Princeton Study: Ending AA would only help Asians not Whites

Parents Forum
121

<p>calmom, why dont you try proving your assertions, like that the SAT is racist. Instead of spouting platitudes, why not show us some studies that support your claims?
If blacks get rejected more often for loans, does that mean the system is racist? No! It means that blacks on average have worse credit or some other similar financial factor. Same here. Is it racist? No. Something else is holding them back, possibly an environment detrimental to education.</p>

<p>You are confusing correlation with causation.</p>

<p>IQ is also correlated with household income. Does that mean the IQ tests are biased? No. It is the reverse. The higher your IQ, the higher your income usually. This same concept extends to the SATs. Here is an article on this topic: <a href="http://suppressednews.com/newsitems/national/EpFpulVVuFFsMoFvLB.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://suppressednews.com/newsitems/national/EpFpulVVuFFsMoFvLB.html&lt;/a> .</p>

122

<p>
[quote]
Unless I misread or misunderstood a gazzillion editorials, columnists, news stories, TV and radio insta pundits then Grutter v. Bollinger gave the US Supreme Courts imprimatur to Affirmative Action in college admissions.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yes and no. The majority opinion in the two Michigan cases did grant a continued exception to the Equal Rights clause for certain forms of affirmative action.</p>

<p>However, Renqhuist's majority opinion was crafted in such a way that it put severe restrictions on the way that affirmative action is practiced. In reality, the Supreme Court decision in the Mich. undergrad case was sent colleges scrambling to bring their affirmative action programs into compliance.</p>

<p>Specifically, race can only be used as one of many factors. Any program that is based soley on race is unconsititutional. For example, the summer prep program for admitted URM students that Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr have run for 20 years was clearly unconstitutional following the Mich. decisions, because enrollment in the program was based on race. The three colleges quickly changed the program this year to allow white students to participate as well. The same sort of thing has happened with free travel to "diversity" weekend campus visits and is also causing many scholarship programs previously specifying a particular race to be rewritten with more general qualifications. </p>

<p>That is why you are seeing so many schools suddenly talking about "recruiting" low socio-economic students. Giving preference to a few poor whites is now a necessary step in demonstrating that the school's affirmative action program passes constitutional muster.</p>

123

<p>"So the very first thing to do in order to establish a race-neutral admissions policy would be to throw out the standardized tests, simply because they have been shown to be descriminatory in effect"</p>

<p>calmon - I don't want to get into defending standardized tests because I do think they are over emphasized in college admissions. However differential outcomes are not "proof" or even a valid indication that the tests may be discriminatory. The NHL is 98% white. The NBA is probably 90% Black. Do the rules of hockey favor white people? Do the rules of basketball discriminate against white people? Either proposition is ludicous. The makeup of professional sports represents cultural choices. And the makeup of the top echelons of standardized tests also represent cultural choices and not all cultures are equally good at producing basketball players or scholars.</p>

<p>SAT scores may correlate with income and race but they correlate even more closely with two-parent households and being read to as a kid. We are what our parents and family and neighbors value. We are products of our culture and not all cultures are equally good at producing scholars or ball players or opera singers or jazz pianists or story tellers or mobsters for that matter.</p>

124

<p>I think that some of the stadardized test scores are a little bit overrated, especially SAT1. My GPA in college does not correspond to my SAT1 score. Thank God the admission counselors looked beyond my SAT1 scores. I am in the same class with students who had SAT1 scores of 1500 and over and I don't feel that they are way better than I am. I think a lot of minorities do not do well on standardized test because they go to crappy schools not because they are dumb. As has been shown so many times, coaching for the SAT helps a lot. I could not afford it. </p>

<p>I did very well on my GRE because of the university that I am currently attending.The opportunities to take challenging classes which can help me was available.</p>

125

<p>Yes, Patuxent, but all that reflects is a cultural propensity to do better on the test. Since the test itself doesn't correlate significantly to anything relevant to college performance after the first year, and correlation to first year performance is particularly weak for the same groups that do poorly -- then use of the test ends up being culturally/racially/socially biased.</p>

<p>I mean, I don't think you would be happy if the colleges admitted only those who scored highly on an on-court basketball test. By your own admission, blacks would probably (as a group) do better. But of course you would wonder what possible relationship that had with college admissions qualifications.</p>

<p>In England, there is a multi-tiered system of colleges, and to get into the top colleges like Oxford, students need to take specific advanced courses and then pass an exam, called an A-level, for each of those courses. I think that they are required to take about 3 A levels to qualify for admission. The test is hard, but it makes sense because they are directly correlated with the underlying courses. That is the way that students demonstrate their readiness for college-level instruction, by taking and passing a requisite number of courses. We could do the same with AP's, as long as our society also ensured equal availability of the AP courses. </p>

<p>But bottom line, SAT is not a test of qualifications. It is a gatekeeping test. Always has been. Originally it was based on a flawed theory that it tested aptitude in an immutable fashion, and that performance could not be altered thorugh practice and study..... but obviously that theory doesn't hold water.</p>

126

<p>I'd be happy if the college only admitted those who plan to major in basketball based on their on court basketball test. Similarly those who performed well in their auditions for the music department or dance department or theatre department. Standardized tests like the SAT don't measure a lot of things. As I said I think they are over emphasised but that doesn't mean they are racially or even economically biased. There are any number of economically deprived and culturally isolated groups that nonetheless perform well on the tests.</p>

127

<p>
[quote]
SAT scores may correlate with income and race but they correlate even more closely with two-parent households and being read to as a kid.

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</p>

<p>Do you have references for this? I know of associations between SAT and parental education, and SAT and parental income, but not studies showing that two-parent households have higher SAT's after controlling for education and income. Similarly, do you have references for being read to, after controlling for income and race?</p>

128

<p>
[quote]
If blacks get rejected more often for loans, does that mean the system is racist? No! It means that blacks on average have worse credit or some other similar financial factor.

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</p>

<p>Actually, there are lots of legal cases that showed minorities rejected for loans with equivalent credit scores. There is an extensive literature on this. Check it out, apparently you will be surprised.</p>

129

<p>
[quote]
Any program that is based soley on race is unconsititutional. For example, the summer prep program for admitted URM students that Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr have run for 20 years was clearly unconstitutional following the Mich. decisions, because enrollment in the program was based on race.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>What? How so? </p>

<p>The affirmative action case wasn't binding for private institutions. I know that private colleges have been concerned about whether programs might come under legal challenges, and many of them have made adjustments on that basis. But did they also believe their minorities programs were unconstitutional?</p>

130

<p>I believe the SAT does show some (little but some) correlation of how you will do in college. The SAT tests your test-taking skills: how well you perform under stress, how quickly you think, etc. Colleges, especially at top tier schools, rarely have grades other than 2 major tests, midterm and final. These two tests are usually the sole determinant of your grade. Yes you may say you can study for this test, however, you can study for the SAT too. If you study for the SAT, you will do reasonably well. I do agree that the SAT, however, does not test intelligence, yet, statistically showing, those who usually do well in school (at least those who I have met) usually perform well on the SAT too. It is also false to label the SAT as a discriminatory examination. I know many blacks and hispanics who perform very very well on the exam.</p>

131

<p>ashernm, the implication in the article you posted from "supressednews.com" is nothing short of racist and classist. It is nothing more than a rehash of the tired social darwinism that prevailed at the turn of the 20th century.</p>

<p>To say that the higher your social class, the higher your intelligence and thus the higher your IQ (and SAT score) is irrefutably absurd. By this logic, the rich (and mostly white) are more intellectually fit and capable than those poorer than they.
You are not taking into account the ability of wealthier parents to provide SAT classes and private tutors for their children, to send them to superior schools both public and private, to have the time to read to them and encourage them in their studies, and to provide a household environment in which the primary concern of the children is their academic success and not their day to day survival.</p>

<p>Larry Summers, the president of Harvard, as well as almost every big name in education today would respond to the social darwinism assertion as tired and....
ABSURD!
read:
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2005/05/24/national/class/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2005/05/24/national/class/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

132

<p>
[quote]
The affirmative action case wasn't binding for private institutions. I know that private colleges have been concerned about whether programs might come under legal challenges, and many of them have made adjustments on that basis. But did they also believe their minorities programs were unconstitutional?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Let's put it this way. The Michigan undergrad case (Gratz vs. Bollinger) was a handpicked case by several public policy legal advocate groups much as the NAACP used hand-picked cases during the Civil Rights Era. The plaintiff, Gratz, was located through an advertising campaign. While the Law School case, Grutter, upheld the principle of an exception to consitituional equal rights for limited use of affirmative action, Gratz shot down the undergrad admissions system for giving an arbitarary boost based solely on race. Renquists' majority opinion was carefully written to provide a road map for the public policy law groups to wage the next round of anti-affirmative action cases:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Because the University’s use of race in its current freshman ad-missions policy is not narrowly tailored to achieve respondents’ asserted interest in diversity, the policy violates the Equal Protection Clause. For the reasons set forth in Grutter v. Bollinger, post, at 15– 21, the Court has today rejected petitioners’ argument that diversity cannot constitute a compelling state interest. However, the Court finds that the University’s current policy, which automatically distributes 20 points, or one-fifth of the points needed to guarantee ad-mission, to every single “underrepresented minority” applicant solely because of race, is not narrowly tailored to achieve educational diver-sity. In Bakke, Justice Powell explained his view that it would be permissible for a university to employ an admissions program in which “race or ethnic background may be deemed a ‘plus’ in a particular applicant’s file.” 438 U. S., at 317. He emphasized, however, the importance of considering each particular applicant as an indi-vidual, assessing all of the qualities that individual possesses, and in turn, evaluating that individual’s ability to contribute to the unique setting of higher education. The admissions program Justice Powell described did not contemplate that any single characteristic auto-matically ensured a specific and identifiable contribution to a university’s diversity. See id., at 315. The current LSA policy does not pro-vide the individualized consideration Justice Powell contemplated. The only consideration that accompanies the 20-point automatic dis-tribution to all applicants from underrepresented minorities is a factual review to determine whether an individual is a member of one of these minority groups.

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</p>

<p>Armed with this language, the Center for Equal Opportunity, spent last spring identifying programs that were solely based on race and threatening to file discrimination complaints with the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education which could, in turn, initiate legal action based on the fact that private colleges receive considerable federal funding, especially from the student aid program. Keep in mind that the current Executive Branch is strongly opposed to affirmative action.</p>

<p>Haverford received such a letter regarding the Tri-Co Summer program operated by Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford -- a program that has been closed to white students since its founding in the 1974. Legal council for all three schools concluded, with no doubt whatsoever, that the program would not survive a legal challenge. The fact that it was only open to students based on race was patently in violation of the new Gratz decision.</p>

<p>Here is what the President of Swarthmore said in a Student Council (SC) sponsored public forum on campus after the decision to open the Tri-Co program to white students was criticized by students:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Al Bloom: </p>

<p>I want to thank SC (student council) for organizing this. The best way to begin is to say why I think it's essential to open the program. I am responsible for this decision. As I heard more about the situation, and explored its legal implications, following consultation with the Deans and other presidents, I came to the decision for Swarthmore. The major factor is what would happen if we were sued by the Department of Education? The amount of money required to defend ourselves would likely be very substantial, and must be weighed against other priorities for our money. And is it likely we'd win? Our legal advice said no. The law as interpreted by the Supreme Court dictates that any program that confers advantage cannot be opened only to participants on the basis of race. So the only way to defend our current program would be to say either that it offers no advantage or that equivalent programs are offered to all students. If we were to lose, there could be various consequences, including serious financial consequences. We could be sued by the Department of Education for damages. We could be sued by any white student who was able to prove disadvantage, or lack of advantage. Potentially, federal financial aid could be at risk, in student aid, grants, loans, and research for faculty; legal penalties could be brought against individuals; and the courts could require the dismantling of Tri-Co. The Department of Education would investigate if there were advantages conferred based on race, opening the institution to very close examination; and there are a range of things that we do that could then be questioned. Moreover, I, our deans, and those at Bryn Mawr and Haverford, believe it would be positive educationally for white students to participate in the program. </p>

<p>70 colleges have opened programs out of fear of legal action, including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. There have been no reports of success for challengers. When we practice ethical intelligence, we need to weigh all issues and liabilities at stake in deciding what is best for the institution. I can see why you're upset. I regret that. The way of informing you must have seemed arbitrary. We should have had this exact conversation before those letters went out. I wish we had. SC's letter was contentious and I see why we deserved that. Now let's put both our timing and Student Council's response behind us and move to the discussion we should have had.

[/quote]
</p>

133

<p>Thanks for the primer. :) You know I'm at Michigan, correct?</p>

<p>It seems to me that private colleges are vulnerable with these sorts of programs and scholarships, and they're correct to change them. But unconstitutionality seems to be going a bit far. Maybe it's semantics, but until we have a test case I reserve judgment. Seems most places want to avoid being that test case, a wise move for a number of reasons.</p>

134

<p>"To say that the higher your social class, the higher your intelligence and thus the higher your IQ (and SAT score) is irrefutably absurd. By this logic, the rich (and mostly white) are more intellectually fit and capable than those poorer than they.
You are not taking into account the ability of wealthier parents to provide SAT classes and private tutors for their children, to send them to superior schools both public and private, to have the time to read to them and encourage them in their studies, and to provide a household environment in which the primary concern of the children is their academic success and not their day to day survival."
You had my argument slightly backwards. It is all a matter of probability. IQ is a predictor of income, so if your parents are smart, chances are, they are richer than average. This intelligence is heritable and thus passed down from generation to generation. The wealth helps provide education and preparation.
Here is something I found about heritability of intelligence:
"Heritability depends on the range of typical environments in the population that is studied. If the environment of the population is fairly uniform, then heritability may be high, but if the range of environmental differences is very large, then heritability may be low. In different words, if everyone is treated the same environmentally, then any differences that we observe will largely be due to genes; heritability will be large in this case. However, if the environment treats people very differently, then heritability may be small. "
<a href="http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000970.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000970.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12059-2003Sep1?language=printer%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12059-2003Sep1?language=printer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Prepster, your assertion about the environment is probably true, that it is less about success and more about other things, in poor households. You yourself outline exactly how rich kids are better fit, because they have been prepared better while the poor have not. </p>

<p>Precisely how is the article racist? Because it's implications would put URMs or specifically hispanics and blacks at a disadvantage, due to poorer environments?</p>

135

<p>
[quote]
IQ is a predictor of income, so if your parents are smart, chances are, they are richer than average.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Then those that chose their parents well as to inherit massive wealth must be down right brilliant. (this one's for you Mini :) )</p>

136

<p>Yes. They consider themselves vulnerable and clearly nobody wants to be a "test-case" when they know they will likely lose. Part of that is "circling the wagons" to protect the core program: racially-based affirmative action admissions. The decision has clearly been made to sacrifice periferal programs in order to avoid a stream of court challenges.</p>

<p>I know that Swarthmore (and many colleges) began system-wide legal reviews of their affirmative action programs immediately after the Grutter and Gratz decisions. All indications are that their legal counsels have made it very clear that any program based solely on race will have no chance of surviving a challenge. Even scholarships earmarked for particular races are being rewritten to pass muster. They are still reserved for certain races in practice, but the language is changed to make them open to students who further diversity efforts. Swarthmore's review raised questions as to the legality of college funding for "closed" support groups, such as the Swarthmore Afro-American Student Society, that are only open to students of a particular race. The college believes that it could successfully defend a court challenge to these programs, but they aren't anxious to find out.</p>

<p>From the other side, I don't think that the anti-affirmative action public law interest groups are eager to use a private school as a test case. It's a lot "cleaner" for them to go after public universities where the public funding is much more direct and the Michigan precidents are more directly applicable.</p>

<p>The media did a poor job analyzing the Michigan cases, IMO. The Supreme Court decision was portrayed as a victory for affirmative action, which is true on one level. However, Renquist's majority opinion in Gratz signficantly tightened the noose relative to the previous Bakke precident. This aspect was under-reported.</p>

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<p>ahsernm-the article you cited discounted environment as the primary factor for academic success and highlighted inherited genes. The fact is, the Alabama school districts about which the "supressednews" author was ranting have such disparities in terms of resources and the students (poor whites and most of the blacks in the state) are so much poorer themselves that what he is saying is indefensible.</p>

<p>The difference between the Mountain Brook schools and the schools in downtown Birmingham, for example, are astounding. The author of that ridiculous article tried to peg the disparities in performance not on the difference of wealth and resources between the schools and students, but on the fact that (according to him) the wealthier people innately possess a higher intellectual capacity. </p>

<p>If what you mean to say is different, than I suggest that you disavow that article.</p>

138

<p>I agreed with its points to a degree, that intelligence largely accounts for success, but then again, the poor are unable to take full advantage of their intelligence due to environmental factors.</p>

139

<p>The reason we have affirmative action in college admissions is because our society is culturally and economically biased. Our educational system is culturally and economically biased. Of course the standardized tests are culturally and economically biased. The tests attempt to measure what the creators feel is valuable information. I know all you in the 2200 + club probably believe that it is valuable information. Of course you do. You’re supposed to believe that.</p>

<p>Let me tell you a short story. My sister-in-law started a public charter high-school 4 years ago. The school is in East Palo Alto, a community where less than 10% of the residents between 18 and 25 have college degrees. These kids came into 9th grade reading at a sixth grade level and below. Many have chaotic homes. These “at-risk” kids were plucked from a school system in which their high-school graduation rate would probably have been less than 50% and college acceptance would have been about 10%. Are these kids unintelligent? Are their parents unintelligent? I guess if you gave them IQ tests (designed by and for culturally mainstream people) you would conclude they are unintelligent. </p>

<p>Last week, East Palo High School had their first graduation. (see here for story <a href="http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/epagrad-061505.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/epagrad-061505.html&lt;/a> ) 90% of the graduating class of 58 is going on to college. Two thirds are going to 4 year colleges. I don’t know the SAT stats, but I would guess that an 1100 (old SAT) would be fantastic for them. </p>

<p>The key point of this story is that these at-risk kids had to be taken out of the existing educational system in order for them to be successful. The current system was not working for them. Why not? Because they are poor? Black? Latino? Causation? Correlation? It really doesn’t matter. What matters is the system doesn’t work for many outside the “mainstream” population. </p>

<p>So therefore, considering what it takes for non-mainstream kids to even get to the college admission process, don’t you think the world is a better place if the system cuts them some slack on the SAT criteria? Well maybe you don’t think its better that way. But that’s the way it is and the way it will stay, I suspect, until the playing field is level. I’m truly grateful for visionary educators (like my sis in-law) who fiercely believe these kids belong in our colleges.</p>

140

<p>To piggy back on Yomama,</p>

<p>Form Tuesday's NY Times:</p>

<p>WESTPORT, Conn., June 20 - She boards the bus every morning at 6:30 in Bridgeport, hauling a backpack half her size. Two hours later, she arrives at school, sometimes so tired that she falls asleep in class. At the end of the day, when traffic is a bit lighter, she still faces an hourlong ride home.</p>

<p>Still, Alexis Miller, 7, and her mother say the long days are worth it. In fact, they say, they are a stroke of luck: Because of a lottery, Alexis and 33 other children who live in Bridgeport are able to attend Westport public schools.</p>

<p>For Alexis, it is the difference between attending first grade in a district where 35 percent of the students drop out before finishing high school, only 20 percent of fourth graders achieve reading goals and there are sometimes 26 students in a class, and another district where the dropout rate is below 2 percent, fewer than 12 percent of fourth graders fall short of the state's goals on reading, and the average class has 18 to 22 students. </p>

<p>For many parents, the dream destination is Westport. They say the district has paid for class pictures, field trips, test preparation, summer programs and $40 cab rides home when participation in extracurricular activities means missing the bus. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/21/education/21chance.html?pagewanted=all%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/21/education/21chance.html?pagewanted=all&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>