Want diversity w/o Affirmative Action? Don't rely on the SAT

Parents Forum
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<p>sybbie,</p>

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When you are picked up for driving while black, or followed in a shopping mall simply because of the color of your skin, or someone marginales your work simply based on the color of your black skin, you let me know.

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<p>I haven’t been picked up for “driving while Asian.” I’ll give you that. I’ve only twice been a passenger in a car driven by an Asian that was stopped by a police officer. Sometime during ninth grade, my mom was driving me to school when she was stopped by an officer. His explanation for stopping my mom was a load of BS. He made some claim about how my mom was “too close” to another car. (My mom was at least fifty feet away from the car in question, which was the only car we saw before he stopped us.) After that, he started mumbling in a really loud voice while my mom was saying, “I’m sorry, officer, I’m sorry!” (Perhaps I should be glad that he didn’t even give us a warning citation, hmm?) The second time happened on the last day of tenth grade, when I was shotgun in a car driven by an Asian friend. There were three “lines” of cars being directed by a police officer. One of the lines was a lot shorter, so my friend drove to that line. The officer stopped, went over to his window, and said, “Since you’re such a smartass, you can wait until those two cars (which came after us) go.” After those two cars went, an SUV with four black students and very loud music pulled up in the outermost line. Before they pulled up, they were driving much faster than 15 mph. The officer looked at them, seemed to turn yellow, and went back to directing traffic. All my friend did was find a shorter line, and he was verbally harassed for that. Four black students pulled up while driving much faster than 15 mph and the officer said nothing. So, while I’ll never get picked up for driving while black, I could get picked up for driving while Asian.</p>

<p>I’ve never been followed in a shopping mall for being yellow-skinned. My skin color has led me to sub-standard treatment, though. On the day before prom in eleventh grade, I wanted to see how my classmates had designed the space. They were on lunch break, so the room was locked. Two non-high-school students were still working there. I told them I was a member of the junior class and wanted to see what it looked like. The first student said, “Umm…I don’t think I can let you see it. No, I really can’t. Sorry.” The second student said, “They’re on break right now, but when they get back, I’m sure they’ll let you see it.” After the second student said that, the first student looked at her with an expression of “Why are you letting this guy in?” I said thanks to the second student and left. The first student gave me sub-par treatment. The second student gave me equal treatment.</p>

<p>When I was in seventh grade, I worked with the only anti-Asian racist person I’ve ever met in person. (In sixth grade, he actually walked up to me and told me he was against Chinese with a straight face. By contrast, a lot of bigots spout anti-Asian epithets, but they only do it when they are with like-minded friends. This racist actually came up to me alone.) Another co-worker asked if we had any music we wanted to bring. I said I had some, but they all had parental advisory labels on them. The racist remarked to the co-worker, “He probably thinks ‘stupid’ is a cuss word.” So, yeah, I’ve been marginalized because of my race.</p>

<p>Are my struggles as worse as yours were? Nope. Have I struggled? Yup.</p>

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<p>Setting aside bigotry & offensive remarks for the moment (not that they're irrelevant, for any minority!), I wanted to build on something I said earlier, as well as D's most recent post.</p>

<p>I wish everyone contributing to this thread had happened upon that C-Span2 program I mentioned. One member of this all-black panel made the important observation that blacks have only begun to 'find their freedom' (she put it better) since 1964, and that this has consequences both for identity and for education. This may be one thing that also D is referring to (when he refers to the effects of the past), but I don't want to misinterpret him.</p>

<p>Other people (or at least one poster) said on another thread some time ago, better than I, that comparing someone immigrating to this country as a minority is not the same experience as that of the American black, for instance. Different past, different expectations, different relationship with the majority -- even when the new immigrant is minority. I also acknowledge that a non-black minority nevertheless has significant obstacles, or can have; it's just that those are different obstacles than those of American blacks. And that is why both public & private U's are interested in admitting immigrants as well as native minorities, as well as internationals of minority races. </p>

<p>I think programs like this are very important to watch. And the authors' books are readily available. I think it's less important to agree with everything they say (and I don't know that I think that some of the proposals are optimum) than to understand the viewpoint. For example, one of the overall points made is that culture and race are intertwined, and that there's no such thing as a culturally blank person. I think the fact that culture (and race) are core aspects of identity is one of the points AdOfficer, on previous threads, has tried to stress as a reason for seeking a racially diverse student body.</p>

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<p>It's interesting that you mention C-span. The other day they were showing an interview with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He voted for affirming AA in the recent cases before the court. His argument was that racial preferences are not unconstitutional if they are inclusive. They are only unconstitutional if they are exclusive. This is a very odd argument indeed since we are dealing with what is, at least to some degree, a zero sum game with with respect to college admissions. One persons inclusion is an other persons exclusion. But the most amusing thing to me about the interview is that when asked about his decision in the Bush v. Gore case he said the key test for him in terms of fairness was would he have decided the case the same way if the names of the two parties were reversed. I was amazed that the interviewer failed to ask him the obvious question: what about applying that principle to reversing the races in the affirmative action cases.</p>

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<p>curious, I don't know about the recent AA cases you're referring to, but as to college admissions, my understanding is that if the Elites were to find themselves with large numbers of qualified blacks applying, and very few Asians or whites, the latter would be affirmatively sought. It cannot be denied that one person's inclusion is another person's exclusion, but remember that equally applies within groups as between & among groups. Were the total numbers of excellent applicants one-quarter what they are, at those institutions, the qualified, the very qualifed, and the exceptionally qualified would all be admitted, of every race & ethnicity.</p>

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<p>"A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years, must now do something special for him, to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis."</p>

<p>Martin Luther King</p>

<p>MLK seemed to be pro AA BIG time. Then of course, he may have known a little about the impact of discrimination on a certain group of individuals and the responsibility of society to address and rectify those wrongs. It is a work still in progress and very much needed.</p>

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<p>I meant during his term. Recent in the sense of the last 10 years or so.</p>

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<p>Epiphany,</p>

<p>"It cannot be denied that one person's inclusion is another person's exclusion" Thank you. From you lips to Breyers ears. Even Breyer admits that exclusion on the basis of race is unconstituional.</p>

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<p>the term "exclusion ON THE BASIS OF race" is one that is not exactly accurate as it applies to college admissions, because so much more than race is considered. I don't have citations at my fingertips, but I do know that the courts have also ruled that where qualifications are an issue for acceptance into an institution, exclusion 'on the basis of race' does not apply unless all qualified candidates of a particular race are denied. College admissions is a lot more complex, quantitatively & qualitatively, than a simple rejection-by-race dynamic could be asserted.</p>

<p>Discrimination must rise to the level of being systematic & comprehensive to qualify as such.</p>

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<p>The whole MLK thing seems to be a dead horse. Let's assume for the sake of argument that MLK was, and would still be today,a huge fan of racial preferences. The quote that Fabrizio uses is powerful because it is a widely accepted point of view about ethics, not because King said it. This would be akin to saying someone can't use "All men are created equal" as a generally accepted statement about our values because Thomas Jefferson was a hypocrit.</p>

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<p>Epiphany,</p>

<p>I think your point of view captures the point of view of five justices, incluidng Breyer. Since racial preferences are opposed by a substantial majority of the population (I'll find the ciiation if you want) it is only a matter of time, IMO a short time, before the view of the supreme court is 5 /4 in the other direction. A 200+ point advantage is pretty good prima facia evidence of racial discrimintaion. Using Breyer's reversing the names test, I doubt any court would be faulted for declaring a school that had such a systematic differnce in favor of whites as being in violation of the law.</p>

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<p>It was sort of amusing that in the Michigan case the court bascially told Micigan that it was OK to use racial preferecnes just please don't be so darned obvious about it.</p>

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<p>curious14 brings up a good point that has been overlooked by several users here.</p>

<p>A beauty of our nation is that ideals survive even though the proponents of those ideals die.</p>

<p>We are not a Communist nation. Our education system does not dictate strict adherence to all tenets espoused by one person. Rather, we are taught to think for ourselves and make our judgments accordingly.</p>

<p>In 1896, Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan was the lone dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson. He wrote</p>

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But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.

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<p>I share this ideal of the Colorblind constitution, even though several users here view it as "wretched" and repugnant.</p>

<p>However, within the same dissent, Harlan also wrote</p>

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There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race.

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<p>which is strongly anti-sinitic. Does this mean that I shouldn't quote from the Justice because he held anti-Chinese sentiments? According to the reasoning of Drosselmeier and epiphany, I shouldn't because I need to accept every viewpoint of a thinker before I can quote from that thinker.</p>

<p>That doesn't make any sense.</p>

<p>The Colorblind Constitution is an ideal that transcends time. A paragraph that is virulently anti-Chinese fades away.</p>

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<p>
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the court bascially told Micigan that it was OK to use racial preferecnes just please don't be so darned obvious about it

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<p>A college can't maximize both SAT scores and racial diversity, so colleges have to balance two laudable sets of ideals: admissions should not be based on skin color, but on merit; vs. colleges ought to be racially and ethnically diverse, so that students encounter a variety of viewpoints and experiences. (And there's a corollary to the second ideal, usually unstated: colleges are engines of social change, and providing access to higher education to groups to whom it was long denied is the one thing we can do to move toward a more just and equal society--one where colleges wouldn't face the admissions quandry in the first place.) </p>

<p>So colleges ask a reasonable question: how can we define merit in admissions in a way that balances these conflicting goals? The SAT has little incremental predictive validity once you have all the rest of the admissions folder information and has large differences according to race, so it's the obvious place to start.</p>

<p>If it's less obvious to define merit to include things other than the SAT--the diversity of experience a student contributes to the campus, the value added during the educational process, high school gpa rather than standardized tests--then I'm all for less obvious.</p>

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<p>MarathonMan,</p>

<p>"The SAT has little incremental predictive validity once you have all the rest of the admissions folder information"</p>

<p>Just curious, what is the basis of this assertion? Are you including SAT II scores, AP scores etc. in the "rest of the application." Or are you saying that stadardized tests as a whole have little incremental predictive value over GPA's and class rank. If so is the study you are referring to in some way normalizing for difficulty of HS and curriculum. And finally what is being predcited: college grades accross all majors, graduation rates etc?</p>

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<p>fabrizio,
You are once again over-reducing arguments & conflating concepts to support your assertion that race & ethnicity can be detached from identity. You pick & choose what you like about MLK & conveniently ignore what opposes your personal dislike of AA. You bring up essentially unrelated legal cases & opinions to support your viewpoint.</p>

<p>The truth, and all the college results bear this out, is that the genuine battles in college admissions are between the more excellent and the most excellent, between the special and the truly exceptional. Highly accomplished doesn't cut it, by itself. The truly exceptional who are Asians and whites are getting into at least one elite, if not several -- unless they really blow their application in some way. The hugest population of 'rejects' are those that are highly accomplished but not truly exceptional, which includes most Asian and white applicants, according to the colleges. And that 'merely' highly accomplished segment has been reported as making up from 2/3 to 3/4 of the total applications to such colleges. Juxtaposed against that high figure (in the THOUSANDS) is the tiny effect of a few AA admits whose scores would not be as high as that large 2/3 - 3/4 segment. This is why this whole puffed-up AA-grievance is an emotional argument, not a logical or realistic one, with any significant real-life impact.</p>

<p>Because some applicants refuse to travel west of the Hudson, let alone west of the Mississippi, makes the competition even more problematic. The same highly accomplished applicant to an ivy will be seen as truly exceptional when the geography is broadened. No court will ever tell a private college that they must limit their accepted pool to the immediate region around them. It's not going to happen. The proportion of highly accomplished applicants from the East Coast TO the East Coast is disproportionate to an extreme, versus those numbers from the nation as a whole.</p>

<p>It's about the numbers. It's about competition. It's about the geography. But some of you continue to deceive yourselves that the real "battle" is AA. The battle is among the overachievers who are not URM's. They are battling among themselves, overwhelmingly.</p>

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<p>
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This would be akin to saying someone can't use "All men are created equal" as a generally accepted statement about our values because Thomas Jefferson was a hypocrit.

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Quite false. Denying the use of MLK's words for the support of an anti-AA position is not like denying the use of Jefferson's words because Jefferson was a hypocrite. Denying the use of MLK's words for the support of an anti-AA position is like denying the use of Jefferson's words for the support of an anti-freedom position.</p>

<p>We can see by reading MLK that his words, held in proper context, support an America where blacks are healed of the destruction of the past, where little white girls and boys can play together with little black girls and boys as equals, where men and women of all colors and nations and tribes can look upon one another and upon the country harboring no claims against anyone. To reach this dream, MLK supported an effort of the government to correct the wrongs done to blacks. By taking his words out of context, and then using his words to support what they never were designed to support, AA opponents misrepresent MLK. This is an abuse of the man and an intellectual debasement of those who commit the abuse. It is like using the phrase "All men are created equal" to support the contention that women are not created equal because women are not men. It is like claiming blacks are not men and therefore are not included in the Declaration's meaning. Such a thing would be a wholesale corruption of Jefferson (and this corruption was indeed tried against blacks by the comprehensively debased South, just as MLK is now abused by AA opponents). Despite his bigotry and hypocrisy, Jefferson is on record as acknowledging natural rights for women and blacks. He is quite on record as acknowledging the humanity and essential equality for blacks despite that southerners came along much later to claim Jefferson wrong, thereby attempting to destroy the very basis of America's existance. We ought not use Jefferson's words to even imply that Jefferson supported something he did not. It is to defame the great man in a way he does not deserve.</p>

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<p>
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According to the reasoning of Drosselmeier and epiphany, I shouldn't because I need to accept every viewpoint of a thinker before I can quote from that thinker.

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You may quote from anyone you wish, but you should be sure to note as precisely as possible what the person meant when he uttered the words. That is not what you do. You take the words out of context, and then impregnate them with your own meaning, using the weight of the person's reputation to support what they did not support. That is intellectually debased.</p>

<p>While the constitution may be color-blind, King's vision was not. King did not require us to, when seeing two girls one black the other white, to go completely out of our way not to notice skin color.</p>

<p>"Could you tell Lauren to come here?"</p>

<p>"Sure, which girl is Lauren?"</p>

<p>"Oh, she is the girl wearing the red dress."</p>

<p>"Uh, both are wearing a red dress."</p>

<p>"Well, okay, she is the one who, uh, who, is kinda over there next to the wall."</p>

<p>"I'm sorry, but they are both moving so rapidly often both are near the wall.</p>

<p>"Quick! Take a look! See? One is now standing up! That's her!"</p>

<p>"Where? Where?"</p>

<p>"Oh shoot! Too late! You missed it."</p>

<p>"I'm so sorry! I just needed to look at my watch!"</p>

<p>"It's okay. Darn. And we almost had her too."</p>

<p>"Look! The white girl is standing! Is that her?"</p>

<p>"No! Thank God! Hallalujah! No! It ain't!"</p>

<p>"Okay! Glad it worked out!"</p>

<p>"Me too!"</p>

<p>Comprehensively wretched, totally dumb, and completely uneccessary.</p>

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<p>epiphany,</p>

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You pick & choose what you like about MLK & conveniently ignore what opposes your personal dislike of AA.

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<p>I find that misleading. When you say “conveniently ignore,” you’re making me look as if I’ve never stated that I disagree with Dr. King on several points. I have stated it several times already on this thread. There’s no point for me to say it again as you’d just ignore it.</p>

<p>Even if positive discrimination had a “tiny effect,” that does not cancel out its being discrimination. In the words of a great American leader, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”</p>

<p>Data from Berkeley show that after Proposition 209, Asians were the only group that saw increased enrollment. Even “under-represented” Asians (oxymoron?) like Filipinos, who are supposedly victims of race-blind admissions, saw increased enrollment. By contrast, “under-represented” admissions at Berkeley took a huge dip. So much for that “tiny effect” you speak of.</p>

<p>As I’ve already shown with Justice Harlan, I don’t need to agree 100% with a person in order to quote from him. This isn’t the People’s Republic of America.</p>

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<p>
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As I’ve already shown with Justice Harlan, I don’t need to agree 100% with a person in order to quote from him.

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The only thing you’ve shown here is that you know how to abuse people’s remarks, misrepresenting them and the thrust of their primary positions. Harlan was not particularly hostile to the Chinese (We must accept his comments within their historical backdrop lest they appear to be what they were not). He was simply pointing out the ridiculousness of Plessy, which segregated blacks from whites, while not doing so with the Chinese, though blacks, FAR more than the Chinese, were responsible for the preservation of the Union, and though Chinese were disallowed citizenship, and black men were not.</p>

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<p>Drosselmeier, I know people who are so self-conscious about their own deep seated racial biases that they are afraid to use skin color as a neutral physical characteristic when describing someone. It's ridiculous. If five short, blonde, white women wearing blue dresses were chatting with one short black woman named Sue who was also wearing a blue dress, the obvious characteristic that would distinguish Sue is her skin color. How silly to point out her footwear or sunglasses as a means of identifying her.</p>