Once again, minorities get the short end of the stick.

[AllanO]

I'm saying that differently levels of achievement between any racial groups in the U.S. in general cannot be taken as solid evidence of systemic discrimination unless the racist parts of the left would have us believe that systemic racism in the U.S. favors Jews, Indians, and East Asians.

I am not sure that is not actually what they are saying.

If there is a system (say cultural attitudes towards education in a group) driving racial differences in outcome (so discriminating between the races) then that would be an example of systematic racism, although racism usually means negative discrimination so it would be the systems that lead to worse outcomes for other groups that would be the systematically racist ones I guess. Note it is probably always the interacting of lots of different systems (in this case the various systems governing earlier education meeting the Harvard admissions system). Also there are lots of other factors other than race presumably.

However you still seem to be conflating greater success on one metric with greater success on every metric, which is not justified. Even in the narrow range of school outcomes Jews, East Asians and Indians could achieve better admissions, higher marks etc. but suffer in terms of making social connections, mental health, personal happiness and so on. Even if there are not such drawbacks in the narrow case, it could easily be that success in school is an exception to a general trend of facing more hurdles in other aspects of life.

If you believe that unthinking brute social forces are conditioning racial outcomes then it would be surprising if even groups subject to lots of negative systematic forces would never experience any positive pressures also in some situations. And so different groups would experience different mixes of positives and negatives and probably no group would experience all negatives in all situations or all positives. The facts that would be talking about net effects and tendencies would not negate that there are identifiable social problems for identifiable groups and different sets of problems for different groups etc.

[Admiral X]

So to be clear you simply deny that some racial groups differ in terms of rates of wealth and poverty, or you deny that those differences can lead to things like higher infant mortality rates, lower average life span. If so I am pretty sure you are just brushing aside actual people's problems.

You're talking to someone who happens to be from one of the racial groups that most suffers from poverty, incidentally. What I deny is that this is caused by some kind of government-sanctioned racism. If anything, the government is very feebly trying to make up for the mistakes of the past, but the problems causing Natives to remain impoverished are not being addressed. Ironically, entitlement programs have helped to create some problems by having some of the strings attached that they did when they started, such as aid for single mothers discouraging fathers from sticking around because there couldn't be a man in the household in order to qualify for it.

I have to admit, though, I am kind of curious how you'd address the unemployment and poverty in reservations through quotas limiting how many white people can go to colleges.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Wow.

[AllanO]

You're talking to someone who happens to be from one of the racial groups that most suffers from poverty, incidentally. What I deny is that this is caused by some kind of government-sanctioned racism. If anything, the government is very feebly trying to make up for the mistakes of the past, but the problems causing Natives to remain impoverished are not being addressed. Ironically, entitlement programs have helped to create some problems by having some of the strings attached that they did when they started, such as aid for single mothers discouraging fathers from sticking around because there couldn't be a man in the household in order to qualify for it

I have to admit, though, I am kind of curious how you'd address the unemployment and poverty in reservations through quotas limiting how many white people can go to colleges.

Umm, this thread was about a student complaining they were being discriminated against by an admissions system for being of Asian descent. Some people were saying that the system made no sense because it was solving a not real problem, but the problem such programs are trying to solve are things like black students getting into Harvard at a lower rate than their portion of the general population. I just said that no actually there is a problem with some groups (like blacks) getting into Harvard at lower rates than others and that it seems plausible that this is caused by social and cultural systems that create or maintain racial difference and disadvantage, which I called systematic racism. Your comments don't really go to that except to confirm there are indeed groups that probably do not get admitted to Harvard at the same rate as whites or whoever we take as the baseline because of the legacy of historic injustices, making my point. Glad we agree.

Education levels roughly have some affect on wealth and poverty etc. and so I brought those up as why access to education or the lack of it is a problem. Access to Harvard is not that good a proxy for access to education in general but in this debate I took it we were taking access to Harvard as a stand in for access to quality education. Access to education is one strand in a broader issue of access to basic services and so on.

That being said affirmative action and similar programs are easily convicted of tokenism, it is relatively easy to measure racial breakdown of admissions (any definition of race is tricky, collecting the data tricky and so on, but like I said relative) to places like Harvard and other such school attendance records and relatively easy to just have a quota or put in a diversity bonus factor to admissions criterion or whatever to get those numbers up somewhat. It is not clear how this cosmetic change actually fosters long term change, if it does. I agree it looks like a minimal effort to me.

If someone had said these sorts of affirmative action diversity admissions criterion are just tokenism that fail to address the real problems of the groups they pretend to care about. I would have agreed because to me to convict the sort of thing of tokenism is to suggest more needs to be done not less, but that was not the argument I saw people making.

Some people in this thread (including you I think) made what looked to me like the argument that this sort of racial juicing of admissions is inherently unfair as a method and should not be used as a tool, I am not completely sold but neither do I have any particularly good arguments against it. So I did not argue with those assertions. And so on with other arguments people could have made or did make but that I did not respond to....

I hope my position is a bit clearer.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

That's probably the most comprehensive piece on Affirmative Action I've read that leans towards a more moderate position on the matter.

DW's position is that metrics alone without context aren't a solid basis of evidence for institutional racism.

AdX was saying that Affirmative Action doesn't address common issues specifically pertaining to American Indians.

[Admiral X]

I just said that no actually there is a problem with some groups (like blacks) getting into Harvard at lower rates than others and that it seems plausible that this is caused by social and cultural systems that create or maintain racial difference and disadvantage, which I called systematic racism. Your comments don't really go to that except to confirm there are indeed groups that probably do not get admitted to Harvard at the same rate as whites or whoever we take as the baseline because of the legacy of historic injustices, making my point. Glad we agree.

No we don't. That isn't anything like what I said. Where do you get this stuff? What I called out is how ironically, trying to help impoverished people has actually acted to keep them perpetually impoverished. I'd compare it to constantly changing a band-aid over a cut that keeps getting made instead of trying to address whatever keeps making the cut.

Education levels roughly have some affect on wealth and poverty etc. and so I brought those up as why access to education or the lack of it is a problem. Access to Harvard is not that good a proxy for access to education in general but in this debate I took it we were taking access to Harvard as a stand in for access to quality education. Access to education is one strand in a broader issue of access to basic services and so on.

The thing about Harvard, Yale, and those other "ivy league" schools is that there's supposed to be a certain level of elitism to them. This is just fine, because that is part of what makes graduates from those schools have a bit more value to them than people who go to normal state universities and colleges. By lowering standards for some people, this has the effect of devaluing being a graduate from one of these schools, because standards have been lowered. It also has the effect of making people resentful, because it is clearly unfair to discriminate in this way based on something out of someone's control, like race or sex, rather than on something merit-based like test scores.

As for general access to education, it is available, even on reservations in the middle of no where, and it's only gotten better thanks to the internet being more and more available, even in the middle of no where. About the only complaint there is that it's not Harvard, but you aren't going to get much sympathy from me there, partly because I do not value the status these ivy league schools are supposed to impart.

Some people in this thread (including you I think) made what looked to me like the argument that this sort of racial juicing of admissions is inherently unfair as a method and should not be used as a tool, I am not completely sold but neither do I have any particularly good arguments against it.

Because apparently the fact that it is inherently unfair to discriminate for or against someone on the basis of something they can't control like race or sex is not enough of an argument for you, because you have it in your head that doing so somehow makes up for a historic wrong. Meanwhile there are maybe some deserving young adults who are not able to get into a school and have opportunities because were born the wrong race and/or sex.

So I did not argue with those assertions. And so on with other arguments people could have made or did make but that I did not respond to....

I hope my position is a bit clearer.

Not really, because if anything it makes me wonder why you keep defending this practice, because you've essentially acknowledged that this practice is wrong, but can't quite make that final admission that it's wrong that these people (the Asians in the OP) have been discriminated against because of their race by Harvard.

[Yukaphile]

You can tell there is elitism to the Ivy League schools since they perpetuate long-standing myths that are at odds with critical thinking and seem absolutely illegal, which is shocking and more than a little frightening coming from people who are about legalities. Claiming a normal, brutalized civilian can be a "perpetrator of crimes against humanity" despite NOT ENGAGING in criminal behavior and imo, not even immoral. It's tone-deaf and blind. Gotta side with Admiral X here on this.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So I did not argue with those assertions. And so on with other arguments people could have made or did make but that I did not respond to....

I hope my position is a bit clearer.

Not really, because if anything it makes me wonder why you keep defending this practice, because you've essentially acknowledged that this practice is wrong, but can't quite make that final admission that it's wrong that these people (the Asians in the OP) have been discriminated against because of their race by Harvard.

Well the court has specifically said that it isn't selective against Asian-Americans, so I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Like I get that the plaintiffs are claiming that, but that hasn't been established by either the verdict or explicit evidence before us here.

This doesn't compromise Allan's specific indifference and position on the matter of Affirmative Action.

[LittleRaven]

The thing about Harvard, Yale, and those other "ivy league" schools is that there's supposed to be a certain level of elitism to them. This is just fine, because that is part of what makes graduates from those schools have a bit more value to them than people who go to normal state universities and colleges. By lowering standards for some people, this has the effect of devaluing being a graduate from one of these schools, because standards have been lowered.

So close, and yet so far.

As you say, the purpose of the Ivy League is not to reward individual achievement but rather to nurture the next generation of American elite. And Harvard knows it can only do that if it's student population at least somewhat resembles the American population. If Harvard admits a class that is 80% Asian, it's prestige doesn't rise...it collapses, regardless of how accomplished that freshman class is. Overnight, Harvard ceases to be the center of education for the American elite, and it suddenly becomes just another tech school.

Harvard administrators are well aware of this fact, which is why they will fight tooth and nail to protect their admissions standards. So far, the Courts have wisely agreed with them.

[Admiral X]

Ivy league schools have only recently started to get obsessed with the idea of "representing" groups in this fashion. Historically they've mostly been about having a lot of money and doing well academically, the thought process being that the larger cost bought a better education somehow. They were always about that sense of elitism, because in addition to the cost, they had high requirements for getting in and staying in.