Supreme Court revisits Texas affirmative action in new case
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Anonymous
UC Berkeley and UCLA use holistic admission system to admit applicants not solely on scores. In fact, they deemphasize sat scores to admit diverse group of applicants and that is why they routinely reject 2300+ sat score applicants. They are legally prohibited from giving preference based on race or use race in admission decision although again the holistic admission considers SES, first generation, adversity overcome and many other factors. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
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I hope all forms of racial preferences are eliminated in college admissions including legacies, preferences for athletes etc.
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Anonymous
Excuse me, but affirmative action and racial preferences are the very definition of "institutionalized racism" today. If Asians (many of whom are first generation, whose parents took low SES jobs, faced language and discrimination barriers) don't need affirmative action, why is society giving an institutionalized preference to other minorities? |
Anonymous
Yes, it is. And America is so ready for it to be over. 50 years is long enough. Time to end institutionalized judging of people by the color of their skin, not the content of their character (and other qualifications). |
Anonymous
Latinos already outnumber whites in California. In 50 years, whites will be the minority (actually before that) and will be adamant about being considered for 'affirmative action' to be represented on campuses more than just a paltry 15%. |
Anonymous
+1. Time for the massive brainwashing project to end, and meritocracy to start. Yes, I'd get rid of race, legacy and sports as admissions criteria. |
Anonymous
You've heard good arguments against affirmative action - it's just that your mind is closed to them. When you go on to say that affirmative action doesn't result in less qualified minorities being given admission slots above more qualified majorities, you jump the shark. That is exactly what affirmative action does -- it gives admission to minorities who couldn't otherwise be competitive with their scores and grades. |
Anonymous
The PP who you address isn't the only one whose mind is closed, no doubt about it. You haven't a clue of all the people who have benefited from affirmative action especially white women who have been the biggest recipients. |
Anonymous
Please don't start. You have the Yale thread for your preoccupation. This thread is explosive enough without your type of kerosene on the fire. |
Anonymous
And sometimes you need to remember why some groups and individuals can't be competitive. Could it be because they haven't been getting enrichment from parents since they were in the womb? Or couldn't afford private schools or living in a good school district? Why should opportunities be closed to them? Along with saying "less qualified" minorities, sometimes you have to say less pampered, less spoon-fed and less advantaged. People who resent affirmative action should be willing to change places with these candidates for their whole lives, then they might have an argument. |
Anonymous
| Again, every time there is a thread like this, certain commenters always indicate that in a "meritocracy," all minorities would be less qualified. And that's why I can't really hear anything else that is said. |
Anonymous
"ACT Scores by Race: Year White Black Asian 2009 22.2 16.9 23.2 2010 22.3 16.9 23.4 2011 22.4 17.0 23.6 2012 22.4 17.0 23.6 2013 22.2 16.9 23.5 Source: ACT, Inc. ~~~~~ Black-White SAT Score Gap by Year: Year White Black Gap 1986 1038 839 199 1990 1031 849 185 1996 1052 857 195 2000 1060 859 201 2005 1061 863 197 2010 1063 855 208 Source: U.S. Dept. of Education, Digest of Education Statistics, 2012 Note that there is no closing of the large and persistent so-called "achievement gap". In 2015 only 16% of Blacks scored 1550 or higher, the threshold the College Board calls the "college and career readiness" level. ~~~~~ Black-White SAT Score Gap by Income: Year White Black Gap -$20k 978 798 180 $40k 995 836 159 $60k 1017 864 153 $80k 1032 889 143 $100k 1052 908 144 $120k 1066 922 144 $140k 1073 926 147 $160k 1087 942 145 $200k 1091 943 148 +200k 1130 981 149 Source: The College Board, 2008 So, Blacks from families earning more than $200k only scored 3 points higher than Whites from families earning less than $20k. This gap is so significant that colleges give a "race bonus" of 230 points to Blacks and penalize Asians by 50 points to try to keep it even. If the races are intellectually equal why do colleges have to give access debits and credits by race? We will continue with racial preferences in college admissions and job hiring. We will continue to blame black underachievement on racism. We will continue to dumb down education and occupational standards in order to achieve higher proportions of Blacks. Differences in intelligence between income groups are not larger than intelligence differences between racial groups in the US, nor do differences in income or wealth account for the racial differences. Whites from households in the lowest income bracket have higher IQ scores than blacks from households in the highest income bracket. Black students coming from families earning over $70,000 USD are doing worse on their SATs on average than white students from families in the lowest income group. One of the largest modern sociology studies of American students found that ethnicity was the single most important predictor of academic achievement: “Beyond the Classroom,” by Laurence Steinberg, B. Bradford Brown and Sanford M. Dornbusch, concludes “Of all the demographic factors we studied in relation to school performance, ethnicity was the most important. In terms of school achievement, it is more advantageous to be Asian than to be wealthy, or to have non-divorced parents, or to have a mother who is able to stay at home full time.” A number of experiments are able to test all of these environmental theories. Transracial adoption experiments control for all the shared aspects of the environment that differ between whites and blacks (parenting, income, nutrition, neighborhood), while structural equation models test for possible uncommon factors between whites and blacks that could be acting on IQ (which would include things like racism). These experiments do not lend support to any existing or plausible environmental theories for the remaining lower intelligence scores of people of African descent in Western societies. The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study found that, by adulthood, the difference in IQ scores between adopted black and adopted white children raised side by side in the same high income households in mostly homogeneous Northern US upper class neighborhoods was 18 IQ points. ~~~~~~~ Racial Scoring Gap on Standardized Garduate Tests -- Black Student Score Results on the Medical College Admission Test In 2005 the mean combined score for Black students who took the Medical College Admission Test was 21.2. (Each of the three sections of the MCAT test is scored on a scale of 1 to 15.) For Whites, the mean score on the combined three portions of the MCAT test was 28.5. Therefore, the white score was about 18 percent higher than the mean score for blacks. -- The Racial Scoring Gap on the Test for Admission to Business School The mean Black score on the GMAT was 425. (The test is scored on the familiar 200 to 800 scale used for each section of the SAT test.) For Whites, the mean GMAT score was 532. This is 107 points or 18 percent higher than the mean score for Blacks. The average GMAT score for admitted students at the nation's leading business schools is over 700. Perhaps only 1 or 2 percent of all Black GMAT test takers score at this level. Therefore, without continuing affirmative action admissions programs at Harvard, Penn, Stanford, Northwestern, MIT, and other top MBA programs, the nation's leading business schools will have very few Black students. The latest JBHE survey shows that Blacks make up about 5 percent of the students at the nation's leading business schools. If affirmative action admissions programs were to be discontinued, Black enrollments at these schools might drop by 75 percent. -- Very Few Blacks Score at the Highest Levels of the Law School Admission Test In 1998 the mean score of White students taking the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) was 151.96. (The LSAT is graded on a scoring scale of 120 to 180.) The mean score for Black students taking the test that year was 141.80, about 17 percent lower than the mean score of Whites. The latest data shows a slight improvement for both Blacks and Whites, but there was no progress in closing the racial scoring gap. In 2004 the mean score for Whites on the LSAT was 152.47. For Blacks, the mean score was 142.43. The 10 point, or 17 percent, scoring gap has remained constant throughout the period with only very minor fluctuations. Students seeking admission to the nation's highest-ranked law schools such as Yale, Harvard, and Stanford have a mean LSAT score of about 170. Data obtained by JBHE from the Law School Admission Council shows that very few Blacks nationwide score at this level. In 2004, 10,370 Blacks took the LSAT examination. Only 29 Blacks, or 0.3 percent of all LSAT test takers, scored 170 or above. In contrast, more than 1,900 White test takers scored 170 or above on the LSAT. They made up 3.1 percent of all White test takers. Thus Whites were more than 10 times as likely as Blacks to score 170 or above on the LSAT. There were 66 times as many Whites as Blacks who scored 170 or above on the test. Even if we drop the scoring level to 165, a level equal to the mean score of students enrolling at law schools ranked in the top 10 nationwide but not at the very top, we still find very few Blacks. There were 108 Blacks scoring 165 or better on the LSAT in 2004. They made up 1 percent of all Black test takers. For Whites, there were 6,689 test takers who scored 165 or above. They made up 10.6 percent of all White students who took the LSAT examination. The nation's top law schools could fill their classes exclusively with students who scored 165 or above on the LSAT. But if they were to do so, these law schools would have almost no Black students. -- The Racial Scoring Gap on the Graduate Record Examination The vast majority of Black graduate students do not attend professional schools of law, business, or medicine. Most Black students are enrolled in graduate programs in other academic disciplines including education, natural sciences, mathematics, foreign languages, the humanities, the arts, history, psychology, and the social sciences. For these students the important test is the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). This test begins with two analytical writing sections, one where the student is given a choice of topics. The analytical writing section is scored on a scale of 0 to 6. Then there is a 30-minute verbal reasoning test and a 45-minute quantitative section. The test is given on a computer terminal and the test is adaptive, meaning that the test questions are selected based on correct or incorrect responses to previous questions. These two sections are scored on the familiar 200 to 800 scale used for the SAT test. Each year about 300,000 college students seeking admission to graduate programs in fields such as education, the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences sit for the GRE. In 2003, the latest year for which there is complete data available, 27,267 Blacks took the GRE test. Therefore, Blacks made up 8.8 percent of all students who took the GRE. In 2003 the mean score for Blacks on the combined verbal and quantitative sections of the GRE was 821. For Whites, the mean combined score was 1062. Thus the mean White score was 241 points, or 20 percent, higher than the mean score for Blacks. This racial scoring gap is even wider than the persistent and growing gap on the SAT test. In 2003 the mean Black score on the analytical writing section was 3.7 on a scale of 0 to 6. For Whites, the mean score was 4.5, a difference of about 13 percent. There is no way to compare the trend in the gap on this portion of the GRE because the 0 to 6 scale was recently instituted. Previously the analytical section of the test was scored on the 200 to 800 scale. The GRE scoring gap between Blacks and Whites varies to a large degree depending on the field of proposed study in graduate school. Black students planning to study in the field of engineering scored on average 187 points below whites who plan to pursue a graduate degree in engineering. In the physical sciences, Black students on average scored 247 points below Whites." |
Anonymous
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"Since Justice Kennedy is the likely swing vote in this case, many observers, think it likely that Abigail Fisher will prevail in round 2, with the major question being whether the Court will find in her favor without remanding or whether it will remand with an instruction that the case be returned to the District Court for a full evidentiary hearing.
If the Court does find for Fisher, the implications for other schools that use affirmative action would depend on the Court’s opinion. If the number of minorities admitted to Texas through the 10% plan is a crucial consideration, the fallout from Fisher is likely to be limited since percent plans cannot be used by graduate and professional schools, nor will they do much to boost minority enrollments in states that do not have large numbers of majority minority high schools. If, however, the opinion sees strict scrutiny as imposing a particularly onerous test, including placing on universities the burden of showing that they have already tried almost every way of increasing minority enrollments and nothing has worked, then the fallout may be both wide and deep." |
Anonymous
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"Given Kennedy’s legal stance, affirmative-action policies at selective colleges are very vulnerable. Universities generally don’t use race as a last resort, and they weigh it very heavily in admissions decisions. Rather than reaching out to economically disadvantaged students of all races, today’s affirmative-action policies explicitly look at race and tend to advantage fairly well-off African American and Latino students to sit alongside their well-off white and Asian peers.
In the early days, affirmative action properly helped the young Sonia Sotomayor, who grew up in public housing, and the young Michelle Obama, whose parents did not go to college. But over time, the programs morphed into something very different. By the 1990s, one study found that 86 percent of African American students on selective campuses were middle or upper class, and the white students were even richer. Underrepresented minority students receive a 28-percentage-point increase in their chances of being admitted, according to one careful analysis. By contrast, the study found low-income students receive no boost whatsoever. " http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/12/class-based-affirmative-action/419307/ |