excluded from education, jobs, housing, medical care for generations and eveb lynched for generations.
Never heard of coolie labor, have you. In much of the Americas, it was literal slavery, and in the US, it was slavery in all but name. Until 1879, where it was recognized as slavery even in name, in the constitution of the State of California.
Asiatic coolieism is a form of human slavery, and is forever prohibited in this State, and all contracts for coolie labour shall be void.
Chinese immigration to the US up to that time was nominally voluntary. And you can believe as much of that as you like. Once they got here, they were enslaved with contracts of indenture that were rigged to be impossible to pay off because they were forced to buy a
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... it still involved hundreds of thousands of enslaved people. Many, many third and fourth generation Chinese-Americans can claim a slave ancestor.
They don't. And they don't dwell on it.
Maybe because Asians are smarter than Black people? (that's a question not a statement)
There has to be something to it right? Why are black people generally good at running, and Asians generally good at rote learning? Why are strong men and weight-lifters generally East European? It's nice to pretend racism doesn't exist, but nature makes it awfully hard to believe it.
Also note, I believe everyone should be given equal opportunity, but that is not the same as us all being equal.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
You are TOTALLY right. Black people in America were equal the SECOND slavery was repealed. Great insight.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
The closest you've gotten to being beaten nearly to death is corporal punishment delivered by your elders or in gang initiation or at the hands of police in commission of a crime.
Yep, the polive never violently assult innocent people for shits ang giggles then lie about the dashcams. Good job thre's no evidence of that anywhere on the internet.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you were african american:
You have not been kept as a slave, nor have your parent or grandparent.
I see that you conveniently only used the parent and grandparent for the slave point and not the others.
His parents and grandparents have systematically been excluded from jobs and housing, they have also experienced a time when they weren't allowed to vote because of their skin color.
Now, if we ignore skin color for a little while we have plenty of studies that show how accessible academic life is for children of low income families.
Social liquidity is very low in the U.S. so if you are born poor, hard work will not be enough to bring you out of it, you also need luck.
If we now go back to consider his skin color we see that because of the way his parents, grandparents and great grandparents have been discriminated against it is very likely that his opportunities to actually break out from the lower income class have been extremely limited.
You don't need affirmative action to solve this, what we need is a system that isn't stacked against people based on what family they were born into.
In general society would benefit a lot from funding all or part of everyones education with taxes. Even if you don't intend to study more yourself you benefit from people around you getter more educated.
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I'm so tired of well off people who think it is their god damn birth right to have a good education and opportunities, while at the same time people who are born poor in a ghetto have a birth right to poverty. "It's their fault they don't have better jobs and education. It's their choice to fail at school and not overcome their obstacles. I've had just as many challenges as they have, why should they get a free pass? There is no system that keeps them from rising to the top
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:4, Insightful)
My family immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s with only $1000 and the clothes in our suitcases (our (Asian) home country feared mass emigration, and limited how much money you could take with you to the equivalent of about $500 per adult). For years we lived in low-income housing, bought staples from the local Salvation Army, and rummaged other people's garage sales trying to find bargains. We were basically lower class, except we had no preconceptions about what we were "supposed" to do. Nobody telling us like you are that "the system" was stacked against us so it wasn't worth trying to fight it. We fought tooth and nail to better our lives.
Today we're in the lower fringes of the upper class. Most of my extended family immigrated shortly after, and most of them have "made it" into comfortable middle-class lives. A few are upper-class (including one who owns a multimillion dollar cell phone store chain), and one is still stuck in low-income housing. So we are not an outlier. This is what you can really do in this country if you don't have any preconceptions about breaking out of the lower class, and really try to succeed.
If you have the willpower and the ability, you can succeed in this country regardless of what circumstances you were born into. Hard work can in fact bring you out of poverty. If you believe it when others tell you otherwise, you've already given up on the game of life. You cannot succeed if you don't try, and telling people it's not worth trying is consigning them to their current state for the rest of their lives.
The U.S. already spends more on education per student [cbsnews.com] than any other country. The problem isn't funding for education.
IMHO the problem is a lack of desire to take advantage of that education to better yourself and your circumstances. My parents were flabbergasted at the quality of education that was being provided "for free" by the government here, and made sure my sister and I always kept up with our schoolwork. It was an opportunity they never had when they were kids (unless you count forced indoctrination into Imperial Japanese philosophy that all other Asians were put on Earth serve them). And they made damn sure we took full advantage of it. That's the main difference I saw between myself and the other students. I never took public education for granted because my parents emphasized how fortunate I was to even have it.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
The closest you've gotten to being beaten nearly to death is corporal punishment delivered by your elders or in gang initiation or at the hands of police in commission of a crime.
Yeah, any crime. Guess what? The police are not supposed to be there to mete out punishment. That's not their fucking job. Did you get a free brown shirt and jack boots with that comment?
Your family has not been broken up and sold off, though statistics show that african american households have far greater tendency to be single parent homes, that has NOTHING to do with said parent being sold off.
For-profit prisons exist and blacks are overwhelmingly more likely to be convicted, not just charged. So yes, that is precisely what is happening to black families.
You haven't been systematically excluded from jobs, housing or medical care.
Yes, yes they have, and the evidence is overwhelming.
And, at some point, you KNOW that it's going to have to go away, right? Or are we still going to have to deal with it 100+ years from now, when nobody in living memory even alive at the same time as anyone who suffered through racial segregation, let alone slavery. At some point, the hand-out is going to stop.
When did it start? Blacks are still disadvantaged, and adequate reparations for slavery (those which would place them on an equal footing) have never been made. This isn't about they should get something because it's fair, this is about they should be brought up to equal footing because it's fair. If giving them something is the way to do that, education perhaps, then that's what should happen. We're talking about people who were literally bred to an economic purpose, and you want to pretend like that just didn't happen (it did) or like we've moved past it (we haven't) when that won't help anything.
If our government had made good on the promise of forty acres and a mule, which frankly is far less than adequate reparations for being born into slavery, then we probably wouldn't have to have this conversation now. Today, it will cost our society considerably more than that to make good. Because our forebears failed to take action to correct this situation, we have to do it. It's not just solving itself.
Of course, it's tempting to absolve yourself of responsibility because it was your ancestors who created this situation, not you, but the truth is that it doesn't matter who created the situation. We shouldn't solve this problem out of guilt. We should solve this problem because we want to solve this problem, because we want to make the world more fair. We can make excuses about life not being fair all day, but that won't absolve us of our share of responsibility for why we can't have nice things. Like freedom.
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Sorry bub. There's no such thing as "equal footing".
It's a nice concept. But that's all it is.
What you're asking for isn't EQUAL treatment. It's SPECIAL treatment.
This is victim mentality and places you at greater disadvantage than the actual oppression did to your ancestors.
And your mindset would have us eternally offering "reparations" because there's no way you can ever be "equal" in your own mindset.
Nowadays, how much of the African American community's problems are from remnants of oppression and ho
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
If slashdot had any character then they would delete his/her account.
Shit no. It's awesome when you have a record of what someone thinks. My record may show I'm wrong sometimes but by shit it'll show me on the side of fairness and justice. But it's awesome when you can scroll through someone's history and see they're a racist ass. It lets you know what to expect.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Racism tests (Score:3)
If only there was some sort of test that people could take to unearth their biases...
Oh, here are some! https://implicit.harvard.edu/i... [harvard.edu]
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That's like arguing against negative numbers. Positive number plus negative number of the same magnitude is zero. It doesn't come out positive just because you dislike the idea.
Yes, that's why all discrimination is discrimination, and there's no such thing as reverse discrimination. He couldn't have said it better himself, and your support for his argument is appreciated.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on what you mean by qualified.
If you're looking for the kid whose actual talent level is top 1%, then a valedictorian from a school with few AP classes, whose SAT score is low because he had to spend his off-hours working at his dad's gas station is a really good bet. Especially if he got a 95th percentile on the test. You know he didn't spend 20 hours a week with an SAT coach. He's probably actually a lot better then 95th percentile.
OTOH a rich tiger daughter, whose mother insisted she take 8 AP classes, was not allowed to do any extracurricular activities that don't add mondo points to the student-selection algorithm (ie: classical violin rather then rock guitar), and got 96th percentile. You know she did spend 20 hours a week with an SAT coach. Let's just say she's probably not gonna do better then 96th percentile in real life.
But any criteria solely for accepting applicants based on points, GPA, test scores, etc. is gonna result in her getting in 100% of the time.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Interesting)
My sister worked in Ivy undergrad admissions. She actually tells a story of how an Asian father called her asking WHY they let his son in - his grades and test scores weren't perfect. Her answer was- because he actually played sports, had hobbies, and joined clubs that weren't just resume builders... the kid was interesting.
They actually had a name for this: "atypical asian"
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They have her essay. They have the rest of her application, which will include her after-school activities. They know the name and reputation of her High School. Most High Schools with 8 AP classes are not the kind of place where mom allows you to work after-school to make money. In quite a few cases they will have spoken with the counselor at that High School. I went to a less selective school, and they actually sent an admissions officer to my High School to interview kids in person. So they don't know 10
Reverse discrimination? (Score:3, Insightful)
Like when peaceful white protesters have had dogs and fire hoses set on them by all black police departments? When white families were denied access to housing in black neighborhoods? When job applicants were looked over simply because they had a white sounding name? When white kids were more likely to be suspended or expelled from school for the same offenses as black kids? When black felons were more likely to get a job offer than a white person with a clean record? How about when whites were directed tow
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Though some people feel that way. Affirmative action is what t says it is; instead of passively assuming that civil rights makes people equal overnight, there needed to be an active response to try and make things equal. Ie, most colleges refused historically to enroll black students, and black schools were historically underfunded and so did not prepare students well for college, then it's completely naive to say "you're all equal now, good luck with that!" and assume things will sort themselves out.
Of course those who do not believe that institutional racism exists don't believe it though.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
TL;DR: Affirmative Action tries to attain Equal Outcomes by eradicating Equal Opportunity.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:4, Insightful)
Better TL;DR: Affirmative Action tries to attain lifelong Equal Opportunity by eradicating short-term Equal Opportunity.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Better TL;DR: Affirmative Action tries to attain lifelong Equal Opportunity by eradicating short-term Equal Opportunity.
Affirmative action has been going on for over 50 years years and has no end in sight. Your being disingenuous if you call that short term. Indeed, any program that has had >50 years to achieve the goal and is still hopelessly falling short should be dropped and a search started for a more effective replacement.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps removing race and simply addressing this issue as a social economic one would be a better way to help correct these past imbalances.
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No. Affirmative action would be things like making an effort to attract more students from underrepresented groups, e.g. by doing recruitment drives at majority black schools.
Ultimately, admission is still done purely on merit. Let's be absolutely clear about that. Some extra money might be offered to help disadvantaged students get better grades, but ultimately they still have to pass the same bar as everyone else and compete on an equal footing during the admissions process.
If that isn't the case, it isn'
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:4, Interesting)
And that has what to do with discrimination against Asian Americans?
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Affirmative action is what t says it is; instead of passively assuming that civil rights makes people equal overnight, there needed to be an active response to try and make things equal.
Meanwhile, those of us who came of age having nothing whatsoever to do with slavery or Jim Crow are disadvantaged because of the crimes of yesteryear. Corruption of blood is antithetical to American values. So is ignoring both the letter and spirit of the Equal Protection Clause. The only people who advocate in favor of Affirmative Action are those that believe the "original sin" is being born with a low melanin count.
By the by, since TFA is about Asian-Americans, perhaps you'd care to explain why that group has done so well for itself? They were rounded up and put into camps [wikipedia.org] within recent memory, to say nothing of the racially biased immigration laws of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, or the more subtle racism directed towards their group even into modern times.
Here's another inconvenient truth for you: The biggest predictor of success in life isn't how much money your family has or what your melanin count is. It's whether or not you come from a two parent household. That Tea Party zealot known as Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed this out decades ago but was completely ignored by the policymakers of the day. Government can't compel people to stay in relationships (nor should it try) but it could provide mechanisms to remove some of the stresses of American society on families. We could start with a decent family leave system (something half as good as the Nordic Countries and/or Canada) that would actually enable both parents to spend time in the household without worrying about destroying their career prospects.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:4, Interesting)
Affirmative action is what t says it is; instead of passively assuming that civil rights makes people equal overnight, there needed to be an active response to try and make things equal.
Meanwhile, those of us who came of age having nothing whatsoever to do with slavery or Jim Crow are disadvantaged because of the crimes of yesteryear. Corruption of blood is antithetical to American values. So is ignoring both the letter and spirit of the Equal Protection Clause. The only people who advocate in favor of Affirmative Action are those that believe the "original sin" is being born with a low melanin count.
Don't give a shit about the melanin count. It's actually illegal to give a shit about melanin count in a quantifiable sense.
Do give a shit that folks like Mitt Romney can arrange it so their kids maximize their SAT scores and GPAs, while using their superior knowledge of the college admissions process to ensure that when their kid spends a couple months obsessed with silly-ass hobby it's something that colleges give points for (ie: computer programming) rather then something they consider more suited to the hoi polloi (ie: learning to be a car mechanic).
Most Affirmative Action programs that have survived the court system look at the "whole student," so that a kid from a school system that has no AP classes doesn't get penalized for not having those classes, particularly compared to the kid whose Mom got them above 4.0 by refusing to let little Timmy take anything but the 5 AP classes offered his senior year. They look at the numbers, but they are allowed to consider the fact that, yes, little Timmy has GPA and test scores in the top 4%, but compared to his actual peers at $50k a year Prep Schools he's more like 12th percentile. OTOH Billy Bob from West Virginia was top in his class, spent time doing things that look shitty on a college resume (like hunting and car races), and he still got a test score in the top 5%.
Billy Bob could be taught to be the smartest man in the country. Timmy from Prep School is gonna be lucky if he turns into Dubya.
By the by, since TFA is about Asian-Americans, perhaps you'd care to explain why that group has done so well for itself? They were rounded up and put into camps [wikipedia.org] within recent memory, to say nothing of the racially biased immigration laws of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, or the more subtle racism directed towards their group even into modern times.
Here's another inconvenient truth for you: The biggest predictor of success in life isn't how much money your family has or what your melanin count is. It's whether or not you come from a two parent household. That Tea Party zealot known as Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed this out decades ago but was completely ignored by the policymakers of the day. Government can't compel people to stay in relationships (nor should it try) but it could provide mechanisms to remove some of the stresses of American society on families.
The problem with that is that nobody wants to marry a working class guy with a part-time gig in retail, but nobody wants to give working-class guys without a very nice degree and some good networking skills any other type of job.
If they try to get ahead by getting that college education, some Tiger Mother will notice their mother didn't make their applications 100% perfect, and sue the school for racial discrimination because the white/asian-types who have perfect apps are racially different then the black-Latin-white types who make up the working class.
Note that the obvious solution (having Harvard accept lots more kids) is untenable because part of the USNews college ranking formula is how many kids they say no to.
We could start with a decent family leave system (something half as good as the Nordic Countries and/or Canada) that would actually enable both parents
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We could start with a decent family leave system (something half as good as the Nordic Countries and/or Canada)
Funny story - I'm a Canadian working for the Canadian office of a company that's (like most North American wide companies) predominately based in the US. The SHOCK when the US side of my team learned how much time off we get for maternity/paternity leave was amusing, followed by the scramble when they had to back-fill the role.
(For those who are unaware, Canada gives 6 months leave to each the mot
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If you really think Romney's kids would be refused entry into the college of their choice based on grades, you really don't understand anything about this country. Money, money, money. If you've got it, nothing else matters.
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It's true. We're still dealing with consequences of stuff that happened a couple hundred years ago. But that doesn't mean we ignore it. Pushing problems down the road doesn't get rid of problems.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it means that you were advantaged by the "crimes of yesteryear", and now it's time to share some of that advantage.
Privilege is a really hard concept for people to grasp. It's not you, Shakrai, it's human nature. Everybody likes to believe that they got where they are through natural talent and hard work, when in fact people with privilege start the inning on second base. It's like playing a video game on the easiest setting. At some point, you start to think that you're just really good at the game. I'm not saying that you have a special privilege, or did not have challenges in life, only that certain people are part of a privileged class.
No society is without privileged classes. It might be something as trivial as those with blond hair and blue eyes. There are those who believe that there is benefit to flipping that privilege, based on a desired outcome. Also, remember that Harvard is a private institution.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people simply don't understand the concept of privilige and much of that is wilful. There's always a lot of noise about how we're nerds and we're not priviliged because nerds have it hard.
I would like to assure those people that if you are a female gay black transgender nerd it would have been even harder.
Privilige is a fairly statistical thing. It doesn't mean that you personally (e.g. a white male) muse necessarily do better than every member of some less priviliged group. It is also additive, and different privliges have different scales. It ALSO doesn't mean that you (the white male) are evil. It doesn't actually reflect on the members of a more priviliged class at all.
For example:
The police and justice system are institutionally racist. This makes being white a priviliged class because as a black person you're much more likely to have a less easy life by virtue of being accused of more crimes and more likely to be found guilty and then given a harsher sensence than a white person would be given.
Rich people have privilige for incredibly obvious reasons.
Cis people are priviliged compared to trans because apparently a lot of people really hate transgendered people and they're much more likely to be discriminated agains, beaten and have their complants ignored by the police.
And the list goes on.
Having various priviliges doesn't make succes guaranteed, nor does not having them guarantee failure. It does make it respectively easier or harder. It does not make a straight white cis guy evil for working his arse off to succeed. But one really ought to be aware that there are things that affect other people which make it harder. Imagine for example if you were trying to work your arse off to succeed only to be hassled by the police on the way to a job interview, or then be turned down because someone thinks you might stop to have babies at some indeterminate point in the future.
That would really suck.
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Every time some piece of shit social justice warrior starts talking about privilege and playing games on easy mode I want to punch a black homosexual transgender otherkin identifying midget in the fucking throat.
Internet bravery is particularly piquant when expressed by someone without the moral fortitude to log into Slashdot.
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This is, without doubt, the stupidest thing I've ever read on this website regarding anonymous posters. I mean, jesus tittyfucking christ!
Only if you're staggeringly stupid. My point was that it would have taken only the barest vestiges of courage to log in and risk that someone might know who the shit-talker is, and they haven't even got that.
People who talk shit and throw insults as ACs are the most cowardly of the cowards.
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Having unprotected sex with no birth control does not imply there was a relationship to begin with. It is the culture or something that person just wants to do and decided to do
Education is also a heavy factor here. Having early and effective education with a focus on birth control - and making these available - is a lot more effective than sweeping this under the rug and teaching abstinence.
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If the thesis is that refusing to enroll qualified black applicants in college has unfairly sabotaged their ability to compete, what is the anticipated outcome of refusing to enroll qualified Asian students?
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They go to Yale or Princeton?
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I prefer instead to create 'bridge schools,' which give students the skills they need to succeed in college. It might be even better to focus on the problem of child poverty.
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Do you mean like these poor, poor underfunded schools?
http://articles.baltimoresun.c... [baltimoresun.com]
Stop making excuses. Shit people are shit and no amount of money thrown at them will change that.
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Isn't racial discrimination the definition of affirmative action?
Affirmative action is believed by many to be justified to make up for past discrimination, such as by whites against African Americans. But in the past, Asian Americans never systematically discriminated against whites (in fact, the opposite was true), so there is no justification for affirmative action against Asian Americans, in favor of whites.
Re: Affirmative Action (Score:4, Insightful)
Jewish = religious tradition and linguistic, cultural, and historical heritage
Polish = linguistic, cultural, and historical heritage
Native American = too vague without tribe
Now let's look at black folks in general in the US. Religion? Tossed aside and forced to convert to Christianity. Some small vestiges eake by in voodoo. Language before slavery? Tossed aside and forcibly forgotten while simultaneously forbidding English education and literacy. Cultural memory before slavery? Eradicated. History before slavery. Erased.
We say "African American" because you have a huge swath of people that have no idea what country their ancestors came from, no idea what tribe, no idea the heritage, no idea the lineage, no idea the cultural connections...
Imagine forcing people to forget their families were Irish or Polish or Russian or French. Imagine no idea they came from Christian or Jewish communities. And all records from the time destroyed so that you have no hope of ever finding out. Ever. Your ancestral history? Gone. Poof.
No tell me again how you don't see any difference.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't racial discrimination the definition of affirmative action? I'm not sure what makes them think they have any actionable complaints against the university.
Not all sorts of affirmative action are legal. For example, the supreme court has ruled that quota systems are not legal [wikipedia.org], but some types, affirmative action are legal [wikipedia.org]. It's not entirely clear from the court's perspective what type of affirmative action is legal, which is why they probably have a case.
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Some people d
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Why such racial diversity contributes to academia is left as an exercise for the reader. It seems to me to be a claim that different races think differently. Perhaps Harvard considers itself a social, and not an academic, institution.
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Harvard Yard (Score:2, Funny)
That last sentence... (Score:5, Insightful)
OR... we could just evaluate students on their merits, rather than their skin color. Remove the race/ethnicity indicators from the application forms altogether and don't make them a factor during interviews.
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Suit yourself, it'll be 95% Asian / 4.9% Caucasian in no time. Then it'll be the Whites crying discrimination.
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Caltech is only 40% Asian so it probably won't be that good.
Re:That last sentence... (Score:5, Informative)
Remove the race/ethnicity indicators from the application forms altogether and don't make them a factor during interviews.
Fine with me. But people should be aware of what that will lead to. Caltech already does this. Their admission process completely ignores race. The result is that their student body is 60% Asian and less than 1% black, in a state were Asians and blacks make up a similar portion of the population.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much my entire High School class got into U of Michigan under an older version of Affirmative Action that allowed for explicit racial preferences. You actually got points for being black, or being a white kid who went to a mostly black school (which nobody talks about, because of course I -- white boy Nick Benjamin -- got points to go to the University of Michigan, but black chicks named 'Toya clearly had no moral right to such a thing). We did fine. The black kids actually did better then the white
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Pretty much never seen an entire city or neighborhood redlined into crappy schools unless they were black.
Where exactly are the underperforming schools where Asians make up 50 % of the population ?
Oh, they don't exist .
Hanoi?
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Where exactly are the underperforming schools where Asians make up 50 % of the population ?
Hanoi?
No. Vietnam scores higher than America on the standard PISA test [worldbank.org]. Their schools may be bamboo shacks with dirt floors, but they are not underperforming.
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It's a tradeoff. It's not "good for them" to get enough "exposure" to other races. But on the other hand, it's pretty good for them all by itself that they went to Caltech. If I had to trade off between those two things, I know I'd pick going to Caltech (or to Harvard) and I'm pretty sure you would too.
Claiming that it's good for someone to discriminate against them would never be acceptable in any other context.
Re:That last sentence... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sound fair to me. Only idiots and racists care about race.
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Solution: institute class based affirmative action. Affirmative action was instituted in an age after terrible racial discrimination. I disagree with it happening now, but it was a good idea then. How do you help the unfairly disadvantaged without race based policies? Base it on something that makes clear and profound differences in one's opportunities.
Though considering that universities like Harvard actually have legacy policies (aka affirmative action for the rich) I don't expect this anytime soon. P
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That's actually the point of the "holistic" policies they're suing to over-turn.
The problem is that the race of people who a) really know how to game the system to get the best college application possible and b) actually do so is overwhelmingly Asian. Plenty of white people know how, but the Asian 5-6% really includes a lot of people who treat their kid's High School career like a min/maxed D&D character. Except they don't let the kid play D&D because that doesn't look good on a college application
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Admission to Harvard isn't a prize or reward for having good test scores and a high GPA.
There's inherent value - both to the institution itself and to the educational community - in an institution of higher education having a student body that is highly diverse in many dimensions. Those dimensions include things like ethnicity, economic background, activism, political beliefs, religion, etc. Harvard has so many incredibly well-qualified applicants that it can afford to curate its student body as it sees fit
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The thing you have to worry about in those cases is that you get a University where every single fucking kid is part of the upper middle class. Why?
Because they're the people who enter 9th grade thinking about how everything the kid does will look on a college application. They're the people who find out that the only way to get all the AP classes at this particular High School is take this particular Honors Course Freshman year, and use the prerequisite to take two more Sophomore year, which qualify for th
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It starts way before that. I live on a block where parents stress over the pre-school their kids get into.
I pity the kids. Shuttled from one activity to the other when they look like they'd rather be sitting in the dirt in the backyard or just playing with some toys. And god forbid their development deviates 5% from the norm, because that's when they start them on meds.
I can't say
Two sided coin (Score:2)
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HOWEVER, it's a private school, they can accept who ever they want to. If the government was flipping the bill for post secondary education...
One problem with that is Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and just about every other educational institution is receiving federal money so the government is footing at least part of the bill. It may not be direct but they are getting it: government backed student loans, PELL grants, research grants and let's not forget to mention tax breaks (like NO property tax) for non-profit educational institutions in many jurisdictions. You want government money and perks (tax exemptions)? You play by the government's rules
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Private businesses can decide who do they do business with, but there's a few things they're not allowed to discriminate against, such as gender and races. Even if they weren't taking government funds (which they are), they wouldn't be able to.
Your local convenience store cannot refuse to sell to an asian.
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"Private businesses can decide who do they do business with, but there's a few things they're not allowed to discriminate against, such as gender and races."
This is patently false. Age discrimination happens ALL THE TIME, OVERTLY EXPRESSED even, but it's A-okay because it doesn't fucking count unless you're over the age of 40 by Federal law.
Don't believe me? Jobrivet is one of those companies. I had a profile on the site for job applications wiped because I am over the age of 26.
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I'm 100% against using race or gender as a first pass system for sorting HOWEVER, it's a private school, they can accept who ever they want to. If the government was flipping the bill for post secondary education then the story would be different but the second you are funded by the students, then you can the decision about which students you want to let in . If you really want to fix this issue, you need to conceil the identity of the student down to a numeric identifier.
Harvard takes a lot of government money one way or another.
One is NSF, NIH and other research oriented grants and funds. Those funds are in some ways also designed to develop future scientists and if you're racially biasing against one group, then Harvard would be ineligible to receive any such grants.
I know a poster long time ago said that a lot of money for Harvard comes from the alumni and the race of the people with money do not correspond to the race of the potential student body. Before the immigr
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What goes around, comes around (Score:3, Interesting)
So asians aren't white again? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just trying to keep track since first they weren't white, then they were white when everyone wanted to attack the tech industry and particularly google for being "too white", and now apparently they're not white again. Is there a newsletter I can subscribe to? Maybe a calendar or twitter feed that keeps us all up to date on who's "white" or not today?
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Something DOES Stink at Harvard (Score:2, Interesting)
According to Hillel (http://www.hillel.org), Jews are 25% of the undergrads, and 63% of graduate students.
It's not whites crowding out qualified Asian-Americans, it's Jews.
Re:Something DOES Stink at Harvard (Score:4, Funny)
That's because most of the second year syllabus is written and examined in Yiddish!
Someone is about to learn about the Simpson's para (Score:5, Informative)
Someone is about to learn about Simpson's paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
Good grief, who filters this shit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it's news. Yes, it's probably important. But WHY IN THE HELL is it on Slashdot? It's crap like this that keep my away.
Systemic (Score:4, Insightful)
If there are racist recruiters, there should be little difficulty tracking them down and firing them.
However, if there is racism, it is presumably systemic bias that is inadvertent and unconscious and there is no single person who is actually acting in a prejudiced way. Telling them 'cease and desist' is ineffective.
It's quite conceivable that there is discrimination that is not based on race but only loosely correlated with it, perhaps actually due to income, culture, or command of English, which might or might not be part of a legitimate application process.
Hopefully Harvard has a few people with knowledge of statistics to figure it out.
Selection (Score:2)
Shouldn't stop at race, but gender as well (Score:2)
Damned if you do (Score:3)
They don't want to be Chinatown College (Score:2)
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The complaint is on behalf of Asian-Americans, that is American citizens of asian race or ethnicity.
If the 1500 children of mainland Chinese billionaires are actually American citizens, they should not be discriminated against.
Legacy (Score:2)
Thought-provoking blog post (Score:2)
An Asian-American argues in favor of admission policies that disadvantage Asian-Americans. Whether you agree, it's worth thinking about.
http://askakorean.blogspot.com... [blogspot.com]
Private University should do what they want (Score:2)
A part of a college education can be meeting and interacting with people of different cultures and backgrounds. If a private school wants to have this type of culture they should be free to create it by whatever means they determine is best for their school. You have no right to attend the school.
Now if this was a public school they might have an argument.
Why are we suddenly beholden to test scores? (Score:2)
So the main complaint seems to be that admitted Asians have significantly higher test scores than their counterparts. This would be slam-dunk evidence if really good SAT scores were all it took to get into Harvard, but they aren't and never have been. They are going to have to go into a lot more in-depth with their analysis to prove their point.
Also, to echo a point made on Reddit, haven't we been saying for years that standardized test scores are not good indicators of performance? Why in this case are w
I went to Harvard (Score:3)
...One Wednesday last July, and I noticed something: a large percentage of the people on campus were Asian. I have no idea which were students and which were just other visitors, but on that day at least the campus teemed with Asians, many in large groups.
Social justice warriors, go ahead and hate white people and all that "colonialist," "imperialist" civilization has wrought. I saw our worthy successors that day in Cambridge, and when you try to take them on you will wish you still had our compliant legal system to use as your playground. Asians will build their bullet trains and their giant telescopes wherever they want to, totally ignoring whatever standards of political correctness you have been used to imposing on everyone else. Long may they rule.
What the hell? (Score:3)
Evolution in play? (Score:3)
I'm just floating a theory here, so please don't pounce all over me.
For hundreds of years, getting into the better jobs meant passing written exams in China. Thus, the population may have been genetically filtered (bred) to be better test takers.
I'm VERY disappointed by people's responses here (Score:3)
I don't get why people are basically saying 'fuck you, tough shit'.
These are kids who worked their asses off to get into college and have to OUTPERFORM peers to to get into the same schools. This is not the case of an under qualified or underachieving person getting in simply because of their race (which I never liked), but getting pushed out even though THEY'RE BETTER CANDIDATES because of their race.
How does anyone think this is fair or just? Jesuz fuck people, imagine if that was your kid....
Re:Numbers (Score:5, Informative)
That's what this is really all about, isn't it? That Latinos and Blacks should be present in higher numbers for social equality reasons?
Everyone deserves an equal chance, but it happens that the Asian culture highly values education and family, and instills those values (Jewish culture is similar). It seems to work.
If Latinos and Blacks grow up in a culture that values these things to a lesser degree, they start off with a disadvantage. But giving them a free boost (artificially lowered admission standards via preference or however) doesn't seem right either (matter of opinion, that's my opinion), but more importantly, I don't think it's sustainable.
So what's the answer? I think as usual it's to work on the root cause. Make sure kids aren't disadvantaged by accident of birth. Now, that's a lofty aspiration, and very hard to accomplish. But in the end I think it's the only real and lasting answer.
Side note: I'm an MIT alum, graduated way back in 1970. At the time, MIT was trying to attract Black students who they thought could succeed. One of the administration's ideas was to guarantee a four-year full scholarship to such Black students.
Do you know who opposed that policy? The Black Student Union! The BSU said that help for the first year was a good thing, for the student to get started, but guaranteed help for four years sends the message that the Black student can't make it on his/her own, while other students can. My respect for the BSU was really, really high. They were straight shooters.