When is this going to stop? He actually claims young women are paid more than young men, and that women are fairly represented among college students, so shouldn’t have special treatment like scholarships. I don’t know this young man’s race, but it seems like the young white males are pushing back at losing their privilege.
I’d like to know where the plaintiff got information that men earn less then women despite doing more dangerous jobs.
Why is he suing Yale specifically when he was never a student? And they are 51/49 male/female? Seems like Brown would have been a better target.
I also like this quote: “Women are an ever-increasing majority in colleges,” Pekgoz said via email. “Male students are far more likely to drop out."
Seems like suing to demand access to remedial help or whatever intervention is appropriate for male students would bring a better outcome.
Also, here’s another link to the story. And he was posting in the comments section as well. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/05/21/yale-being-investigated-discrimination-against-men-unusual-title-ix-complaint
^^small correction: he just filed a complaint with a federal agency; he is not suing in the courts. If he was trying the latter, then as a disinterested observer, he’d have no standing and the courts would throw it out.
If the pendulum had swung so far that women were indeed overrepresented in colleges (at all levels, not just undergraduate), and earning significantly more than men, I could understand wanting dismantle the programs he is targeting. But the pendulum hasn’t swung that far. These programs are responsible for bringing some equity to the equation, but to dismantle them because we’re now all equal ignores the purpose of the programs in the first place. Ending all such programs would be like suggesting that a schizophrenic stop taking meds, because the voices in his head went away.
^^women do earn more PhD’s than guys, and have for the past 8 years. More women are enrolled in med school than men. Ditto law school, but that number is close to 50:50, so it could swing back with only a few hundred different decisions.
There should be no surprise that someone came along with this. So many changes were made in K-12 and college level in the name of gender equality or to bring women to the educational levels afforded and achieved by men over the decades that it seems logical at some point the equality has been met and the supports or programs are no longer needed. Whether we are there or not I can’t say nor do I have an opinion although I presume that other than 50/50 gender balance on campus the rest of it is probably all over the place. Even gender balance on campuses isn’t perfectly 50/50.
“it seems like the young white males are pushing back at losing their privilege.”
I’m not clear on the OP’s statement above.
If white men are discriminated against, is it acceptable for white men to resist that discrimination?
The person pursuing the claim is ethnically Turkish. That qualifies as being a “person of color”; is he “privileged” despite those disadvantages? Why make statements about alleged privileges of white men in that situation?
Please clarify.
https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-05.pdf indicates that European and Middle Eastern people are “white” for census purposes. Turkey is in Europe and the Middle East.
First, it is a private school, so I don’t see why they can’t do what they want to. There are still womens’ colleges don’t admit men and mens’ colleges that don’t admit women.
Second, Yale only has 49% women, when the national average is 56%. That suggests to me that they are probably giving a small amount of affirmative action to the men.
I don’t know about Yale, but I feel a bit alarmed by the disparity of merit based awards for women at RPI,
over men. In RPI’s case they still have a lot fewer women and they are private, so I think its perfectly legal however.
RPI Medals have been awarded to high school 11th graders for about 50 years, and, from what I know,
the majority go to women.
In my opinion: RPI merit awards, are NOT really a merit award though, if higher stats students get less money, if they are male. This seems to be a trend at RPI and a few other schools that want to gender balance the undergrad student body. Still the female students are fully deserving and high stats students, but the male students are getting turned off by the disparity of the awards, and going elsewhere. Maybe thats what RPI wants?
Yale is strictly a financial aid school, without any “merit”, I thought, so I find it hard to understand the complaint about Yale, but I may be missing something.
“women do earn more PhD’s than guys, and have for the past 8 years. More women are enrolled in med school than men…”
This does not suggest they are over represented, as the previous poster was talking about. It is not a pendulum swing that needs adjustment.
“So many changes were made in K-12 and college level in the name of gender equality or to bring women to the educational levels afforded and achieved by men over the decades…”
Changes made in education were not to bring girls/women to the same “educational levels” as boys/men. Girls didn’t get smarter. They were given the opportunity to shine a light on the intelligence they already had.
“…it seems logical at some point the equality has been met and the supports or programs are no longer needed.”
Why would you stop programs that have achieved equality? If you take them away, equality would also be taken away. If you give an amputee a prosthetic leg so they can walk on their own accord, you don’t take it away after the achievement.
“If white men are discriminated against, is it acceptable for white men to resist that discrimination?”
When someone has privilege, bringing others to that same level of privilege is not discrimination. If two people are training for a marathon and one has a coach and the other one doesn’t, giving the second one a coach doesn’t take away the benefit of a the first one having a coach. It levels the playing field, thus takes away the privilege of having that advantage. The OP also stated they didn’t know the race of the young man and made an opinion while giving that caveat.
Nah, that one doesn’t work. Women are not like amputees (permanently in need of a crutch).
@ucbalumnus people of Turkish heritage count as people of color. The Census definition was made by people who were trying to inflate the white percentage of the US population and is irrelevant.
It is shocking that the OP would not do the basic Internet research that shows the claimant’s status as a person of color and as an immigrant. That totally changes the analysis here.
Of course all white men have privilege- even an unemployed coal miner is inherently privileged compared to any person of color- but that is not the case here.
@MomOf3DDs my question is if white men are discriminated against, can they speak up against it? We all know that equalizing privilege is fine, but what about actual discrimination?
@HappyAlumnus What do you base your position on that Turks are people of color? Is this just your thoughts or you have support?
@Coloradomama RPI Medal recipients are nominated by their high school.
@yearstogo Turks themselves often consider themselves people of color, and they have been the victims of overt racism in Europe for centuries (and when I lived in Europe, I saw many examples of continuing racism against them). It is racist to discount their perspectives.
I think the rebuttal to my point is exactly the point. Why stop affirmative actions…you don’t until the results are achieved. Are we there yet? That is probably why the DOE decided to do the investigation. Will it amount to anything? I don’t know.
@HappyAlumnus Many Turks are white but my point is that I do not think you can just arbitrarily decide what is or what is not white. I was actually hoping you had some basis for your comment as my wife is Azerbaijani so son is 50% Azerbaijani and I would love to be able to identify him differently. By the way, I lived in Turkish countries for more than 10 years and am quite familiar with various issues. I don’t think my wife, in-laws or many friends in that part of the world consider me racist, nor do I think asking you to support your position should lead to your assumption I am racist.
I recently saw a young man that moved to the US when he was in middle school denied admission into a prestigious high school STEM program. The young man is very highly accomplished in STEM, more so than others that were admitted. Admissions consider gender and race/ethnicity. The young man is white from Eastern Europe and given his experiences, I am sure would bring a lot more diversity to the program than many that were admitted.
@yearstogo the US is the only Western country where Turks are listed as “white”. In Canada and Europe, they are classified as people of color. If you look at the history of the US census (which is what counts them as “white”), you’ll see that the reason that they are characterized as white is, again, due to racism: people want them listed as “white” to inflate the white population of the US.
Surely you’re aware of the intense racism against Turks in Europe, which has been going on for centuries.
The real issue here is:
When two oppressed groups (women and immigrants of color) face oppression, who is “right”? As we shouldn’t overlook historical and continuing injustice faced by a member of a marginalized group, it’s tough to say in this case.