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

Parents Forum
421

<p>
[quote]
If students know that their race won’t be seen but that it could be guessed from their activities, they just might choose to broaden them.

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We are here advocating that students be enticed to join racial clubs to gain admission to college, and not because they have a genuine interest in the clubs themselves. It is just more nonsense that is likely to destroy the clubs.</p>

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Is the student in the CASA and the Latino Club Chinese, Latino, both, or neither? I think it’d be pretty difficult to determine.

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It ought not be difficult if it means as much as even you are implying.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Moreover, broadening activities is a great way for students to meet other students from different ethnicities. You get real diversity simply from abolishing racial preferences, which a lot of these people seem to believe don’t exist anyway.

[/quote]
Firstly, all of this is just pure speculation. We do not know that students would behave as you claim. So we do not “get real diversity simply from abolishing racial preferences”. It is just as likely that people will do to the use of clubs precisely what you wish to do to the use of race, and now names.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I really don’t get why they’re so opposed to banning something that’s nonexistent in the first place. It’s not real, so banning it wouldn’t harm anyone. Unless, of course, it actually exists.

[/quote]
Here is your argument here.</p>

<ol>
<li> You can only oppose that which ‘is real’</li>
<li> We are opposed to banning Unicorns</li>
<li> Therefore, Unicorns are real</li>
</ol>

<p>Totally ridiculous, and embarrassing.</p>

422

<p>
[quote]
If removing race also removes extracurricular activities, essays, recommendations, and work experience, then it must play a very big role!

[/quote]
Nonsense. The issue is that the basis for banning race in this instance has not been established. If we ban race, we may as well ban many other vital issues affecting a candidate, like class. Since race is quite vital to how a candidate sees the world, how he moves through it, it should be included in any well-informed evaluation.</p>

423

<p>
[quote]
Amazing how self-deception, spurious argumentation and intellectual dishonesty among some posters passes for "logic."

[/quote]
Well, I think it is partly because most of these kids who argue here don’t think of education as a thing to help us express more of what we are, and of what we become, with ever increasing effectiveness, but purely as an exercise to get and keep a job. When faced with some of the larger questions about our identity as human creatures, they are at a loss. These things have simply never occurred to them. Their eyes are on jobs, and so such things as being honest about representing an opponent’s views, and trying to understand exactly how the opponent sees the issue, go right out the door. </p>

<p>It becomes difficult to have a discussion in this sort of climate because, as we have seen here, any sort of illogic goes unrecognized. Here we have seen grand ideals corrupted into petty slogans, ideals such as “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”, and when it happens, one is forced to show the abuse before one even begins dealing with the futility of the “argument” based on them. Most people are simply not philosophical enough to follow along. Most cannot even get past the literal words themselves, let alone understand precisely what they mean. I think Fabrizio is blind to his flaw here. His peers, like most young people (especially in Georgia) are not likely aware of it themselves, and so he likely has spent many years depending upon it. This is obvious to me because he has staked his entire argument on using the term “racial preferences” ad infinitum (as if that is a real argument), and corrupting MLK. The repeated use of the term “racial preference” is no great issue because it is easily seen as just a cheap and immature refusal to understand one’s opponent, a stubborn little mental tantrum on this issue. What is more important is the abuse of history.</p>

<p>MLK’s words are often abused by AA opponents when, in truth, King is not as rigidly authoritative as they make him out to be-- certainly not so authoritative that his words can be snipped out of context and then made to control areas to which they were never meant to be applied. King’s words do not address the issue of color-blind national law. They are only the expression of a dream for society in general-- of a day when skin color is universally deemed insignificant and character is deemed important when judging a person’s fitness for friendship and brotherhood. What AA opponents have done has been to take the words and demand they be used as the basis for laws that codify social conditions widely deemed harmful to the people King aimed to help. This is a moral abomination, an abuse of reason, and it obviously defames the ideals of a man AA opponents claim to esteem.</p>

424

<p>
[quote]
Ending racial preferences ends holistic admissions. This assumes that the complement of race-based admissions is a “numbers driven Chinese system.”

[/quote]
False. It does not even assume that the admissions system is “race-based” in the first place. It is no more “race-based” than it is “class-based” or “region-based” or “legacy-based” or “athletics-based” or “GPA-based” or “SAT-based” or “integrity-based” or “kindness-based” or “articulateness-based” or “EC-based”, or “gender-based”, or “sexual orientation-based”, etc., etc., etc. You have simply decided, without effectively making your case as to precisely why it must be as you claim, to define the entire system by this one item of race, when so much more goes into it.</p>

425

<p>Drosselmeier,</p>

<p>No, I am advocating that students broaden their list. I gave ethnic-orientated clubs as an example. I’ve participated in many math competitions since ninth grade, and I seldom saw many black peers. I’ve also participated in quite a few literary competitions since tenth grade, and I seldom saw many Asian peers. If students want to explore their interests through different venues of competition, that can only be good.</p>

<p>If you can determine the race of a student in both the Chinese and Hispanic club without looking at his race and name, you’re better at racial profiling than I am.</p>

<p>Unless these ethnic-focused clubs restrict their membership to only students belonging to those ethnic groups, they are constitutionally sound. There is nothing illegal about starting a group to focus on a certain culture, provided that membership is open to all. I doubt even Justice Thomas would find these clubs unconstitutional as long as they were voluntary and open to anyone who had interest.</p>

<p>Try and see if you can get a unicorn ban proposal on the ballot. I doubt you can due to its frivolousness. Even if you got it on the ballot and it passed, it wouldn’t do anything. You banned something that didn’t exist in the first place. By comparison, initiatives seeking to ban the imaginary “preferential treatment” have been placed on three state ballots since 1996, and all of them have passed. What’s more, there have been immediate effects following their successful passage. It seems like a majority of Americans in California, Washington, and Michigan don’t place preferential treatment in the same group as unicorns, especially since banning the supposedly nonexistent preferential treatment actually has consequences.</p>

<p>I have established a basis for banning the use of race in evaluations. The possibility that a young black applicant is mocked with the n-word does not appeal to me. As you know, I dislike deriding students like Henry Park as “textureless math grinds” who are like “thousands of other Koreans.” These situations would not occur if the race and name of these applicants were not revealed.</p>

<p>Do you believe that it is still possible to dismiss Henry Park as a “textureless math grind” who is like “thousands of other Koreans” if neither his name nor his race were revealed? You might still call him a grind, but there’s no way you’d know that he’s Korean.</p>

426

<p>
[quote]
2. Preferential treatment doesn’t exist. It may not, that’s certainly possible. I find it odd, though, that the persons who claim this are ardently against Mr. Ward Connerly’s civil rights initiatives, which seek to ban this allegedly nonexistent preferential treatment. Imagine a person who says “illegal drugs aren’t imported into the United States” but won’t support measures to prevent illicit drug trafficking. If it doesn’t happen, then a measure to ban it will just make sure it stays that way and give peace of mind to the public. Yet, these racial preference defenders are strongly opposed to any such measure.

[/quote]
It should be clear to you precisely why. As you have demonstrated here many times, AA opponents are quite unwilling to even understand basic terms as their opponents understand them, whether they can accept those definitions or not. They are going to ignore all disagreements on the terms and attempt to push through their own definitions. A law in their hands is nothing more than a noose around our necks. That is why we do not support Connerly.</p>

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I think Mr. Connerly is doing much more than I can to bring the choice to the people. And, that’s what matters. Let the people decide whether they want their states to engage in positive discrimination. It can be argued that Proposition 209 was a fluke. Initiative 200 was probably just bad luck. But, Proposal 2 was indicative of what will continue to happen next year.

[/quote]
I have no doubt that the trend goes against me. But I also have little doubt that the nation is going to pay dearly for the moral imbalance it has caused, whether we do it intelligently, or by increased selfishness.</p>

427

<p>Drosselmeier,</p>

<p>You’re absolutely right that race is but one factor in the admissions process. I could call admissions “GPA-based,” and I could state that its complement is “GPA-blind.” But, I can’t say the complement of “GPA-based” is “race-blind.” It doesn’t make sense to categorize admissions as either “GPA-based” or “race-blind” because it is possible to be both. (See UCLA.)</p>

<p>The complement of “race-based” admissions, where race is but one factor among many, is “race-blind” admissions, where race isn’t a factor at all.</p>

<p>You say that I have falsely assessed your categorization. Let us once again take a look at your post 372, where you first used the phrase “numbers driven Chinese system.”</p>

<p>You wrote the following:</p>

<p>
[quote]

And I think when admissions systems take into account all of the variables that go into what makes a candidate worthy to attend a school, as opposed to ignoring the most important ones, then many more blacks are found merit-worthy and as entitled to enter the schools as anyone else. I prefer this sort of system to the numbers driven Chinese system that produces hordes of button pushers who live to take tests, but who cannot think creatively-- with fire, heart and soul -- even if their mothers’ lives depended upon it.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Why did you present only two cases? In fact, why did you even include the “numbers driven Chinese system” at all? Neither I nor anyone else here has proposed such a policy.</p>

<p>Why did you not include the case where admissions systems take into account factors like essays, recommendations, extracurricular activities, and work experience in addition to test scores and grades, excluding only factors like race, ethnicity, and gender, which I have frequently proclaimed support for?</p>

<p>It would have made much more sense had you stated something along the lines of, “I prefer this sort of system to [the one you propose that ignores all the most important variables in determining what makes a candidate worthy of admission].” But, no, you had to talk about something that nobody else brought up.</p>

<p>If you agree with me, though, that ending racial preferences DOES NOT end holistic admissions, then we're on the same page.</p>

428

<p>
[quote]
No, I am advocating that students broaden their list. I gave ethnic-orientated clubs as an example. I’ve participated in many math competitions since ninth grade, and I seldom saw many black peers. I’ve also participated in quite a few literary competitions since tenth grade, and I seldom saw many Asian peers. If students want to explore their interests through different venues of competition, that can only be good.

[/quote]
But it is far better that they be led to these things due to genuine interest and not through the sort of hacking impulse that we see so prevalent in the Chinese educational system. We need to flee this like the plague. It smacks of dishonesty and it lacks intellectual power.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Try and see if you can get a unicorn ban proposal on the ballot. I doubt you can due to its frivolousness. Even if you got it on the ballot and it passed, it wouldn’t do anything. You banned something that (snip)…

[/quote]
Listen son, the argument is dumb even in its essential structure, which means it is nothing that should compel any thinking mind. I understand that you depend purely on marketing here, on hacking words over and over again. But this sort of dishonesty certainly won’t leave me defeated as your laws are passed. You’ll just have employed illogic to beget more illogic, thereby cursing the nation even more than it is currently.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I have established a basis for banning the use of race in evaluations. The possibility that a young black applicant is mocked with the n-word does not appeal to me.

[/quote]
haha. That is no establishment of anything, except percept the basis for a requirement of decency. What you have done here has been to place the black on AA for people being morally degenerate. Total nonsense.</p>

429

<p>
[quote]
You’re absolutely right that race is but one factor in the admissions process. I could call admissions “GPA-based,” and I could state that its complement is “GPA-blind.” But, I can’t say the complement of “GPA-based” is “race-blind.” It doesn’t make sense to categorize admissions as either “GPA-based” or “race-blind” because it is possible to be both. (See UCLA.)

[/quote]
But it is not necessarily either of these, and that is the point. You have tried to make it what it is not, and based only on your single view, and without making the case for why anyone else must see it in this way.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The complement of “race-based” admissions, where race is but one factor among many, is “race-blind” admissions, where race isn’t a factor at all.

[/quote]
It is not necessarily “race-based” at all, no more than it is anything else based. Race is just a item, one of many, being used in the evaluation. Nothing is based (as in founded) in race.</p>

<p>
[quote]
You say that I have falsely assessed your categorization. Let us once again take a look at your post 372, where you first used the phrase “numbers driven Chinese system.” Why did you present only two cases? In fact, why did you even include the “numbers driven Chinese system” at all? Neither I nor anyone else here has proposed such a policy.

[/quote]
Because it is obviously the result of what happens to a system when it is driven by a mindless and intentionally blind view of “merit”, where nothing is view in context of what makes a person what he is. I do not wish the America future to be driven by this.</p>

430

<p>
[quote]
there have been immediate effects following their successful passage.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Fab,</p>

<p>Which "immediate effects" in California are you referring to? The effect of the number of African-Americans at Cal and UCLA declining? Or the "massive" (your word) increase of 187 Blacks attending UCR over a ten-year period?</p>

431

<p>QUOTE:
//"They are going to ignore all disagreements on the terms and attempt to push through their own definitions."//</p>

<p>This has been demonstrated for several years on CC. However, the terms disagreed on extend far beyond those directly linked to the AA topic. They extend to other terms & how those operate when candidates are reviewed: merit being one, holistic being another. The fact that there are insufficient & distorted understandings of these terms, as well, affects discussions about AA.</p>

<p>Like Drosselmeier, I also find the extent of what many would call an 'entitlement' attitude troubling. However, I am more bothered by college admissions dictionaries created by those who are not happy with a process they cannot control -- dictionaries which include terms which conveniently validate the authors because they believe they are advantaged in those areas, such as equating merit with test scores. (Or which validate their world view of a narrowly 'meritorious' world.)</p>

<p>The view that counts is the view from the admissions committee floor. They define the terms. Working from competing dictionaries as reference points is not likely to bring understanding, let alone agreement.</p>

<p>Within the definition of 'merit' as some choose to limit it, there are generous numbers of white and Asian non-meritorious admits (going far beyond those with legacy or athletic hooks). But somehow, this is not a scandal, not a crisis, nor a cause for 3 yrs. of elongated threads on the issue, while AA is.</p>

432

<p>Epiphany,</p>

<p>"The view that counts is the view from the admissions committee floor."</p>

<p>Not quite true. Turns out the views of the courts, legislatures, voters, college administrators, potential donors, and even applicants and their parents also end up mattering.</p>

433

<p>When I said the above, I meant as it applies especially to <em>definitions,</em> not to AA policies. It was meant to contrast with the circumference of the student desk, the student laptop, and the highly subjective view of those parents who also, like many students, wish to define for the committees what 'merit' does and does not mean.</p>

434

<p>Drosselmeier,</p>

<p>Your metaphor comparing a law in “my hands” to a noose around your neck is quite poetic. It’s difficult discussing with a person who thinks I want to kill him. If it’s any consolation, please know that I have full respect for your rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the only things I believe you, along with our fellow Americans, are entitled to. It’s just a wee bit insulting for you to suggest that I want to deprive you of your life, particularly since there is no such mention of any ending of life in the language written by Mr. Connerly that has successfully passed in California, Washington, and Michigan.</p>

<p>If I understood the “basic” terms as you understood them, would I disagree with you on this issue? That we have different understandings is a primary cause of our disagreement.</p>

<p>If you’re suggesting that American students are immune from the “hacking impulse” you refer to, then you must really think that our citizens are different from their fellow humans around the world. People, regardless of their melanin levels and cultural background, respond to incentives. If a person joined an ethnic-oriented club with the intention of “looking good,” I have full faith that persons like AdOfficer will see right through the fa</p>

435

<p>Bay,</p>

<p>
[quote]
Which "immediate effects" in California are you referring to? The effect of the number of African-Americans at Cal and UCLA declining? Or the "massive" (your word) increase of 187 Blacks attending UCR over a ten-year period?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Both.</p>

<p>I am also referring to the increase in Asian students at Berkeley, including Filipino students.</p>

<p>That there were consequences stemming from the passage of Proposition 209 is strong evidence against the argument that “preferential treatment” is nonexistent. If it were truly so, then we should have expected minimal effects. That was not the case.</p>

436

<p>
[quote]
For example, if a student participates in the Chinese American Student Association, it’s pretty likely that he’s Chinese.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>A my d's high school the president of the Chinese American Student Association was black and is fluent in mandarin also a member of Hispanic american association (also fluent in spanish) from having grown up uptown in black/hispanic neighborhood and a member of the Black student association.</p>

437

<p>Fab,</p>

<p>Are you saying in #435 that the increase in Black enrollment at UCR after the passage of Prop 209 is evidence that Blacks recieved "preferential treatment" before the passage of Prop 209?</p>

438

<p>Bay,</p>

<p>
[quote]
Are you saying in #435 that the increase in Black enrollment at UCR after the passage of Prop 209 is evidence that Blacks recieved "preferential treatment" before the passage of Prop 209?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No, I did not say that. I wrote “That there were consequences stemming from the passage of Proposition 209 is strong evidence against the argument that ‘preferential treatment’ is nonexistent.”</p>

<p>As you observed, “the number of African-Americans at Cal [Berkeley] and UCLA decline[ed]” after 1996. The decrease in black enrollment at these campuses after the passage of Proposition 209 is evidence that black students received preferential treatment at these campuses before the proposition’s passage. To my knowledge, the only difference before 1996 and after is that race (gender also?) was no longer considered.</p>

<p>Yet, even though Berkeley and LA saw decreases in black admissions, other campuses, most notably Riverside, saw increases.</p>

<p>As I wrote before, Riverside’s percentage of black freshmen shows how perverse the phrase “over-represented” is. You ridiculed the 8% figure as being too low, but that percentage is higher than 6.1%, which means that blacks are “over-represented” at Riverside.</p>

439

<p>Fabrizio,</p>

<p>You may have noticed that you are surrounded by the proponents of racial preferences. There is a principle in politcal science that states that the reason why entitlement programs are so hard to get rid of is that the beneficiaries care so much more than everyone else. This thread is a nice example of that principle, your stamina not withstanding.</p>

440

<p>Fab,</p>

<p>Here you ago again, contorting other poster's (and your own previous) statements.</p>

<p>You most certainly did respond with the word "Both" (in bold) when I asked whether you were looking at the increase in Blacks at UCR.</p>

<p>And how interesting that you are now in the "quota" camp that you so deride.</p>