SCOTUS outlaws race as college admissions factor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question.

Why is it that it is assumed that Latinos and Blacks can’t test high in the SATs or APs because they don’t have privilege and that Asian somehow have that privilege? Or is it that we assume that Black people and Hispanic people aren’t smart enough because of their “culture?”

As an Asian person, I babysat my baby sister and practiced the SAT test from books I got from the library. The more I practiced, the better I got. I eventually got a 1500.

My parents didn’t take me to the library. This was the high school library. I did this because I knew the test was important and if I didn’t do well, it would be a metric against me. I stayed up until midnight, when my parents got home to make sure they got home ok. They hated my lack of sleep but I was always worried.

Please explain, how if I could do this, without assistance from my parents, while babysitting my baby sister while my parents worked their second job, (fyi- my HHI at the time was under 50k) living in a one bedroom apartment in Catonsville MD, how I am more privileged.

Not all Asians have private tutors. But the books are available to every kid that wanted them (and there were always several copies around).

And fyi- I worked through college and had a bunch of debt. But it was still worth it.

I am going to argue that isn’t privilege. It’s because we don’t tell them that it’s not just a dream- that it can be reality if they work for it.
I am going to argue that they are not motivated to even to apply because of financial limits that prevent them from dreaming of it. And I think that is the biggest issue at hand.

We have to encourage people to let them know they can do it. We have Pell grants and so many other options in the military and the DOD based on financial need.

I get that systemic racism is part of the privilege I have benefited from. But is the application rates of Hispanics and blacks even representative of the population? Isn’t part of it the fact that we have such a cultural divide that we cannot see that we need to tell them it’s not just possible- but an expectation?

And for the record: I do want Blacks and Hispanics in our colleges. Representation matters but so does acceptance and love and compassion. But I absolutely hate the idea that tests and grades are reflective of privilege. I don’t think that’s the whole story and I think that’s why so many people (60% of Dems) are against affirmative action

Asians have the privilege of having parents who care about their education.

PP here.

I don’t think that that is it. My mom wasn’t a Tiger mom- she was never around. My dad was abusive and also never around. We were really poor. My mom wanted me to go to college but she was also ok with me becoming a bank teller.

Education for me was the best way out.

Is it a privilege for me to have the desperation and the drive to get out of a toxic abusive family? Because I’m not sure that’s it.

And you are also saying in your statement about that Hispanics and Black people have bad parents. That’s overtly racist. And I simply don’t believe that is the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maya Wiley was including low income whites in her talking points today. My eats perked up because I never heard that we were part of AA. Then she said “Appalachians.” OMG. So myopic.

If AA advocates could have figured out how to include low income whites from the beginning this country probably wouldn’t have birthed President Trump.

Why would it be up to "AA Advocates" to include white people who are not suffering discrimination? Why aren't the poor Appalchins pulling themselves up by their bootstraps?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maya Wiley was including low income whites in her talking points today. My eats perked up because I never heard that we were part of AA. Then she said “Appalachians.” OMG. So myopic.

If AA advocates could have figured out how to include low income whites from the beginning this country probably wouldn’t have birthed President Trump.

If you read the history of racial discrimination, pitting poor whites against POCs is exactly what kept the ruling class in this country in power. The book "White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America" does a great job of explaining this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about athletic recruits? Athletics is not considered for admission to Oxford or Cambridge. Why is it considered so important here, beyond showing leadership and teamwork? Shouldn't high school debaters or actors get equal consideration?

Because many wealthy white folks saw it as a work around for their dumb kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a question.

Why is it that it is assumed that Latinos and Blacks can’t test high in the SATs or APs because they don’t have privilege and that Asian somehow have that privilege? Or is it that we assume that Black people and Hispanic people aren’t smart enough because of their “culture?”

As an Asian person, I babysat my baby sister and practiced the SAT test from books I got from the library. The more I practiced, the better I got. I eventually got a 1500.

My parents didn’t take me to the library. This was the high school library. I did this because I knew the test was important and if I didn’t do well, it would be a metric against me. I stayed up until midnight, when my parents got home to make sure they got home ok. They hated my lack of sleep but I was always worried.

Please explain, how if I could do this, without assistance from my parents, while babysitting my baby sister while my parents worked their second job, (fyi- my HHI at the time was under 50k) living in a one bedroom apartment in Catonsville MD, how I am more privileged.

Not all Asians have private tutors. But the books are available to every kid that wanted them (and there were always several copies around).

And fyi- I worked through college and had a bunch of debt. But it was still worth it.

I am going to argue that isn’t privilege. It’s because we don’t tell them that it’s not just a dream- that it can be reality if they work for it.
I am going to argue that they are not motivated to even to apply because of financial limits that prevent them from dreaming of it. And I think that is the biggest issue at hand.

We have to encourage people to let them know they can do it. We have Pell grants and so many other options in the military and the DOD based on financial need.

I get that systemic racism is part of the privilege I have benefited from. But is the application rates of Hispanics and blacks even representative of the population? Isn’t part of it the fact that we have such a cultural divide that we cannot see that we need to tell them it’s not just possible- but an expectation?

And for the record: I do want Blacks and Hispanics in our colleges. Representation matters but so does acceptance and love and compassion. But I absolutely hate the idea that tests and grades are reflective of privilege. I don’t think that’s the whole story and I think that’s why so many people (60% of Dems) are against affirmative action

Some asians entering college are world champion athletes competing in the olympics or professional level musicians. They didn't do that by themselves without substantial financial help from their parents. That is also an example of privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:but accepting the best students are very subjective! I used to be an admissions counselor for a private college. I can tell you that GPA and test score were not always the best indicators of success. A number of my high GPA and test scorers struggled to adjust to the rigorous academic setting. From the data we collected at our institution, the students that did the best, or had the least amount of struggle in their first two years were in the 3.0-3.3 GPA range and average ACT scores. We considered average ACT to be 19-23 score. What we found is that students in the 3.0-3.3 range were involved in multiple school and community activities. They had more perspective and better time management skills.

I will also tell you that we did not make decisions based on race. Of course we had diversity recruitment efforts, but candidates that did not meet the criteria were never considered. We did have discussions about ALL applicants that were on the borderline of our criteria. I actually found myself admitting more poor and rural white students (on that borderline criteria) than people of color. I use to laugh and think "everyone thinks affirmative action only benefits people of color. If folks only knew the reality."

And don't get me started about legacy kids. We even gave them special scholarships. At my institution, 96 percent of legacy admits were not people of color either.

Cool story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Asian students have higher average SAT scores than any other group, including whites. A study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade examined applicants to top colleges from 1997, when the maximum SAT score was 1600 (today it’s 2400). Espenshade found that Asian-Americans needed a 1550 SAT to have an equal chance of getting into an elite college as white students with a 1410 or black students with an 1100.

This research was published in a PUP book called No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life by Thomas J. Espenshade & Alexandria Walton Radford (a free excerpt here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9072.pdf)

White people should view asians as more of a threat to their kids' chances of getting into an elite college than blacks and hispanics. I would say be careful what you wish for, but unfortunately for them, it's too late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all of you not understanding why Harvard was discriminating against Asians, let me enlighten you:

When comparing applicants with the same level of academic achievement, Asians always had the worst personality scores of any group. The SFFA constructed an index based on Harvard’s academic rating and used it to divide applicants into 10 evenly-sized groups (deciles) based on the strength of their academic performance. Within each of the 10 academic deciles, Asians had the lowest personality scores across all of the racial groups. A perfect 10 for 10.

Within each racial group, high academic performance strongly predicted high personality ratings, but Asians had the lowest average personality rating even though they had the highest average academic rating.

In contrast, Harvard alumni rated Asians similar to whites on personality and better, on average, than Latinos and blacks. But it is the admissions office, not alumni, that ultimately determines Harvard’s personality ratings.

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/3704542-harvards-cult-of-personality/

In what world is this ok?

+1 Harvard was systematically biased against Asians. I don't know how you look at the data and conclude otherwise.

+1

This whole Asians have a bad personality thing always disturbed me.

It’s so statistically awful.

The point is that Harvard's own alum who actually met the applicants scored the Asian applications just fine on "personality" but that the admissions office just ignored/overrode it. Not only are they blatantly discriminating against Asians, they are actually perpetuating racial stereotypes by making up a "personality" score for the sole purpose of failing Asians in this category. This is SO important because these are the very people calling others racist for calling them out on their discrimination. I don't even know how they sleep at night.

Who are those poor Asian students Harvard discriminated against?

These are American Indians that come from middle and upper class families who own businesses or are doctors or other high income.

These parents can afford to tutor their kids from tender age of 3 in math, etc. they pay tutors, consultants, test prep.

It’s not any different from wealthy white parents. These are wealthy Asians mostly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does this mean that every elite college will be run over by Asians while every other race gets frozen out?

No, there will be other criteria to screen kids. They need diversity. We as a society value diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm one of those Democrats who is happy to see this ruling. I'd rather see affirmative action on the basis of socioeconomic status rather than race. It would probably get you to the same conclusion rather than giving preferential treatment to UMC and UC POCs.

It doesn't get you there. California has already proven that. As a black woman, I am devasted. How do you eliminate affirmative action when merit is not real. You have many black and latino students graduated from substandard schools and white kids going to high school with golf courses. SAT scores are based on income, not intelligence.

We haven't even come to terms with race in this country.

And you apparently haven't come to terms with class. There are a TON of poor and lower income whites in this country. You really need to get out more.

I understand that, but when the color of your skin still limits what you can do, it's a different argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Racist DCUMers claiming Asians students are basically all the same and all have affluence and tutoring when there are massive differences between people of South East Asian decent vs those of North East and East Asian descent. SE Asians are way more impoverished, yet they get lumped in with the stupidly broad category of 'Asian'. It's almost as if a continent with 3+ billion people is not monolithic and descendants from those areas in our country have vastly different experiences.

Good for Asians for standing up for their rights to not be judged based on their race or ridiculously offensive racial stereotypes that are used to pre-emptiveky judge their character and personality by admissions staff. It's so insane we have to argue over this. The road to hell is always paved with good intentions, but affirmative action led us down the path of using race based discrimination and ridiculous personality stereotypes of Asians to help people reject them from.admisisons and jobs just so they could reach a desired quota.

72% of Asians hold college degrees. Tell me where the discrimination is?!

Still waiting for an answer. Where is the discrimination?

Harvard applied much higher admissions standards to Asian applicants, with the lowest admission rates despite having the highest scores. Blacks, by contrast, have the lowest scores and GPAs but the highest admission rates among races. If that is not discrimination, then there is no such thing as discrimination.

How will this be policed and disclosed going forward? Can't Harvard just use some other fig leaf to get to the same result?

Absolutely. If you think diversity at Harvard is fig leaf and Harvard thinks it is important, why do you want to attend? You do not even agree with their educational mission.

The decision has a dumptruck sized loophole written right into it. The court says that: "Nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university.” Colleges will just use the applicant essays to do this. That will further privilege wealthy minorities who know how to play this game, and disadvantage poor ones who don't.

It appears elsewhere in the ruling, "But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.” I don't think that loophole is that big. " [W]hat can
not be done directly cannot be done indirectly."

Is SCOTUS going to sit in the Harvard admissions office to police whether the admissions office is making the decision based only on race, or instead based on how their race is tried to their character or ability to contribute?

No, but you can bet every bulldozer parent will now litigate every rejection from every elite school.

I wonder if admissions officers can be held personally liable in these cases. Can you imagine how much litigation this decision will result in? Universities are going to have make their decisions and policies "litigation proof". As usual, the only beneficiaries are the lawyers and consultants!

No, the admissions officers cannot be held personally liable. The universities aren't even being held "liable" in the sense of having to pay money damages. They are just being ordered to stop doing what they've been doing.

If someone rejected under a university's new admissions policies is able to prove the new admissions policies continue to discriminate by race, wouldn't the university be held liable? How would this be different than any entity held liable for racial discrimination? It seems the DEI initiatives at companies are now in the crosshairs of this type of litigation as a result of this decision. Why aren't colleges and universities?

There would have to be some statute that allowed money damages. I'm not aware of any such law. If there were, I'm sure the plaintiffs here would have included it as part of their complaint and they didn't.

Well, wasn't it legal until today? Wouldn't this now fall under any statute involving racial discrimination? I imagine there are plenty of such statutes on the books.

No it wouldn’t. The statute here is Title VI of the Civil Right Act. No money damages available.

So just criminal liability then? Yeesh, I'd probably be looking for another administrative position if I was an admissions officer right now.

Where in the world did you get that from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question.

Why is it that it is assumed that Latinos and Blacks can’t test high in the SATs or APs because they don’t have privilege and that Asian somehow have that privilege? Or is it that we assume that Black people and Hispanic people aren’t smart enough because of their “culture?”

As an Asian person, I babysat my baby sister and practiced the SAT test from books I got from the library. The more I practiced, the better I got. I eventually got a 1500.

My parents didn’t take me to the library. This was the high school library. I did this because I knew the test was important and if I didn’t do well, it would be a metric against me. I stayed up until midnight, when my parents got home to make sure they got home ok. They hated my lack of sleep but I was always worried.

Please explain, how if I could do this, without assistance from my parents, while babysitting my baby sister while my parents worked their second job, (fyi- my HHI at the time was under 50k) living in a one bedroom apartment in Catonsville MD, how I am more privileged.

Not all Asians have private tutors. But the books are available to every kid that wanted them (and there were always several copies around).

And fyi- I worked through college and had a bunch of debt. But it was still worth it.

I am going to argue that isn’t privilege. It’s because we don’t tell them that it’s not just a dream- that it can be reality if they work for it.
I am going to argue that they are not motivated to even to apply because of financial limits that prevent them from dreaming of it. And I think that is the biggest issue at hand.

We have to encourage people to let them know they can do it. We have Pell grants and so many other options in the military and the DOD based on financial need.

I get that systemic racism is part of the privilege I have benefited from. But is the application rates of Hispanics and blacks even representative of the population? Isn’t part of it the fact that we have such a cultural divide that we cannot see that we need to tell them it’s not just possible- but an expectation?

And for the record: I do want Blacks and Hispanics in our colleges. Representation matters but so does acceptance and love and compassion. But I absolutely hate the idea that tests and grades are reflective of privilege. I don’t think that’s the whole story and I think that’s why so many people (60% of Dems) are against affirmative action

Asians have the privilege of having parents who care about their education.

PP here.

I don’t think that that is it. My mom wasn’t a Tiger mom- she was never around. My dad was abusive and also never around. We were really poor. My mom wanted me to go to college but she was also ok with me becoming a bank teller.

Education for me was the best way out.

Is it a privilege for me to have the desperation and the drive to get out of a toxic abusive family? Because I’m not sure that’s it.

And you are also saying in your statement about that Hispanics and Black people have bad parents. That’s overtly racist. And I simply don’t believe that is the case.

I think it is absolutely a cultural thing and is a self fulfilling prophecy thing. Asian immigrants, generally speaking, are great believers and beneficiaries of meritocracy. They believe they can achieve a better future by working harder. They teach their kids that. They don't need to be tutoring them all the time or attend the best school districts. That work hard equals results attitude pervades every aspect of life. By contrast, many other "cultures" in America now believe that there is not meritocracy, that everything is because of privilege and individual striving is ultimately pointless. That our entire lives are predetermined by a set of external circumstances out of our control. If you believed that, you would not have bothered working hard practicing the SAT. Hopefully this ruling is a kick in the butt for everyone to work hard. You can't kick back and rely on your race to give you an extra 300 point SAT boost anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does this mean that every elite college will be run over by Asians while every other race gets frozen out?

No, there will be other criteria to screen kids. They need diversity. We as a society value diversity.

Well, most of us do, but obviously not all, particularly 6 members of the Supreme Court.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all of you not understanding why Harvard was discriminating against Asians, let me enlighten you:

When comparing applicants with the same level of academic achievement, Asians always had the worst personality scores of any group. The SFFA constructed an index based on Harvard’s academic rating and used it to divide applicants into 10 evenly-sized groups (deciles) based on the strength of their academic performance. Within each of the 10 academic deciles, Asians had the lowest personality scores across all of the racial groups. A perfect 10 for 10.

Within each racial group, high academic performance strongly predicted high personality ratings, but Asians had the lowest average personality rating even though they had the highest average academic rating.

In contrast, Harvard alumni rated Asians similar to whites on personality and better, on average, than Latinos and blacks. But it is the admissions office, not alumni, that ultimately determines Harvard’s personality ratings.

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/3704542-harvards-cult-of-personality/

In what world is this ok?

+1 Harvard was systematically biased against Asians. I don't know how you look at the data and conclude otherwise.

+1

This whole Asians have a bad personality thing always disturbed me.

It’s so statistically awful.

The point is that Harvard's own alum who actually met the applicants scored the Asian applications just fine on "personality" but that the admissions office just ignored/overrode it. Not only are they blatantly discriminating against Asians, they are actually perpetuating racial stereotypes by making up a "personality" score for the sole purpose of failing Asians in this category. This is SO important because these are the very people calling others racist for calling them out on their discrimination. I don't even know how they sleep at night.

Who are those poor Asian students Harvard discriminated against?

These are American Indians that come from middle and upper class families who own businesses or are doctors or other high income.

These parents can afford to tutor their kids from tender age of 3 in math, etc. they pay tutors, consultants, test prep.

It’s not any different from wealthy white parents. These are wealthy Asians mostly.

What is your point? It's ok to discriminate against wealthy asians against wealthy whites or blacks?

[Anonymous]

I am white from poor background and feel a lot of judgement from other whites. My parents didn’t attend college and never left their hometown. I was first in my family to scrape through college, but didn’t even dream about going to graduate school. I just broke 100k for the first time this year at age 45.

There are so many white people, especially here compared midwest where I am from, who assume every white person had the same advantages they did, so they see someone like me and assume something is messed up about me or I did something wrong because I do not have the same career success they did. I’m not doing terribly, but not nearly as well as whites coming from multi generational high education backgrounds.

Agree with other posters that getting admitted to college is not the biggest problem. It is paying for it, or growing up knowing it will be accessible to you if you are able to get in.

Affirmative action is also a moot point in populations that are grossly underprepared for college. It seems to that unfortunately many poor black youth come from situations like this. It’s stupid to talk about affirmative action when they clearly never had a chance in the first place. Poverty sucks.

Also, maybe it is wishful thinking for most populations to go straight from a generation of abject poverty to the next generation of highly educated professionals. It has not worked that way through history. I believe my family is more than an anecdote: grandpa didn’t finish high school, worked construction his whole life. Dad finished high school and had a somewhat successful landscaping business. Now family members in my generation are mostly white collar or advanced degree professionals. My dad thinks I have it made. My kids have a great chance of doing better than me.