Arguments for class-based affirmative action vs. race-based ones

by Petrichor Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:37 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/opinion/keller-affirmative-reaction.html?pagewanted=1&src=rechp

"In the coming days the Supreme Court is expected to rule on a casethat could further restrict the use of race as a factor in college admissions. A white student denied a place at the University of Texas at Austin claims that although Texas uses race sparingly in its college admissions, the state is still cheating white students and violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The betting among court watchers is that the verdict will be another setback for racial affirmative action. As a supporter of diversity, I wonder: could that be a blessing in disguise?"

by goodcitizn Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:43 pm

Muezzin-Bar'chu wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/opinion/keller-affirmative-reaction.html?pagewanted=1&src=rechp

"In the coming days the Supreme Court is expected to rule on a casethat could further restrict the use of race as a factor in college admissions. A white student denied a place at the University of Texas at Austin claims that although Texas uses race sparingly in its college admissions, the state is still cheating white students and violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The betting among court watchers is that the verdict will be another setback for racial affirmative action. As a supporter of diversity, I wonder: could that be a blessing in disguise?"

Merit ought to stand on its own two legs not with the crutch of race or caste, and not for an indefinite period of affirmative action.

by Petrichor Wed Jun 12, 2013 2:28 pm

What is Merit?
Is merit genetic or nurtured? innate or contextual?

by goodcitizn Wed Jun 12, 2013 2:41 pm

Muezzin-Bar'chu wrote:What is Merit?
Is merit genetic or nurtured? innate or contextual?

I'm only talking about academic scores and how a student is able earn merit by plying himself to education.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Jun 12, 2013 2:48 pm

what about this affirmative action?

by Petrichor Wed Jun 12, 2013 2:52 pm

goodcitizn wrote:
Muezzin-Bar'chu wrote:What is Merit?
Is merit genetic or nurtured? innate or contextual?

I'm only talking about academic scores and how a student is able earn merit by plying himself to education.

Let us say there was a very poor kid who struggles against several odds and manages a 80th percentile in academic score sense and another rich kid with private tutors and schooling finds himself at the 85th percentile. Is it your contention that the rich kid should be preferred in admissions without looking at any other factor?

On a tangent, would you prefer a class with the same homogenous opinions on just about everything discussing the archetype of the American self-made man and the con man in history leading to discussions around if the two are one and the same?

by Petrichor Wed Jun 12, 2013 2:53 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:what about this affirmative action?

I guess the case itself is about state colleges. Private colleges need to consider other factors.

by goodcitizn Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:01 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:what about this affirmative action?

I am totally against rich kids getting in purely on the basis of their wealthy background and not their academic performance.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:01 pm

i am against affirmative action and more broadly race based preferences in all walks of life. no ifs, no buts. i am quite absolutist about this. while i am sympathetic to the hypothetical case that bar-chu writes about in an earlier post, the problem is that its application always leads to some kind of abuse. we have seen the effects in india and we have seen its effects in action on many college campuses in the US where asian student population is kept artificially low with the excuse of building diversity in the student population.

no equality in society can be achieved without tackling the really hard problem of improving K-12 education. affirmative action is really a lazy solution that america has made up to avoid solving the harder problem of providing a very high quality K-12 education to all students regardless of class, economic status or geography.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:03 pm

goodcitizn wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:what about this affirmative action?

I am totally against rich kids getting in purely on the basis of their wealthy background and not their academic performance.

i am too, but the excuse given is that these are kids of wealthy donors, and if it wasn't for these donors they wouldn't have gonzo endowments, and without gonzo endowments they couldn't subsidize education for the rest of the public.

and wait for mburuburu to chime in and say that your great great grandfather was not involved in building harvard and yale and so you have no say in how they run their admissions.

by goodcitizn Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:04 pm

Muezzin-Bar'chu wrote:
goodcitizn wrote:
Muezzin-Bar'chu wrote:What is Merit?
Is merit genetic or nurtured? innate or contextual?

I'm only talking about academic scores and how a student is able earn merit by plying himself to education.

Let us say there was a very poor kid who struggles against several odds and manages a 80th percentile in academic score sense and another rich kid with private tutors and schooling finds himself at the 85th percentile. Is it your contention that the rich kid should be preferred in admissions without looking at any other factor?

On a tangent, would you prefer a class with the same homogenous opinions on just about everything discussing the archetype of the American self-made man and the con man in history leading to discussions around if the two are one and the same?

I am for economically disadvantaged kids who do well in school to get both admission and financial assistance.

by Petrichor Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:10 pm

I think merely addressing the k-12 ed. is not going to address other myriad issues - single parent, blue-collar households with drug issues, unemployment, medical issues etc. resulting in poorer academic performance. I know people start viewing these as liberal tropes immediately but the problems are not going away and there is a huge lack of socioeconomic diversity in many good public colleges and definitely the top private colleges.

by goodcitizn Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:20 pm

Muezzin-Bar'chu wrote:I think merely addressing the k-12 ed. is not going to address other myriad issues - single parent, blue-collar households with drug issues, unemployment, medical issues etc. resulting in poorer academic performance. I know people start viewing these as liberal tropes immediately but the problems are not going away and there is a huge lack of socioeconomic diversity in many good public colleges and definitely the top private colleges.

I agree with much of what you are saying but one stop-gap fix also creates other problems. I am amazed at the number of people on welfare who simply are too lazy to earn a living and those who have taken advantage of disability loopholes to fleece the taxpayers. Unless you have checks and balances, the systemic repercussions persist with no end in sight. As for education, one's academic credentials must be given ample weight, otherwise you end up lowering the bar across the board.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:25 pm

there is a parallel article in the wapo today. a whopping 76% of americans don't like race based quotas. that's great, but i wonder what this number will be if they realize that all public universities in the US will start to look like berkeley, i.e. filled with asians if race based quotas go away.

by goodcitizn Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:34 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
goodcitizn wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:what about this affirmative action?

I am totally against rich kids getting in purely on the basis of their wealthy background and not their academic performance.

i am too, but the excuse given is that these are kids of wealthy donors, and if it wasn't for these donors they wouldn't have gonzo endowments, and without gonzo endowments they couldn't subsidize education for the rest of the public.

and wait for mburuburu to chime in and say that your great great grandfather was not involved in building harvard and yale and so you have no say in how they run their admissions.

I don't have a problem with JM's stance and let me tell you why. My kid brother's daughter is doing her Ph D in Finance at Yale who was able to afford it purely because of the scholarship she earned from her academic excellence along with two years' work experience in financial research for a major consulting company. We talked about this very same subject. Her comment was, "Well, I totally resent the fact that some of the ritzy kids in school, who got in because of inherited seats, get their rooms cleaned by professional maid service. Fortunately they represent less than 5%. There is no such thing as a perfect system so I can live with the + or - 5% deviation."

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed Jun 12, 2013 7:00 pm

goodcitizn wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
goodcitizn wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:what about this affirmative action?

I am totally against rich kids getting in purely on the basis of their wealthy background and not their academic performance.

i am too, but the excuse given is that these are kids of wealthy donors, and if it wasn't for these donors they wouldn't have gonzo endowments, and without gonzo endowments they couldn't subsidize education for the rest of the public.

and wait for mburuburu to chime in and say that your great great grandfather was not involved in building harvard and yale and so you have no say in how they run their admissions.

I don't have a problem with JM's stance and let me tell you why. My kid brother's daughter is doing her Ph D in Finance at Yale who was able to afford it purely because of the scholarship she earned from her academic excellence along with two years' work experience in financial research for a major consulting company. We talked about this very same subject. Her comment was, "Well, I totally resent the fact that some of the ritzy kids in school, who got in because of inherited seats, get their rooms cleaned by professional maid service. Fortunately they represent less than 5%. There is no such thing as a perfect system so I can live with the + or - 5% deviation."

there are no legacy admissions for graduate programs. you can't run a ph.d. program in economics if you hire dubya as your RA.

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Wed Jun 12, 2013 7:19 pm

I am all for caste based affirmative action in US colleges. All the Indians who get into these top schools seem to be FC.

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