Affirmative action before the SCOTUS today

[Sunburn74]

I have no issue with merit based admissions. I also have no issue with providing supplementary training for those who have attended poor quality schools. I do have an issue with admissions being race based. I want my doctor, lawyer, accountant, and engineer to be the best. I don't care what they look like, I don't care about their skin color or sexual preference.
It's all about having faith in who's doing the job. The fellow who recently performed surgery on my testicle's got the job because of his ability, not his skin color.

Yeah this is stupid. You realize two people can be equally good. In fact one guy could be better than the other in everyway. However due to things like school prestige, school and parent funding to put together a perfect application, school internal connections and lobbying, one guy get the Harvard admission and the other guy goes to his state school. This happens at the college application level, the graduate level, even the post graduate level. Even in research grants, almost all the research grants in the US go to a small handful of colleges (the same colleges we are talking about. You're talking about grants where the applicants are the best of the best doctors and researchers and still it's mostly Harvard and Yale getting the money). You have such a huge leg up going to a handful of schools (be it high school, college, med school etc). That's why everyone wants to go there. Harvard doesnt teach different laws of physics or different rules of English grammar. Harvard's advantage upon completion of training isn't merit based (for example almost every SCOTUS in history went to Harvard or Yale. Do you really think there are no excellent judges that went to the U of Florida law school in US history?). It's mostly the accumulation of many non merit based advantages that an individual would not get elsewhere.

The reality is there is no objective merit based system for entrance criteria. A lot of it is based on :
This guy is rich
This guy went an expensive school
This guys has connections
This guy has someone working for him to polish his application

The point is trying to pretend that being rich isn't a surrogate for being white and pretending that everyone is even in the eyes of college entrance committees or even in the world in general is stupid. Things arent even. Society so try to make them even.

Honestly states could fix all this shit by just passing laws blocking legacy admissions, requiring quotas for low income students, requiring a certain percentage of people who are the first in their family to go to college, etc etc.

 

[Brainonska511]

I have no issue with merit based admissions. I also have no issue with providing supplementary training for those who have attended poor quality schools. I do have an issue with admissions being race based. I want my doctor, lawyer, accountant, and engineer to be the best. I don't care what they look like, I don't care about their skin color or sexual preference.
It's all about having faith in who's doing the job. The fellow who recently performed surgery on my testicle's got the job because of his ability, not his skin color.

One of the big problems in medicine is not about having "elite" doctors, but having doctors who are representative of the patients they are seeing, and who understand the societal challenges that their patients are facing.

Having a lot more doctors who are white and the progeny of doctors that could afford to send their kids to elite institutions just perpetuates a system that historically speaking systematically excluded people who were poorer or people of color.

The past is prologue, and AA was a way to try and correct historic injustices that are baked into society today. We can't unmake the cake, but we can try to fix as we move forward in time.

 

[HomerJS]

I have no issue with merit based admissions. I also have no issue with providing supplementary training for those who have attended poor quality schools. I do have an issue with admissions being race based. I want my doctor, lawyer, accountant, and engineer to be the best. I don't care what they look like, I don't care about their skin color or sexual preference.
It's all about having faith in who's doing the job. The fellow who recently performed surgery on my testicle's got the job because of his ability, not his skin color.

You asking for color bling admissions in a society that is not color blind.

But it's cool because rich white alumni parents still get bonus points for their kids.

How about my alternate application question as opposed to a black checkbox?

"Are you part of a group that has suffered from historical discrimination or disenfranchisement codified into law by the state? (Yes|No) Please elaborate below."

The applicant can then layout the entire history of their discriminated group to justify extra consideration.

 

[ivwshane]

You can always spot the people who don’t understand affirmative action when they say that admission should be merit based. What they fail to realize is that when the merits are equal it’s the minorities (and white women) who usually get the short end of the stick.

California did away with affirmative action decades ago and they’ve barely gotten back to where they were when they did away with it. I can only imagine what the results will be in states that aren’t as progressive when it comes to addressing racism.

 

[Stokely]

Let's get rid of affirmative action, but make sure we keep legacy admissions. This Court likes to remind us once in a while--despite a few surprises here and there--that they are partisan hacks. Well, at least it's only for life. Hopefully their bullshit will help motivate more liberals in elections. I kept say "what about the Supreme Court" to pissed-off Bernie people I knew that said they weren't going to vote, or even vote Trump out of anger, in 2016. And here we are, these freaking bozos are going to work toward their theocratic oligarchy for decades and all because enough people didn't vote against a fraudulent grifter celebrity.

 

[Greenman]

Let's get rid of affirmative action, but make sure we keep legacy admissions. This Court likes to remind us once in a while--despite a few surprises here and there--that they are partisan hacks. Well, at least it's only for life. Hopefully their bullshit will help motivate more liberals in elections. I kept say "what about the Supreme Court" to pissed-off Bernie people I knew that said they weren't going to vote, or even vote Trump out of anger, in 2016. And here we are, these freaking bozos are going to work toward their theocratic oligarchy for decades and all because enough people didn't vote against a fraudulent grifter celebrity.

I have no issue ending legacy admissions.

 

[Greenman]

You asking for color bling admissions in a society that is not color blind.

But it's cool because rich white alumni parents still get bonus points for their kids.

How about my alternate application question as opposed to a black checkbox?

"Are you part of a group that has suffered from historical discrimination or disenfranchisement codified into law by the state? (Yes|No) Please elaborate below."

The applicant can then layout the entire history of their discriminated group to justify extra consideration.

I don't believe we can correct past discrimination by perpetuating current discrimination. All that's going to do is make a different group angry.

 

[FelixDeCat]

You can always spot the people who don’t understand affirmative action when they say that admission should be merit based. What they fail to realize is that when the merits are equal it’s the minorities (and white women) who usually get the short end of the stick.

California did away with affirmative action decades ago and they’ve barely gotten back to where they were when they did away with it. I can only imagine what the results will be in states that aren’t as progressive when it comes to addressing racism.

Those who were denied admission based on their non minority status should sue for damages.

Maybe the world's richest man, an African American, can fund this effort.

 

[fskimospy]

I don't believe we can correct past discrimination by perpetuating current discrimination. All that's going to do is make a different group angry.

Do you think we can correct current discrimination though? After all this is ongoing.

 

[fskimospy]

What the colleges should really say is that their religion requires them to use diversity initiatives. Once they do that the Civil Rights Act no longer applies to them as proved with that fake wedding website case.

 

[Jaskalas]

I LOL'd when Mike Pence told NBC News that affirmative action was necessary 50 years ago, but not today. Society has come a long way in that time, but the work continues.

To that notion I reply, are we not still human?
To be human is to BE biased.
Action against our biases will ALWAYS be required.

 

[HomerJS]

I don't believe we can correct past discrimination by perpetuating current discrimination. All that's going to do is make a different group angry.

What about my idea of a question for the application?

 

[HomerJS]

To that notion I reply, are we not still human?
To be human is to BE biased.
Action against our biases will ALWAYS be required.

We don't need it today? May I remind Pence his party in 3 states was found guilty in court of racist gerrymandering.

This is the same party that gutted the 65 VRA eliminating preclearance.

 

[Greenman]

Do you think we can correct current discrimination though? After all this is ongoing.

I don't believe discrimination will ever end. Cultural/religious differences will always create a division among different people.

 

[fskimospy]

I don't believe discrimination will ever end. Cultural/religious differences will always create a division among different people.

So is your answer to do nothing?

 

[Greenman]

What about my idea of a question for the application?

I think it will create an enormous business opportunity and related paper mill.
Much like the DVBE program in California that I spent a year and a half working in and doing my best to make it work while everyone else just handed it off to a paper mill and didn't give a shit about the result.

 

[HomerJS]

I think it will create an enormous business opportunity and related paper mill.
Much like the DVBE program in California that I spent a year and a half working in and doing my best to make it work while everyone else just handed it off to a paper mill and didn't give a shit about the result.

Is the question legitimate?

 

[dainthomas]

So is your answer to do nothing?

His reply reminds of the Bruce Hornsby song "The way it is". That's just how it is, some things will never change. Therefore we shouldn't try.

 

[Zorba]

Depends on one's definition of better. In theory, it's a more ethical/accurate solution. Many recent immigrant families were solidly working class with modest incomes until the children attended college and became professionals. But instead of socioeconomics, race alone was somewhat of a dominant factor for competitive college admissions.

In practice, California's Prop 209 has proven that Black student enrollment at elite universities will likely crater post- affirmative action. UCs have recruited strenuously over the past two decades to improve diversity, so it's not quite as stark as it was in the late 1990s after 209's passage.

I actually believe the elite private universities had de facto racial quotas; but I still believe in affirmative action at this time to ensure campus diversity. The obvious problem is that admissions is a zero sum game. If judging just by the numbers, there should be a sweet spot in between what the Ivy's do versus what UC Berkeley and UCLA currently do.

I LOL'd when Mike Pence told NBC News that affirmative action was necessary 50 years ago, but not today. Society has come a long way in that time, but the work continues.

Elite schools should have to increase enrollment or face taxation on their massive endowments.

 

[HomerJS]

I don't believe we can correct past discrimination by perpetuating current discrimination. All that's going to do is make a different group angry.

Think we don't need AA? Have you compared the last intern class picture of Obama vs the 1st class of Trump? Look at both those pictures and then come back to us and say AA isn't needed.

Interesting how all 3 people of color on SCOTUS were beneficiaries of AA. Now Thomas wants to end it.

 

[gothuevos]

Do you think we can correct current discrimination though? After all this is ongoing.

Yes. Eliminate legacy admissions, expand admission numbers as a whole, use socioeconomic factors and/or first generation college students as guiding principles.

 

[APU_Fusion]

Those who were denied admission based on their non minority status should sue for damages.

Maybe the world's richest man, an African American, can fund this effort.

What does the world’s richest man have to do with any of this? Your trolling is weak sauce.

 

[HomerJS]

FDC just wants a makeup of prestigious institutions to look like Trumps first intern class not Obamas last

Darkies not wanted

 

[Zorba]

I have no issue with merit based admissions. I also have no issue with providing supplementary training for those who have attended poor quality schools. I do have an issue with admissions being race based. I want my doctor, lawyer, accountant, and engineer to be the best. I don't care what they look like, I don't care about their skin color or sexual preference.
It's all about having faith in who's doing the job. The fellow who recently performed surgery on my testicle's got the job because of his ability, not his skin color.

Talking about admissions, not graduating. Many highly qualified freshman washout, while many less qualified freshman excel. I've never heard anyone pushing for lower graduation or certification requirements for minorities.

Somewhere like Harvard, where every kid that gets in will have a nearly identical application, what's wrong with making sure your freshman class is somewhat diverse?

 

[Jaskalas]

So is your answer to do nothing?

I think their answer is that reversed bias is still bias. Still wrong.
It would be a simplistic view of a complex issue. Thereby arriving at the wrong conclusion.

I can narrow it down that way, because I felt it for a long time. That was my answer.
It was only a modern examination of the core issue, and of human nature, that I arrived at a need to counter balance our inherent bias. My answer is to shove bias in the other direction. A little bit.

But moreover, the true answer is we need to balm the wound of jealousy people feel when others have an advantage. And I am not talking about minorities being jealous of the majority. Rather, I speak of the jealously the majority feels when anything is given to a minority. Anything at all. We feel this because being a majority does not matter, we still compete in the rat race. We want more, we need more. Anything that is not ours... is ours to seize for the betterment of our position. To see anyone else get something is to poke our wound. It is to belittle our pain and to ignore our plight. Do we not also bleed?

The solution for affirmative action is to reach the hearts of men. To do that our society must be changed from the ground up. The rat race must end. Our pain must end. Basic Income (and housing, and healthcare) are all things we need to do to improve our temperament and sooth the savage beast that is mankind. Or no matter how hard you try, laws will be broken and societies will crumble, before we allow anyone else to get what we deserve.