Comment by lern_too_spel
4 days ago
You do understand that the state is entrusted to fix problems in society and that having some pockets of society not contribute as well as other pockets is a problem, right? Pretending a problem doesn't exist ("ignoring their backgrounds") is not a good way to solve a problem. That is the error in that statement, not the "treat everyone the same" part, which is merely overly vague. If you treat everyone with the goal of trying to get them to succeed, this necessarily involves understanding the backgrounds of the people you're trying to help. Ramanujan didn't have a background in formal mathematical proof, but Hardy was able to get him to do great things by understanding his strengths and filling in the gaps.
Typically, the people against programs that attempt to solve these problems assume that some pockets of society are unfixable. Korea had a literacy rate of 22% in 1945. These people, had they existed in 1945, would have said, "Well, that's just the normal order of things. No need to try to fix it because you can't."
1. There are many different perspectives on how societal problems should be fixed. The preferred solution of social democrats, of racially discriminating in favor of some groups, has not been scientifically proven to be effective, let alone societally accepted as just. In fact, it is unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court recently ruled in connection to affirmative action policies at Ivy League universities. This is strictly outside the domain of science, yet being presented as science.
2. The job of science is to present the facts, not decide on social policy. It is the prerogative of the public at large, and their elected representatives, to decide policy. People in the scientific establishment do not have a mandate to push social policy outside of what the elected government has legislated.
> There are many different perspectives on how societal problems should be fixed. The preferred solution of social democrats, of racially discriminating in favor of some groups
This is not being proposed by the universities. You're attacking a straw man.
> The job of science is to present the facts, not decide on social policy
The job of a public university is not science but to serve society, just as with all other organs of the state. Doing science is just one of the ways that it does so.
I don't want to quibble on the specifics, but the rubric being encouraged by Berkeley is an example of the kind of analytical framework that is being favored in academia, or had been until very recently. It acts as an ideological filter. And yes, affirmative action manifested as racial preferences in hiring absolutely happened and was implicitly encouraged through the so-called equity lens.
As for the job of a public university, the job is to serve society through only one mechanism, and that is through the pursuit and transmission of scientific knowledge and truth.
It is not just another organ of the state that is free to serve society through political activism.