Having a campus that looks like a Benetton ad isn't a compelling state interest

https://davidlat.substack.com/p/affirmative-action-is-going-down

by hirundo • 4 years ago

35 33 4 years ago

davidlat.substack.com

i always get lost here. we specifically targeted and kept down people based on race with government policy. why is it a bad thing to acknowledge that and try and fix it? are we so naïve as to thunk it’s all fair now? where the 1960s long enough ago that the impact of prior rade based policy is legitimately gone?

adwn• 4 years ago

why is it a bad thing to acknowledge that and try and fix it?

I think the main objection against this kind of affirmative action is that you can't make up for discrimination against one group by discriminating against another group: None of the young, white (and Asian) students that are given a disadvantage today were responsible for the discrimination against black people decades ago – they weren't even around back then.

That's the ethical argument. There's also possibly [1] the economic argument, that this kind of affirmative action is inefficient, i.e., it doesn't fix systemic discrimination, or that all in all it creates more harm than good.

[1] I don't know if that argument is true, but I could see someone making this point.

csunbird• 4 years ago

(warning: unpopular opinion)

I would like to point out that, affirmative action does create harm, as it tarnishes the image of people legitimately got selected and got in to the college/program, as there will always be the question in the air: "Did they got in because they are qualified or because of color of their skin?". Also, people who weren't selected because they are not in the affirmative action group will always have the doubt that they weren't selected because of their race/skin color and this always will fuel racist thoughts.

Fixing discrimination with discrimination is not a good idea: two wrongs should not add up to a right. We should fix the systemic issues that cause people in to be in the situation where they are discriminated against, even although it is going to be slow.

virgildotcodes3• 4 years ago

We're running an endless race around a track. For hundreds of years, one member of the race was shackled in chains, causing them to fall behind. Some people seem to believe that now that those shackles have been removed (debatable), the race is fair.

I think it's just a lack of serious education on these issues. If you're born into being watching the race after all this has come to pass, without a deep understanding of the historical context and its effects upon the current state of the race, and you see us suddenly pulling up a golf cart next to that disadvantaged runner, and driving them up ahead to compensate for the gap that was created by those shackles, you may think "wow how unfair, why does he get to ride in a golf cart??"

Even more likely if this is in fact a relay race, and you are having the baton passed on to you by an advantaged runner. You have extra incentive to protect your lead and find anger at anyone else getting help.

doctorhandshake• 4 years ago

I’m surprised at the slightly mendacious position taken by the author, a lawyer. (I write that without sarcasm but take it as you will.)

Here he characterizes the pro-argument as being in favor of diverse aesthetics instead diverse experience, when, if pressed, I would assume he’d admit that the objective of affirmative action is in fact to admit a student body with more diverse backgrounds.

He also acknowledges that the narrow point of the anti- argument focuses on race _qua race_ as a criterion for admission, but then ascribes the characterization of an acquaintance’s grade school admissions consultant of a Manhattan grade school admissions program’s inclination towards ‘visual diversity’ as being, without evidence, the same one at work at the universities in question. I don’t think you can make that leap with solely the hearsay opinion of one third party from another context.

I think he drives by the real argument he should make here, which is that the objectives of affirmative action are laudable but the technique currently used to further its goals is deeply flawed to the point of being useless.

flappyeagle3• 4 years ago

Visual (or visible) diversity is certainly a term of art that is used by HR practitioners. I've heard it multiple times from corporate HR people in the form of "while we value diversity of ideas we also value visual diversity".

kodyo3• 4 years ago

Anecdote: I've heard corporate execs bemoan the number of white faces versus brown faces on their About Us page.

iandanforth• 4 years ago

When you're trying to steer a boat toward a goal it's unusual if you can point your boat in that direction and then keep an straight rudder the entire way there. Currents exist and will push you off course. To reach your goal you have to steer against the current. If you tried to keep a neutral rudder you'd never make it. One side of this debate believes that equality is achievable without steering against the current, they are wrong.

flappyeagle3• 4 years ago

Where are these colleges steering it to? The justices asked and got no clear answer.

I suspect the answer would have been hard to stomach. Something like: marginally more underrepresented population than our peers, and as few east and south Asians as we can get away with, without being incredibly obvious.

Retric• 4 years ago

On issue with the court system is it is extremely dependent on the specific people making the argument.

If they had said it’s a correction factor for the inherent racial bias of our selection criteria that’s far more compelling. Aka, we want to reward potential students for being on a yacht club/legacy admissions etc, but by doing so we disadvantage some minorities. But elite collages really don’t want to make that arguemnt.

tsss• 4 years ago

The goal is to get rid of discrimination, not to balance the statistic of arbitrary identitarian classes. Affirmative action does exactly the opposite.

hairofadog3• 4 years ago

I’ll be interested to see if they also end legacy admissions, or only affirmative action. I expect the latter.

protomyth2• 4 years ago

Ending legacy admissions is a very quick way to reduce alumni donations.

I get the feeling that legacy admissions are actually a benefit for other students because it means that powerful families can become part of your social network. That is a big difference from a state school.

gumby2• 4 years ago

Ending legacy admissions is a very quick way to reduce alumni donations.

MIT is a good counterexample with a large endowment and no legacies.

hairofadog3• 4 years ago

I imagine we’ll hear these same justifications from the Supreme Court.

gumby2• 4 years ago

If it's not a compelling state interest doesn't that mean that the government should let the universities do as they wish?

mminer237• 4 years ago

No, because the universities get government aid. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits the government funding racist things.

NovemberWhiskey4• 4 years ago

I don't think the goal is to have a campus that looks like a Benetton ad, is it? That seems somewhat disingenuous.

Isn't it more like "have a student body that is somewhat representative of the overall national demographic", on the basis that merit to attend elite institutions is evenly distributed?

Y_Y• 4 years ago

But what if your national (or local) demography isn't "diverse"? I mean that question in good faith. My understanding is that most diversity targets are not lined up with population as a whole, or even the applicant pool. That's just the default, and to do any worse I imagine could be seen as criminal negative discrimination.

kodyo3• 4 years ago

How do you come to the conclusion that merit is evenly distributed?

NovemberWhiskey4• 4 years ago

Well, the alternative is that merit is distributed in a racially uneven way. Is that your thesis?

flappyeagle3• 4 years ago

have a student body that is somewhat representative of the overall national demographic

This question was directly asked by a justice (I think Alito) in almost exactly those words. The answer he got from the UNC lawyer was "no", followed by a bunch of handwaving.

The central argument from the schools seems to be that ethnic diversity is a priori good, and providing that environment benefits all students. The cost of decreased acceptance rate for Asians is the cost to achieve this good, and is a worthwhile tradeoff because it benefits the Asians who do get in.

I don't find this argument totally specious. But I think it reduces to: "bigotry is acceptable if the benefits outweigh the costs". I don't think the Constitution finds this to be permissible.

Having a campus that looks like a Benetton ad isn't a compelling state interest

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