<p>“Asian immigrants have been in the U.S. since before the Civil War (and discriminated against since before the Civil War).”</p>
<p>Is that an argument for reducing the number of URMs?</p>
<p>If there ever was a thread that shows the importance of studying the social sciences and humanities, this is it. Various points have been brought up related to immigration, history, segregation, psychology, nature/nuture, ethics, etc.</p>
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I may be mistaken, but I think the ones complaining about holistic admissions, URM preferences, etc., tend to be more recent immigrants, many of whom are more familiar with high-stakes testing approaches to college admissions in other countries.</p>
<p>^lookingforward, Espenshade also said that AA is no longer needed in a recent NYT OP-ED… Would you agree or perhaps your memory is very selective? </p>
<p>Being an intellectual myself, i always found that the real intellectuals like Espenshade are doubters - a point is made only when the relevant hypothesis is tested thoroughly and proven unequivocally. It’s hard to do in social science. Then there are lots of spin doctors who don’t even possess half of the research rigor but are always dead certain about everything. </p>
<p>We live in a funny world.</p>
<p>If all consideration of race was abolished, the number of African-American admissions to selective programs would plummet. The stats make this crystal clear. The only way to avoid this would be to fiddle around with holistic admissions to admit them anyway without appearing to consider race. Now, if you think it’s OK for the number of African-Americans in these programs (already lower than their percentage of the population) to plummet, that’s your prerogative.</p>
<p>^Hunt, what is your evidence that the people complaining about AA are more recent immigrants? any numbers to back up your claim?</p>
<p>My claim is based on my impression of the people who have made this argument on CC over the years. I could be wrong. How about you, tigerdad? Are you a recent Asian immigrant?</p>
<p>“If all consideration of race was abolished, the number of African-American admissions to selective programs would plummet.” </p>
<p>Even with holistic approach? Say using socioeconomic based approach rather than race-based…I wonder why that is.</p>
<p>Hunt, tiger is the mascot of my son’s school. don’t confuse with tigermom…she is not my wife. relax.</p>
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Yes, because there just aren’t enough poor black kids who can succeed in selective programs. If you eliminate the higher-SES black kids who don’t have high enough stats to get in without URM preference, you’ll have hardly any blacks at all. The reasons, in my opinion, are historical, which is why we all have the responsibility to shoulder some of costs to fix the problem.</p>
<p>But tigerdad, you are an Asian parent who immigrated to the US yourself, correct?</p>
<p>@hunt, are you assuming black kids can’t succeed academically in schools? what do we all need to “shoulder”? your argument is horrible and i would find it insulting if i were black. </p>
<p>Hunt, if you identify yourself (race/ethnicity), i would too.</p>
<p>This article? <a href=“Opinion | Moving Beyond Affirmative Action - The New York Times”>Opinion | Moving Beyond Affirmative Action - The New York Times;
<p>Espenshade: *To be clear, I believe that race-conscious affirmative action is necessary, and often beneficial — though I am not hopeful that the court will agree. Our study showed that eliminating it would reduce the number of black students by about 60 percent, and the number of Hispanic students by about one-third, at selective private schools. We also showed that there is no substitute policy, including preferences based on socioeconomic class, that would generate as much racial and ethnic diversity as affirmative action, given the large numbers of working-class non-Hispanic whites and Asians in the applicant pool. *</p>
<p>And please cut the jabs.</p>
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<p>Note that the picture in the article has people taking the citizenship oath.</p>
<p>Because a relatively high percentage of Asian Americans are immigrants or low generation descendents of immigrants, and immigration to the US does have some preference for skilled workers (though perhaps not as strong as for some other countries), there is a selection effect caused by immigration. So it is not surprising that the Asian American population is biased toward high achievers who try to encourage high achievement among their children (not necessarily over-the-top tiger parenting).</p>
<p>Similar types of things apply to other skilled worker immigrants, but they are a much smaller proportion of their race or ethnicity (US definitions) than for Asian Americans, so they bias the stats of their race or ethnicity less.</p>
<p>^^ from the same article - “Race-based affirmative action has been a woefully inadequate weapon in the arsenal against inequality. It treats the symptoms but not the root causes of an underlying social problem.” Do you agree? If so, then the only logical conclusion is to fix the root cause, not by imposing one social problem to fix another problem.</p>
<p>Read it all in context, as I am sure others will- and will comment, if they wish.
“Woefully inadequate” is far from lookingforward, Espenshade also said that AA is no longer needed in a recent NYT OP-ED… Would you agree or perhaps your memory is very selective?</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus, i agree with your analysis on the “self-selecting” group. But the issue is still why high performance should be punished just because they are within the same group. Looking at the sports leagues, do we punish the high performance athletes? No at all. Why would we do that in academics?</p>
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<p>However, when Asian Americans see people calling for racial quotas and notice that such racial quotas will hurt them in favor of European Americans, they will be understandably more cynical about the situation, perhaps seeing affirmative action as a trojan horse to politics which are more about limiting them to favor European Americans than it is about helping African Americans or Latino Americans.</p>
<p>Read all you want, lookingforward. It is clear race-based AA is a inadequate tool. The real issue is fundamental disparity in socioeconomic status since one’s childhood, as Espenshade pointed out. That is the root cause. Unless we start to address the fundamental issue, no amount of AA would fix the problem. “Moving Beyond Affirmative Action” as titled…but you are stuck in the AA argument still.</p>
<p>Right, I pointed out the article did not say what you noted. </p>
<h2>It doesn’t matter what we say. Eyes wide shut.</h2>
<h2>I want to say, to others, that we all have some posters we disagree with. But we’ve been on many threads with them, over a long time, have had time to see shades in their thinking, even how they consider an opposing point. A few I continue to spar with, I nonetheless have respect for. As it can be, on a public forum primarily interested in education-related issues.</h2>
<p>When it degenerates, that’s another matter.</p>