Precisely. However, incidentally, although not evident in statistics, counselor experience demonstrates white flight to the extent of applications out of state. That really is happening, has been happening for 7 years minimum.
A plurality is a minority. That’s the definition of plurality: more than any other choice, but not a majority.
^Still Plurality cannot claim they need special treatment as a minority as they outnumber any other race.
Exactly. That was my point. Not the statistics of it but the status aspect of it.
A plurality can be a minority, if it makes up fewer than 50% of the total. All of the racial/ethnic groups as defined in the UC reports linked from #513 are minorities.
Of course, whether members of any given group are commonly over or under represented, advantaged or disadvantaged, or widely subject to racial/ethnic discrimination in society, is not something that should be assumed because a group is a majority or minority (plurality or otherwise).
I don’t think that follows at all. I’m not sure what context you’re thinking of here, but even in a perfectly democratic voting system, for example, a group representing a plurality doesn’t always hold the balance of power. A coalition of smaller groups could act together as a majority voting bloc, to the disadvantage of the plurality. And in less-than-perfect democratic conditions, sometimes a powerful entrenched minority can hold onto disproportionate power by using a divide-and-conquer strategy, These tactics are as old as politics itself.
I’m not sure what any of that has to do with UC admissions. But with regard to UC admissions and enrollment, I’d note that Hispanics/Latinos continue to be “underrepresented” relative to their proportion of recent college-age HS graduates. According to the data Cardinal Fang presented in post #512, Hispanics represent about 47.6% of new California HS grads, but according to admissions and enrollment data linked in post #513. Chicano/Latino (Hispanic) students represent only about 30% of admitted students across the UC system, and a similar percentage of enrolled freshmen. These figures are much lower at the flagship Berkeley campus, where only 19% of admitted students and 17.7% of enrolled freshmen are Chicano/Latino, I’m sure the reasons for this are many and complex, but the underrepresentation is real, and it is likely to persist even if Hispanics become a majority of California HS grads, a threshold they are now very close to surpassing.
I combined data from posts 499 (showing racial composition of CA high school graduates), and 513 (showing UC students enrolling by race). The data is not perfectly aligned as one is from 2014, and the other is from 2015, but given that demographics change slowly, it may be useful:
If my math is correct, here is the percentage of total population vs enrolled by major racial group:
- African American: 6.0% vs 4.9%
- White: 29.3% vs. 26.4%
- Hispanic: 47.6% vs. 25.9%
So all three of these groups are URMs! The only ORM is the Asian group:
- Asian: 10.3% vs. 38.2%
It seems to me that if a group represents (say) 30% of the matriculants at a college, it would be very difficult to argue that more are needed for purposes of diversity, even if they are underrepresented in comparison to high school graduates. This is a problem because the Supreme Court (unwisely, in my opinion) has said that diversity is the only recognized state interest supporting affirmative action.
A plurality cannot ever be a minority unless you are using the term in different contexts within the same sentence.
Technically, plurality is only really a voting term, but like many English words it tends to be co-opted for other purposes. The individual or group receiving the most votes in a contest, but less than half. This is often also referred to as a relative majority.
So, in this context, people identifying as having Hispanic heritage are a relative majority of the population of California. There are more of them than any other sub-division of residents.
There are also serious issues with the mechanics of the comparisons presented. You need to examine the number of college-qualified HS graduates, not simple graduates of HS. Compare those numbers within the categories and then see how the representation looks. You also need to look at acceptances, not enrollment. Enrollment does not account for many factors. (not the least of which is that highly qualified URM students often get large scholarships to go to private schools, so they do not enroll in UCs)
More importantly than all of that…this has really gone far afield of the topic which was suppose to be the oral arguments. For those who are not familiar with Supreme Court processes, the oral arguments are like Congressional hearings. They are mostly pomp and circumstance with little substance. The Justices are not making their decisions based on the honey-tongued persuasion techniques of an attorney. They are reading the information in the various briefs and making decisions based upon their understanding of the facts taken in the context of their view of the Constitution. This all happens before and after the oral arguments, but the orals themselves are just a show.
I would say that the arguments are a show, mostly (because they just repeat what’s in the briefs) but that the questions posed by the Justices may not be. That’s why Court-watchers pay so much attention to the questions.
By these definitions:
majority = more than half
minority = fewer than half
plurality = largest number
The three terms are not mutually exclusive, and a plurality may be either a minority or majority.
But that is not what plurality means. By definition, you cannot be both. Plurality only applies if there is not a majority. Using your definition all pluralities would be minorities. You are mixing definitions. Again, plurality is only a term that applies to elections/voting. It cannot correctly be applied to a simple grouping of widgets. When used in that context, the term would be typically be a relative majority.
If you are going to incorrectly apply plurality to a group, you cannot then also consider them a minority because it is already established that they are the largest group within the population.
A minority just means less than 50%. In California, Latinos are in the minority: more people are not Latinos than are Latinos. But Latinos are also a plurality (barely) because no other ethnic group has more members.
A plurality is by definition a minority when compared to the whole. It just means there is no single majority group. Thus, for example, Trump is supported by a minority of Republicans, but he is supported by a plurality as compared to the other candidates.
@Ohiodad51 Any thoughts on how Scalia’s death affects this case?
OK, wow. I so often hear things on CC first…
Kagan recused herself, so we now have seven justices on the case. Previously there was speculation that there would be a 4-4 decision. There won’t.
Well. if it was going to be 4-4, that would now make it 4-3 in favor of the liberals. I’d say it’s now whatever Justice Kennedy wants, since neither side can get to a majority without him. On the other hand, some veteran Court-watchers say Chief Justice Roberts can’t stand it when Kennedy always positions himself to be the decisive vote, so he sometimes does an end run around Kennedy by making his own play for the liberals. Either way this can’t strengthen Fisher’s hand, unless Kennedy is already squarely on board with the conservatives on this one (i.e., unless the vote with Scalia would have been 5-3 and Kennedy doesn’t seize the opportunity to strike a new deal with the math changed).
A 4-4 decision cannot be used as a precendent. A 4-3 decision can be used as a precedent. So if it was going to be a 4-4 no decision, now it will be a decision for affirmative action.
Then ironically, Scalia in the afterlife is decisively impacting this policy.