Comment by rayiner
5 days ago
> It’s not that “treating people differently based on skin color” was the worst thing, it was that using skin color as a basis for discrimination
Those are the same thing. "Discrimination" literally means "treating people differently based on skin color." Which is what the universities were doing.
> giving children who grew up in zip codes with terrible education outcomes a handicap during college admissions
That's not what universities were doing. We know that because they said so! In Harvard's brief to the Supreme Court, for example, Harvard argued that it had no "workable race-neutral alternative" that would achieve its goal of "diversity." Harvard.Br.52-53.
What you're describing--"giving children who grew up in zip code with terrible education outcomes a handicap"--is a race-neutral approach that focuses on socioeconomic factors. Harvard told the Supreme Court that such approaches would not work to achieve its goals: To achieve diversity targets without considering race, "Harvard would have to give socioeconomic tips of disproportionate magnitude ... so large that they would 'essentially automatically put[] in any applicant ... with an average probability of admission.'" Harvard.Br.53.
> What you're describing--"giving children who grew up in zip code with terrible education outcomes a handicap"--is a race-neutral approach that focuses on socioeconomic factors.
Well you also conveniently ignore that it would be an instant victim of Goodhart’s law. There are few, if any, race neutral approaches that can’t be gamed - and the only motivation for such approaches is to satisfy those who are so fervently against the idea of affirmative action. In fact, whenever such approaches are attempted, we see that the rich continue to game the system and the expense of the lower middle class (see Lori Laughlin), so it’s really just the stupid rich kids who benefit the most from “merit-based” admissions, not some humble, poor, but brilliant, child of the wrong race.
Did you go to school in the US? There’s absolutely no shortage of educational opportunities. I’m not sure why you’re arguing about Harvard. It impacts such a small percentage of the population. It’s also hilariously one of the institutions most mired by legacy admissions and admissions based on donations. Maybe use the California system instead?
Edit: also I’m not going to get in some autistic Twitter debate about what “discrimination” means. It’s convenient for those opposed to systems and regulations that benefit an oppressed people that anything not immaculately meritocratic can be described as “discriminatory”. Am I “discriminating” against my child Peter when I give his brother Paul a cookie because his other brother Pedro stole Paul’s cookie at lunch?
> There are few, if any, race neutral approaches that can’t be gamed
The race-conscious approaches are heavily gamed too. The minority students at elite universities are rarely people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Most often, they’re the children of affluent minorities, often elites from latin america or africa who have no connection to discrimination in the U.S.
Ironically, you’re engaged in some wild racial stereotyping by flipping back and forth between race and economic circumstances. Do you think there aren’t lots of affluent minorities in the U.S.? Harvard doesn’t let in poor minorities.
> the only motivation for such approaches is to satisfy those who are so fervently against the idea of affirmative action
Yes, institutions must satisfy those who are against grouping people together by race and treating them differently on that basis. That’s not only the law, but the law is correct.
> so it’s really just the stupid rich kids who benefit the most from “merit-based” admissions, not some humble, poor, but brilliant, child of the wrong race.
The evidence shows that the people who benefit the most from objective, merit-based admissions is smart lower-class kids of all races.
> There’s absolutely no shortage of educational opportunities.
That doesn’t justify grouping people based on race and treating them differently.
> I’m not sure why you’re arguing about Harvard. It impacts such a small percentage of the population.
Have you read any of the record in SFFA? Harvard just happened to be the headline name. Almost every institution does it. The medical school data I posted up thread is aggregated across all medical schools.
And elite institutions like Harvard are especially important because they’re gatekeepers. That’s how racial preferences jumped the air gap from universities to corporations. While universities had a carve out for affirmative action, employers never did. Race-conscious policies have always been illegal in the employment context (as the Supreme Court recently affirmed 9-0). But Ivy-educated people took those ideas from universities into the workplace and a bunch of Harvard-educated lawyers gave very bad advice.
> Am I “discriminating” against my child Peter when I give his brother Paul a cookie because his other brother Pedro stole Paul’s cookie at lunch
In this hypo, neither Paul nor Peter’s cookie was stolen. People aren’t reincarnations of their oppressed ancestors.
Everything about your argument hinges on your core take that "making decisions based on race" is fundamentally wrong, no matter the decision. Since I disagree with you on that, mostly on the basis that the world didn't pop into existence yesterday and I believe that we have a moral and ethical duty to make the best of the shit situation that we and our ancestors have created, there's really no purpose about arguing about stupid specifics on a point-by-point basis.
Especially since your arguments often contradict themselves and you transparently use specific details not because they are strong but because they are rhetorically useful (e.g. referring to "elite" institutions in the case of certain races being less likely to be admitted, but then referring to all institutions when speaking about whether merit-based admissions improve outcomes for lower income students). This is a form of gish-galloping.
Zip codes with terrible education outcomes are almost certainly proxies for zip codes with lots of black and hispanic students living in them. The fact that race correlates highly with zip code is why it is illegal under laws banning racial discrimination in financial services for banks and other loan-granting financial service companies to use zip code data as an input for computing the likelihood that a borrower will repay their loan. And if it's reasonable to legally ban moneylenders from looking at zip code data to determine likelihood of paying back a loan because it's a good proxy for race, it's reasonable to ban colleges from using it as a reason to give a handicap to college admissions for the same reason.