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<p>I don’t think it’s really about leveling the academic statistical data described as “qualifications” in college. It’s about achieving certain outcomes beyond college from having received an elite education. Given the comparable graduation rates and post graduate success rates, which, in my opinion, should not be discounted in discussions such as these, it is clear there is most certainly an equalizing effect which does add significant value to society.</p>
<p>Historical examples of early integration in universities in the United States: </p>
<p>[University</a> of Minnesota Alumni Association : “Almost Perfect Equality”](<a href=“Alumni | University of Minnesota”>Alumni | University of Minnesota) </p>
<p>[A</a> Proud Tradition - Diversity - Graduate & Professional Admissions - The University of Iowa](<a href=“http://www.uiowa.edu/admissions/graduate/diversity/g-traditions.htm]A”>http://www.uiowa.edu/admissions/graduate/diversity/g-traditions.htm) </p>
<p>[Important</a> Dates in the History of the UW Law School - University of Wisconsin Law School](<a href=“http://www.law.wisc.edu/current/rtf/21.html]Important”>Student Handbook - 21. UW Law School History | University of Wisconsin Law School) </p>
<p>[University</a> of Michigan Timelines: First Minority Graduates and Attendees](<a href=“http://bentley.umich.edu/exhibits/umtimeline/minfirsts.php]University”>http://bentley.umich.edu/exhibits/umtimeline/minfirsts.php) </p>
<p>[U</a> of M : China Center : Training.](<a href=“http://www.chinacenter.umn.edu/mingda/training.html]U”>http://www.chinacenter.umn.edu/mingda/training.html) </p>
<p>[Black</a> Scientists and Inventors — Infoplease.com](<a href=“http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmscientists1.html]Black”>Black Scientists & Inventors) </p>
<p>[1948:</a> Howard P. Grant Becomes the College’s First Black Graduate — UC Berkeley College of Engineering](<a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/about/history-and-traditions/1948-howard-p-grant.html/]1948:”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/about/history-and-traditions/1948-howard-p-grant.html/) </p>
<p>[Figures</a> in black history: Richard Greener: Harvard’s first African American graduate](<a href=“http://www.essortment.com/all/richardgreener_pws.htm]Figures”>http://www.essortment.com/all/richardgreener_pws.htm) </p>
<p>[Chinese</a> American Hero: You Chung Hong : AsianWeek](<a href=“http://www.asianweek.com/2009/04/24/chinese-american-hero-you-chung-hong/]Chinese”>http://www.asianweek.com/2009/04/24/chinese-american-hero-you-chung-hong/) </p>
<p>[Diversity</a> Education Program](<a href=“http://diversity.ucdavis.edu/exercises.cfm]Diversity”>http://diversity.ucdavis.edu/exercises.cfm) </p>
<p>[Japanese-American</a> graduate recalls time at Washington University - Columbia Missourian](<a href=“http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/08/31/japanese-american-graduate-recalls-wartime-ordeal/]Japanese-American”>http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/08/31/japanese-american-graduate-recalls-wartime-ordeal/)</p>
<p>@menloparkmom #995: My given definition of “historical injustices,” with emphasis on the “historical,” is the conventional definition used in affirmative action and race discussions, especially in the context in which you brought it up (justification of AA as rectifying historical injustices dealt to URMs). Your broader definition is valid, but inconsistent with this discussion.</p>
<p>A relevant anecdote: once when I was in a “racism 101” forum, I brought up the topic of how to define “racism.” I saw (and still see) it as problematic to define “racism” as equivalent to “institutional racism.” However, I was told that the discussion on this forum would proceed according to conventional definitions in the anti-racism activist sphere, where racism = power + prejudice (aka institutional racism). I did not agree with this definition, but I accepted it because it is the conventional definition; and I did not attempt to discuss non-institutional racism as simply “racism” without first making clear my distinction in terms.</p>
<p>(monstor, psst, I think you mean excerbate, not exasperate.)</p>
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Exactly–Brown was the precedent for AA, therefore Brown cannot be the precedent for an “injustice” argument in favor of AA because AA didn’t exist yet and those arguments to justify AA did not exist, either. To use your analogy, are babies not allowed to be born until someone invents baby diapers?</p>
<p>As fabrizio has also said, court case A cannot illustrate that the Court has accepted an argument for a policy that didn’t exist at the time of court case A’s decision.</p>
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<p>I love this argument - reparations are a great reason for AA. If so, how have revent Latino immigrants been more impacted by past discrimination than recent Asian ones? Why are benefits still given to recent black immigrants? How does modern AA help those who were discriminated against earlier?</p>
<p>But like others have said, the Supreme Court has declared reparations unconstitutional, regardless of whether they are justified or not.</p>
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<p>For some reason, Yale and Harvard magically gave Asians a pass.</p>
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<p>Thanks for pointing out such a clear statistic! If we all knew wonderful piece of information from the beginning, we never would’ve need to waste our time debating this in the first place.</p>
<p>In the 2000s, how have blacks or Latinos been discriminated more than any other group?</p>
<p>Keil, I made a mistake copying those numbers. It wasn’t 17 out of 17. Here’s the corrected info:</p>
<p>Here are some “data” I mined on one of the topics we’ve been discussing. I recognize that these data have all sorts of issues. I looked here on CC at two threads: the Yale SCEA and RD results threads. I looked at students who identified their intended majors and their ethnicity. I did not include those deferred SCEA, because I didn’t want to double count them (and it was too much work to see if they were in the RD thread). Here’s what I found:
White students identifying math/science major
applied/admitted: 14/7
Asian students identifying math/science major
applied/admitted: 17/8
URMs identifying math/science major
applied/admitted: 7/7
White students with other majors
applied/admitted: 25/13
Asian students with other majors
applied/admitted: 17/7
URM students with other majors
applied/admitted: 8/5
Where two majors were identified, I counted it as math/science if one of them was math/science.
I counted anthro, soc, archeology, psych and history of science as other.</p>
<p>My observation from this is that the data support my impression that Asians are much more likely to declare an intended math/science major than whites are. if this is true, and if it carries over to other elite colleges, why would it be surprising that this will depress admissions among Asians? If you really want to tease the data, you could look back and compare the stats of the white and Asian kids who declared math/science majors. I have a theory about what you’d find, but I haven’t make the comparison.</p>
<p>And on the discussion of the Supreme Court, I find it endearing that some folks take seriously that it’s OK to take race into account to engender diversity, but not to rectify past wrongs. That’s what the Court said in Bakke, of course. But the use of the term “critical mass” in Grutter tells us what is really going on. Quotas are a no-no, but doing it with codewords like diversity is OK. If you think I’m wrong, bring a lawsuit arguing that disparate impact on Asians in admissions violates the Constitution.</p>
<p>Finally, Inside Higher Ed has an article on Epenshade’s book:</p>
<p>[News:</a> The Power of Race - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/03/elite]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/03/elite)</p>
<p>Hunt - Ah, that makes much more sense.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that Asians are “much more likely” than whites to declare a math/science major; I would say that Asians are much more likely than URMs to declare a math/science major.</p>
<p>Wrt Bakke, even if the Court intended to equivocate–which may well be, I’m as much a cynic as you–the letter of the opinion remains as binding precedent.</p>
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I think what you’re trying to say that it’s about having success for all races, and while that is important, the bigger goal is that in the future we won’t have to use any sort of support program in order to maintain success for all races. </p>
<p>The article chaosatika just linked to has a few interesting points. While graduation rates might be very similar, the GPAs are not; as much as you want to argue it, college GPA is usually integral for future success. Perhaps the implicit reason why Radford deemed GPA relevant is that affirmative action continues to exist at levels beyond college admissions. In my opinion it has the potential of turning into a great crutch that will hamper any sort of progression to what I think will ultimately be what our nation must do (quoted from the article):</p>
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<p>Hunt, as you acknowledged, you’re using a very self-selected spectrum of data. Not only would i consider the 17/14 Asian/White difference insignificant enough to not warrant, as the Espenshade study suggests, a 140 SAT disparity (on a 1600 scale), but any sort of inequality could likely be just as attributed to the population that represents CC, which is more often than not overachievers with a high emphasis on education. Obviously you have a small sample size too.</p>
<p>I’m wondering - what is the innate disparity of education between races anyways? According to the Duke study, in the three listed groups (< $50k, $50k-$100k, >$100k), Asians and Latinos had about the same income distribution, yet had different GPAs for both college and high school and different SAT scores. Could this imply that there is something innate (whether inherited or environmental) that needs to be addressed with such programming?</p>
<p>Sure it’s a self-selected group. But why should it self select for intended major?<br>
The ratios that interested me (and which I should have shown) are these:
Ratio of applicants stating math/science majors to those stating other majors:
White:14 to 25
Asian:17 to 17
URM:7 to 8
Based on this teensy sample, it’s much more likely for a white applicant to indicate a non-science major than an Asian applicant. I will add that there were lots of applicants that didn’t indicate an intended major, and for many of them you could probably deduce whether they were “math/science” people or not.</p>
<p>And here’s another thought: could it be that adcoms are exhibiting bias not against Asians per se, but against what they perceive to be “stereotypical Asians?” Could there be negative reaction to certain “cues” in the application (i.e., being a Kumon instructor)? If so, this may be an unfair cultural bias. So it would be interesting to know not only how many Asians are accepted, but which Asians.</p>
<p>^(Post 1011):That’s what I’ve been indicating for some time on CC. It’s not the background (culturally), or even the academic interests & accompanying activities that do or do not promote an objective evaluation of that student. Staying with the parameters of Hunt’s (non-projectible) “sample” (and my similar study, over the years, on CC), there is not a single admission by a “lopsided” or “angular” applicant that has surprised me, no matter what the angle or “specialty.” That absolutely includes the math/science crowd, whatever the cultural backgrounds of those – which have naturally included both Asians and non-Asians but certainly a large percentage of Asians. I distinctly remember, for example, one admitted P’ton student (I forget which round). He had many of the “typical” awards for high-interest math & science pursuits, but it was clear he was a stand-out. It was clear in the way he expressed himself on the Acceptance thread, the way he articulated what he had done, the intelligent way he presented himself, which was clearly a sign of achievement combined with ability. (Those are two different things, for those of you confused about what a score does and doesn’t mean.) This was a candidate (yes, he was Asian) who despite his very “angular” interests, had demonstrated that his capability crossed more than one or 2 areas, even though his interests were stacked along one axis. That’s exactly what the Elites look for. They’re looking for candidates who have shown promise that is both broad and deep.</p>
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<p>Even if this is true, it is all the more reason to have race-neutral admissions, for then, a prospective STEM major is just that, a prospective STEM major, not a “stereotypical Asian.”</p>
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But how would you achieve race-neutral admissions, if this is what’s happening? That is, if there’s no unspoken Asian quota, but it’s just that to mostly white adcoms, a lot of the Asian applicants seem “nerdy” or “one-dimensional” or “not interesting.” Unless you’re going to toss out holistic admissions entirely, I’m not sure what you’re going to do. I guess you could remove ethnic identification from the application–but are you going to eliminate references to Kumon, the dragon boat team, the Chinese Honor society, etc.? I’m not being facetious–look again at the results threads, and you can easily see that many, many Asian applicants will make their ethnicity clear even if we don’t know their last names.</p>
<p>Just to add: I suspect that a lot of adcoms don’t think they are taking the ethnicity of Asian applicants into account now. If that’s so, what will you do to eliminate the possibility that they are unconsciously doing so?</p>
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<p>First, I still see the Arcidiacono et al. study as providing evidence against the possibility that “to mostly white adcoms, a lot…seem ‘nerdy’ or ‘one-dimensional’ or ‘not interesting.’” If many possess these negative characteristics, we wouldn’t expect the “personal qualities” ratings to be as high as they are.</p>
<p>As for ethnicity proxies, let’s take a look at the officers of the [Japanese</a> Student Association](<a href=“http://students.washington.edu/jsa/index2.html]Japanese”>http://students.washington.edu/jsa/index2.html) at the University of Washington. The President appears to be white; the Vice Presidents appear to be Hispanic and Arab, respectively; and the Secretary appears to be Turkish. Among the “key” officer positions, only the Treasurer is undisputably Japanese. From there, most of the remaining officers have Japanese surnames, but the point was made: if you simply assume that everyone of X ethnic interest group belongs to X ethnicity, you will make lots of mistakes.</p>
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Sure, but you’ll get it right a lot of the time. </p>
<p>As far as Arcidiacono, you’re putting a lot of weight on one part of a study of a single school, Duke. Do we know if Duke exhibits the same disparity of admissions that the Espenshade study shows? Do we know what is meant by “personal qualities?” Do we have any particular reason to believe that the Asian students who apply to Duke are similar to those who apply to other highly selective schools? I think you’re protesting a bit too much at what is a pretty wide-spread observation.</p>
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<p>Disregarding the problems of “wide-spread observation[s]” as evidence, you’re forgetting our discussion from several pages back, where it was [url=<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/08-0608-AAPI.pdf]confirmed[/url”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/08-0608-AAPI.pdf]confirmed[/url</a>] that most AAPIs do not major in STEM fields and do not attend private universities.</p>
<p>The report shows just how limited these “wide-spread observation[s]” really are. With varying degrees of vigor, numerous parents here have claimed that on average, Asians are more likely than other groups to concentrate in certain fields and more likely than other groups to apply to a narrow range of schools. Yet, the report linked above does not confirm that for AAPIs as a whole. We see that 54.9% of all AAPIs major in either business or social sciences/humanities. The so-called “Asian” majors of engineering/CS/math does not even garner a plurality among all AAPIs. We also see that an overwhelming majority (87.6%) of AAPI students attend public institutions, and a plurality of AAPIs attend public two-year colleges (44.36%). Only 12.41% of all AAPIs attend private four-year institutions. </p>
<p>It does not surprise me that the “wide-spread observation[s]” are so inaccurate and biased. Most of the parents justifying them probably live in well-to-do neighborhoods populated by well-educated neighbors. They probably have not met many of the 360,000+ AAPIs who attend public two-year colleges because of lack of face-to-face meeting opportunities.</p>
<p>In fairness, is it possible that these overall statistics do not apply to AAPI students attending elite private universities? Sure, very possible. Still, my point remains: these “wide-spread observation[s]” are heavily biased. You observe only what you see, but if what you see isn’t representative of the whole, I’d take your “wide-spread observation” with a huge grain of salt.</p>
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<p>Going back to my U Washington JSA example, if you assumed all the five head officers were Japanese, you would’ve made up to four mistakes.</p>
<p>^ fab,
How do you know that those officers are not Japanese? I could not find photos of them. Perhaps they were adopted, or are of mixed heritage, or are married. It seems to me you are the one making the assumptions.</p>
<p>follow-up: I just Facebook searched the president, and found a matching name in the Washington network (she identifies as Washington '11). Although there are two females in her profile pic, one is clearly Asian and the other is clearly part Asian.</p>