<p>Is the implication that Asians are harmed by AA? Harmed more than helped? Didn’t know that Asians were always as welcome as whites to public institutions. </p>
<p>AA didn’t just make sense, AA was Necessary for blacks to gain equal opportunity. The gains of AA benefitted not just blacks but other minorities. Some groups like Asians and, white women benefitted more than others. Those who took advantage of the ladder shouldn’t pull it up behind them.</p>
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<p>Spin and lack of substance? Yep, that has been my style for a long time around here. Please point me to the valid points you have made here? Or in other fora?</p>
<p>@AllThisIsNewToMe, “I know a family who lies about their heritage…” of course people are going to lie about it and about other “merits” like grades and recommendations if self-reported is admissible.</p>
<p>Legacy is as wrong as the AA, IMHO. It’s the AA for the rich and powerful.</p>
<p>“In an increasingly multiracial society, it has grown hard to determine the racial ancestry of millions of Americans. Is someone who is ostensibly one-half Native American or African-American classified as a minority eligible for special consideration in hiring or college admissions, while someone one-quarter or one-eighth is not? How exactly does affirmative action adjudicate our precise ethnic identities these days? These are not illiberal questions — given, for example, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren’s past claims of being Native American to gain advantage in her academic career.
Aside from the increasing difficulty of determining the ancestry of multiracial, multiethnic, and intermarried Americans, what exactly is the justification for affirmative action’s ethnic preferences in hiring or admissions — historical grievance, current underrepresentation due to discrimination, or both?
Are the children of President Barack Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder more in need of help than the offspring of immigrants from the Punjab or Cambodia? If non-white ancestry is no longer an accurate indicator of ongoing discrimination, can affirmative action be justified by a legacy of historical bias or current ethnic underrepresentation?”
<p>Ok, time to pull out my tired advice: don’t fall prey to “I think it, so it must be true.” Or its sister, “Someone said it, so it is true.”</p>
<p>We’ve drifted way off-track here. I think I’ll take the rest of the night off. (Please, no applause.)</p>
<p>Tigerdad99, relax AA as part of College admissions is ending…</p>
<p>Instead, the Holistic approach will be used. It will be used to target low SES…which in effect will target RACE, but it is a process more people feel is “fair”. </p>
<p>Any discussions on improving the holistic approach, will always lead to an argument around adding “bias” to the process (that’s built on bias). Not enough URMs, to many URMs, to many low SES…to many high SES (a common complaint), more legacy, less legacy…more left hand people…around we go…</p>
<p>To bad I can’t think of anything better. 100% academic based admissions has it’s own share of issues (people/life is more complicated than a SAT score).</p>
<p>^ Gator, I can think of something better. any merits, be that academics, socioeconomic status, leadership, citizenship, character, community service, etc. etc. but not race…because race is not a merit.</p>
<p>Hanson’s article is absolutely ridiculous. African Americans were discriminated against, segregated, and scapegoated if they had even one DROP of “Black” blood. They were classified entirely as minorities as long as it suited the interests of rich white Americans and their own 300 year history of “affirmative action”. What’s particularly galling about Hanson’s article is that he “claims” to be an historian.</p>
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Anybody who thinks all this shows that the vestiges of racism are gone in America didn’t grow up in this country, or if they did, they weren’t paying attention.</p>
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<p>Another bad study provided by Beliavsky-BTW-you lost so why not give it a rest. </p>
<p>These kinds are studies are spoon feed by the Asian community to whomever will print them. The main reason is that the stats are likely bad because only select Asians are included. There are vast armies of Asians working minimum wage jobs without special job skills or education.(no shame in it-but the point is that such people are always excluded in such self laudatory studies). Asians are just like everyone else. No better and certainly no worse. The myth that Asians are smarter is nothing but statistical manipulation.</p>
<p>^Hunt, the point is not about whether or not racism exists in the U.S. or even human society. Racism existed, exists, and will exist as part of human history, the same as hatred, prejudice, discrimination, along with many dark sides of human nature. We are not debating that. We are debating if, as a social and cultural entity, compared to the MLK era, the U.S. has progressed to a point where AA is no longer needed in college and university admission. Don’t mix the two.</p>
<p>Racism is mostly gone. There is no such thing as zero prejudice anywhere in the world. I was in recently in Africa where they have tribal discrimination. In Mexico, the Mexicans discriminate against those with Mayan ancestry. The Chinese speak many dialects and those from the wrong side of the tracks get discriminated against for how they speak.</p>
<p>But it is about time for black Americans to stand on our own two feet without any crutches. In fact, I think it long past time and that we are now at a point where the crutches have left us weak and disabled in many ways.</p>
<p>The elimination of racism as a goal of social programs only ensures the existence of such programs in perpetuity. It’s time for equal treatment in the eyes of the law and an end to a legal system that discriminates. The law discriminates now as it did decades ago and hundreds of years ago. Lets put an end to all favoritism in the law. No bailouts, no special tax breaks, no race based laws and no discriminatory taxes that punish the rich and redistribute to the lower income.</p>
<p>^sosomenza, Asians are not smarter than any other race for sure. But do you agree Asian as a group is more hardworking and focused on education than other racial groups?</p>
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<p>Would you assert that there was no time when Jews were both over-represented at Ivy league schools and discriminated against in admissions? History refutes this idea – one could refer to Karabel’s “The Chosen”.</p>
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<p>Not sure where the mix up appeared, but the answer to that question appears to be a resounding NO, at least to the people who have been branded here as AA proponents. It also appears that the University of Texas believes that to be the case as they included in their holistic review and shared in their brief that this decision was prompted by the school’s opinion it should have a fuller diversity. </p>
<p>Obviously, there are people who believe that the AA, by helping some, does hurt the chances of the “excluded.”</p>
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Is that your opinion, or from UT? If the latter, do you remember where they said that? Thanks.
Good point.
Maybe I’m not communicating this idea well. Here’s what I believe:</p>
<ol>
<li>The case law on this topic and UT’s brief both describe diversity in binary terms.</li>
<li>UT says that it was unable to achieve diversity through race-neutral methods.</li>
<li>UT now considers race in the admissions process, in a “holistic” manner.</li>
</ol>
<p>Maybe I’m wrong about one of these, but I don’t think so. Based on the above, I reach two conclusions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>UT has to show that their current program achieves diversity. If it doesn’t, how can they show a compelling interest?</p></li>
<li><p>We could work backwards to determine what “diversity” really means to UT. Their “critical mass” would have to lie somewhere between where they were before and where they are now.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Does that make more sense?</p>
<p>Racism is not mostly gone. I think many comments on this thread show that. </p>
<p>This thread can be closed if it gets to be useless bickering.</p>
<p>Jews! I was wondering, after the Asian American detour, when that would come up, it’s practically knee jerk.</p>
<p>Some so easily dismiss racism. The old “We don’t feel it, so they can’t either.” Or hints they are whining, trying to pretend to be Hispanic or every other small little anecdote. A Facebook site proves anti-As-Am bias? An ultra conservative in the media proves x by saying so? Why, if there is no bread, can’t they eat cake?</p>
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<p>Not Asians in general, but research has found that East Asians score slightly higher (maybe 0.2 of a standard deviation) than whites on average on IQ tests such as the WISC and Stanford-Binet. You could read the Wikipedia article on Race and Intelligence and consult the sources there for more information.</p>
<p>Many people find the topic of racial differences in intelligence distasteful, but when the government tries to mandate equal outcomes, whether in education or earnings, we need to consider if innate differences preclude this.</p>
<p><a href=“Fisher vs. University of Texas Oral Arguments Transcript - Document - NYTimes.com”>Fisher vs. University of Texas Oral Arguments Transcript - Document - NYTimes.com;
<p>transcript of the oral argument.</p>