I advised a student to not publish evidence of reverse racism

https://quillette.com/2022/02/17/a-student-sleuth-found-evidence-that-our-university-practices-reverse-racism-heres-why-i-advised-him-not-to-publish-it/

by signa11 • 4 years ago

156 200 4 years ago

quillette.com

coldtea• 4 years ago

An alternative title could be: "I saved a naive student from career suicide"

johntdaly3• 4 years ago

Yes, he definitely did that.

What sucks for people like his student is that they counted as a minority and got shafted by that until they didn’t count as a minority anymore and got shafted by that too. It sucks to be an invisible minority.

yakshaving_jgt5• 4 years ago

In both cases, Daniel was shafted by racism, ergo, affirmative action is racist.

thrwaway9871• 4 years ago

And this is why no one listens to scientists. When it comes to actually standing up for something objectively right they fold like author and fall in line with status quo.

Why do climate denial or anti-vax movements exist? Its because academia lost all integrity in the eyes of the public. You can wave all the research you want in front of their eyes but no one will listen as science is just another part of marketing nowadays.

Let it sink in that speaking out the truth is career suicide and institutions publicly portrayed as sources of truth are actively pushing for it to stay that way.

Ancapistani• 4 years ago

When it comes to actually standing up for something objectively right they fold like author and fall in line with status quo.

Where do you get that from the article?

The author’s purpose seemed to be to make sure that “Daniel” didn’t fall victim to his own naivety. His advice was based on his own judgement of Daniel’s understanding of the situation.

Standing up for what you believe is right is great - if you understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, how likely you are to succeed, and the what the consequences are if you don’t.

raxxorrax4• 4 years ago

Some like to do science, some like to do a career. You are not wrong though.

We should listen to the people that want to do science.

brobdingnagians• 4 years ago

It isn't "Reverse Racism", it is all Racism. Any race to any other race, it is Racism. "Reverse Racism" is as meaningless as "Square Circle".

gorjusborg• 4 years ago

I don't think meaningless is the right word. The right word is racist.

comboy2• 4 years ago

Going with your analogy your comment seems more like "It isn't a square, it's a rectangle. 4 corners, two parallel sides, that's always a rectangle".

Maybe explain what is your problem with distinguishing these two behaviors? Are you afraid that a fix would only be applied to a subgroup? Naming patterns makes communication more efficient.

ramblerman2• 4 years ago

Not OP, but if we accept the common definition of racism as "prejudice or discrimination against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group"

And then now define a new term, "reverse racism" to mean a better/lesser quality of racism based on which racial or ethnic group it originates from, you are being racist in your very definition.

It is as ridiculous as a square circle.

Chris204811• 4 years ago

That's if you assume the effect of "reverse". I'm quite happy we have a term for "racism, but against the (perceived cultural) norm" or "anti-majority racism" - which is indeed a type of racism. maybe "un-convential" would be a better word?

rightbyte2• 4 years ago

What would you call the historical majority black Apartheid? Not "reverse racism" surely.

The term is just bad.

In this case, it could be called "race quotas" or something.

bregma3• 4 years ago

The article read like it coiuld have been written by Jordan Peterson himself.

"Reverse" racism is because it is describing the fact that straight white men can no longer rely on their sex and race and sexual orientation to help narrow the field of competitors for whatever they want. It's the reverse of racism, in which the field of competition is narrows to those without certain apparent traits or attributes. The reverse of racism, not racism pointed the other direction.

rzz3• 4 years ago

It sounds to me like the student was relying on his grades and intellect, and denied admission into the honors program solely due to his race and gender.

rmbyrro2• 4 years ago

What about it was written by Peterson or not? We're discussing the ideas and the merit behind them.

Let's have an intelligent discussion, rather than an ideological waste of time...

sinyug2• 4 years ago

It isn't "Reverse Racism", it is all Racism

It is not that simple. I think of it as plain racism vs acceptable/approved/sanctioned racism. In the first case, you will have the politicians and media all talking about how bad this is. In the second case, the only response you will get from this crowd is a collective "meh."

Yoric• 4 years ago

In that case, why not call it "sanctioned racism"?

zozbot2343• 4 years ago

The word is systemic racism. Because it's only "acceptable/approved/sanctioned" within some systemic power hierarchy. (If power differentials were not directly involved, one would rather define it as systemic prejudice and a factor behind systemic discrimination, which despite appearances is in fact a very strong claim as well. Much stronger than claims of 'racism' in an individual sense.)

amcoastal3• 4 years ago

Sure. But there are different connotations and implications when someone is racist against a white person vs a black person (in America). Go to another country where another race is dominant and the standards and idea of racism change. Having specific adjectives to describe different contextual racism seems useful, as not all racism is equal. Reverse racism is not the best example of a great contextual adjective though, as its meaning wouldn't be obvious to non-Americans. Though it was obvious to you, so it at least did its job. Getting upset about the term itself though is a personal choice that should be examined.

marliechiller• 4 years ago

I respectfully disagree and would go far as to say that this attitude is counter productive to advancing beyond race. Any acceptance of racism should be shunned irrespective of which ethnic group is doing it. A persons characteristics should not dictate whether an action is more or less morally right.

rmbyrro2• 4 years ago

Yet, this professor would have certainly given good advice to his student, providing this story was true. I don't know if this is hypothetical or not.

jcuenod3• 4 years ago

When I first encountered this term, I had the same reaction and it seems like a reasonable response but (like one of the replies you've received) you're assuming your definition of racism.

The definition that's usually used in sociology involves structural power and, perhaps most importantly, white supremacy. Particularly the latter point means that the term racism, in the academic context, always refers to power dynamics that flow out of white supremacy.

There are still valid critiques (such as, arguably, unfalsifiablity) and, personally, I don't think the directionality built into the term help us as much as it hinders the conversation—especially given the divergence from the colloquial meaning of "racism". At the same time, though, systemic power is on the side of (certain) white people and the effects of discrimination are compounded by systemic power differentials. It seems important to bring that aspect of racism into the conversation.

sva_• 4 years ago

the term racism, in the academic context, always refers to power dynamics that flow out of white supremacy

Pretty typical for Americans to make themselves the center of the definition of a basic term.

Just because some academics redefine a term, doesn't make someone else's argument invalid.

zozbot2343• 4 years ago

The word "racism" strictly refers to prejudice and/or discrimination in any context where systemic power differentials are involved. White supremacy might definitely be a relevant power differential, but there are others that can be just as relevant, such as the very real power held by admissions bureaucracies in academia.

This does mean that, yes, so-called 'reverse' racism in such contexts, particularly when accompanied by systemic prejudice against e.g. whites and asians (such as an implied theory that they have less "character", "well-roundedness" or "diversity" than other groups) is in fact racism.

thefz• 4 years ago

The definition that's usually used in sociology involves structural power and, perhaps most importantly, white supremacy.

That is 100% american. I would advise against going to Europe, the east specifically, and claim that "you can't be racist against whites".

And to be rational systemic racism is just a subset of the concept of racism as a whole.

davidjytang• 4 years ago

always refers to power dynamics that flow out of white supremacy.

This term, reverse racism, has always confused me. What would then racism and reverse racism be defined in Japan a predominant Japanese society?

lobocinza3• 4 years ago

The definition that's usually used in sociology involves structural power and, perhaps most importantly, white supremacy.

The definition in itself is racist. It's doublethink!

gcau• 4 years ago

I think people should be treated equally, and not given better or worse treatment based on their race.

vbezhenar• 4 years ago

That leads to some groups of people being excluded from certain selections. Culture is a thing.

manigandham2• 4 years ago

Culture is by choice and can be changed. Not race. That’s the difference.

whiddershins• 4 years ago

That concern is a valid concern but it is probably a bad idea for it to override every other concern.

Chris204811• 4 years ago

Shouldn't groups be rewarded for the benefits of their culture? Or can you give example of this kind?

marcellus233• 4 years ago

So the solution is to omit other groups instead? Who decides which groups get omitted?

shadowgovt5• 4 years ago

Unfortunately, that doesn't lead to the desired outcome of equality of opportunity with regards race in the US because of the significance of initial conditions as regards outcomes in the US.

Policies that ignore race increase the odds that black Americans who are born poor will die poor, and the proportion who are born poor is huge relative to other races because of the US history of slavery followed by overt discrimination.

(Worth noting: it may be possible to achieve the same goals by affirmative action around poverty, not race... But would Daniel have been satisfied were he told he was too rich for the honors program?)

janto2• 4 years ago

You're conflating opportunity with outcome.

bloak2• 4 years ago

It's hard to decide how "rich" a student is. They probably don't have much money in their own name. They may have rich parents who regularly give them money. They may have rich parents who don't want anything to do with them. They might be expecting to inherit $10 million quite soon from an elderly aunt. Or the elderly aunt might have left all her money to the local cat shelter. Even the tax authorities, with all their legal powers, can't easily answer those questions. A university certainly can't.

ramblerman2• 4 years ago

But woukd Daniel have been satisfied were he told he was too rich for the honors program?

No, Daniel would be happy if he was judged on his individual merit.

Honest question, what if we swing the pendulum too far with fixing the past. Do we then need to be racist again in the other direction in the future to fix that?

It's a ridiculous idea to try and tweak society at this level, and the only correct fix is unequivocally enforcing equal opportunity at the level of the individual.

zozbot2343• 4 years ago

Race policies in colleges have nothing to do with Black or Hispanic poverty, to any reasonable approximation. The people who are affected, one way or the other, are squarely middle-class.

yucky4• 4 years ago

It's embarrassing that large segments of society (particularly younger) see this perfectly logical statement as racist.

SassyThrowaway• 4 years ago

Tangentially to the topic of discussion, I have seen analogies of the following phrase so many times by now:

I’d also formed a hypothesis, based on a certain bluntness and lack of social tact he exhibited, that Daniel might be on the autism/Asperger’s spectrum.

And yet I am not sure what people mean to communicate by bringing in autism and Asperger's into the picture. What is up with questioning people's mental health just to explain bluntness and lack of social tact? Is that an instant self-correction to the negative observation about somebody, to remind yourself to be compassionate just in case?

sersi• 4 years ago

Ironically, if he were truly diagnosed as being on the spectrum, it could be a plus from a diversity standpoint and might increase his chances of being hired...

fmajid3• 4 years ago

We're at least 30 years away from neurodiversity being considered a protected class.

nicoburns2• 4 years ago

What is up with questioning people's mental health just to explain bluntness and lack of social tact?

For one thing, I wouldn't necessarily consider Autism or Aspergers a mental health condition. It's certainly a difference in mental functional, but unlike something like depression it's not so clear cut that it's always a negative thing.

Secondly, I think the quality of an autistic outlook on the world is very different to simply lacking social tact. It also typically includes a disregard for social norms (sometimes because they are not understood, but sometimes also because they are understood but are rejected), and a very strong sense of morality, both of which are relevant here.

viraptor2• 4 years ago

For one thing, I wouldn't necessarily consider Autism or Aspergers a mental health condition.

Are you thinking about high functioning autism? Sure, sometimes it's just "that person has weird behaviours". But on the other side of scale there are people who cannot communicate at a level required for independent daily living.

montroser• 4 years ago

Asperger's is classified as a developmental disorder, not a mental health issue.

I believe what's meant to be communicated is that since this would be a lifelong deficiency engaging in common social interactions, that a certain amount of leeway would be appropriate.

phkahler• 4 years ago

IMHO the main reason the spectrum is brought up here is to bring some simpathy for the student. Some people would label him a racist for not supporting the selection process, but saying he's on the spectrum might get him a pass and allow those people to continue reading and see his point.

Otherwise it isn't really relevant. Not much else about him is revealed.

rightbyte2• 4 years ago

I got this feeling that Aspergers is overdiagnosed.

I was a substitute teacher for a special autism/asperger class with 15yo students, in math.

Some half of them obviously had clinical introvert problems.

I was asked not to touch the students and I really understand why, becouse my first instinct was to touch them when someone didn't seem to hear me.

But like half of them seemed to be there for playing Magic the Gathering too much.

ordu• 4 years ago

What is up with questioning people's mental health just to explain bluntness and lack of social tact?

Maybe not "explain" but "describe"? Asperger leads not to just any bluntness, but to very specific, in specific situations.

I saw this reference to Asperger as one of key pieces of a puzzle. He was not just stupid person when he planned to overthrow committee. He was bright enough but not in his social decisions. Moreover the author poses a question "did I do the best when discouraged him". If person have troubles grasping the nuanced picture of a social interactions, then the best strategy for him to trust his advisor more than his own ideas.

If he was not Asperger (and he might be not, he was not diagnosed), then his advisor could left his to his own devices without experiencing a moral dilemma: student should be adult enough to think for himself in such situations, without his advisor making decision and then manipulating his advisee by giving him a biased sample of facts and thoughts.

MrMan• 4 years ago

aspbergers is invoked to excuse the person from any antisocial behavior, while at the same time setting that person apart from regular, and by implication, lesser "neurotypical" humans. Its an ubermensch thing I see from many many tech types.

stefanve• 4 years ago

back in the day this was called positive discrimination. While I'm not totally against it, merit should still be a factor. That is fair to all involved. You don't want that people think you where just selected because you are a minority since that will become discriminatory very quickly

effry-much• 4 years ago

“Positive” discrimination is still discrimination.

tromp• 4 years ago

It's also known as

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action

Chris204811• 4 years ago

But is it AA if it's not explicitly declared? Is covert AA still AA?

carmenchaos• 4 years ago

"he proceeded to tell me about a “plan” he had come up with to ensure he would be accepted by a good graduate school. He told me that two of his four grandparents were descended from Sephardic Jews who’d fled Spain in the 1500s. This, he said, made him “technically, part Hispanic”—and thus eligible for preferential admission to graduate-school programs. I tried to discourage Daniel from putting this plan into action. I told him I thought it was deceptive and dishonest."

But how do they determine ethnicity when it comes to affirmative action?

Just subjective self-identity?

Visually? I.e "measuring skulls and skin colors"?

Ask your peers what they think you are and base it on that?

Need at least N generations of ancestry to some specific place?

N % DNA match common to some specific group of genes?

daniel-thompson• 4 years ago

Setting value judgments about this stuff aside, I'm laughing just thinking about the logistical & administrative nightmare that would result from an admissions department actually trying to verify student-provided race & ethnicity with any degree of rigor. Hiring genealogists to investigate and verify family ancestors. Upgrading department policies, procedures, and facilities to process DNA samples. Providing an appeals process for and handling student protests of the committee's assessment of their race. Schools are already so bad at IT, admin, etc, can you even imagine how much effort they would have to put in to make something like this work.

hihihihi12344• 4 years ago

Well this is a story as old as racism itself. There's never been a clear-cut way to unambiguously decide which "race" everybody is, and segregationist regimes have always struggled with edge cases. E.g. back in the days of Jim Crow it was sometimes possible for a particular "black" person to become legally "white" just by crossing state lines.

mountainb• 4 years ago

Tons of professionals ride that train to embarrassing prizes for best Hispanic Lawyer in state X or what have you with no shame whatsoever, down to providing a ridiculous backstory despite having never lived in the region and not speaking Portuguese or Spanish. There are no tests besides the chutzpah of the applicant.

curtisblaine7• 4 years ago

And when every candidate is part of a minority, minorities cease to exist.

curtisblaine7• 4 years ago

But how do they determine ethnicity when it comes to affirmative action?

Another question: how do they determine if a candidate is a trans person? Given that only self-identification counts, and it's "wrong" to only suggest that a trans person should be identified by looks, registered gender, sexual preferences or even self-chosen pronouns, anybody could declare themselves a trans person without changing how they live their life in any way, save checking the "trans" checkbox on their forms. When it comes to positive discrimination or affirmative action in favour of trans people (or probably any LGBT+ person), it's not only impossible, but potentially a PR nightmare, to check who is "eligible", so to speak, and who is not.

CodeGlitch• 4 years ago

This is how I'm going to do it. Check every box and get the "unprivileged advantage".

BrandoElFollito• 4 years ago

I am wondering about that as well since forever, being French.

We do not have such measures and I was wondering what would happen if I, a white man, "self-idetified" myself as black for the sake of receiving formal positive discrimination, grants, etc.

pawelmurias• 4 years ago

But how do they determine ethnicity when it comes to affirmative action?

Racists tend to determine race visually.

roenxi• 4 years ago

Although interesting, it is easy to miss the important aspects here. At the end of the day, we know there are examples of racism everywhere. It may be novel that it is employed against Caucasians in the US, but that isn't very exciting. Bad luck to the Asians too, worst of both worlds.

The problem here is that if this is systematic - and there is reason to believe it is systematic - then there is a chance that the next generation of elites (I'm thinking high level government bureaucrats, corporate executives and down the line towards more successful supervisors) might end up being measurably less competent than the last. Success at universities is treated as a signal of academic ability. If that signal is corrupt there are going to be some poor choices made. As troops are currently crossing the Russian border, it is worth reflecting that some decisions we do want the best and brightest working on.

Chris204811• 4 years ago

I think the relevance here is that this racism stems from DEI initiatives, not in spite of it.

75377366383• 4 years ago

Racism (no matter what race is targeted) is wrong and unfair to the individuals affected, but I don't think it will have any real effect on job performance because I don't think the selection processes used correlate well with performance anyway.

Going back to using race and sex as a basis for selection is immoral and unfair, but it was the norm until recently. Many of the old white men at the top of government and corporate leadership now received more help on account of their race and sex than a young black woman is likely to receive today. I'm not saying this to justify racism today, just to say that I don't think we are likely to notice any difference by swapping one privileged class for another.

raxxorrax4• 4 years ago

Far more common than motivated by racism, people elevate others through nepotism. Rules based on ethnicity even enable that to a huge degree. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Of course the people that enable racist admissions will get compensated respectively. Contrary to the current echelons of power, which at least openly favor humanism, you would get racists instead.

Racism [...] is wrong and unfair to the individuals affected, but [...]

Maybe search for better "solutions".

inter_netuser• 4 years ago

We already are well past that point.

That signal has been getting less and less reliable for a few decades at this point, even at the highest levels.

lloydatkinson• 4 years ago

It should have been published anon!

Blackstone4• 4 years ago

In the coming decades, I think a lot more of this will come out... I am not saying it is right or wrong...just my observation... on my university course, women were offered lower entry grades to boost numbers.

A white male friends is worried he will not make MD at a large US bank because he is not the right sex, race or sexual orientation...The established white male MDs are entrenched and it is the up and coming generation which is getting discriminated against.

Will people start to withhold information on race and sex in their applications for fear of being discriminated against? I think so...

jl6• 4 years ago

He could always just come out as non-binary to get almost all of that access at almost no personal cost.

dang• 4 years ago

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. It's exactly what we don't want here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

hmate9• 4 years ago

Information such as race and sex should not even be on the application form to begin with.

fmajid3• 4 years ago

France considered making "blind" resumes mandatory, i.e. the resume would have a top part with name and other PII that would be cut off and kept by HR, the hiring manager would not see them. Of course, this not deal with the problem of discrimination during in-person interviews but it would address the issue of candidates rejected from consideration just because of their name.

akudha2• 4 years ago

When IBM came to my campus for recruiting, their presentation openly said they are going to hire more women than men, even if men had higher GPA and did better in interviews. This was to “increase diversity” of their workforce, they said.

Most of the men at my campus just shrugged and laughed it off. It was just one company (if memory serves right) among the dozens that came to the campus that year. I wonder now if this was happening more, but quietly. Hey, at least IBM was open about it!

This is a very difficult slope. We want to help minorities. But we also want to be fair to others at the same time. In the case of academia, it is much worse situation simply because there is a huge pool of qualified applicants for a very small number of positions.

Lio• 4 years ago

IBM is probably not somewhere you want to build a long term career in any case.

They're known for ageism[1] amongst other things, which won't affect new graduates but should be seen as a canary in a coal mine.

If they're penalising people solely based on age what are the chances they'll also penalise you for not matching some other non-performance based criteria?

1. https://www.consultancy.uk/news/30498/ibm-accused-of-ageism-...

matt321• 4 years ago

I check the box that says "I prefer not to say" whenever the question of race or sex comes up shrug.

billsmithaustin• 4 years ago

The tone and writing style make me think this was a piece of undergraduate fiction rather than a factual account written by a PhD.

zeppelin101• 4 years ago

Yes.. of course.. laughs nervously

vehemenz• 4 years ago

Either way, the author is protected by pseudonymity. Yay!

ashwagary4• 4 years ago

Quillete writers have published a lot of unverifiable nonsense. So much so that I need proof of every claim they make.

huhtenberg• 4 years ago

"Daniel" sounds like a construct for making author's own findings and experiences known.

alexb_3• 4 years ago

This article is written in such a way to maximize outrage and the amount of people who will share it, which makes me immediately suspicious. Who is behind quillette.com?

yc-kraln• 4 years ago

Quillette is a libertarian fantasy website.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quillette

oblio10• 4 years ago

I have a question for commenters here.

Let's assume that you have group A, in a position of power, wealth, education, connections, etc.

There is also group B, which has none of that.

Let's assume that naturally group A doesn't want to give that up. If you don't agree, you don't know enough about human nature and I'd really like to see studies that back up your opinion.

Let's assume that most people are ordinary and statistically most people don't break through to a higher position.

How do you equalize groups A and B?

danuker• 4 years ago

There is a difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

When you take from those that contribute to society and give to those that don't, in order to equalize, fewer and fewer will keep contributing.

oblio10• 4 years ago

There is no equality of opportunity, that's the thing.

The game is rigged.

In Romanian we say "cine se aseamănă, se adună": "those who are alike, gather together".

It's something that needs to be fought actively otherwise the first mover advantage is eternal.

Why do Americans speak English? Surely the non-British immigrants greatly outnumber the British ones?

everdrive• 4 years ago

Why would you presume that individuals share blame or benefit with their groups? If one member of a group acts poorly, is it fair to penalize another member of that group? If one member of a group is privileged, is it fair to penalize a non-privileged member of that group to "even out" the groups?

oblio10• 4 years ago

Because there are in-groups and out-groups and we're tribal animals, social animals.

None of this is new, the Ancient Greeks knew this (zoon politikon).

So your proposal is just to abandon the second group, am I right?

barneygale• 4 years ago

This a community for startup founders. Each of them cultivates a personal myth that they're successful because they were smart and worked hard. They don't like to admit that the system is rigged in their favour.

eeZah7Ux• 4 years ago

...and even if most people here have heard of survivor bias and selection bias, they still ignore it.

Chris204811• 4 years ago

And are group A/B distinguished by race, or other factors?

There are plenty poor whites, many struggling in red states / rust belt, that don't have power, wealth, education, connections etc. Would it be reasonable to group them with other whites who do have those connections to offset that to justify positive discrimination on a racial black/white basis?

oblio10• 4 years ago

Well, frankly the best way to do it would be, you guessed it, socioeconomic status, primarily wealth and income.

Same thing, proportional representation, but based on social classes.

However, how do you do that and how do you prevent it from being gamed? Are universities allowed to ask for paychecks going 10 years back? Asset lists? ZIP codes for where the family lived in the last 10 years? Proof that you've been on the dole?

red_admiral2• 4 years ago

What the university needed to do, this dean said, was “make the program look more like America as a whole.”

Given how many Americans as a whole don't go to a university at all, and a huge majority don't go to a "top university" (however you measure that), I think this phrasing from the dean should be nominated for some kind of Orwellian Newspeak of the Year award.

darkerside2• 4 years ago

That's exactly what people are trying to change. I'm not for affirmative action, but at least I understand why people are doing it when they do.

cloutchaser5• 4 years ago

He told me that he was not a racist. He had voted for Democrats in the 2016 election and hated Donald Trump. And as it happens, I had reason to believe this was true. The morning after that election, Daniel had come to visit me in my office, deeply troubled by what a Trump presidency might mean for scientific research and funding.

Unfortunately by voting for democrats you are giving a democratic mandate for this type of racist policy. Stop doing it.

native_samples• 4 years ago

Yep. My sympathy was lost when Daniel said he supported racism in college admissions, just not the part of the career path where he was. He's a victim of policies he supports, well who cares. He should probably learn a lesson but somehow, likely he won't.

andrewclunn• 4 years ago

Does every one of these have to have the "I hate Trump, yet understand the motivations of his followers," claim? I get the article is for "well meaning progressives" who want all these policies, just maybe 20% less, but the author and their intended audience have no clue what motivates people who fundamentally disagree with them. My advice to the author is to endure. Academia is the corrupt bed you nade, now sleep in it

vorhemus• 4 years ago

Critics might now argue that the goal of the diversity movement was never to create equal opportunities for everyone but to promote specific groups.

Anyway, the illogic of this movement already starts with the fact that only certain characteristics are seen as a source of discrimination, while others are not. Skin color and gender are known to be factors of discrimination. But what about "beauty," "social origin" or "age"? It is known from studies that attractive people are considered to be more competent or more successful and are promoted more often - less attractive people therefore suffer an unfair disadvantage. Shouldn't this therefore also become part of any effort to stop discrimination?

tangent-man• 4 years ago

The term racism is racist. There's only 1 race the human race.

ashwagary4• 4 years ago

There's only 1 race the human race.

Somebody needed to explain that to Europeans for about 600 years.

alexb_3• 4 years ago

Let's put aside all of the questions of the source's validity and assume this is true.

What the hell should anyone do about it?

You have to remember that you, the individual, have absolutely zero power whatsoever to make any sort of significant change. No matter what, anything you do to fight these types of systems will just make you look like a worse person, while changing nothing. Mapping out the possibilities of outcomes:

- You fight the system, win and become known (not a good thing, because remember you don't have any power to make a societal change!) or lose and not get into the college you want

- You play to the system, and it either doesn't work (same situation you were in before doing any action) or it does work (you get in!).

There is no logical scenario where you should do ANYTHING other than play into the system. So put down that 1% Hispanic.

cloutchaser5• 4 years ago

That's a pretty nihilistic attitude.

And if everyone always thinks this way, nothing will improve.

akudha2• 4 years ago

The first time someone points to something that is wrong, unjust etc, they are going to be laughed at, retaliated etc. Maybe the second, third, fourth time too. But they plant the seed, people hear about it and think about it, even if they don’t come out and say/support it openly. This doesn’t mean the first person’s actions are useless, even if nothing happens immediately.

The question then becomes who has the balls to be the first, most likely ruining their own career in the process?

curtisblaine7• 4 years ago

Additionally: if you play the system and encourage other people to do so, the system becomes inefficient. Imagine 80% of the candidates claiming to be part of racial a minority, and no way to verify that without doing proper DNA-based racial profiling (which no company / university / association wants to do). When everyone is / claims to be a minority, there are no more minorities.

caeril• 4 years ago

There's a third option, which is to ignore the system. There's no binary choice between fighting or playing the system - you can simply do without it.

A comprehensive CS education is available for free for anyone sufficiently motivated and able to structure a proper curriculum for themselves.

That leaves the credentials and weak social networks that the system provides. Well, you have four years you're no longer wasting in the system to create a portfolio and build your own network. Plenty of time.

Done.

alexb_3• 4 years ago

"build your own network"

A lot of people go to college to build that network... and also, almost every single young person does not go to college for the reason of wanting to learn. They want the piece of paper that allows them to get jobs. You have infinite potential to learn as much as you want, but that means jack to anyone who requires a degree.

raxxorrax4• 4 years ago

The optimized approach is to lie about your ethnicity in the current state. Perhaps about your sex too at some point.

transitory_pce• 4 years ago

Why not design affirmative action based on generational economic status regardless of race? This is lazy, vote-bank appeasing policy making.

darkr• 4 years ago

While this could potentially lead to “fairer” outcomes, it would likely be difficult and/or expensive to implement. Also, Affirmative Action as an official policy would likely be illegal; what is being described here is the more modern and surreptitious form in “positive discrimination”

fmajid3• 4 years ago

Have you noticed how universities flaunt diversity statistics on their web sites, but getting stats on socioeconomic background is like pulling teeth, if you can get to the data at all?

ashwagary4• 4 years ago

It's not based on race since we know white women are the primary beneficiaries.

Affirmative action should redesigned to specifically target the founding/native group of black Americans that were systematically disenfranchised, enslaved, and robbed by the dominant society.

blindmute2• 4 years ago

Because when you do that, White and Asian people are still "over-represented". That's really the only reason.

ianai• 4 years ago

People get “competitive” over scarce resources. I wonder if an alternative way to address systemic issues from things like what’s suspected by OP here is expansion. Colleges could increase their enrollments if their endowments similarly expanded. Further, make lists like those mentioned here bigger-especially easy if the financial costs with the list are negligible (not saying it is).

I realize this may not be feasible. But being a growing society does come with benefits.

0atman• 4 years ago

I'm very suspicious of this line:

"I’ve never been quite clear on how we’re supposed to get over centuries of judging people by their skin color or ethnicity by paying more and more attention to skin color and ethnicity."

This seems like the author fundamentally doesn't understand the difference between equality and equity.

I'll cite the Monopoly example. If you and I are 100 turns in to a game where I have been given $2000 every time I pass GO, and you have been given $2, you can't just give both of us $200 going forward and expect our inequality to be solved. For starters, I probably own all the board.

What's the solution? I don't know. But it's clear from this wording that the author is unwilling to accept relatively small concessions to fix enormous historical oppression.

johntdaly3• 4 years ago

I think you have to consider that many of us where born in a time where “not seeing color” was touted as “the solution” to racism. And while there are points for “correcting” based on skin color the ting is presented and perused rather badly by many rather well meaning people. AND during a time where skin color is becoming less and less of an indicator for who needs help.

What's the solution? I don't know. But it's clear from this wording that the author is unwilling to accept relatively small concessions to fix enormous historical oppression.

The confession you want the teacher to just accept is bullshit. Why should anybody accept a relatively huge advantage for some of an ethnic group (while the rest of that group gets nothing) as an acceptable form of restitution? Worse still, the advantage goes to people in that group that are already advantaged!

I honestly see this as a problem, the problem that you need to be important enough in you “group” to get those advantages to get ahead while the rest need to go without. Can you imagine how it feels to be on the wrong side of that line? These types of practices aren’t giving people who need a leg up a leg up. They are pulling more lines where more people landing on the wrong side of.

I know that the type of solution I prefer is many, many small solutions rather than a few big ones. If I land on the right side of some and the wrong side of others I still have something that boosts my self worth and supports me in some small way.

P.S.: The “equality vs equity” argument makes more sense too if you leave skin color out of it. When I think about equity I think about water fountains and entryway that are accessible for people in a wheelchair, not about skin color.

Chris204811• 4 years ago

But it's common to focus on those who "own all the board" who are mostly white, and ignore all the poor whites who own little. That's not just a difference of race, it's a difference of finances.

the author is unwilling to accept relatively small concessions to fix enormous historical oppression

1) why is it "clear"? You where just "suspicious" but now you are certain?

2) it's not obvious these concession are either small (certainly not for "Daniel"), or that they'll fix anything (they might make them worse).

3) lowering standards doesn't actually mean equality - the new grad is qualified on paper, but not as qualified in practise. I've heard arguments that this doesn't matter - fair enough, but it's an argument that assumes how meaningless educational standard are, and I'm not sure that applies across the board - the US still has to compete with the rest of the world.

4) the concession is not official, but apparently covert, which is objectionable in itself - you might agree with AA, but disagree with extra-legal, "off-the-books" AA.

krainboltgreene2• 4 years ago

But it's common to focus on those who "own all the board" who are mostly white, and ignore all the poor whites who own little

It's literally the most common talking point I have ever seen. It is neither original nor a good argument at all.

yucky4• 4 years ago

This seems like the author fundamentally doesn't understand the difference between equality and equity.

My understanding is racial equality is treating people the same regardless of race. Racial equity is using various forms of racial discrimination to generate desired outcomes.

Is there a way to achieve racial equity without using racial discrimination?

captaincaveman• 4 years ago

Reverse racism is like using a regex to solve a problem ... now you have two problems :P

SkeuomorphicBee• 4 years ago

Affirmative Action is not "reverse racism". Measuring someone's achievements relatively to the external difficulties they faced along the way is not "reverse racism". I don't believe we still have to spell this out.

And going to the specifics of the student "evidence", the deans list is extremely biased for socioeconomic conditions (which are correlated to race or ethnicity), so by using that as the single data source, the student built an admission's list extremely biased towards rich (white) people. I find it incredible that the student couldn't see such glaring bias in his study, and that he would leap to such unfounded conclusions.

janto2• 4 years ago

If you keep spelling things out then you're not very convincing or you're not understanding the opposite perspective.

yakshaving_jgt5• 4 years ago

How do you measure the external difficulties someone faced along the way?

My personal heritage includes one of mankind's most horrific periods of slavery.

Can you tell me which external difficulties I have faced? Can you tell me what I am owed by society?

yucky4• 4 years ago

How do you measure the external difficulties someone faced along the way?

Apparently you base it all on their skin color, unless I am misreading OP's statement. Doesn't seem logical, maybe they can clarify.

75377366383• 4 years ago

Affirmative action is not measuring someone's achievements relatively to the external difficulties they faced. It's treating people differently because of their race. I.e. Racism.

You could give an advantage to people who grew up in poor areas, had poor parents, graduated from poorly preforming schools (or failed to graduate at all), etc. If you wanted to help people who faced more adversity.

Affirmative action discriminates in favour of the children of millionaires who had every opportunity to succeed but happen to be black, and against white and Asian kids who grew up in a trailer park and went to a school that couldn't afford books.

It's what happens when you target statistics without caring about people. People are individuals, not statistical representatives of demographic groups. You can't fix discrimination by discriminating, but you can hide it and that's what affermtive action seeks to do.

yes_really• 4 years ago

Affirmative Action is not "reverse racism". Measuring someone's achievements relatively to the external difficulties they faced along the way is not "reverse racism". I don't believe we still have to spell this out.

Affirmative action is not "measuring someone's achievements relatively to the external difficulties they faced along the way". It is racial discrimination against whites and asians.

Affirmative action does not measure people by external difficulties they faced. It measures people by their races and seek to benefit some races over others - being fueled by racial resentment.

hongloumeng• 4 years ago

All these comments about a story about an undergrad with a chip on his shoulder analyzing data he PULLED OFF OF SOCIAL MEDIA.

I suppose, despite the provenance of the data, that causal inferences taken on this data are valid because (1) he seems to be on the spectrum, (2) did well in physics, and (3) did "various types of statistical analysis".

red_admiral2• 4 years ago

Should I tell Daniel about the colleague I’d spoken with just a few weeks earlier, who’d told me, with much frustration and a touch of anger in his voice, that he was getting out of academia because he’d concluded that it is now virtually impossible for a white male to get a tenure-track position in his field? This young man had finished his PhD and published a book. He had applied for scores of tenure-track jobs, but had finally concluded he was not likely to get one. “Picking me,” he explained, “won’t do anyone any good. It won’t help the institution show that it is combatting racism, and it won’t allow any of the members of the hiring committee to assuage their white liberal guilt.” Shortly thereafter, this colleague took a non-academic job as a computer programmer.

There are several things that I notice in this paragraph. The first is that the underlying claims deserve to be analysed with the same rigor that Daniel applied in creating his spreadsheet. If, for example, the chances of a Black male getting a tenure-track position are even lower than that of a White male getting one, then however low the absolute values, one could make a coherent argument for affirmative action. Without the data I can't judge the situation any better than just forming a personal opinion.

The claim that it's virtually impossible for a White male to get a tenure-track position is undoubtedly true (for a not completely unreasonable definition of "virtually"), that is by design and has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with academia's business model in extracting maximum surplus from grad students and non-tenured faculty. For example, ACOUP (that some HN readers will be familiar with) talks about how terrible the grad student experience is in the humanities [1], and others have likened academia to a drugs gang [2], which I think was also posted on HN when it came out. Tenured positions are in very short supply by design, and subscribers to ACOUP's newsletter can read the author's regular updates on his attempts to get a tenured position (so far with no luck). Some of these are public in his "Fireside Friday" threads.

Also, the bar for a tenured position (or even tenure-track position) is much higher than "had finished his PhD and published a book". Generally in STEM, being able to obtain grant income and produce a steady stream of not-too-terrible publications are the table stakes.

One of the problems why, as the article mentions, "I’d seen plenty of searches in which members of the hiring committee went out of their way to try to hire persons of color" but many of these searches still fail, is that there might be structural problems in the pipeline before you come to the tenure-track decisions, that means PoC are much less likely to get a PhD in the subject in the first place. If this could be shown with the same rigour as Daniel did to demonstrate affirmative action later on in the pipeline, then there are many other motives than "white liberal guilt" for affirmative action later on.

[1] https://acoup.blog/2021/10/01/collections-so-you-want-to-go-... [2] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/12/11/ho...

yakshaving_jgt5• 4 years ago

I don't think the author did the right thing, though I empathise with their position.

As for Daniel, if it were me, I would have resorted to changing my identity (although I'm not sure this would work in practical terms in this given instance). Superficially, this seems petty, but I think at this point it's the only way to effect change in so called progressive societies.

mjw_byrne• 4 years ago

Regardless of where you land on the racism/reverse racism/affirmative action/culture discussion, it's a sad day for science, academia and truth when simply presenting evidence (rather good evidence in this case, it seems) is frowned upon because it doesn't fit the current societal mood.

blackboxlogic• 4 years ago

I wonder if the author's advice would have changed if the student was seeking transparency instead of "fairness". Would there be administrative resistance to publishing their goals and process? Does the secrecy of the process affect the success of the goals? The student was upset primarily because the outcome was unexpected.

pxue• 4 years ago

Asians (East and South) have been silently dealing with this ever since we started playing the game.

It's interesting to see that we're now grouped along with the "Whites". We've played the game so well, that we're no longer in the "Others" category.

taylodl• 4 years ago

I am a white male. I've seen this policy in play and it's not even new - it's been going on for decades. Here's the thing - there are N "good jobs" and the population of N doesn't reflect the population of America - namely, there's too many white males holding those jobs. If you adjust the composition of N to better reflect the population of America then that will necessarily lead to fewer white males having those "good jobs." There's no way of avoiding that. If you decide to go off "merit" - well, there are some people who were born on 2nd base and when they advance to third the claim they hit a triple. Meanwhile there's other people who weren't born anywhere close to the field, had to get the equipment to play, learn the rules of the game, and worked their butts off to hit a double. Which of these two people have shown more "merit"?

I think part of the problem we're having is we're not having the right conversation, what we should be discussing is why are there only N "good jobs." Even better, why are there any "bad jobs"? What does it mean for a job to be bad and why then would we expect, even demand, that people do such jobs? I think we'll have more meaningful and productive conversations focusing on those questions rather than focusing on race.

sharikous• 4 years ago

If you decide to go off "merit" - well, there are some people who were born on 2nd base and when they advance to third the claim they hit a triple. Meanwhile there's other people who weren't born anywhere close to the field, had to get the equipment to play, learn the rules of the game, and worked their butts off to hit a double. Which of these two people have shown more "merit"?

Only problems

- is "merit" an indicator of knowing to do the job better?

- are you able to evaluate "merit" - specifically whether a person started from second base or not?

blindmute2• 4 years ago

Do you really care how hard your surgeon worked to get there? Or do you care about their core competency?

zephrx11112• 4 years ago

I'm an Asian. I learned 2 lessons after I came to America.

First, I was taught racism here. I didn't aware any racism in my home country. Here, after I became a victim of reverse racism, I learned how this industry works: holding the barometer needle and pretending the pressure are changing.

Second, for the competitiveness, we can't fool ourselves, and others as well.

If I join a competitive group that I don't deserve because of my quality, I know I don't deserve to be here, hence will feel inferior. I can fool the admission office, but cannot fool myself.

Top science requires top brains. Now I can see US is importing more and more top brains worldwide, because she cannot produce enough here. Immigration country is built on sand. Top brains can easily find other better places to live, if you don't treat them equally, no matter what the so called "original intention" is. That's how free market works.

Above are my 2 lessons.

raxxorrax4• 4 years ago

If the original intention makes you believe it allows you to discriminate, you have successfully rationalized racism for yourself. Intentions are relevant, but it remains what it is. I believe that some people are quite apt at fooling themselves is a problem here too.

There is difficulty of breaking out of a culture and certain cultures do not play well with classical education. Compliant cultures will always excel in a conventional schooling system, which can only approximately determine performance. The lack of individual education leads to very smart people often having trouble in school, the effect mostly lessens in higher education at some point. Additionally there is a positive feedback for behavior not relevant to education and I think that is a large problem. There are countless problems with the way people get educated, how resources are artificially restrained and how the profession of teaching is seen in wider society.

But not enough of a problem to allow for racism at any point.

anon13098709134• 4 years ago

One thing that I rarely see expressed clearly enough in these discussions is a breakdown of what /value/ someone brings to a group. We're always talking about whether or not you should hire the one best suited for a position, without going into what that actually means.

The obvious part of that is how skilled the applicant is at the task to be performed in that role. This is where the "hire the one best suited for the job" argument comes in, and usually where it stops. At least in the case of a group/organisation that will work together though there is the more hidden value of differing viewpoints. That, in itself, also has value. I think there's a clear argument to be made that the value in hiring, for example, a developer with weaker (though still "good enough") programming skills in many cases could be the better option when that developer is expected to bring additional value in differing viewpoints compared to a developer having stronger programming skills but otherwise fitting the norm in the industry/business. That is, for the weaker programmer, the sum of the contributed values might still be higher than for the stronger programmer.

I think, expressing the problem this way, and being clear about it, makes it easier to reason about. If the aspects taken into consideration were expressed in this way in a job application, I would probably be easier to accept for rejected applicants too, possibly both in the parent comment and in the article.

There is however the question of what, exactly, the motivation is for diverse hiring. I'd argue that in a healthy business, it should be what I outlined above; the team is, overall, expected to perform better with more diverse viewpoints. Although, I'd wager a guess that many times is more about the image of the business than actual performance. While the image is important, and of course will affect profit, it would probably be hard to justify, publicly, such hiring choices on those grounds.

zephrx11112• 4 years ago

Having diversity and having diversity NOW are tow diff concepts, like lose weight and lose weight NOW. With the diversity NOW mindset, politicians will impose many shortsighted policies, that has much much bigger false positive and negatives. The current policies are harming Asian poors, and benefiting rich minorities, for sure. Are we confident these policies are "effective", and will carry them over say for the next 20 years?

amitport• 4 years ago

Can anyone please explain to me why is this being flagged? I'm honestly not sure I follow. I get that people disagree, but is this the sole reason?

I advised a student to not publish evidence of reverse racism

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