That’s a shame. I thought the lawsuit was about merit-based admission - academic merit, that is.
No OHMOM most people see this as an issue where the law should be applied equally to all institutions and not just private businesses. A lot of people believe that everyone should follow the rules of the constitution. This is a serious legal question and not a political talking point.
What’s most disturbing to me on this issue is that, although not in this thread, it seems the majority of public on both sides are fooled as;
One side thinks that the suit is funded by rich Asians when it is actually funded by an ultra right wing organization whose main purpose is abolishing labor protection, and the end result would be close to current UCB practice without realizing the heavy legacy and sports preference even excluding players for their teams. Don’t be deluded. Harvard will not be filled with 40% Asians if the racial quota is gone. Majority of Asian’s political power is not coming from White’s favor on us as the model minority. It comes from being the part of minority that the social progress has protected. If you forgot Japanese Internment then remember the violence on young Asian student by their classmates during the last presidential election. German people under Nazi were far more educated on liberal arts then the current U.S. population, and see what happened to them.
Statistics show that 70% of Asian Americans, or 40% of Chinese Americans support some form of racial consideration in admission. Rich and educated Asians have raised voice supporting it repeatedly. Don’t forget that California, the highest concentrated place of rich and smart Asian Americans has elected 39 Democrats and 14 Republicans as the current representatives. I hope it isn’t a surprise that Democrats is pro affirmative action and the Harvard case is supported by Republicans. Yet Asian Americans are shamelessly used as propaganda for this side.
Meanwhile, the other side naively believes that majority of the beneficiaries of the current system are super bright but under-performed kids due to their poverty, when in fact many if not most of the beneficiaries are racial minority from middle to upper class with all the educational opportunities they needed. And many of them are not even Americans at all, or Americans not grown up in America anyway.
Current admission practice is far different from our time. New standardized tests are a measurement of achievement and not potential. EC and everything else are also about achievement. It simply is unfairly difficult for poor Black and Hispanic kids with great potential to receive any benefit from the current practice, but they are being used as a propaganda for this side.
And even in this forum, instead of focusing on pros and cons of race based admission practice after all the real consideration, this discussion is repeatedly diluted by various conspiracy theories, downplay on value of racial diversity supported by millions of peer reviewed articles, proud demonstration of one’s gross misunderstanding of the U.S. legal system, baseless claims of representing the majority, some childish tantrum, and a few resilient people keep trying to educate them to what end I don’t know.
SculpDad while I don’t disagree with much of what you wrote you and OHMOM seem determined to frame this as a political issue when in reality it’s an honest legal issue of the greatest importance. I have worked in private business as an executive for 30 years and I can tell you that there are a dizzying myriad of racial rules that govern hiring, firing, and promotion of employees and these rules are very rigidly enforced by the US Government Agencies. Surely you are aware that Harvard and all the elite colleges are major employers and that they also follow these exact rules with all of their thousands of employees. Using race to hire, fire, or promote is illegal. But somehow these exact same institutions argue that it’s absolutely imperative that they be allowed to use race in admissions precisely in a way that would be totally and completely illegal over in the administration building. Most Americans think all the laws should be applied equally in the United States. You are correct that this is not primarily about Asians or any single exact group of people but rather about the rule of law in the USA.
@SAY, I think either you are purposely misrepresenting what is your opinion as what is legal according to the present U.S. laws, on both admission and employment practices, or you don’t really understand the complex U.S. legal system. Either way, there is no point commenting on that issue.
Other than that, I see your points. However, I must respectively disagree because I think economical gain and technological advancement are only valuable in the context of promoting overall happiness of all members of our society.
If private businesses suffer from rigidity of labor, caused by less qualified minority college graduates and of labor regulations, which abolishment of both are funded by the same organization, then so be it. U.S. economy is still strong. And strength of it is meaningless if it doesn’t serve the people.
The Harvard law suit is clearly political and not just legal. Being organized by conservative political activist Edward Blum and funded by Searle Freedom Trust is the proof.
If I understand OHMomof2’s conclusion correctly, she is saying if SFFA wins, the number of underqualified URM will decrease but the number of underqualified whites will not. So the minorities will end up squabbling over a piece of pie set aside for them while Harvard will continue to admit underqualified whites under the guise of athletics, legacy, etc. That’s some BS, right there.
If SFFA lawsuit is about merit then the result should apply to whites as well. Whatever the ruling, it should “apply to all” as SAY stated.
@Ap0state, almost but not quite. If SFFA wins, both Asians and Whites, including those who are qualified through athletics and legacy, are likely to increase and not stay. Many Asians naively hope that the change will be mostly for their gain just because they are mostly the disadvantaged. Personally, I think they will get an rude awakening. The world is not a fair place and will never be. It’s always a system of shifting balances.
SculpDad I ran a large nine figure corporation for many years and I am very familiar with the US legal system. Nothing I stated above about the law was “my opinion”. In private businesses using race as a major determinate in hiring, promotion, or firing is illegal. Surely you must know this. I have no idea what you mean about promoting overall happiness of all members of society and it has no relevance in this discussion. Your second to last paragraph is an argument against capitalism? Did you mean it that way? Private corporations are not created to serve the people but rather the private shareholders but of course within the legal framework of the laws. The Harvard Lawsuit is supported by many people who just believe the laws should be applied equally and fairly to everyone.
Harvard probably believes (but will not say publicly) that it needs sufficient white students in order to remain marketable to white students (many of whom do not want to attend a school where they are not in the majority, according to @Hanna , a college admission consultant who sometimes posts on these forums). So if it loses the SFFA lawsuit, it may lean more heavily on legacy preference (the previous generation of students had a higher percentage of white students) and geographic diversity preference (some of the more underrepresented geographic areas in the US for Harvard students also tend to have a greater percentage of white people than the US overall) if there is any risk of the percentage of white students falling too low.
Of course, that can be deceptive to a white student who is not a legacy or recruited athlete and does not live in an underrepresented area, in suggesting that his/her chances are higher than they actually are.
@ScultorDad - You are saying that the number of underqualified whites may actually increase? Doesn’t that go against what the lawsuit is about? Again, that’s some BS if that happens.
@Ap0state, Use your pure logic. Whites too have been disadvantaged from racial consideration. If we leave everything else and just remove the racial consideration, they will of course share the spoil.
I personally, and also some people, believe that Whites will eventually get more spoils than the media is currently portraying, based on various reasons including what @ucbalumnus has just illustrated. And the poor Asian parents passionately supporting the law suit are up for a shock, which they may deserve for their ignorance and selfishness. I am an Asian parent as well, by the way. I hope I have the right of self mockery.
The lawsuit is not challenging Harvard’s ability to basically admit whoever it wants, it is challenging H using race as a consideration in that admissions decision.
If H wants more kids from Minnesota or North Dakota, it can admit more of them and there is nothing to say - in this lawsuit or anywhere - that they have to have competitive stats with anyone they might reject from NY or CA, to use ucb’s example.
@SculptorDad - I have no problem with academically qualified students sharing the spoil, be they white, black, green, or purple. I read a reddit post from supposedly an AO that a rich white kid with 1300 SAT from Exeter will get admitted over other more academically qualified kids (be they white, black, etc.)
Being an athletic, legacy, developmental (i.e. dumb rich kid) should be secondary factors (shouldn’t be a factor at all, IMHO). Harvard is an academic institution foremost. It’s not a sports organization or a private country club. Academics should be the primary (may even be the only) criteria for admissions.
And yet Harvard IS part country club and part sports organization.That’s some of the reason many people want to go there.
People argue that taking those things away will make the place so different that it won’t be as desirable. A lot of people like H beating Yale in football. A lot of people want to go to college with kids from families that are powerful and important and wealthy. Many want a college that gets millions of dollars donated to it to hire the best faculty and build the nicest buildings and stuff. Agree or disagree with the need to compromise academic standards to do all that, it is what it is.
@Ap0state I am glad to hear that you are opening to other possibilities. But the system is a lot more complex, and sometimes is the opposite, too trivial that it escapes our imagination as a possibility. Many of us who thinks he knows better than general public, probably only understand a small part of it. Let me throw another angle;
Harvard is a private organization whose mission is to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society. Why do you think they focus so much on leadership quality on their admission? Academics is only one criteria of their admission policy, and it’s importance is only in the context of furthering it’s mission. Children of higher social status are more likely to be citizen-leaders of our society over smart but poor minority kids.
The current Federal inheritance tax exclusion is $22M for a couple to their child. In an extreme capitalism society like ours, family background is far more important than personal merit on deciding who are going to be our leaders. Harvard may believe that it’s mission is to make them better leaders, if they are going to be leaders anyway.
If they are going to be our leaders anyway, we do want them to be educated in a racially diverse environment and learn that minorities are also human beings of flash and blood, and even of the equal status while they are in the college, so that they can lead academically more achieved subordinates with greater humility and efficiency. This may explain Harvard strongly wanting to have a racially diverse student body while being less enthusiastic for economical or intellectual diversity.
I am not saying that they are right and I have hundreds of things to say against this logic. This was only meant to show a different angle.
@SculptorDad - Damn, you and OHMomof2 are sure discouraging. You make some interesting points but it’s sure depressing. You guys leave me alone to believe in the idealistic world where what you do matters more than your background. :(( 
@Ap0state , We were only discussing on policy’s effect on the majority of people, not all of them. The good news for you, individually, is that our society is also very open to the most qualified people of any class. For the selected few, which may include you, ours is the idealistic world where what you do matters more than your background. That’s how the system has survived without a revolution. The leading class absorbs future revolutionary leaders.
And fortunately for the rest, the U.S. is the wealthiest country of the world and can still provide more comfort and mobility than most of other countries can, even to its members of lower socio economic status.
Some studies have found that high income low achieving students have about the same rate of eventually graduating college as low income high achieving students (achievement measured by testing in middle school). In other words, much of your eventual outcome is determined by unearned (by you) or circumstantial factors like your parents’ income, rather than purely being based on your own ability and motivation.
But perhaps that is no surprise. In any system where merit is measured and used to allocate opportunities, parents with the most resources will use those resources to help their children score as high as possible on merit measures (best schools, tutoring, test preparation, financial support for extracurriculars, lack of financial limits on anything that is used to assess merit, etc.), while poor parents may not have the resources to do that. Yes, the kids’ own ability and motivation still matters, but parental assistance can affect whether a kid achieves to his/her potential on measures or merit, or shows measures that are far below his/her potential. And that is not including such non-merit factors as legacy preference (or at the extreme, development preference) in college admissions.
Economic mobility in the US is lower than in most other rich countries: https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/
And there is concern that economic mobility is decreasing in rich countries (i.e. making them more like poor countries): https://www.forbes.com/sites/aparnamathur/2018/07/16/the-u-s-does-poorly-on-yet-another-metric-of-economic-mobility/
Generally, people age 18-22 tend to be more left leaning than the general adult population (particularly on social issues), so it is not surprising that traditional-age college students (not just at Harvard) tend to lean left more than the general adult population.
From their own marketing perspective, having “enough” of each ethnic group maximizes the college’s marketing potential, in that it can be attractive to all prospective students, rather than those of some ethnic groups not wanting to attend due to “too few” of their own there. (“Enough” is not necessarily the same for each ethnic group.) Note that some smaller colleges in some regions consider Asian students to be URMs, because they have relatively few of them, and many Asian students do not feel such colleges would be suitable for them on that basis.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: This thread is not about immigrants. Please get back on topic.