"Race" in College Applications FAQ & Discussion 12

Applying to College
4481

@collegemomjam

For example, someone who has suffered from this kind of disadvantage could write a compelling essay about this in their essay portion. I’d be OK with universities doing more recruitment in low-income/majority minority schools, outreach in the local community, support for admitted minority students (funding for ethnic clubs, mental health resources) giving socioeconomic consideration in admissions, doing away with legacy programs, even giving moderate AA preferences to blacks and Native Americans under the premise of social justice.

Anything other than the current regime that diversity is king and Asians simply aren’t diverse.

@OHMomof2

User collegemomjam asked me if I would be OK with Harvard at 75% Asian. So it clearly is the logic for some people, and I was just responding to that.

4482

I am surprised that I haven’t seen the admissions numbers mentioned for the Harvard class of 2023 of the percentage of Asian Americans admitted (25.4%) which is a 12 percent increase from the class of 2022 (22.7% of the class admitted was Asian American). That is definitely the biggest percentage increase in the recent history that I have looked at data (10 year time frame). Is that the lawsuit at work or due to something else (increase in the number of Asian American applicants for example) or maybe a combination of both?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/3/29/2023-admit-numbers/

4483

@ChangeTheGame

Before more data is released, I would venture to guess that it is the lawsuit that is responsible.

In 2012 there was a significant increase in the percentage of admits who identified as Asian, and a corresponding significant decrease for blacks and Hispanics (https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/19/acceptance-rates-by-race/). This corresponds with the beginnings of the current lawsuit against Harvard. These percentages had remained relatively constant for at least 20 years (http://www.unz.com/runz/asian-quotas-in-the-ivy-league-we-see-nothing/).

College consultants seem to be aware of this trend as well. On the past admissions cycle, Brian Taylor of Ivy Coach stated:

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/11/7/admissions-trial-review-college-counselors/

I speculate that universities will covertly change their admissions policy to comply with the law, and therefore avoid any penalty for their past actions (just like what happened with Jewish quotas).

4484

@ChangeTheGame I was actually wondering that very thing…I wouldn’t be surprised if it has something to do with the law suit.

As it relates to these facts posted by @OhiBro in response to the article you posted, on the topic of blacks and employment…

25 years ago, I was the manager of a sales force for a fortune 500 company in Manhattan. My team was mostly made up of young, recent white male college grads. I am white and had only been out of college for 5 years, so many of my team members were my peers and we became very friendly. There were also two black women who were a little older than me (late 30’s ish) who I became very friendly with as well. The office we worked in was overall very white. Probably 80-90%.

My subordinates could be either level ones or level twos. There was incentive to become a level two (pay raise, and just overall career progression). The other managers and I typically advocated for our subordinates and tried to get the deserving ones promoted when the time was right. They were usually quite motivated to do so and we would have frequent meetings to make sure they were meeting the requirements to move towards promotion.

One of the black women on my team had been there longer than any of us. She was a solid performer. She was at her desk before everyone else every day and never left early. She was completely reliable and her clients loved her. I never understood why she wasn’t already a level two when I started.

So I treated her just like everyone else and she progressed to a level two, as she totally deserved to (and was overdue in my opinion). Even my boss (an obnoxious white woman who I eventually helped get demoted because she was a discriminatory horror) who had to approve all of the promotions was completely supportive of the promotion for this woman on my team. There wasn’t one bad thing to say about her. She was steady as a rock.

A few days after her promotion she came to my office with a little potted plant for me as a gift. With tears in her eyes she gave it to me and said that no one had ever done so much to help her before. I was shocked because I was just treating her like everyone else, but I guess, for whatever reason, she wasn’t used to that treatment and certainly wasn’t expecting it.

I’m still confused by what happened and why no one ever moved her through the promotion process before. She obviously felt “different”. She probably could have been more aggressive in seeking out her promotion, but for some reason she wasn’t. She was just lost in the shuffle, waiting for her turn. It was almost like she just assumed she wasn’t going to get it. But she was thrilled to finally get it.

This was just one person, obviously. But an experience I will never forget and still think about to this day.

Another very interesting thing that happened this same year. The woman I promoted and the other black woman on my team came to my office the day they were announcing the OJ Simpson decision. Like I said, we were close. They obviously felt close enough to me to ask if we could put the radio on and listen to the verdict in my office with the door closed. When he was found “not-guilty”, they cheered. I was shocked that he wasn’t guilty. I didn’t know what to expect or do, but I almost felt like I should congratulate them, crazy as that sounds. They were so happy…I think they knew that he was guilty, but they felt his vindication was something to celebrate. Like they beat the system that has been oppressive (but ironically, probably really just a testimony to how having money can get you out of crimes!)…I felt conflicted. Shocked and disappointed by the verdict, but happy for my friends. It was honestly one of the strangest moments in my life.

I’m honestly not even sure what to make of either of these stories that I just shared. I just know they have made a permanent impression on my mind and given the context of our discussions, that ot

4485

@ChangeTheGame I was actually wondering that very thing…I wouldn’t be surprised if it has something to do with the law suit.

As it relates to these facts posted by @OhiBro in response to the article you posted, on the topic of blacks and employment…

25 years ago, I was the manager of a sales force for a fortune 500 company in Manhattan. My team was mostly made up of young, recent white male college grads. I am white and had only been out of college for 5 years, so many of my team members were my peers and we became very friendly. There were also two black women who were a little older than me (late 30’s ish) who I became very friendly with as well. The office we worked in was overall very white. Probably 80-90%.

My subordinates could be either level ones or level twos. There was incentive to become a level two (pay raise, and just overall career progression). The other managers and I typically advocated for our subordinates and tried to get the deserving ones promoted when the time was right. They were usually quite motivated to do so and we would have frequent meetings to make sure they were meeting the requirements to move towards promotion.

One of the black women on my team had been there longer than any of us. She was a solid performer. She was at her desk before everyone else every day and never left early. She was completely reliable and her clients loved her. I never understood why she wasn’t already a level two when I started.

So I treated her just like everyone else and she progressed to a level two, as she totally deserved to (and was overdue in my opinion). Even my boss (an obnoxious white woman who I eventually helped get demoted because she was a discriminatory ■■■■■) who had to approve all of the promotions was completely supportive of the promotion for this woman on my team. There wasn’t one bad thing to say about her. She was steady as a rock.

A few days after her promotion she came to my office with a little potted plant for me as a gift. With tears in her eyes she gave it to me and said that no one had ever done so much to help her before. I was shocked because I was just treating her like everyone else, but I guess, for whatever reason, she wasn’t used to that treatment and certainly wasn’t expecting it.

I’m still confused by what happened and why no one ever moved her through the promotion process before. She obviously felt “different”. She probably could have been more aggressive in seeking out her promotion, but for some reason she wasn’t. She was just lost in the shuffle, waiting for her turn. It was almost like she just assumed she wasn’t going to get it. But she was thrilled to finally get it.

This was just one person, obviously. But an experience I will never forget and still think about to this day.

Another very interesting thing that happened this same year. The woman I promoted and the other black woman on my team came to my office the day they were announcing the OJ Simpson decision. Like I said, we were close. They obviously felt close enough to me to ask if we could put the radio on and listen to the verdict in my office with the door closed. When he was found “not-guilty”, they cheered. I was shocked that he wasn’t guilty. I didn’t know what to expect or do, but I almost felt like I should congratulate them, crazy as that sounds. They were so happy…I think they knew that he was guilty, but they felt his vindication was something to celebrate. Like they beat the system that has been oppressive (but ironically, probably really just a testimony to how having money can get you out of crimes!)…I felt conflicted. Shocked and disappointed by the verdict, but happy for my friends. It was honestly one of the strangest moments in my life.

I’m honestly not even sure what to make of either of these stories that I just shared. I just know they have made a permanent impression on my mind and given the context of our discussions, I thought others might find these stories interesting.

4486

@collegemomjam Your story in corporate America is one that I now live (along with a good deal of my friends) and I have noticed that my African American female friends have had many more challenges trying to climb the corporate ladder. I honestly believe that being a black man has been an advantage in my career (I am currently only black person on my work team of 30 people), but I think my biggest advantage has been my unique perspective, developing a consultant level expertise in my particular space, and a work ethic (I am the 1st one to the office everyday and I am always available (24/7/365). I see more challenges for women than I do being an African American man in corporate America (Top levels of my very large company are at least 80% male). As far as the O.J. Simpson trial, I was a sophomore in college at my HBCU when the verdict was read and the campus exploded with happiness (although most of my friends believed he was guilty as well). I personally felt surprised and was subdued by the decision, but it was a moment that I will never forget because it was the absolute 1st time in my life that I understood that their was something that could make race obsolete and a probable guilty man innocence in a court of law (wealth and the power that comes in understanding how the system works so it can be manipulated). @collegemomjam, you are just a good person looking for the best way to make things better and I am always thankful for your posts even though we don’t always agree.

I think you may be right. By the time a decision on AA is rendered in the Harvard case, it may be moot because the policy that was part of the lawsuit may not exist in the same form.

4487
The articles you referenced don't seem to support your statements. The Asian admitted shares as listed in the SFFA analysis graph only increased from 19% in 2011 to 20% in 2012. I suspect this variation relates to which sample group they are using, such as lawsuit sample group or full class. All of the sample groups agree that both years were ~20% , without a large increase in 2012.

I also included the federally reported racial percentages of the matriculated class (not percent admitted students) as listed in IPEDS, which include additional categories for 2 or more races and unknown. These percentages should match the CDS and any other federally reported source. The unknown percentages has a surprising amount of variation. The matriculating students does show a more substantial increase from 17% to 20% between 2011 and 2012, although not unlike year to year changes in some of the previous years.

We also don’t see any of the racial percentages “remained relatively constant for at least 20 years.” International roughly doubled from ~6% to ~12%. Hispanic increased by a factor of ~1.5x from ~8% to ~12%. During the post 2010 period following the change in black racial definitions, Black increased significantly. The Asian admitted student share seems to have increased over this period in the lawsuit sample, but less consistently so in the IPEDS matriculating class numbers.

**Harvard Admitted Share: SFFA Graph/b
2015 – 37% White, 21% Asian, 12% Hispanic, 12% Black
2014 – 40% White, 19% Asian, 12% Hispanic, 12% Black
2013 – 39% White, 20% Asian, 10% Hispanic, 11% Black
2012 – 41% White, 20% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 10% Black
2011 – 42% White, 19% Asian, 11% Hispanic, 12% Black
2010 – 44% White, 20% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 9% Black
2009 – 39% White, 17% Asian, 11% Hispanic, 11% Black
2008 – 40% White, 19% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 11% Black
2007 – 42% White, 19% Asian, 10% Hispanic, 10% Black
2006 – 43% White, 18% Asian, 10% Hispanic, 10% Black
2005 – 45% White, 18% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 10% Black
2004 – 46% White, 19% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 10% Black
2003 – 50% White, 16% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 9% Black
2002 – 51% White, 16% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 9% Black (total = 84%)
2001 – 45% White, 14% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 11% Black (total = 78%)
2000 – 46% White, 16% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 10% Black
1999 – 47% White, 16% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 10% Black
1998 – 43% White, 18% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 9% Black
1997 – 40% White, 17% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 9% Black
1996 – 42% White, 16% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 9% Black

**Harvard Freshman Racial Percentages/b
2017 – 38% White, 20% Asian, 12% Hispanic, 11% International, 9% Black, 7% 2+ Races, 2% Unknown
2016 – 39% White, 21% Asian, 11% Hispanic, 12% International, 8% Black, 7% 2+ Races, 2% Unknown
2015 – 38% White, 19% Asian, 11% Hispanic, 13% International, 7% Black, 6% 2+ Races, 7% Unknown
2014 – 42% White, 19% Asian, 11% Hispanic, 11% International, 7% Black, 7% 2+ Races, 2% Unknown
2013 – 43% White, 19% Asian, 10% Hispanic, 12% International, 7% Black, 7% 2+ Races, 1% Unknown
2012 – 45% White, 20% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 11% International, 6% Black, 6% 2+ Races, 3% Unknown
2011 – 45% White, 17% Asian, 10% Hispanic, 12% International, 7% Black, 6% 2+ Races, 3% Unknown
2010 – 44% White, 15% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 10% International, 6% Black, 5% 2+ Races, 11% Unknown
← Change in Racial Definitions, Totals Should = 100% →
2009 – 40% White, 17% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 10% International, 9% Black, 10% 2+ Races, 14% Unknown (total = 109%)
2008 – 41% White, 19% Asian, 7% Hispanic, 10% International, 8% Black, 10% 2+ Races, 14% Unknown (total = 109%)
← Change in Racial Definitions, Introduction of 2 or More Races and Pacific Islander Categories →
2007 – 42% White, 18% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 10% International, 8% Black, 13% Unknown
2006 – 44% White, 16% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 9% International, 8% Black, 15% Unknown
2004 – 47% White, 20% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 9% International, 9% Black, 5% Unknown
2002 – 52% White, 17% Asian, 7% Hispanic, 8% International, 7% Black, 8% Unknown
2000 – 45% White, 16% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 6% International, 8% Black, 16% Unknown
1998 – 44% White, 19% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 6% International, 9% Black, 15% Unknown
1994 – 42% White, 20% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 5% International, 9% Black, 15% Unknown

4488

There was a typo, as 2015 was the start of the lawsuit. This trend was noticed by Adam Mortara during the Harvard lawsuit. I wonder, do you have admit rates by race for these years? That would be the relevant number for this analysis.

4489

There’s not that much of a grey area. The courts have long held quotas are illegal. As a matter of fact, Harvard, of course, claims it doesn’t use quotas in its legal filings. Not even the supporters of AA believe Harvard’s legal filings as you will see those same posters claim everyone is in separate racial/ethnicity buckets and tell kids they only compete within their own racial/ethnicity bucket for admissions.

4490

The post I replied to discussed percentage of admits who identified as Asian (admit share), so I focused on that. The admit rates by race are in the linked Crimson article. It appears that the Black admit rate and to a lesser extent Hispanic dropped more steeply than the other races, with the surge in applications near 2006 (marked as class of 2010 in graph). However, the surge in applicants primarily appear to be ones with lower stats, causing the average Black applicant SAT to drop by ~50 points over a period of a few years. I suspect either a change in marketing strategy to send mailings to a wider test score range or effects of the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, which was launched in 2005. I see little pattern for the other races, other than admit rates decreasing over time.

4491

@collegemomjam I wonder if you think my list of suggested alternatives to AA would help address the problems better or not. I’d like to know your reasons for supporting AA.

4492

@wyzragamer thanks for the follow up. Here’s what you wrote:

“For example, someone who has suffered from this kind of disadvantage could write a compelling essay about this in their essay portion. I’d be OK with universities doing more recruitment in low-income/majority minority schools, outreach in the local community, support for admitted minority students (funding for ethnic clubs, mental health resources) giving socioeconomic consideration in admissions, doing away with legacy programs, even giving moderate AA preferences to blacks and Native Americans under the premise of social justice.”

I like your suggestions, but I’m not sure that they differ that much from AA. I feel like in some ways, you might get many of the same applicants, it might just be a little quicker to identify some of them by identifying the applications with the checked box.

The compelling essays are certainly a great way to identify a truly disadvantaged student that deserves a bump or would have a unique perspective to add to a campus. And that person could be of any race, obviously. And I think there currently are students of all colors that are admitted for having compelling essays. As for the low income applicants…again, that could be a student of any race and I don’t have a problem recruiting them either. Great idea, and I would think we are doing this to a certain extent already.

I’m not sure what you mean about giving moderate AA preferences to blacks and Native Americans, are you saying that you are OK with AA just for these two groups, or is that just an example?

My reasons for supporting AA are a function of my upbringing. While my parents were not at all prejudice, I had a lot of family members that were and still are very prejudice. I have an uncle (who I loved in spite of this) who used to lean out his apartment window and yell at any black person that came close to his car and he would use the N word while yelling. His son, a cousin of mine who is very good to my mother who is a widow that lives near him, refused to allow his daughter to write a report on why MLK was an American hero (this was back in the 1990s) because he didn’t believe MLK was an American hero. So his daughter wrote a report on George Washington instead. And I had family members that thought this was actually funny. So while I observed all of this while growing up at family gatherings, I was a student in a school system that was 40% black, and by the time we got to high school, we were all great friends. (I had posted a while back that I found out not that long ago that my high school was actually an integration experiment.). I had black friends, lots of them. For the most part, race didn’t matter in my high school (to the students at least). We were all equal because no one felt like the minority (we were also all middle class, no one lived in poverty). Then I went off to my lily-white college and realized I was actually the one that grew up in the bubble. My school district in the 70’s and 80’s was an anomaly. But it was a sign of of what could be.

The thing is, while I think we have made some progress, I know this prejudice still exists. And the last few years in this country have exposed that there is so much more hate out there than I ever could have imagined. I grew up in suburban NYC…I fear it’s far worse in the South, but I don’t know.

So while so many of you extremely smart people on this thread post all of these stats that attempt to prove that AA is wrong, I just don’t agree. I might lose in a court of law, but in my heart I truly think we need AA or something like it.

I’ll admit, my passion for AA is mostly because of my strong opinion that there is still so much prejudice against black people in this country, more than any other group. I feel like without AA, we would be worse off as a nation, no matter how you spin the numbers. There would be less black people in the top schools…and I feel like there would be less black people in college, period. If Harvard went from 10% black to 5% black, that would be worse for the blacks that already feel out of place there.

A few years ago when Black Lives Matters was coming about, I saw tweets by white kids in my kids’ high school making fun of it (my kids showed them to me). A friend of my daughter’s mother won’t let her daughter listen to Beyonce because of BLM (her grandpa is a cop and for some reason, they feel that BLM is all about hating the police!). This is the year 2019. These are college educated people and their children that live in my upper middle class town. WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON???

Sorry to go off on such a tangent @wyzragamer, and I could go on and on, but you asked what my reasons were for supporting AA…well these are just some of my reasons. And I fear that getting rid of AA would just make matters worse and drive an even bigger wedge into our already racially divided society.

AA is flawed, I know. I don’t have fancy stats to support my strong belief that we would be making a huge mistake to do away with AA. But I know what I see with my own eyes and what I hear with my own ears going on around me. And I know AA alone isn’t nearly enough and that so much has to be done before kids even apply to college. AA is just one tiny little piece of the puzzle, but I think it’s an important one.

4493

@ChangeTheGame Thanks for your kind words…right back at you! :smile:

4494

I think we have many points of agreement. I agree there is the kind of racism (or at least insensitivity) that you describe. I just think that the current affirmative action system isn’t the right way to address those issues.

Despite what is claimed by universities, there is ample evidence that race alone is used as a factor in admissions. Then there is an ordering of races by preference (and we all know the ranking). Somehow, Asians—who also face discrimination in this country—are at the bottom of this ranking. It seems like something straight out of Nazi race theory. It’s a crazy world where a European Spanish applicant gets a benefit for her race but the children of Vietnamese refugees are penalized (and despite what Harvard says or any single example they produce otherwise, it’s been shown in areas with dense Vietnamese population that they are penalized across the board, and any finer racial classification than “Asian” wasn’t even reportable until very recently).

All this is done in the name of “diversity” and the educational benefits that supposedly flow from it. In my interviews with college admissions officers, one constant has been the “supply and demand” mindset in which they view diversity. There is too much yellow skin on campus so the demand is less. The supply of black students is low so the demand is high. They are all quick to tell me that their affirmative action programs are not trying to make reparations (presumably because this doesn’t comply with Supreme Court rulings on the issue). If you PM me I can send you a link to some of the interviews I’m preparing for publication.

I was wondering if you worried about too many Asian students on campus, and supported AA as a way of keeping the balance. This does seem to be one of the motivations of the universities, just like the old Jewish quotas. It’s good to see that wasn’t among your reasons.

I suggested African Americans and Native Americans could receive moderate AA because these two groups have been explicitly targeted by racism in our country’s history (although I don’t like this solution as much as others I proposed). Many of our universities were built or funded with slave labor, and situated on historical Native American lands. And this would hopefully make people think twice about claiming these benefits when they don’t suffer the relevant disadvantages but simply happen to share the same skin color. But even better would be just to have everything race neutral, and if an applicant did indeed personally suffer from disadvantage due to discrimination, this should be gleaned from the application in other ways (like the essay).

Finally, AA itself is driving a huge wedge in our society. It’s increasing our distrust of the achievements of minorities, our justification of discriminating against Asian Americans, and of course leading to the kind of animus that’s been producing hotly contested Supreme Court cases for 40 years. Even African Americans are generally against the kind of pure racial factoring that admissions officials practice. I tried to explain in previous posts that there are a lot of less benevolent factors that lead universities to practice AA. I hope that we can move past this flawed system and find ways to achieve more fairness, more equality, and better outcomes for our students.

4495

@wyzragamer Just amazing commentary.

Your words simplify how I feel about about this topic, but better than anything I have posted in the last 100 pages of this thread.

4496

I came across this interview with Heather MacDonald the other day. She covered many of the topics discussed in this thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffIpRC9cSUc

What got my attention is not so much the topics covered, though they are interesting, but her academic pedigree. Do you need qualifications of this calibre to be heard? Is this one of the reasons why people would do almost anything to get into an elite?

4497

@ChangeTheGame and @MWolf What do you think of the discussion linked above?

4498

@Canuckguy Heather MacDonald’s academic pedigree helps. The Elites have many other benefits (access to the high society, amazing resources, and unparalleled financial aid are a few) that make them so coveted. I don’t quite get the fascination with the elites as my own life goals (to not be poor forever, maybe become rich, to live life fully, and to be happy) look pretty achievable, even coming from my HBCU.

@privatebanker Ah, Heather MacDonald. I have read some of her work over the years and I believe we talked about one of her essays/articles on this thread a good while back. While I don’t agree with her thoughts across the gambit of her opinions (she tends to talk about AA being something that has nefarious intentions while I think of the policies as trying to help, but being misguided (especially the impact to race relations inadvertently, the affect on African American psyche, the actual execution of the policy, along with not focusing on the real problem). For the sake of the thread, I will only talk about her opinions on AA and the achievement gap (Going into free speech conversations and college campus political atmosphere would be going down a rabbit hole) . If you jump to the 27th minute of her discussion, she talks about what I see is the number one problem which is the culture in African American households around education and behaviors. She mentions doing a “thought experiment” around African Americans having the same behaviors/actions as Asian Americans for a 10 year period and see if we would still have an academic achievement gap . One thing that I have always appreciated about past commentary I have seen from her is that she has never subscribed to the lower IQ theory as it relates to African Americans (which I vehemently disagree with), but has insisted that African Americans as a group have not had behaviors that would produce students at the highest levels. I do believe that she could be more “nuanced” in some of her stances (I don’t particularly care for the name of her book despite being against racial preferences in college admissions), but I also understand that bold declarations help sale books and garners media attention.

As a personal aside, my son recently took a mock AP Physics 1 exam to simulate the AP exam occurring next week and made a 5. It made me curious, because for all of the high achieving African American students that I have met (along with my kids being in a great school district and my wife teaching gifted science at a great school), I have only known only 1 African American student to make a 5 on the AP Physics 1 exam. In the last year that College Board reported data (2017), only 6 African Americans in our state (GA) and 44 African Americans in the US (out of 8047 African Americans who took the test) made a 5 on the AP Physics 1 exam. Almost 61% of all African American AP Physics 1 exam takers made a 1 on the exam. The African American students at my son’s school have mostly lived privileged lives, but they are not seeing much better results (despite being in the same classes as students who are scoring above the National norm in AP Physics 1). I want African Americans to look into the mirror at ourselves as much as we blame systematic inequalities for our problems (I don’t believe this is happening).

1 Like
4499

Right off the bat, the interviewer starts with the logical fallacies. He uses Argument from Authority. The fact that Dr. Nikolas Christakis is “an accomplished Physician and Sociologist” as well a “Master of one of the Yale colleges”. This is not relevant to whether he is right or not, and this is a fallacy known as “argument from respect”, a version of Appeal to Authority.

She opens her mouth, and starts with “Poisoning the Well” - a type of ad hominem. Basically, she is saying “their argument has no basis because they behaved badly”. Then she goes into her next logical fallacy, saying “the Black Lives Matter Nonsense”, which is Begging the Claim.

She then moves on to presenting an unsupported claim to prove her point, by claiming that “right wing academics are walking in fear of their lives”. She presents absolutely no evidence that this is true, and there is, in fact, no way that she could even know this.

She presents an anecdote or two, and claims that it proves that there is a trend, and then makes up some evidence to strengthen her case.

That is how she goes about things. She makes bombastic claims, without any supporting evidence, or with a couple of anecdotes. She talks about “A growing body of empirical evidence is undermining the claim that racial preferences in college benefit the recipients”, She does not mention in the discussion what this body of evidence is, where it from, how anybody can access it. Instead she moves straight on to her philosophy.

She also provides partial data to create an illusion which is not true. She shows the statistic that only 35% of Black Students in STEM remain there, versus 62% of White students. However, she does not mention that the graduating rates of Black students from "elite universities is mostly pretty close to that of White students. Of the Ivies, the biggest difference is at Cornell, where 94% of white students graduate, versus 87% of Black students. At Harvard, it’s 98% versus 97%. Graduation rates of Black students are close to, or over, 90%, at almost very “elite” college to which there is Affirmative action. Interestingly, as UCLA and UCB, which do not have AA, the rates are 78% and 74%, and they are 12% and 17% lower than those of White students. THOSE are the statistics which demonstrate that AA works, but she is intellectually dishonest and cherry picks data that supports her forgone conclusion (another logical fallacy).

There is a deep racist ideology hidden beneath her arguments. When she talks about black students being unprepared, it is only to argue that they do not belong in the “elite” colleges similar to the ones she attended. She has no interest in figuring any solution, mostly because she knows very well that the “problem” is not there. She wants to reduce the number of Black students in “elite” colleges, so she sifts through data to find something that supports her plan to eliminate AA.

Is she right in any of her claims? I do not know. Does she make a compelling case? Not even close, since all of her conclusions are based on either false, misinterpreted, or partial evidence, fed through a series of logical fallacies to reach a forgone conclusion that is nothing more that the way she sees for bringing back her idealized version of the 1950s. She has no argument there which does not employ some type pf logical fallacy. In the case of success of Black students at elite colleges, the data isn’t there.

All that being said, she should be allowed to talk on campus.

@Canuckguy To discuss what is going on on campuses, you need somebody who is very familiar with campuses. She’s not one of them - she’s a lawyer and a pundit, not an academic. She was interviewed because she is right wing, extremely smart, educated, a woman, and she is secular.

4500

Saying she was interviewed because she is a woman is a misogynist comment.