@ChangeTheGame It’s not relevant if it was legal. The purpose of it was to keep black kids out of white spaces and in practice that kept them in much worse places (schools, trains (in Plessy v. Ferguson), neighborhoods, etc).
Brown v. Board of Education
You seem to have equated it (and redlining, and Jim Crow, etc) with AA, and I’m still not getting that comparison.
I love the bootstraps example @notigering
Such a concise way of summing all of this up…
@collegemomjam
Kids going through the college application process know that being certain races helps you while being other races hurts you. This thread is littered with examples of kids perceiving the preference given to URM.
In the business world, my company has a policy to increase minority and females in leadership, it’s pretty common. How are the white males in a company supposed to feel when they are trying to move up the ranks and a minority or woman is selected instead? Will they have doubts it was based on merit? Of course, unless they personally worked with the person and were impressed by their skills. After all, the company goal is to decrease the percent of white men in leadership positions.
Seperate but equal policies (for the betterment of white people), redlining (for the betterment of white people), Jim Crow (for the betterment of Southern White people) and AA (for the betterment of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and Native Hawaiians) all benefit a group or groups. In the history of mankind, discrimination of a group has never been looked on kindly from the lens of history. Can you say with a straight face that Asian Americans have not been adversely affected by AA policies when there is data out there like the racial composition of students at top UCs (especially UC Berkeley) before and after Proposition 209?
I am pretty sure that MLK Jr was not trying to discriminate against another minority group (Asian Americans) just to help African American students. Especially when the boost given to students like my own comfortably middle class black kids is larger than the boost given to low SES white and Asian American kids, I have a hard time believing that anyone truly believes that is right.
What is the “all a lie” part you were referring to @tpike12?
And is it that these companies are trying to decrease the amount of white men in leadership positions or is it perhaps that they feel their company would be better served in the end by having more diversity in upper management? That the diversity of thought would in the end be a good thing for their company?
I guess it depends on how you look at it. If it’s a zero sum, then yes, the women and people of color are taking potential spots from white men. But it might play into the company’s long term strategic goals.
I worked in Corporate America a while back and most of upper management consisted of white men.
I’m pretty sure Wall Street is still mostly white men, especially in the upper positions. Some of that may be self selecting, I realize.
I guess as it relates back to college admissions, and your point about kids perceiving preference given to URM’s, I would hope they are reading all of the comments about other preferences as well that aren’t as easily identifiable by the color of someone’s skin.
Again, lots of great colleges out there and plenty of room for all strong applicants. You might not get your first choice, even if there wasn’t AA. But there are plenty of other choices and we need to make sure these kids don’t think of themselves as victims. These schools would have 5% admission rates regardless…what makes them so sure they would get a spot if it just wasn’t for “AA” or “athletics” or whatever???
@tpike12 I hope we can put to rest the idea that MLK was anti-AA or thought that society ought to ignore race.
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/why-we-cant-wait
[quote]
“A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro” to compete on a just and equal basis./quote.
In a zero sum game, which elite college admissions is, this is a distinction without a difference. You can’t give one group a leg up without holding another group down.
Stats are below from Arcidiacono’s analysis in the Harvard lawsuit, comparing the current admission share to how his model predicts the share would change with no URM preference and everything else the same. Black admit share dropped by a factor of 2-3x, with White and Asian students getting the lost admit spots.
Current Admit Share — 45% White, 22% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 13% Black
No Black/Hispanic Preference — 53% White, 27% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 5% Black
Note that the percentages above are for domestic admits using Harvard racial definitions, which do not have a separate category for mixed race. If you add in international applicants and consider that URMs tend to have a lower yield (partially because they are more likely to apply RD), then the actual percentages would be lower. Furthermore racial definitions vary, depending on things like how mixed race, international, and non-matriculating admits are handled. For example, a comparison of the Black percentage for the class of 2022 in 3 different sources is below. All 3 sources listed notably different percentages.
Harvard Class of 2022
Harvard’s website says 15.2% Black
Crimson Freshman survey says 10.7% Black
Federal Database (IPEDS/ College Navigator) says 7% Black
@OHMomof2 I love the MLK Jr. quotes (THE HOUSE). I have to give a shout out to our Alma Mater. The question that should really be asked is what would MLK Jr. do today? Being in Atlanta and having talked to several people who knew MLK over the years (especially in my college years), I believe he would have been devastated by the death of the African American family (70% of households had both black parents when he died in 1968, but only 28% of households can say that today) which has adversely affected our SES status and focused on children. I also believe he would have focused on poor people (all of them) more than any AA policy, although he supported government intervention and believed a revolution was coming if the wealth distribution in the US was not spread more equitably. I believe he would have wanted more from black people and wanted more from society at large to see what is happening all levels. But we will never know for certain.
While those policies may have benefited white people, they specifically targeted and limited black people. AA is the only one in your list that favors black people (along with some other minority groups). If you can’t grasp this difference I don’t know what else I can say to you.
Asian Americans may be discriminated against in admissions at some schools and I am against that. Racism against Asian Americans is a separate thing from AA, however. As these H students put it:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/7/18/chung-zhang-sffa-harvard-wrong/
Re: Prop 209, that’s a lot more complicated than you suggest. You probably are referring to high Asian-American enrollment after 209, rather than admission %.
http://care.gseis.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/care-brief-raceblind.pdf
A good analysis would look at the overall acceptance rate drop, the drop for each ethnic/racial group, and take transfers into account as well. But looking at the breakdown of who ATTENDS doesn’t help the anti-AA case. It reflects the population of that state, the high yield and many other factors.
So yes, I can keep a straight face.
No.
One can have an AA tip and that may reduce Asian or white or international or athletic or legacy or Wyoming tips.
Or a college can decide to increase class size so as not to reduce any of those.
@OHMomof2 Yield is an important factor for African Americans at top universities because they tend to have a lower yield than other races, which may be increasing the number of black accepted students. But should it? Harvard’s yield is definitely lowest for African Americans students and seeing the percentage of accepted African Americans be higher than the population at large of African Americans gives the appearance that Harvard is trying to balance the final African American totals. Also, I knew you would be able to keep a straight face. But we both just agree to disagree.
If a college was going to increase class size anyway and decides to partition those additional slots for AA so they are not available to others, they are making a choice to hold the Asian or white or international groups down. And as practical matter, the Ivies have done very little to increase class size, not even keeping up with population growth in many cases.
Ask high achieving Asian American students if they feel like they are targeted by AA. I know the lawsuit against Harvard is due to a student feeling this way. We will see how the courts decide.
Asian-American students benefited from AA for a long time, some still do, and have spoken out against the suit.
If they feel targeted by AA rather than by deliberate racism, then they are wrong.
Also, the lawsuit is due to Blum’s efforts to get rid of AA, he sought out aggrieved Asian students in the furtherance of that goal, it was not the other way around.
Only 0.87% of African American Harvard applicants were in the top applicant stat decile, which was an average of 23 applicants per year. Of those 23, an average of 13 per year were admitted. The yield rate for higher stat African American students was 51% and would be expected to drop off further in the highest stat decile. So maybe an average of ~5 top decile African American students matriculated and became a part of Harvard’s entering class.
In contrast, 18% of Asian applicants were in the top stat decile, which was an average of 1220 students per year. Of those 1220, an average of 160 per year were admitted. High stat Asian students had an 84% yield, so maybe 130 top decline Asian students became a part of Harvard’s class.
Are you saying that all white men think the same? I bet every person that reads this can think of multiple people that share their skin color, but thinks very differently from them.
Sure.
Some kids may understand the nuance of MLKs beliefs, but I bet most don’t, so it doesn’t change the perception of these kids that were taught over and over to judge others by the content of their character and experience something different as they move into adulthood.
@Data10 – thanks for those stats. I think it’s important to note that a cohort of 23 is simply too small to draw statistically significant conclusions from – whereas a cohort of 1220 is clearly large enough. So while one can conclude that there is 13% admit rate among top-decile Asian American applicants – one can’t really draw the conclusion of 56% African American --although if you had 230 in the cohort and 130 admitted, then you might have the requisite numbers.
So while I think that it is clear that high-end African Americans have a higher statistical chance of admission than high-end Asian applicants, it’s problematic to try to narrow that down to a specific number. What is noteworthy to me in the face of the antipathy towards affirmative action is that Harvard is turning away roughly half of the less than 1% of the applicants whose stats put them in that top decile — which would suggest that race is far less significant than people may believe. That is, being black and in the top decile of applicants is not in and of itself enough to win admission to Harvard – at best it gets the person to the zone of 50/50 chances.
@collegemomjam, I appreciate your feedback and viewpoint. I state facts and opinions based on facts, so if anyone takes them as racist, that is their problem, not mine.
On a CC forum, it is ok to speak in general terms, and the entire argument is often spread over many posts. I have no doubt the black boy you are working with is a jewel, as I have worked with many, as well. But kids like him will not benefit from AA, so they will not suffer if/when it is discontinued.
Because there is a mountain of data pointing to persistent achievement gaps when all kids have the same opportunity, the logical conclusions are that minorities don’t value the education being offered, and/or they are academically lazy. The racist conclusion would be that they are not capable of achieving. Plus, with AA lowering standards, there is no incentive to achieving at high levels.
Not different towns. What happens when blacks curse at teachers, call them names, start fights, etc., but there is no punishment? Whites in the same schools are mostly civil, and schools can no longer have racial disparities in punishment. There is no disincentive to behaving badly.