What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions(fivethirtyeight.com)
fivethirtyeight.com
What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/heres-what-happens-when-you-ban-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions/
13 comments
> As a non-american, your obsession with race confuses me for one very specific reason: it is all about involvement, and never about achievement.
As an American, your comment confuses me for one very specific reason: it doesn't at all reflect the actual dialogue about race I've experienced in this country (from all sides of the dialogue), in which very much is about achievement.
> It is weird to me that the US has made the inbetween goal the only goal, e.g. rather than aiming to close racial gaps in outcomes like income, lifespan, likelihood of being a victim of violence etc and promoting policies that can be shown to achieve that, the US has made the goal to close it in opportunity, assuming (hoping?) that will improve outcomes.
Attending formal education at a higher level is, itself, an outcome. Its also an outcome that is proven to improve other outcomes (both for the person experience it, and in future generations, since not only is education attainment measured in highest level attended shown to be a significant influence on income and other outcomes for the person receiving it, its also shown to be a strong factor in educational attainment of that person's children.)
(And, of course, affirmative action and other diversity efforts in colleges aren't the only mechanism, nor is college attendance the only goal, in improving the condition of historically-disadvantaged groups in the US. So the whole criticism of this being the only goal -- which seems to be based on nothing other than the fact that its the focus of the article -- is entirely misplaced.)
As an American, your comment confuses me for one very specific reason: it doesn't at all reflect the actual dialogue about race I've experienced in this country (from all sides of the dialogue), in which very much is about achievement.
> It is weird to me that the US has made the inbetween goal the only goal, e.g. rather than aiming to close racial gaps in outcomes like income, lifespan, likelihood of being a victim of violence etc and promoting policies that can be shown to achieve that, the US has made the goal to close it in opportunity, assuming (hoping?) that will improve outcomes.
Attending formal education at a higher level is, itself, an outcome. Its also an outcome that is proven to improve other outcomes (both for the person experience it, and in future generations, since not only is education attainment measured in highest level attended shown to be a significant influence on income and other outcomes for the person receiving it, its also shown to be a strong factor in educational attainment of that person's children.)
(And, of course, affirmative action and other diversity efforts in colleges aren't the only mechanism, nor is college attendance the only goal, in improving the condition of historically-disadvantaged groups in the US. So the whole criticism of this being the only goal -- which seems to be based on nothing other than the fact that its the focus of the article -- is entirely misplaced.)
> Attending formal education at a higher level is, itself, an outcome.
See, there it is again - SHOWING UP. You didn't say "getting a degree" or "graduating to a high paying job" or even "putting themselves in a position to succeed in life" - simply "attending". That's the problem - merely attending isn't enough to address any historical disadvantage other than "spent at least a day on a college campus as a student". In a list of historical disadvantages, this is just above "has used a ski lift at least once" in importance.
Step back, there are four important factors that make up the value of college: 1. Attendance - how many people go to college. 2. Graduation - where total graduates, not a percentage, dictates success. Because 25% of 4 is worse than 10% of 100,000 in addressing disadvantage. 3. Degree choice - the choice of degree is almost as important as getting one. 4. Post-graduation outcomes - like career earnings, opportunities, stability etc.
Attendance does not address true disadvantage unless the other three also improve - and specifically I think what society wants is more absolute numbers of graduates of good degrees, who go on to great post-graduate success. That seems, to me, a pretty uncontroversial summation of the issue.
The goal of uni quotas is to improve 1, so that 2, 3 and 4 improve. It isn't to address historical rates of attendance. But I could be wrong, and if the case is that the goal is simply getting more blacks and Hispanics to go to uni for at least a day/semester, outcomes be damned, then I withdraw my argument.
I think that the idea of addressing disadvantage is a lofty, important and praise worthy goal. And because it is such an important goal, policy choices have to be effective, and rigorously shown to be effective, because failure only fails the most disadvantaged more.
My fear is that a lot of people judge policy by INTENTIONS, not OUTCOMES, and this leads to inbetween goals of attendance trumping deeper issues.
As an analogy, the push to change people from "I donated so I feel good" to "my donations DID good" is a huge mental shift that effective altruists are championing. If quoatas help improve life outcomes, they need to stay. If they don't, if they put black and Hispanic students in positions to fail or almost worse, to choose lesser paths, then they should be replaced by something better.
Rather than quotas, what is needed is policy that puts black and hispanic students into colleges where they get the largest number of the best degrees for to improve their lives. Going to an Ivy league school to flunk out is worse than going to a tier 2 school and graduating with honors.
I could be wrong about the inbetween goals being a focus, and there may be a whole raft of research that shows these inbetween goals achieve positive outcomes making them the metric to focus on. I'd honestly like to be proven wrong, and know that these policies are on the right track, but it seems to me that the circle of policy to outcomes is rarely fully closed, and with even 15 years of data, the outcomes achieved should be dictating policy, not something more immediately measurable, but ultimately less important, like attendance rates.
TL;DR good outcomes dictate the quality of a policy, not intentions.
See, there it is again - SHOWING UP. You didn't say "getting a degree" or "graduating to a high paying job" or even "putting themselves in a position to succeed in life" - simply "attending". That's the problem - merely attending isn't enough to address any historical disadvantage other than "spent at least a day on a college campus as a student". In a list of historical disadvantages, this is just above "has used a ski lift at least once" in importance.
Step back, there are four important factors that make up the value of college: 1. Attendance - how many people go to college. 2. Graduation - where total graduates, not a percentage, dictates success. Because 25% of 4 is worse than 10% of 100,000 in addressing disadvantage. 3. Degree choice - the choice of degree is almost as important as getting one. 4. Post-graduation outcomes - like career earnings, opportunities, stability etc.
Attendance does not address true disadvantage unless the other three also improve - and specifically I think what society wants is more absolute numbers of graduates of good degrees, who go on to great post-graduate success. That seems, to me, a pretty uncontroversial summation of the issue.
The goal of uni quotas is to improve 1, so that 2, 3 and 4 improve. It isn't to address historical rates of attendance. But I could be wrong, and if the case is that the goal is simply getting more blacks and Hispanics to go to uni for at least a day/semester, outcomes be damned, then I withdraw my argument.
I think that the idea of addressing disadvantage is a lofty, important and praise worthy goal. And because it is such an important goal, policy choices have to be effective, and rigorously shown to be effective, because failure only fails the most disadvantaged more.
My fear is that a lot of people judge policy by INTENTIONS, not OUTCOMES, and this leads to inbetween goals of attendance trumping deeper issues.
As an analogy, the push to change people from "I donated so I feel good" to "my donations DID good" is a huge mental shift that effective altruists are championing. If quoatas help improve life outcomes, they need to stay. If they don't, if they put black and Hispanic students in positions to fail or almost worse, to choose lesser paths, then they should be replaced by something better.
Rather than quotas, what is needed is policy that puts black and hispanic students into colleges where they get the largest number of the best degrees for to improve their lives. Going to an Ivy league school to flunk out is worse than going to a tier 2 school and graduating with honors.
I could be wrong about the inbetween goals being a focus, and there may be a whole raft of research that shows these inbetween goals achieve positive outcomes making them the metric to focus on. I'd honestly like to be proven wrong, and know that these policies are on the right track, but it seems to me that the circle of policy to outcomes is rarely fully closed, and with even 15 years of data, the outcomes achieved should be dictating policy, not something more immediately measurable, but ultimately less important, like attendance rates.
TL;DR good outcomes dictate the quality of a policy, not intentions.
> See, there it is again - SHOWING UP.
Whatever you call it, it is in fact an outcome, and one with a demonstrated influence on other outcomes of interest, so its one that it make sense to target as a means of targeting those other outcomes.
> You didn't say "getting a degree" or "graduating to a high paying job" or even "putting themselves in a position to succeed in life"
Incorrect. I didn't mention the first. I did mention future income as something that increased attendance of formal education is demonstrated to affect, even short of getting a degree.
I didn't mention the third because it is a fuzzy concept, of which the second (which, again, I did mention) is a concrete operationalization.
> That's the problem - merely attending isn't enough to address any historical disadvantage other than "spent at least a day on a college campus as a student".
You assert this, but there is considerable evidence that further educational attainment, even at the level between "graduated high school" and "some college", has positive influence on other outcomes, including future income and one's childrens' future outcomes, including their own level of educational attainment.
> In a list of historical disadvantages, this is just above "has used a ski lift at least once" in importance.
I am aware of no evidence supporting that the difference between "some ski lift use" and "no ski lift use", controlling for other known contributing factors, has any significant positive contribution to one's future income or other important outcome measures, either one's own or one's children. So, no, I don't think this is correct, at all.
> Attendance does not address true disadvantage unless the other three also improve
While I'd want graduation and other factors that assume graduation to improve as well, the actual evidence is inconsistent with the claim that attendance without graduation has no effect on reducing disadvantage.
Whatever you call it, it is in fact an outcome, and one with a demonstrated influence on other outcomes of interest, so its one that it make sense to target as a means of targeting those other outcomes.
> You didn't say "getting a degree" or "graduating to a high paying job" or even "putting themselves in a position to succeed in life"
Incorrect. I didn't mention the first. I did mention future income as something that increased attendance of formal education is demonstrated to affect, even short of getting a degree.
I didn't mention the third because it is a fuzzy concept, of which the second (which, again, I did mention) is a concrete operationalization.
> That's the problem - merely attending isn't enough to address any historical disadvantage other than "spent at least a day on a college campus as a student".
You assert this, but there is considerable evidence that further educational attainment, even at the level between "graduated high school" and "some college", has positive influence on other outcomes, including future income and one's childrens' future outcomes, including their own level of educational attainment.
> In a list of historical disadvantages, this is just above "has used a ski lift at least once" in importance.
I am aware of no evidence supporting that the difference between "some ski lift use" and "no ski lift use", controlling for other known contributing factors, has any significant positive contribution to one's future income or other important outcome measures, either one's own or one's children. So, no, I don't think this is correct, at all.
> Attendance does not address true disadvantage unless the other three also improve
While I'd want graduation and other factors that assume graduation to improve as well, the actual evidence is inconsistent with the claim that attendance without graduation has no effect on reducing disadvantage.
> Whatever you call it, it is in fact an outcome, and one with a demonstrated influence on other outcomes of interest
Maybe, but if you optimize only this metric (enrollment) while disregarding all others (graduation), then you'll soon get ineffective results and the "demonstrated" influence will no longer hold true - simply enroll minorities, regardless of their knowledge or intelligence, and make sure most fail the next year. Will you be satisfied? Will it still correlate with the desired outcome?
Maybe, but if you optimize only this metric (enrollment) while disregarding all others (graduation), then you'll soon get ineffective results and the "demonstrated" influence will no longer hold true - simply enroll minorities, regardless of their knowledge or intelligence, and make sure most fail the next year. Will you be satisfied? Will it still correlate with the desired outcome?
Consider these are bureaucratic metrics used to show the effectiveness of policy changes. It is difficult and after a certain time perhaps even inaccurate to measure outcomes, it is really easy to measure college admissions by race and ethnicity.
I think for the government the goal is get students from low socio-economic background to college because it shows their policies at lower levels of education are working. You are thinking in the wrong slice of time. You are thinking birth to job, when really the focus for these metrics is on birth to college because for that group of people they will be the first in their family to ever go past high school, some might be the first in their family to even finish high school and as dragonwriter said that metric is a huge indicator of positive future outcomes.
You said you aren't from the US and I am not sure how familiar you are with our geography or culture but Education in the US is tough, the population is diverse and spread out over a huge area, I mean freaking huge. If you took the population(1) of students in the US K-12th grades it would be the 27th largest country in the world(2), ahead of Canada, Spain, and Switzerland. Think about that for a moment in terms of just the number of human beings being managed on a daily basis the US education system is more complicated than those three countries. This is part of why finding metrics that effectively measure quality is so hard and number and composition of students going to college is an easy one.
Another thing to consider which you pointed out in 3 and 4 is degree choice and jobs. First, degree choice, US universities offer degrees that don't directly connect to careers, if a student chooses a bad degree their outcome (job prospects, pay, lifetime earnings potential) will stink. So measuring the outcome gets very complicated at that level. Second, post graduate success, how do we measure success? If someone is happy making 25k a year living in a tiny beach community for the rest of their life are they less successful than someone who goes into finance and is making a 7 figure salary before they are 30?
In a perfect would everyone would get the best outcome for them, that makes them truly happy and makes their life and the world a better place. Measuring it wouldn't even matter because it would be happening for everyone. But, until we make it to a post scarcity society measuring the incremental change in a metric that is a good indicator we are moving in the right direction is the best option.
(1)http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 (2)http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-...
I think for the government the goal is get students from low socio-economic background to college because it shows their policies at lower levels of education are working. You are thinking in the wrong slice of time. You are thinking birth to job, when really the focus for these metrics is on birth to college because for that group of people they will be the first in their family to ever go past high school, some might be the first in their family to even finish high school and as dragonwriter said that metric is a huge indicator of positive future outcomes.
You said you aren't from the US and I am not sure how familiar you are with our geography or culture but Education in the US is tough, the population is diverse and spread out over a huge area, I mean freaking huge. If you took the population(1) of students in the US K-12th grades it would be the 27th largest country in the world(2), ahead of Canada, Spain, and Switzerland. Think about that for a moment in terms of just the number of human beings being managed on a daily basis the US education system is more complicated than those three countries. This is part of why finding metrics that effectively measure quality is so hard and number and composition of students going to college is an easy one.
Another thing to consider which you pointed out in 3 and 4 is degree choice and jobs. First, degree choice, US universities offer degrees that don't directly connect to careers, if a student chooses a bad degree their outcome (job prospects, pay, lifetime earnings potential) will stink. So measuring the outcome gets very complicated at that level. Second, post graduate success, how do we measure success? If someone is happy making 25k a year living in a tiny beach community for the rest of their life are they less successful than someone who goes into finance and is making a 7 figure salary before they are 30?
In a perfect would everyone would get the best outcome for them, that makes them truly happy and makes their life and the world a better place. Measuring it wouldn't even matter because it would be happening for everyone. But, until we make it to a post scarcity society measuring the incremental change in a metric that is a good indicator we are moving in the right direction is the best option.
(1)http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 (2)http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-...
> it is all about involvement, and never about achievement.
The ultimate goal is achievement, but that's much harder to achieve without creating more borderline racist policies. Unless you're going to adopt affirmative action for grades as well, and punish professors for fair grading, it's hard to affect those rates.
> the US has made the goal to close it in opportunity, assuming (hoping?) that will improve outcomes
Affirmative action is meant to be a way to help reverse some of the ill effects of slavery and racism that have had long lasting impacts that even today can depreciate the opportunity of racial minorities. The goal is to even out that playing field and provide an equal opportunity, not an equal outcome. What an individual chooses to do with that equal opportunity is up to them.
> Seems to me that more blacks and hispanics at college who don't graduate or, almost worse, choose easier subjects with worse career options, perpetuates the problem rather than solves it.
This is partly a difference in what you see as the problem. Is your goal equal opportunity or equal outcomes? If your goal is equal opportunity, what someone does with that opportunity is up to them. They may choose to go to a university where they are in over their heads, but that's a choice that they made and doing poorly is a consequence of that choice. They may also choose to take an easier degree than to go to a less selective college, again, that's up to them.
The ultimate goal is achievement, but that's much harder to achieve without creating more borderline racist policies. Unless you're going to adopt affirmative action for grades as well, and punish professors for fair grading, it's hard to affect those rates.
> the US has made the goal to close it in opportunity, assuming (hoping?) that will improve outcomes
Affirmative action is meant to be a way to help reverse some of the ill effects of slavery and racism that have had long lasting impacts that even today can depreciate the opportunity of racial minorities. The goal is to even out that playing field and provide an equal opportunity, not an equal outcome. What an individual chooses to do with that equal opportunity is up to them.
> Seems to me that more blacks and hispanics at college who don't graduate or, almost worse, choose easier subjects with worse career options, perpetuates the problem rather than solves it.
This is partly a difference in what you see as the problem. Is your goal equal opportunity or equal outcomes? If your goal is equal opportunity, what someone does with that opportunity is up to them. They may choose to go to a university where they are in over their heads, but that's a choice that they made and doing poorly is a consequence of that choice. They may also choose to take an easier degree than to go to a less selective college, again, that's up to them.
But how does putting people with worse grades in college help?
It doesn't fix the actual issue: access to quality primary and secondary education.
If a person going to a school with mostly minorities and underpaid staff never heard of complex numbers, then their math study won't be successful, no matter if they need a 3.5 or 3.0 GPA to attend.
Sure, attendance rate goes up, but the outcome is the same.
You need to target the roots of the issue, not the outcome.
It doesn't fix the actual issue: access to quality primary and secondary education.
If a person going to a school with mostly minorities and underpaid staff never heard of complex numbers, then their math study won't be successful, no matter if they need a 3.5 or 3.0 GPA to attend.
Sure, attendance rate goes up, but the outcome is the same.
You need to target the roots of the issue, not the outcome.
[deleted]
College admissions are hardly the only arena where affirmative action operates. And of course it's not an ideal solution, but it's at least a start.
Where are you from? Quite possibly your country also has some similar sorts of policies, even if it lacks the huge minorities that have suffered past discrimination to the extent some have in U.S. You can start by checking here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action
Where are you from? Quite possibly your country also has some similar sorts of policies, even if it lacks the huge minorities that have suffered past discrimination to the extent some have in U.S. You can start by checking here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action
Actually, Germany has been replacing Affirmative Action in most areas in the past years with purely random, or purely achievement-based systems.
Due to the simple fact that hiring people based on direct affirmative action violates the constitution.
Even the famous "womens quota" in Germany is just a quota that 30% of each gender have to be represented in a company’s board.
(The official statement of the constitutional court regarding affirmative action, which is called "positive discrimination" here, was that "even positive discrimination is, as the name says, still discrimination")
Due to the simple fact that hiring people based on direct affirmative action violates the constitution.
Even the famous "womens quota" in Germany is just a quota that 30% of each gender have to be represented in a company’s board.
(The official statement of the constitutional court regarding affirmative action, which is called "positive discrimination" here, was that "even positive discrimination is, as the name says, still discrimination")
[deleted](4)
The article presents an interesting fact. The article claims minority (presumably non-Asian) enrollment drops 23% when AA is banned. The converse of this is that 23% of non-Asian minorities are only there due to affirmative action, and would not be there under a meritocratic system.
I was previously told it's racist to believe things like this.
The article also begs another question: “The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” But that decision was only 12 years ago, and the data suggests that we’re still a long way from having proportional minority representation on large public college campuses.
Supposedly AA and similar programs were supposed to solve this problem, and colleges have been engaging in them for many years. At what point can we conclude that perhaps goals like getting a critical mass of minority students will simply not be effective, and conclude that the real problem lies elsewhere (and out of the control of college)?
I was previously told it's racist to believe things like this.
The article also begs another question: “The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” But that decision was only 12 years ago, and the data suggests that we’re still a long way from having proportional minority representation on large public college campuses.
Supposedly AA and similar programs were supposed to solve this problem, and colleges have been engaging in them for many years. At what point can we conclude that perhaps goals like getting a critical mass of minority students will simply not be effective, and conclude that the real problem lies elsewhere (and out of the control of college)?
> The article claims minority (presumably non-Asian) enrollment drops 23% when AA is banned. The converse of this is that 23% of non-Asian minorities are only there due to affirmative action, and would not be there under a meritocratic system.
That assumes that without AA the system would be meritocratic, and not biased in favour of people from particular backgrounds.
That assumes that without AA the system would be meritocratic, and not biased in favour of people from particular backgrounds.
Yes, that's because building systems like this is pretty easy. Just use a point system based entirely on grades/extracurriculars/SAT/etc.
For example, google the old U-Mich point system - it was entirely meritocratic except for the +1.0 boost to GPA given to non-Asian minorities, a much smaller alumni preference and some "women in engineering" boost.
For example, google the old U-Mich point system - it was entirely meritocratic except for the +1.0 boost to GPA given to non-Asian minorities, a much smaller alumni preference and some "women in engineering" boost.
The problem is that colleges don't rely only on SAT/grades (at least the elite colleges). Extracurriculars are, obviously, very non-meritocratic - doing extracurricular activities is not really correlated with how good you are at them (or at anything else), but rather with how much time you have and how much your parents can afford to pay for your activities.
Is that what meritocracy looks like to you? Kids whose circumstances are highly negatively correlated with grades and test scores get shafted?
Yes, "meritocracy" and "no one has a hard life" are different concepts. A person having bad parents and therefore having bad grades has less merit than a person with good parents and good grades.
It sucks that some people have bad parents (or whatever the specific issue is), but that's a different problem than lack of meritocracy.
It sucks that some people have bad parents (or whatever the specific issue is), but that's a different problem than lack of meritocracy.
Well, that kind of depends on how you define merit. One could argue that someone who gets reasonable but not stellar grades in spite of bad parents, a deprived background, etc. displays more merit than someone from a privileged background with every advantage who attains perfect grades.
If you have that information, you can factor that into your admissions criteria using feedback from previous students. For example, you could rank incoming students and tweak a racial parameter to equalize the 6-year graduation rate of the bottom decile in each race. Doing so will (by construction) improve the outcome of your 6-year graduation rate. Pick whatever is a good proxy for whatever your goals are.
That's more meritocratic than ignoring that information.
There is a different sense of meritocracy though, in which the goals themselves are unmeritocratic. For example, "educating lots of left-handed people" (to the exclusion of right-handers) is a rather unmeritocratic goal. The real argument being had is in this respect -- for one, whether educating should be done for students' benefit or for the sum of others' benefit. And also, in the subcategory of "for others' benefit," whether making maximally good scientists, historians, and the like, should be the goal, or whether and to what extent there's benefit in trying to infiltrate minority communities with a more education-valuing culture.
That's more meritocratic than ignoring that information.
There is a different sense of meritocracy though, in which the goals themselves are unmeritocratic. For example, "educating lots of left-handed people" (to the exclusion of right-handers) is a rather unmeritocratic goal. The real argument being had is in this respect -- for one, whether educating should be done for students' benefit or for the sum of others' benefit. And also, in the subcategory of "for others' benefit," whether making maximally good scientists, historians, and the like, should be the goal, or whether and to what extent there's benefit in trying to infiltrate minority communities with a more education-valuing culture.
A person having bad parents and therefore having bad grades has less merit than a person with good parents and good grades.
So your basic position is that lucky people are better than unlucky people (since nobody gets to select their parents) so that social outcomes are largely a matter of predestination.
Well, at least this saves me the bother of even temporarily taking you seriously in any topic in the future. No doubt this will mean missing out on some correct insights, but I figure that on any important topic I'll hear about it from someone else sooner or later, meanwhile saving myself the effort of seeking good-faith interpretations of what turns out to be self-serving bullshit from your end.
So your basic position is that lucky people are better than unlucky people (since nobody gets to select their parents) so that social outcomes are largely a matter of predestination.
Well, at least this saves me the bother of even temporarily taking you seriously in any topic in the future. No doubt this will mean missing out on some correct insights, but I figure that on any important topic I'll hear about it from someone else sooner or later, meanwhile saving myself the effort of seeking good-faith interpretations of what turns out to be self-serving bullshit from your end.
yummyfajitas(2)
Yes it's racist to hold one race down for centuries and then claim the system is entirely meritocratic.
Please be careful with your attribution; the GP presumably does not own slaves and did not prop up Jim Crow.
Good point.
How long does it take for us to rid the sins against blacks by our ancestors?
3 generations? 5 generations? Never?
How long does it take for us to rid the sins against blacks by our ancestors?
3 generations? 5 generations? Never?
It has nothing to do with getting rid of sins, it's about counteracting systemic racism, you stop doing it when the need is gone.
At least regarding higher education (where SCOTUS is reviewing), how is it systemic?
It seems to be much more of an economic issue, where family income, local society income, and students' school budgets should be controlled and watched for rather than "black".
It seems to me that saying, "hey you, who live in the ghetto, your school budgets are linked to your poverty. Hope you get the education you deserve" is so much more wrong, as education should be granted to everyone, equally in our public system.
It seems to be much more of an economic issue, where family income, local society income, and students' school budgets should be controlled and watched for rather than "black".
It seems to me that saying, "hey you, who live in the ghetto, your school budgets are linked to your poverty. Hope you get the education you deserve" is so much more wrong, as education should be granted to everyone, equally in our public system.
"The converse of this is that 23% of non-Asian minorities are only there due to affirmative action, and would not be there under a meritocratic system."
AA and meritocratic systems are not mutually exclusive. Some combination of the two is what is currently used in most college admissions processes. It is inaccurate to say that none of the people in question would be there were it not for AA.
AA and meritocratic systems are not mutually exclusive. Some combination of the two is what is currently used in most college admissions processes. It is inaccurate to say that none of the people in question would be there were it not for AA.
It is inaccurate to say that none would be there without AA. It's completely accurate to say that only 77% of those currently present would be there without AA.
It's true that AA is a non-meritocratic hack on top of an otherwise meritocratic system (modulo other small hacks, e.g. large donations and alumni preferences).
It's true that AA is a non-meritocratic hack on top of an otherwise meritocratic system (modulo other small hacks, e.g. large donations and alumni preferences).
> It's true that AA is a non-meritocratic hack on top of an otherwise meritocratic system
I'm not sure that's true, and am fairly certain its not supportable as true. While the exact models used in admission have evolved, even fairly recent studies have shown that many of the objective factors considered in admission aside from AA and contributor/alumni preferences have fairly weak predictors of success, and some of them (particularly standardized admissions tests) are measures which are very strongly tied to race/ethnicity, disadvantaging traditionally-disadvantaged groups when they are used. (Now, some schools have adapted their admissions processes to eliminate some of the more problematic factors, but that leaves them with systems that are unproven -- which is an improvement over systems that are proven to be biased rather than meritocratic, but not the same as demonstrably meritocratic.)
I'm not sure that's true, and am fairly certain its not supportable as true. While the exact models used in admission have evolved, even fairly recent studies have shown that many of the objective factors considered in admission aside from AA and contributor/alumni preferences have fairly weak predictors of success, and some of them (particularly standardized admissions tests) are measures which are very strongly tied to race/ethnicity, disadvantaging traditionally-disadvantaged groups when they are used. (Now, some schools have adapted their admissions processes to eliminate some of the more problematic factors, but that leaves them with systems that are unproven -- which is an improvement over systems that are proven to be biased rather than meritocratic, but not the same as demonstrably meritocratic.)
The fact that some races/ethnicities perform worse on SAT or other explicitly race-neutral metrics does not mean they are not meritocratic. It just means those groups have lower average merit.
Similarly, the fact that any individual component of a predictor has little predictive power is a truly terrible critique. Similarly, no individual pixel is particularly predictive of the content of an image. Therefore image recognition is impossible!
Similarly, the fact that any individual component of a predictor has little predictive power is a truly terrible critique. Similarly, no individual pixel is particularly predictive of the content of an image. Therefore image recognition is impossible!
> The fact that some races/ethnicities perform worse on SAT or other explicitly race-neutral metrics does not mean they are not meritocratic.
That's true, and even the fact that taken together the main objective admission criteria aren't (even considered together) strong predictors of performance taken together with that doesn't mean that the systems using them aren't meritocratic, its just strongly suggestive of that.
However, there is plenty of reason to believe that a system that doesn't account for demographics -- including race and income and possibly other factors -- can't be effectively meritocratic or (perhaps surprisingly) race-blind. For instance, studies have shown that the relationship between expected performance (in terms of college grades) -- both in terms of predictive power and expected results -- of SAT scores, college grades, advanced coursework, etc. is not consistent across different racial and income-based demographic groups. [0]
So a system which ignores those differences and just applies the measures by a one-size fits all formula is not adopting a race (etc.)-blind measure of merit.
[0] e.g., this analysis http://ftp.iza.org/dp8733.pdf which itself also references a study identifying that what predictive power SAT scores have is mostly as an indirect measure of the high school the student attended, and that within-school variations in SAT scores have almost no predictive power.
That's true, and even the fact that taken together the main objective admission criteria aren't (even considered together) strong predictors of performance taken together with that doesn't mean that the systems using them aren't meritocratic, its just strongly suggestive of that.
However, there is plenty of reason to believe that a system that doesn't account for demographics -- including race and income and possibly other factors -- can't be effectively meritocratic or (perhaps surprisingly) race-blind. For instance, studies have shown that the relationship between expected performance (in terms of college grades) -- both in terms of predictive power and expected results -- of SAT scores, college grades, advanced coursework, etc. is not consistent across different racial and income-based demographic groups. [0]
So a system which ignores those differences and just applies the measures by a one-size fits all formula is not adopting a race (etc.)-blind measure of merit.
[0] e.g., this analysis http://ftp.iza.org/dp8733.pdf which itself also references a study identifying that what predictive power SAT scores have is mostly as an indirect measure of the high school the student attended, and that within-school variations in SAT scores have almost no predictive power.
You seem to be suggesting that we should actively use racial and other demographic characteristics as part of a predictor.
Suppose we run our linear regression or random forest, and it turns out holding all else equal, black people underperform others. I.e., same SAT, same GPA, the black guy is likely to perform worse. (Please read your source and note the sign on the black/hispanic coefficients.)
You seem to be advocating that we should then penalize the black guy even though his grades are identical. Is that a fair statement of your post?
I don't have a strong opinion on this, though I definitely have a negative emotional reaction to it.
Suppose we run our linear regression or random forest, and it turns out holding all else equal, black people underperform others. I.e., same SAT, same GPA, the black guy is likely to perform worse. (Please read your source and note the sign on the black/hispanic coefficients.)
You seem to be advocating that we should then penalize the black guy even though his grades are identical. Is that a fair statement of your post?
I don't have a strong opinion on this, though I definitely have a negative emotional reaction to it.
I'm saying that to be actually meritocratic, where the merit to be assessed is expected college performance, using such factors (or, better, identifying the underlying reasons that existing measures do not work consistently across race, etc., and correctly using the underlying factors that research identifies) may be necessary. But I'm not arguing that admissions should be meritocratic, so by suggesting that something would be necessary for meritocracy, I'm not suggesting that it should be done. What I am arguing is that the claim that, but for AA, the admissions processes in use actually are meritocratic was, and remains, unsupported.
According to your source, SAT, GPA and AP/IB courses are all positive and statistically significant predictors of performance.
Am I correct that according to you, the main gap between an SAT/GPA based metric and meritocracy is applying the appropriate penalty to blacks/hispanics and the appropriate bonus to females, as per the regression table in your source?
Am I correct that according to you, the main gap between an SAT/GPA based metric and meritocracy is applying the appropriate penalty to blacks/hispanics and the appropriate bonus to females, as per the regression table in your source?
Your two sentences are contradictory. If some members of those 23% would be there without AA, then some amount greater than 77% of those currently present would be there without AA.
You are confused. No members of the 23% would be there without AA, according to the article, but all members of the 77% would be.
This assumes that alternative systems (eg ranking people by SAT scores) is meritocratic, and not subject to structural biases. I like standardized testing myself, but that's because I perform well in those situations. I'm not so sure it's necessarily a good way to measure merit; I perform less well in more open-ended contexts, for example.
> The converse of this is that 23% of non-Asian minorities are only there due to affirmative action, and would not be there under a meritocratic system.
Your curiously unstated but obviously logically necessary premise that non-AA systems are already magically meritocratic is what's racist.
Hope that clears it up for you.
Your curiously unstated but obviously logically necessary premise that non-AA systems are already magically meritocratic is what's racist.
Hope that clears it up for you.
I think the two of you are using slightly different definitions of "meritocratic". Yummifajitas means "who's better", whereas you mean "who's potentially better".
Obviously, in average whites are better than blacks (and Asians are better than whites). All test scores prove that. That's what yummifajitas is referring to when he says "meritocracy".
Obviously blacks have been severely disadvantages throughout their lives (before college), so they aren't as good as they could be (again in average). Therefore, you're saying that we should accept more blacks, who could be just as good as whites are.
Personally, I agree with yummifajitas' definition of the word "meritocratic", but I think that favoring the disadvantaged is a better outcome for the society than a purely meritocratic system. However, I also think that favoring (affirmative action) should be non-racist, but instead targeting the disadvantaged people/families (regardless of their race); furthermore, I believe that the effect of such policies would be orders of magnitude greater if they were favoring people waaaay before university.
Obviously, in average whites are better than blacks (and Asians are better than whites). All test scores prove that. That's what yummifajitas is referring to when he says "meritocracy".
Obviously blacks have been severely disadvantages throughout their lives (before college), so they aren't as good as they could be (again in average). Therefore, you're saying that we should accept more blacks, who could be just as good as whites are.
Personally, I agree with yummifajitas' definition of the word "meritocratic", but I think that favoring the disadvantaged is a better outcome for the society than a purely meritocratic system. However, I also think that favoring (affirmative action) should be non-racist, but instead targeting the disadvantaged people/families (regardless of their race); furthermore, I believe that the effect of such policies would be orders of magnitude greater if they were favoring people waaaay before university.
> I think the two of you are using slightly different definitions of "meritocratic". Yummifajitas means "who's better", whereas you mean "who's potentially better".
I think both are using "who is better", the problem is that there "who is better" is very vague: better in what way?
Claims to "meritocracy" only have substantial meaning with a concrete definition of "merit", and while yummyfajitas is happy to assert that but for AA college admissions process are certainly meritocratic, there is no identification of the merit that the combination of measures used is supposedly assessing, against which one could evaluate the claim that using those measures without considering race is, in fact, meritocratic.
I think both are using "who is better", the problem is that there "who is better" is very vague: better in what way?
Claims to "meritocracy" only have substantial meaning with a concrete definition of "merit", and while yummyfajitas is happy to assert that but for AA college admissions process are certainly meritocratic, there is no identification of the merit that the combination of measures used is supposedly assessing, against which one could evaluate the claim that using those measures without considering race is, in fact, meritocratic.
Hm... Aren't SATs widely used for college admissions (not exclusively, of course, but if they were, I'd say the system is totally meritocratic)? I'm not saying it's the best indication of the kind of merit required to excel at the university, but it's probably one of the best we have (and definitely a better one than race or disadvantage - remember, we're favoring the disadvantaged so that they can improve despite them being worse, not because we believe SATs wrongly assess them as being worse (although there is some research that claims SATs systematically underscore women)). Also, in which way (relevant to university admissions or completion) are blacks better than whites/Asians?
> Hm... Aren't SATs widely used for college admissions
Yes.
> (not exclusively, of course, but if they were, I'd say the system is totally meritocratic)?
Wait, what? Unless you make that tautologically true by defining the merit you are trying to assess in admission as "SAT scores", I don't see why you would.
> I'm not saying it's the best indication of the kind of merit required to excel at the university, but it's probably one of the best we have
Its not. For predicting college performance, its a very weak predictor of college grades, or even first-year grades (weaker than high school grades, class rank, or even just the high school you attended), and, to the extent its useful, at least one study has indicated that its predictive power is almost entirely explained by the degree to which it serves as a proxy measure for the high school that the student attended, and that within-school variation in SAT scores lacks predictive power.
Also, there is evidence that the relationship between SAT scores (and the same is true of other measures, like GPA) and college performance is not consistent across various axes of demographic variation (race, income, etc.) -- I've cited one analysis on this elsewhere in the thread.
> remember, we're favoring the disadvantaged so that they can improve despite them being worse, not because we believe SATs wrongly assess them as being worse
One of the many reasons for admissions preference for traditionally disadvantage groups is advocated is that many of the measures used as signals to admission disadvantage those from traditionally disadvantaged groups, where the measure reflects disadvantage of circumstance rather than lack of merit.
> Also, in which way (relevant to university admissions or completion) are blacks better than whites/Asians?
I never said they were.
Yes.
> (not exclusively, of course, but if they were, I'd say the system is totally meritocratic)?
Wait, what? Unless you make that tautologically true by defining the merit you are trying to assess in admission as "SAT scores", I don't see why you would.
> I'm not saying it's the best indication of the kind of merit required to excel at the university, but it's probably one of the best we have
Its not. For predicting college performance, its a very weak predictor of college grades, or even first-year grades (weaker than high school grades, class rank, or even just the high school you attended), and, to the extent its useful, at least one study has indicated that its predictive power is almost entirely explained by the degree to which it serves as a proxy measure for the high school that the student attended, and that within-school variation in SAT scores lacks predictive power.
Also, there is evidence that the relationship between SAT scores (and the same is true of other measures, like GPA) and college performance is not consistent across various axes of demographic variation (race, income, etc.) -- I've cited one analysis on this elsewhere in the thread.
> remember, we're favoring the disadvantaged so that they can improve despite them being worse, not because we believe SATs wrongly assess them as being worse
One of the many reasons for admissions preference for traditionally disadvantage groups is advocated is that many of the measures used as signals to admission disadvantage those from traditionally disadvantaged groups, where the measure reflects disadvantage of circumstance rather than lack of merit.
> Also, in which way (relevant to university admissions or completion) are blacks better than whites/Asians?
I never said they were.
It's true - black people tend to underperform relative to their SAT.
http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/09/the_underperformance...
Your source agrees with this if you scroll down to the data tables. Note the sign on the black and hispanic coefficients.
So your real critique seems to be that SAT is unfair because it gives a non-predictive boost to blacks and hispanics. Consequently, if we wanted to have the most accurate predictor possible, we'd include negative weights for black people. Is this really the critique you are making of using SAT and GPA?
One of the many reasons for admissions preference for traditionally disadvantage groups is advocated is that many of the measures used as signals to admission disadvantage those from traditionally disadvantaged groups...
That's simply incorrect. If it were true, then blacks would overperform relative to SAT rather than underperform.
http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/09/the_underperformance...
Your source agrees with this if you scroll down to the data tables. Note the sign on the black and hispanic coefficients.
So your real critique seems to be that SAT is unfair because it gives a non-predictive boost to blacks and hispanics. Consequently, if we wanted to have the most accurate predictor possible, we'd include negative weights for black people. Is this really the critique you are making of using SAT and GPA?
One of the many reasons for admissions preference for traditionally disadvantage groups is advocated is that many of the measures used as signals to admission disadvantage those from traditionally disadvantaged groups...
That's simply incorrect. If it were true, then blacks would overperform relative to SAT rather than underperform.
> It's true - black people tend to underperform relative to their SAT.
Its actually a lot more complicated than that; the degree to which each objective factor predicts grades (and the degree of difference in expected college grades each unit change in the factor represents) differs by race, income, and other factors. (In the case of SAT scores, higher SAT scores mean more in terms of better college grades than they do for whites.)
So the average black student underperforms based on their SAT scores -- but that is less true (and eventually the opposite of the case) for blacks with higher SAT scores.
> So your real critique seems to be that SAT is unfair because it gives a non-predictive boost to blacks and hispanics.
No, my real critique is that the assertion that without AA, existing admissions would be meritocratic is unsubstantiated, and that there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of it.
And I will maintain it until someone presents a coherent definition of the merit sought and evidence that supports the claim based on that definition.
Its actually a lot more complicated than that; the degree to which each objective factor predicts grades (and the degree of difference in expected college grades each unit change in the factor represents) differs by race, income, and other factors. (In the case of SAT scores, higher SAT scores mean more in terms of better college grades than they do for whites.)
So the average black student underperforms based on their SAT scores -- but that is less true (and eventually the opposite of the case) for blacks with higher SAT scores.
> So your real critique seems to be that SAT is unfair because it gives a non-predictive boost to blacks and hispanics.
No, my real critique is that the assertion that without AA, existing admissions would be meritocratic is unsubstantiated, and that there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of it.
And I will maintain it until someone presents a coherent definition of the merit sought and evidence that supports the claim based on that definition.
...that is less true (and eventually the opposite of the case) for blacks with higher SAT scores.
From the cited article: "Blacks with the highest SAT scores and high school GPAs...are those underperforming the most.
Do you have have data showing the opposite? Note that your source on the other thread did linear regression, so it can't possibly capture this effect.
No, my real critique is that the assertion that without AA, existing admissions would be meritocratic is unsubstantiated...
Your sole evidence for this is a source stating that SAT and GPA are good predictors of college performance, but SAT and GPA plus a penalty for black people is even better.
From the cited article: "Blacks with the highest SAT scores and high school GPAs...are those underperforming the most.
Do you have have data showing the opposite? Note that your source on the other thread did linear regression, so it can't possibly capture this effect.
No, my real critique is that the assertion that without AA, existing admissions would be meritocratic is unsubstantiated...
Your sole evidence for this is a source stating that SAT and GPA are good predictors of college performance, but SAT and GPA plus a penalty for black people is even better.
> For predicting college performance, its a very weak predictor of college grades
That's interesting. Naively, I would expect SAT correlated with IQ, and that correlated with success in university. Are there better predictors of college grades?
> where the measure reflects disadvantage of circumstance rather than lack of merit
Hm... I can hardly imagine how a bad score on the math SAT would not indicate that you lack merit in math.
> I never said they were.
Well, then it doesn't much matter which definition of merit (who is better) you take (as you claim in your original response to me)...
That's interesting. Naively, I would expect SAT correlated with IQ, and that correlated with success in university. Are there better predictors of college grades?
> where the measure reflects disadvantage of circumstance rather than lack of merit
Hm... I can hardly imagine how a bad score on the math SAT would not indicate that you lack merit in math.
> I never said they were.
Well, then it doesn't much matter which definition of merit (who is better) you take (as you claim in your original response to me)...
> Well, then it doesn't much matter which definition of merit (who is better) you take
Yes, it does.
The definition of merit is necessary to assess whether the current system is, excluding AA, actually meritocratic, as claimed. While it would also be necessary in order to assess whether one race or another was better than another, if that were an interesting question to answer -- the fact that I'm not asserting that one race is better doesn't alter the fact that an actual definition of merit is necessary for the claim that the existing system (but for AA) is meritocratic to even have meaning.
Yes, it does.
The definition of merit is necessary to assess whether the current system is, excluding AA, actually meritocratic, as claimed. While it would also be necessary in order to assess whether one race or another was better than another, if that were an interesting question to answer -- the fact that I'm not asserting that one race is better doesn't alter the fact that an actual definition of merit is necessary for the claim that the existing system (but for AA) is meritocratic to even have meaning.
Non-AA systems primarily look at grades, SAT, extracurriculars and the like. They tend to also include small alumni preferences and the occasional "this guy's dad donated $20M" preferences. Why do you believe they are not predominantly meritocratic?
As if everything you mention were equally distributed (quality of academic instruction, affordability of extracurricular activity or exam coaching services etc.), such that everyone had access to more or less the same quality of basic education.
You're an intelligent guy and have taken part in discussions on this sort of topic many times before here on HN, so why do you persist in advancing simplistic arguments whose specious nature has been pointed out many times before?
You're an intelligent guy and have taken part in discussions on this sort of topic many times before here on HN, so why do you persist in advancing simplistic arguments whose specious nature has been pointed out many times before?
> Why do you believe they are not predominantly meritocratic?
What is the concrete merit being assessed, and where is the evidence that the measures used provide a race, ethnicity, and gender-blind predictor or measure of the that concrete merit?
What is the concrete merit being assessed, and where is the evidence that the measures used provide a race, ethnicity, and gender-blind predictor or measure of the that concrete merit?
To check that such measures are race, ethnicity and gender blind, just run the following unit test on your admission procedure:
allow_admission( x.copy(race=a) ) == allow_admission(x.copy(race=b))That proves that your admission procedure does not consider race separately from the measures (and could be extended to do the same for gender and ethnicity, mutatis mutandis), it does not prove that the measures themselves are race, ethnicity, and gender-blind measures of the concrete merit which they are designed to assess.
If you want to make the case that they are meritocratic, it would be more convincing with a concrete definition of the merit they are intended to measure, evidence that they do measure that merit, and evidence that the manner in which they do is not sensitive to race, ethnicity, and gender.
Assuming that there is an objective, measurable merit being addressed, these are all empirically testable, and the claim can be assessed based on the evidence for it; if there is no such merit being addressed, the claim that they are meritocratic is empty.
If you want to make the case that they are meritocratic, it would be more convincing with a concrete definition of the merit they are intended to measure, evidence that they do measure that merit, and evidence that the manner in which they do is not sensitive to race, ethnicity, and gender.
Assuming that there is an objective, measurable merit being addressed, these are all empirically testable, and the claim can be assessed based on the evidence for it; if there is no such merit being addressed, the claim that they are meritocratic is empty.
"A society which has for hundreds of years done something special against the Negro must now do something special for the Negro." --Martin Luther King, Jr.
Whomever you are, you have had ancestors that enslaved and ancestors that were enslaved.
But none of my current living relatives are being pulled over for minor traffic violations and then beaten, choked, or shot.
Chattel slavery was a fairly unique and brutal phenomenon.
How was it more brutal than many of the other instances of slavery throughout history where the owner were allowed to do what they wished with their slaves?
Honestly I don't know what your ultimate point is. Care to elaborate?
The ultimate point of that comment? It was questioning what the point of your comment was as well as some of the content.
The ultimate point of my comments here in general? Quotas and aid should be based off of socioeconomic status (SES), not race. Doing so will disproportionately help racial (and ethnic) minorities because they are disproportionately of low SES.
The ultimate point of my comments here in general? Quotas and aid should be based off of socioeconomic status (SES), not race. Doing so will disproportionately help racial (and ethnic) minorities because they are disproportionately of low SES.
That has nothing to do with this issue.
It has as much to do as bitwize's comment.
No, it really doesn't. Even if someone had an ancestor who was enslaved, they probably couldn't so much as identify the group that enslaved them, and for the vast majority white people making this asinine statement, their ancestors CERTAINLY weren't being enslaved by the government they live under, nor were they being denied the right to be represented until a few generations ago.
>their ancestors CERTAINLY weren't being enslaved by the government they live under
Does they refer to the ancestors, in which case they often were, or does it refer to the present day people, which also describes slavery in the US.
>they probably couldn't so much as identify the group that enslaved them
Could the present day individuals of more recent slavery given an accurate identification of the group that enslaved their recent ancestors? One which wasn't stereotyping, and which neither excluded slave owners or excluded non-slave owners?
>nor were they being denied the right to be represented until a few generations ago.
They probably were. Voting was highly restricted in the past.
Does they refer to the ancestors, in which case they often were, or does it refer to the present day people, which also describes slavery in the US.
>they probably couldn't so much as identify the group that enslaved them
Could the present day individuals of more recent slavery given an accurate identification of the group that enslaved their recent ancestors? One which wasn't stereotyping, and which neither excluded slave owners or excluded non-slave owners?
>nor were they being denied the right to be represented until a few generations ago.
They probably were. Voting was highly restricted in the past.
While true, this is irrelevant.
Things like affirmative action do not exist as revenge or compensation for some past act, they are there to undo some of the still present damage from those acts.
Things like affirmative action do not exist as revenge or compensation for some past act, they are there to undo some of the still present damage from those acts.
>they are there to undo some of the still present damage from those acts.
In which case income/wealth/SES are the better metrics, as they ensure those who are damaged get help instead of relying on some other measure as a proxy for damage.
In which case income/wealth/SES are the better metrics, as they ensure those who are damaged get help instead of relying on some other measure as a proxy for damage.
Income is easy to measure, but it does not capture wealth very well. Even if we measure all total assets, there is still an enormous amount of unmeasured wealth: can you go to a family member or friend for financial help in an emergency? Even when we compare people with the same income and total assets, that latter question tends to be different for white people versus black people.
In America, black people suffered organized, systemic oppression for generations which prevented them from accumulating wealth. That fact is not well capture by just looking at someone's income, or even all of their assets. That's also a question of all accumulated assets of all of their family and close friends.
A recent Pro Publica piece covers this very well: "The Color of Debt: How Collection Suits Squeeze Black Neighborhoods", https://www.propublica.org/article/debt-collection-lawsuits-.... I originally heard it on This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/573/s...
I also think Ta-Nehisi Coates' famous piece covers the history of systemic financial oppression well, "The Case for Reparations", http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case...
In America, black people suffered organized, systemic oppression for generations which prevented them from accumulating wealth. That fact is not well capture by just looking at someone's income, or even all of their assets. That's also a question of all accumulated assets of all of their family and close friends.
A recent Pro Publica piece covers this very well: "The Color of Debt: How Collection Suits Squeeze Black Neighborhoods", https://www.propublica.org/article/debt-collection-lawsuits-.... I originally heard it on This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/573/s...
I also think Ta-Nehisi Coates' famous piece covers the history of systemic financial oppression well, "The Case for Reparations", http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case...
There are many asian people who have had ancestors wronged in some way, and many black people who's ancestors had nothing bad done to them (in the US, at least).
Why do you focus your attention entirely on the latter category and also include African/Carribean immigrants into the beneficiary group? Do asian children who are still suffering from wrongs done to their ancestors not deserve help?
Why do you focus your attention entirely on the latter category and also include African/Carribean immigrants into the beneficiary group? Do asian children who are still suffering from wrongs done to their ancestors not deserve help?
>Do asian children who are still suffering from wrongs done to their ancestors not deserve help?
This is why SES is the better standard as it helps those who still need help, regardless if it was due to past systematic discrimination or if some more recent event created the economic harm. (It isn't perfect as it only aids based on economic harm, but it is better than other measures which attempt to measure economic harm with some other proxy.)
This is why SES is the better standard as it helps those who still need help, regardless if it was due to past systematic discrimination or if some more recent event created the economic harm. (It isn't perfect as it only aids based on economic harm, but it is better than other measures which attempt to measure economic harm with some other proxy.)
The things done specially against African-Americans in particular (or non-whites in general) in the US aren't limited to (or even limited to the parts of the US which practiced), and also aren't all as distant in time as, slavery.
>African-Americans in particular (or non-whites in general)
Quite a lot of discrimination has happened against Hispanics, which are largely white. To say nothing of other ethic groups of whites.
That Hispanic is even brought up when discussing race shows the absurdity of most of these ideas as Hispanic isn't even a race. (Even better is the concept that there aren't races in nature, but populations, of which we artificially attempt to group based on easily identified phenotypes, but which breaks down under scrutiny.)
Quite a lot of discrimination has happened against Hispanics, which are largely white. To say nothing of other ethic groups of whites.
That Hispanic is even brought up when discussing race shows the absurdity of most of these ideas as Hispanic isn't even a race. (Even better is the concept that there aren't races in nature, but populations, of which we artificially attempt to group based on easily identified phenotypes, but which breaks down under scrutiny.)
> Quite a lot of discrimination has happened against Hispanics, which are largely white.
That's true in a fairly meaningless formal sense (which really reflects the history of the evolution of the excuses for why groups were discriminated against as "outsiders" more than substantive differences in the nature of the groups), but not really in substance. The official (e.g., Census) categories pose "race" and "ethnicity" as orthogonal categories, as a legacy of the outdated idea that the former are real biological groupings and the latter cultural (when, in fact, both are cultural constructs, which is even recognized in the way "race" affiliations are actually now defined -- by self-identification, not biology, except in the case of Native American/Alaskan Native, where, for political reasons, somewhat different standards are used.)
OTOH, the ethnicity scale that is posed as orthogonal to the race scale has only two values "Hispanic" and "not Hispanic", and the way results are usually categorized from anything using the notionally two-axis race/category system is usually one combined axis by race for non-Hispanics, and then with Hispanics as its own category on that axis.
In any discussions in any context not controlled by formal (usually, Census bureau) definitions, "Hispanic" is just treated as another category no different from "Black" or "Asian" distinct from White in a flat, one-dimensional space of categories, not an orthogonal distinction.
That's true in a fairly meaningless formal sense (which really reflects the history of the evolution of the excuses for why groups were discriminated against as "outsiders" more than substantive differences in the nature of the groups), but not really in substance. The official (e.g., Census) categories pose "race" and "ethnicity" as orthogonal categories, as a legacy of the outdated idea that the former are real biological groupings and the latter cultural (when, in fact, both are cultural constructs, which is even recognized in the way "race" affiliations are actually now defined -- by self-identification, not biology, except in the case of Native American/Alaskan Native, where, for political reasons, somewhat different standards are used.)
OTOH, the ethnicity scale that is posed as orthogonal to the race scale has only two values "Hispanic" and "not Hispanic", and the way results are usually categorized from anything using the notionally two-axis race/category system is usually one combined axis by race for non-Hispanics, and then with Hispanics as its own category on that axis.
In any discussions in any context not controlled by formal (usually, Census bureau) definitions, "Hispanic" is just treated as another category no different from "Black" or "Asian" distinct from White in a flat, one-dimensional space of categories, not an orthogonal distinction.
This is a wordy appeal to popularity. Are you trying to justify racial bias with the frequency by which it's committed?
[deleted]
In context to society at the time this was said, being able to sit wherever you want on a public bus was considered special privilege.
[deleted](1)
In other words, not using racial preferences in admissions decisions lets the black college enrollment trends continue; though, as the article doesn't point out, 'not using mandated racial preferences (banning aff. action)' is not the cause of disproportionate representation.
I think the argument against affirmative action is more, morally speaking, addressing the question, "should we use racial preference to fight racial preference?".
I think the argument against affirmative action is more, morally speaking, addressing the question, "should we use racial preference to fight racial preference?".
There's no moral question here. We have a disadvantaged group of people who are being actively discriminated against by a majority group. The easiest way as a society to make sure that we treat the group fairly is by creating a system that ensures that they are being represented in the university population. It's good for them, it's good for their classmates, it's good for the university, and it serves long-term goals by putting more educated people in their demographic.
Why does the majority discriminate against themselves and in favor of other minorities (Asians, Jews)?
Because innovation happens faster when there are more perspectives in the mix, and communities improve faster when there are more successful people in them.
Why is 538 selecting public research universities? Is that the full, technical name for typical US colleges, or is there a specific distinction here that would imply they are excluding whatever "non-research" universities are?
I imagine the distinction that they are trying to make is between research universities and liberal arts colleges (most of which are private, though there are some public). The term "research university" has connotations of a place with four-year undergraduate programs, with few or no two-year degree options, and likely the presence of graduate or PhD programs on campus, as well. In many ways, "research university" is the typical US college experience, though there are still many people who only attend "community colleges" or local public institutions where no research is performed and there may only be two-year degree programs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_the_United...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_the_United...
IMO, the real problem with differences in educational opportunity is the knock-on effects in hiring decisions. If there were many more jobs that could not discriminate on college degree, then Affirmative Action doesn't matter (since the net present value of a college degree goes down). As a nice side-effect, a college education is often a positional good in hiring decisions, so we're often better off as a whole if we stop consuming it. (That is, instead of looking at 5 college graduates for a firefighting job, we look at 5 non-graduates, and we get to save 20 person-years of education costs)
I'd be interested in seeing the underlying data because there's a lot of noise you introduce by just equally weighing all colleges as data pts and then teasing out a weak trend. You could boil down the entire ban and non-ban populations to a single number for each group which would probably tell you more than these graphs do. Better yet do it over time.
I'd like to see research on whether banning affirmative action benefits Asian students, who are typically discriminated against.
Not sure what sort of research you want to see, but the Michigan case opened up the books on who gets the raw deal. Summary here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2014/04/23/hidden-b...
I looked at the graphs earlier and couldn't understand them. Can a stats wizard please help me understand how significant the difference between ban and no-ban are?
One issue with affirmative action which rarely gets addressed: What is the definition of a certain race anyway?
If someone is from two black parents, fine, they're black. But what if one parent was black and one was white, are they black? Are their children black? What about their children's children? Are we going to spin out genetic testing, color cards, or start looking at people's family tree to decide eligibility?
Honestly I think the US has the right idea, but has the wrong implementation.
People who are from disadvantaged households SHOULD be given a leg up. They don't get the expensive tutors, and their parents might have to work longer hours, they cannot afford that trip to Europe the rich kid wrote their essay about, and their home life could be a lot more disruptive.
And the nice "perk" of discriminating based on household income and or poverty is: A lot of minorities will benefit because they're already in that group.
It also solves another issue we're seeing: Second generation kids of minorities whose parents are college educated and or professionals. The affirmative action program is designed to give kids with a disadvantage a more fair shake, but it is being used by minority kids who are by all definitions from middle class or from affluent households even more of an advantage, which is stealing spots from poor minority kids that actually need it!
So I would like to see affirmative action based on race scrapped. Base it on income. It will still largely benefit minority applicants, but we won't have to answer awkward questions like "how white is too white to be a minority?"
If someone is from two black parents, fine, they're black. But what if one parent was black and one was white, are they black? Are their children black? What about their children's children? Are we going to spin out genetic testing, color cards, or start looking at people's family tree to decide eligibility?
Honestly I think the US has the right idea, but has the wrong implementation.
People who are from disadvantaged households SHOULD be given a leg up. They don't get the expensive tutors, and their parents might have to work longer hours, they cannot afford that trip to Europe the rich kid wrote their essay about, and their home life could be a lot more disruptive.
And the nice "perk" of discriminating based on household income and or poverty is: A lot of minorities will benefit because they're already in that group.
It also solves another issue we're seeing: Second generation kids of minorities whose parents are college educated and or professionals. The affirmative action program is designed to give kids with a disadvantage a more fair shake, but it is being used by minority kids who are by all definitions from middle class or from affluent households even more of an advantage, which is stealing spots from poor minority kids that actually need it!
So I would like to see affirmative action based on race scrapped. Base it on income. It will still largely benefit minority applicants, but we won't have to answer awkward questions like "how white is too white to be a minority?"
I think you're spot on.
I worked for an Auto Insurance Broker in a former life and they had a state come down on them pretty hard for discriminating against minorities. At the time it was pretty common to jack up the rate factors on particular minorities for a pretty legitimate business reason.
Instead of using race as a rate factor they switched over to a combination of zip code, income, and vehicle age which encompassed pretty much the same demographic but actually ended up improving their overall loss ratio.
I would hope risk analysis has evolved since those days but if not there's a huge opportunity for any aspiring data scientists out there who wish to become actuarials.
I worked for an Auto Insurance Broker in a former life and they had a state come down on them pretty hard for discriminating against minorities. At the time it was pretty common to jack up the rate factors on particular minorities for a pretty legitimate business reason.
Instead of using race as a rate factor they switched over to a combination of zip code, income, and vehicle age which encompassed pretty much the same demographic but actually ended up improving their overall loss ratio.
I would hope risk analysis has evolved since those days but if not there's a huge opportunity for any aspiring data scientists out there who wish to become actuarials.
I agree entirely on the 'base affirmative action on income' thing. Class/income inequality is the biggest issue there is today, and something to aims to fix that rather than a meaningless race or gender quota would be fantastic.
Might also slowly start getting rid of the overly abudant trust fund kids found in most high end professions, the kinds who seemingly get jobs and money simply because their parents were born into the same.
Might also slowly start getting rid of the overly abudant trust fund kids found in most high end professions, the kinds who seemingly get jobs and money simply because their parents were born into the same.
Base it on income. It will still largely benefit minority applicants...
This is probably not true. Blacks and hispanics significantly underperform whites and asians at fixed levels of income.
https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/on-c...
This is probably not true. Blacks and hispanics significantly underperform whites and asians at fixed levels of income.
https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/on-c...
As an outsider looking in, it seems that the one thing the US hates more than affirmative action is exactly the kind of "socialist" interventions you describe.
I'm also wondering what would stop a structurally racist society from simply choosing poor people from their preferred race? You're begging the question if you assume that people will be chosen fairly with no regard to race under this system.
I'm also wondering what would stop a structurally racist society from simply choosing poor people from their preferred race? You're begging the question if you assume that people will be chosen fairly with no regard to race under this system.
> I'm also wondering what would stop a structurally racist society from simply choosing poor people from their preferred race?
It is illegal in the US. Also colleges could simply stop asking about race on applications.
It is illegal in the US. Also colleges could simply stop asking about race on applications.
Is it illegal for Asian Americans to be discriminated against when applying to top colleges, because it seems to be widely accepted that it happens all the time? And even if the form didn't explicitly say "Chinese-American" on it, I'm guessing the people who scrutinize every detail of their academic and personal development for admissions purposes can find some clues, like their name, to give them a chance to continue with their discrimination.
I see this topic discussed all the time, not rarely.
It's literally in the link.
"Opponents of affirmative action argue that aiming for diversity in areas other than race, such as socioeconomic class, can ensure sufficiently diverse student bodies. The most common race-neutral policy used as an alternative to affirmative action is a plan that the University of Texas already uses, in which a percentage of graduates from every high school get automatic admission. These policies have been shown to increase racial and ethnic diversity on campus, but research on whether they’re as effective as more explicit race-based affirmative action policies has been mixed, and critics say that it doesn’t make sense to use a proxy when so many colleges continue to struggle with racial diversity."
"Opponents of affirmative action argue that aiming for diversity in areas other than race, such as socioeconomic class, can ensure sufficiently diverse student bodies. The most common race-neutral policy used as an alternative to affirmative action is a plan that the University of Texas already uses, in which a percentage of graduates from every high school get automatic admission. These policies have been shown to increase racial and ethnic diversity on campus, but research on whether they’re as effective as more explicit race-based affirmative action policies has been mixed, and critics say that it doesn’t make sense to use a proxy when so many colleges continue to struggle with racial diversity."
> It also solves another issue we're seeing: Second generation kids of minorities whose parents are college educated and or professionals. The affirmative action program is designed to give kids with a disadvantage a more fair shake, but it is being used by minority kids who are by all definitions from middle class or from affluent households even more of an advantage, which is stealing spots from poor minority kids that actually need it!
Not only that but it can get worse. It creates an ample opportunities for discrimination. You can never be sure if someone's credentials got some boost along the way, so the wiser course of action is to hire the default. Yeah the default could get her boost by being kid of generous donors, but at least she is well connected.
Almost any anti racism policy can be perverted to perpetuate racism.
Not only that but it can get worse. It creates an ample opportunities for discrimination. You can never be sure if someone's credentials got some boost along the way, so the wiser course of action is to hire the default. Yeah the default could get her boost by being kid of generous donors, but at least she is well connected.
Almost any anti racism policy can be perverted to perpetuate racism.
Seems like a pretty ludicrous analysis. Can be summed up as 'If you ban quotas, the people who get in because of quotas will not be as represented'. Uhh - duh? Will they have another post 'What happens when heavy objects are thrown up in the air - do they fall to the ground or float away?'
There is actually a much more interesting analysis of effects of AA on its recipients I read recently here: http://spectator.org/articles/64739/little-understood-engine...
There is actually a much more interesting analysis of effects of AA on its recipients I read recently here: http://spectator.org/articles/64739/little-understood-engine...
I think the argument was 'if you ban quotas based on race in favor of other measure which should still help increase diversity, you don't get as good an effect as just quotas'.
That it is lower shouldn't be surprising, but how much lower or higher than the expected lower might be surprising.
That it is lower shouldn't be surprising, but how much lower or higher than the expected lower might be surprising.
>which should still help increase diversity
I think quotas by income would be a much more interesting experience for college students than quotas by race.
I think quotas by income would be a much more interesting experience for college students than quotas by race.
You would still have people complaining that it's not entirely merit based.
The point is that socioeconomic status (correlated with race and family income) has already impacted someone by the time they reach college application age. The idea behind quotas in public institutions is that it gives opportunity to those who did not have them previously.
A better analysis would be based on graduate performance, rather than admission rates, for demonstrating success.
The point is that socioeconomic status (correlated with race and family income) has already impacted someone by the time they reach college application age. The idea behind quotas in public institutions is that it gives opportunity to those who did not have them previously.
A better analysis would be based on graduate performance, rather than admission rates, for demonstrating success.
A quote from the article of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor:
"The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today."
The salient part being, "further the interest approved today". The U.S. has a long history of dealing with nonwhite in pernicious ways. Part of the remedy has been affirmative action. The claim that affirmative action is no longer necessary because we are all equal is being called into question. If the outcomes of banning affirmative action are worse, in terms of racial disparity, then the aforementioned claim can be called into question.
The analysis is not ludicrous.
"The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today."
The salient part being, "further the interest approved today". The U.S. has a long history of dealing with nonwhite in pernicious ways. Part of the remedy has been affirmative action. The claim that affirmative action is no longer necessary because we are all equal is being called into question. If the outcomes of banning affirmative action are worse, in terms of racial disparity, then the aforementioned claim can be called into question.
The analysis is not ludicrous.
Not once in that article were graduation rates from colleges, or post-college outcomes, mentioned. Surely, that is the most important factor in improving racial outcomes, getting people into education that improves their lifetime outcomes.
It is weird to me that the US has made the inbetween goal the only goal, e.g. rather than aiming to close racial gaps in outcomes like income, lifespan, likelihood of being a victim of violence etc and promoting policies that can be shown to achieve that, the US has made the goal to close it in opportunity, assuming (hoping?) that will improve outcomes. Seems to me that more blacks and hispanics at college who don't graduate or, almost worse, choose easier subjects with worse career options, perpetuates the problem rather than solves it. http://spectator.org/articles/64739/little-understood-engine... has a good summation of this argument.
I don't think it is really enough to make every college have the right racial mix, if what comes out the other end is a graduate pool that divides along not racial lines, but course lines. If Asians and Whites dominate the degrees that pay well, and Blacks and Hispanics the lesser degrees, we'll be left with a population that is educated, sure, but likely in more debt without much improvement in earnings potential. That hardly seems like a great outcome to me, and seems the complete opposite of what the goal should be.