Thank you for your answer.
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The war against affirmative action was started by bigots that used Asian-Americans to prove their case. Many white folks felt represented and followed suit, specially during these times when racism is well tolerated and even applauded. Many of them are even upset with test optional policies. The funny thing is, these white folks will cry once affirmative action disappears and 70% of Ivies and elite schools students become Asian 
and their kids won’t stand a chance.
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More likely, almost all the White and Asian families who were duped in to believing that Affirmative Action is keeping their kids out of Harvard still will not be able to get in.
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Withdrawing my comment since it was reactionary to an uncalled for comment.
Exactly. I don’t see any of these schools ever going strictly by GPAs and test scores as many would like it seems-- similar to the admissions processes in China and India. If you have thousands of kids applying with perfect scores, there will always be kids who could not possibly get in due to the numbers.
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The following is an interesting account of some of the dynamics going on in a suburban community with conflict due to increasing numbers of Asian-Americans in certain white communities and excelling academically.
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The story of Jews in Harvard was part of widespread discrimination against Jews, including redlining, Jews being excluded from residential areas, recreational spaces, jobs, and hotels. It wasn’t done as part of an attempt to preserve a few more places for WASP kids in a small number of colleges, it was part of a widespread attempt to preserve the cultural institutions of the USA from the “foreign influences” of Jews.
Unlike today, in the 1920s, “elite” East Coast colleges were a pipeline to most of the top paying jobs in the East Coast, as well as to the top research and scholarly jobs. During the 1920s, the East Coast was where the government was concentrated as well as the economic engine of the USA. In the 1920s, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and a few more (the “Ivy League” did not exist as such) were not just fancy schools, they were where the “leaders” of America’s society were supposedly being educated.
It was also where most of the Jews of the USA were living, so these were also all pretty close to the larges Jewish communities. Jews from Chicago or San Francisco were not the ones who were applying to Harvard or Yale. So they were also top choices because they were accessible.
Fast forward to today, when a degree from one of those very few colleges, where all of this is an issue, is more of a status symbol than anything else. They are not the main gateway to top jobs in government, academia, and business.
It’s not part of a widespread policy among the ruling class, aimed at keeping them from “contaminating” the American Ideal. It’s not part of a “discrimination light” like is was for Jews in the 1920s (as opposed to full blown discrimination that was suffered by Asian, Blacks, and anybody else with dark skin). Today, it’s part of attempts by a small number of the most popular colleges to both be diverse, while maintaining the highest paying students.
In short, the extreme limitation of entry of Jews from the “elite” colleges from the 1920s to the 1960s was both part of a widespread limiting of Jews from entering the top socio-economic class, the government, and any other positions of influence. Today, it’s a small number of colleges trying to be both virtuous and wealthy.
Yes, affirmative action in colleges is way overdue for an overhaul, but that is because it no longer works the way that it should work. First, disadvantaged groups are cannot be fit into simple, very general, ethnic or racial boxes. There is no such thing as “Asian” in any ethnic or cultural sense, and yes, kids from small towns in West Virginia are also extremely underrepresented. Second, after some 5 decades, economic diversity still has barely changed. That means that the methods are not really helping the people who they are really supposed to be helping.
However, it doesn’t need to be changed because it is “just like the Jews in the 1920s”.
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Not thinking that Asians are being discriminated in education and work places is in itself racist.
In work places if a firm is looking at your ethnicity to decide whether or not you should be hired / or get a promotion, in comparison to some other person, it is racism.
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From the Harvard Gazette:
In her 130-page ruling, Burroughs found for Harvard on SFFA’s claims, ruling that the University does not discriminate on the basis of race, does not engage in racial balancing or the use of quotas, and does not place too much emphasis on race when considering an applicant’s admissions file. She also wrote that, “Harvard has demonstrated that no workable and available race-neutral alternatives would allow it to achieve a diverse student body while still maintaining its standards for academic excellence.”
By your logic, this judge must be racist. And Harvard. And SC law for the past 40+ years. And if I or anyone else disagrees with you, well then we are racist too?
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It seems funny that a judge would ask what academic advantage would diversity bring (and even worse that they couldn’t come up with one of many) while a huge percentage (much more than race) of admissions are driven by sports and legacies. What academic advantage do sports and legacy bring? For sure none? How about having rock climbing walls, concerts, Greek life, etc? Even if there were no academic advantages, do we as a community or as a country receive any advantage from having diverse student populations that will promote culture sensitive graduates? Do doctors from certain ethnicities, cultures, communities or background or the second best, doctors that are culture sensitive provide better care for those communities or cultures? Which in turn will result in better health outcomes for those communities? And eventually with more productive citizens and less health expenses for the taxpayer? Absolutely, this has been proved again and again in many studies. As well as with teachers. Any culturally sensitive professional should bring better services to those cultures/ethnicities/communities. But in a country where 50% thinks that higher education is only of personal benefit, it’s hard to make them understand it.
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For a 100 or more years judgments against African Americans were racist in this country. Judgments can be racist. Indeed this judgment sounds racist to me. And other people denying that this judgment is racist because it suits their interest or beliefs also sounds racist to me.
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Yes. Luckily I didn’t actually say that.
I guess that it’s time that you look up the definitions of “racism”.
Affirmative Action was created as a way to make sure that underrepresented minorities are not barred from jobs and universities. That was because, without Affirmative Action, employers, AOs, etc would find all sorts of excuses as to why they were somehow never hiring a minority toor accepting a minority to this college. Claiming that it’s inherently racist because it doesn’t really work for the majority or for minorities which are not underrepresented in these jobs and universities demonstrates a lack of understanding of racism.
When a person claims that certain groups are regularly getting lower grades than other groups, and deny that it’s because of discrimination, that’s racism. That’s because it implies pretty heavily that this group is getting lower GPAs because they are inherently inferior.
Claiming that another racial group are inherently inferior is what “Racism” means.
In any case, claiming that black people should get advantages in admissions because they are from a historically oppressed group in the USA is not racism, and will never be racism, no matter how many people sit there and chant “affirmative action is racist”.
Simply demanding that Affirmative Action be cancelled, while not offering an alternative, is the exact same thing as claiming that there is no discrimination against Black people and Hispanics in our society today.
You are the one who is claiming that denying that there is discrimination against racial minorities is racism.
So, by your own definition, demanding that Affirmative Action be eliminated without proposing any alternative is racism.
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So then what are my interests and beliefs that lead you to call me a racist?
Also, I just want to make sure I understand you correctly. Did you really just compare Harvard’s current admissions policy, where 28% of admitted students are Asian American, to the systemic, legally sanctioned slavery, rape, murder and complete dehumanization of the African Americans for hundreds of years?
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But most of the discrimination that Asian-American face in elite colleges is through sports. 17% of Harvard students get in by sports. The vast majority of them are white. There are few Asian-American athletes in comparison. That’s more than the whole black population and way more than the whole Hispanic population there. It’s 6 times the Native American population at Harvard. In some elite colleges, the athlete population is close to 50%. And then the legacies and donors to boot. On the other hand, URM that don’t get in through these heavy hooks, have very similar academic profiles as any other successful applicant and to many unsuccessful as well. In fact, most URM are unsuccessful as well. Most kids that get in, regardless of race have perfect GPA’s and test scores. Do you know who doesn’t have any of that? Athletes and legacies/donors, at least many of them. But because these lawsuits are brought on by white supremacists groups, those much heavier hooks won’t be touched.
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I suspect that you are conflating participating on a sport team with getting in because of sport. The students who are admitted because of their sport are primarily recruited athletes. In Harvard’s freshman survey, 10% of students said they were recruited athletes.
There are no “elite” colleges with 50% of students varsity athletes. Some of the small NESCAC exceed 30% varsity athletes. Again playing a sport is not the same as being a recruited athlete, particularly at a Div III LAC. A large portion of this >30% would likely have been admitted without their sport.
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Isn’t the issue the inclusion of the word “historically”? Many people get nervous when there’s a sentiment that there should be some form of collective “reparations” for things that happened in the past, perhaps before they were even born, where the direct impact on a specific applicant today is hard to quantify.
Jewish people were “historically oppressed” too (though that took different forms in different countries).
What about a middle class doctor who immigrated from Africa in the 1990s? Should their children be granted the same advantages as someone whose great great grandparents were slaves? We have friends whose kids were classed as Hispanic because one set of grandparents were wealthy Argentinian landowners. Should they be treated the same as poor Mexican farmworkers?
Far fewer would object to the sentiment that advantages should be granted to applicants who grew up in currently disadvantaged communities?
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If you feel as if a previously majority community oppressed a minority community, it is grossly unjust to force another minority community to pay for this historical wrong. Indeed parts of these minority communities have themselves been brought to the country a 150 or more years ago as identured labor to lay the railways. I am sure a country as great as this with an excellent legal tradition can figure out a way where the wrongs can be righted by the appropriate community than by innocent bystanders, if only they choose to.
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Black people still face racism, even when they are higher SES. And Jewish people still face racism. And Asian Americans still face racism. And other minorities. We can respectfully discuss the best way to deal with the current racism and vestiges of past racism. But to call someone “racist” because they favor a certain approach over another places the conversation on a different plane altogether.
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Good points.
I should say historically oppressed and presently still suffering from discrimination or are still substantially disadvantaged from effects of historical discrimination, and that it has to have been in the USA, and by federal, state, or local USA governments.
We can disagree about the best way to deal with past wrongs.
But what is it about my “interests or beliefs” that would lead you to label me a racist?
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