<p>i think that racial affirmative action can help mitigate the problem enabling african americans to recieve education to fix the broken culture and restore it to its original state.
I apologize for coming off as a little heavy handed,but you seemed to be saying that aftican american culture intrinsically puts no emphasis on education and I had to correct you.
I guess we can get on topic now.
As for have i look deeply into this issue, yes I have extensively otherwise how could i argue with you? Monstor…
i leave my words unspoken.</p>
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<p>I don’t “despise” it; rather I know it to be laughably irrelevant. There was no “peer review” because of the fact that the simple data/statistics cannot be refuted: admitted Asians had higher scores. That’s all it says. The study does not demonstrate that they were required to have higher scores, nor does the study assess anything else that the admitted Asians had or didn’t have, that whites had or didn’t have, the URM’s had or didn’t have, other than scores, comparatively. </p>
<p>The high scores of the Asians, as well as the similarly (not identically) high average scores of whites are correlates of other admissions factors: such as talent, ingenuity, intellectual capacity that were absolutely reflected in the recommendations of those admitted, not to mention unusual academic opportunities they successfully tackled. Teacher recs, as I recall, were not made available to E&C because of privacy issues. Count on those Asians admitted, those whites admitted, to have had stand-out recs that were unambiguous. Without some of these other elements I just named, the scores in themselves are not persuasive, nor do they indicate “qualification.” </p>
<p>If scores were rank-ordered in importance as admissions factors, then the E&C study can be projected further to conclude the hypotheticals that they assert. But the entire premise is false, therefore the hypothetical is invalid.</p>
<p>Post 414:</p>
<p>The implication is that the white man is acting on behalf of the black man, so is the proxy for “kicking an Asian out of his [mythical, nonexistent] seat.” The person “taking” the (fictional) Asian seat is black, not white.</p>
<p>I can see that we are right back into the “semantic hell” I talked about in the other thread.</p>
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<p>I also came to that conclusion in the other thread.;)</p>
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<p>The question is not which major is harder, but where the strongest students go. Fabrizio’s cartoon is good, but I prefer this opinion piece by Charles Murray:</p>
<p>[Extra</a> - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009535]Extra”>http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009535)</p>
<p>where he said the following:</p>
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<p>Tokenadult, I think the breakdown is vague. A survey done in the Toronto public school board some years ago subdivide the white category into English only, Portuguese, Jewish, Greek, Italian, and Polish. The difference in performance among the groups is breathtaking.</p>
<p>Base on the hypothesis of one of the posters, I would assume there are lots of Jewish “tennis and baseball” players in the Ivies. Can this be confirmed?</p>
<p>My father was born in a Chinese village that still has no widespread plumbing system. His parents, my grandparents, never finished elementary school. And yet I am here today, a Canadian citizen and U.S. permanent resident. I assure you, affirmative action has helped my family zilch. Thus, I am of the opinion that the “stable homes and comfortable culture” of Asian-Americans today can be attributed primarily to Asian culture. I’ve yet see compelling evidence that affirmative action was a stronger influence than culture in the “rise” of Asians. I stand by my personal belief that positive discrimination is still DISCRIMINATION–and I don’t believe in any kind of discrimination, end stop.</p>
<p>I used a black person in my example; I can just as easily use a Hispanic or Latin@ person, or a Native American. The E&C study shows that whites do not displace Asians (by what simple math?); rather, URMs displace Asians. I disagree with this policy, but it is not inherently discrimination AGAINST Asians–however, I believe that the admissions difference between white and Asian students is indicative of negative discrimination.</p>
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[QUOTE=nil desperandum]
If asians are hurt by discrimination,( i’m accepting your premise) then they are definetly not hurt bhalf as much as African Americans are. In fact, compared to african Americans the discrimination is probably quite small.
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No. Just, no. I refuse to allow you to create a heirarchy of suffering. Just as homosexuals are not any more or less discriminated against than women–they face DIFFERENT discrimination–there is no “ranking” of discrimination suffering. To create one is, quite simply, viciously racist.</p>
<p>There is also an important distinction to be made between African culture and African-American culture.</p>
<p>epiphany - Many, many people have unambiguously outstanding teacher recommendations every year, far more than could be admitted even after instituting academic minimums. In general trends, test scores are correlated with admissions rates and success (not by simple rankings but in ranges).</p>
<p>While it was not my analogy, let me ask you: if the Asian is being kicked out of a “mythical, nonexistent” seat, where does the new person (black or white) sit? Colleges, like buses, cannot simply create and destroy seats at will.</p>
<p>I sincerely hope we honor Dr. King’s dream that everyone will not be judged by the color of his skin. Title VI of Civil Rights Act was designed to honor this dream.
AA betrayed Dr. King’s dream. I understand its necesity in that time of history but I think now it is time to end it (we have our African American president). Even though AA’s intention is to help URM but the side effect is that it hurts them in the long run. Those URM students who would get in without the help of AA are assumed by people that they wouldn’t get in without the help. Believe me this will hurt URM in the long run because it has a negative impact on the culture and value system.</p>
<p>I agree it may soon be time to end affirmative action, but, just because there is a black president DOES NOT mean racism is over. That’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that using racial discrimination to solve racial discrimination problem is wrong and will not work.
President was just an example. In almost all government branches and levels URMs are no longer underrepresented (Asians may still be underrepresented but they are not treated as URM under AA).</p>
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<p>Did the expenses-paid “diversity” visits that you were offered benefit you in any way?</p>
<p>Googling “Social Science Quarterly” and “Peer Review” in quotation marks yields [a</a> link](<a href=“http://sssaonline.org/index.php?page=social-science-quarterly]a”>http://sssaonline.org/index.php?page=social-science-quarterly) that says “All articles besides invited comments are subjected to a double-blind peer review process.” I don’t believe that anyone has to like the Espenshade and Chung study. We’re all free to hate it if we so choose. But, lest this discussion devolve into one with no respect for the facts, we shouldn’t make bold statements like “There was no ‘peer review’” that can easily be shown as false.</p>
<p>Likewise, one is free to dismiss the paper as “laughably irrelevant.” However, such a characterization has some fairly serious implications. First, it suggests that the two academics who peer-reviewed the study are idiots. Second, it suggests that whoever decided that Li’s OCR complaint was not baseless is an idiot. And, third, it suggests that all the assistant professors with interests in the consequences of racial preference policy who began work after 2005 are idiots. After all, if the paper is as lousy as you make it out to be, how come no one has published a critique listing all these “obvious” faults?</p>
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<p>It has been more than 3 years since Jian Li’s OCR complaint was filed. I think I remember reading that resolution of these complaints usually take about 6 months. They must be having difficulty with the complexities of the issue.</p>
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<p>No, actually, test scores beyond freshman year are not nearly as correlated with success – during and after college – as independent pursuit of, and high achievement in, challenging extracurriculars before college. That’s one reason the Elites choose as they do: they want to see evidence of consistent drive beyond academics, and beyond scores. There was an article published about what Harvard had discovered about that many years ago.</p>
<p>I never, ever said in my previous posts that it was all about recommendations. You really need to stop restating inaccurately what other people say. Recommendations are one piece of the puzzle, but they are an important ingredient, because qualitative factors modify, explain, and can even bring into question the quantitative factors. And far, far more people who are in an acceptable score range to do the work for any particular Elite U are rejected every year than those that are accepted.</p>
<p>Post 430:</p>
<p>It has nothing to do with liking or hating. That’s fine that these 2 wasted their time with an irrelevant study. The point is, the study is irrelevant to the parameters and methods of college admissions. If score points or score ranges were in a fixed hierarchy of admissions factors, the study would be important. But there is not that fixed hierarchy. The Asians admitted in the pool that E&C studied were not admitted because of their scores. They were admitted with many factors in mind. And there have been both white and Asian students with perfect scores who have been denied admission to various Elite U’s for many years now, including the year studied. To refuse to accept that college admissions doesn’t work the way any particular person on this thread wishes it to is, rather, irrational and obstinate. The study does not have applicability.</p>
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<p>What do we know about ethnic variance in independent pursuit of challenging extracurriculars before college?</p>
<p>Bay - Of course. My comment was in reference to Asians being helped by AA in the past, in America. In the present day, make no mistake, I will take advantage of whatever colleges choose to offer me because I identify as Asian–I’m not American and I won’t pretend to identify as such by leaving the “optional” space blank. I very much self-identify as Asian. And I bear no ill will against those well-off URMs who take full advantage of their position–one of my friends and classmates appears and acts 100% WASP but is actually 1/4 Hispanic, well, good for her–because that’s the current system. There is no shame in using what the system legally grants you; but that doesn’t mean you should necessarily support its continud existence.</p>
<p>epiphany - Your previous posts implied that the rejected Asian students receive lackluster recommendations in comparison to accepted URM or white students. My contention is that many, many people of every race are rejected for reasons aside from teacher recommendations, which are often uniformly excellent. You continue to imply–e.g. “qualitative factors modify, explain, and can even bring into question the quantitative factors”–that Asian students’ inferior qualitative factors account for the admissions gap statistically. In case you accuse me again of misinterpretation, let me break down the implication for you: Qualitative factors can bring into question quantative factors. Asian students, on the whole, have clearly superior quantative factors. Therefore, since you assert that Asian students experience no discrimination, Asian students’ superior quantitative factors must have been modified/explained/questioned by inferior qualitative factors. And I am saying that this implication, as I have read your words to be giving, is false. Cf. the Duke study yet again with regard to qualitative factors.</p>
<p>Test scores beyond freshman year are not nearly as correlated with success as extracurriculars–this is true. However, I surmise from elite schools’ current admissions policies that high achievement in challenging extracurriculars PLUS a superior academic record (transcript and scores) predicts the most success. Why else would both ingredients, so to speak, be necessary for the typical unhooked white or Asian admit? Why should this bar be set any lower for students of a different race?</p>
<p>With regard to E&C: like fabrizio, I place my bets on the many very smart professors of race studies and statistics out there, many of whom are probably also highly familiar with the college admissions process through research or vicariousness. The context and relevancy of a statistical analysis IS part of its academic validity–if an analysis doesn’t apply to its context, it is useless–and I think all the silent professors in the world combined are probably wiser than you (or me or anyone else in this thread, in their respective fields). You have not yet presented a comprehensible explanation as to WHY the study is “irrelevant to the parameters and methods of college admissions.” Why is there need of a “fixed heirarchy” in order for the results to be relevant? Asians in the studied pool were not admitted solely on scores–neither were any of the students of OTHER races. Take a particular score range–because perfect scores alone signify nothing–such as 1500-1600 combined SAT (on the old scale). If over a period of time, a college consistently accepts 90% of its URM applicants, 75% of its white applicants, and 50% of its Asian applicants from this limited score range, what does this indicate? What is special about the extracurricular achievements or teacher recommendations of accepted URM applicants that makes them objectively “better” than an equal number of the rejected white/Asian applicants? (Yes, there is such a thing as “better” or “worse” among admits and applicants. That is how they are chosen. That is how some people are waitlisted, and later accepted only if there is space and the college wants them to fill that space.)</p>
<p>^ ^ ^ ^ </p>
<p>[Department</a> of Education expands inquiry into Jian Li bias case - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/09/08/21307/]Department”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/09/08/21307/) </p>
<p>This news story, which is STILL the most recent reporting on the issue, suggests how unusual it is that the federal Department of Education Office of Civil Rights is still conducting a compliance review of the practices of the Princeton University admissions office.</p>
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<p>Keilaxandra,
You have accepted expenses-paid campus visits which were offered to you because of your race.
It is rather hypocritical of you to rail against “the system” (which gives preferences based on race) as wrong, and at the same time participate in a $$ program that is offered to you (and not everyone) specifically because of your race. Maybe I have higher personal standards than most, but I think I’d have trouble sleeping at night, let alone expecting others to take me seriously, if my public actions didn’t match my public words.</p>
<p>^ That is what I am saying. Are my actions hypocritical? Yep. But my judgment is not; I do not judge others for taking advantage of the system. That’s simple pragmatism, and I am not so independently wealthy as to not take advantage of what I am given. I am not merely idealistic. The financial aid system is broken for many families, but not for my family (we have simple finances and can afford our EFC, and are middle-class); should I then boycott it because it needs to be fixed? In an ideal world, I would, but I can’t afford to do so. Or rather, I’m not willing to make that sacrifice–to attend a less-preferred school on merit aid to satisfy my principles against the screwy need-based system. Likewise, if a college offers me the chance to visit for free–and I would not otherwise have that opportunity, for various cultural and personal reasons–I will certainly take it. If a rural Midwestern LAC offers me extra-generous FA for my race, I will certainly take it.</p>
<p>If you thus cannot take me seriously, that is your loss, as the value of my WORDS have not changed one whit.</p>
<p>Ok. I am now familiar with an Asian girl who benefitted from AA in 2009. :)</p>
<p>Coolios. (Perhaps I should retroactively edit the previous “my family” reference to “in my family history” or somesuch. My parents are opposed to me visiting these colleges, but they can’t complain much when it’s free.)</p>
<p>This kind of hypocrisy is a moral dilemma that once troubled me; then I snapped out of it and told myself to stop being an idealistic twit.</p>