US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3972

On June 30 2023 02:11 Sermokala wrote:
Race will still be a factor it will now only negatively effect minorities getting into college. Nobody thinks it should be a factor but only the most ignorant will tell you that it isn't a factor from your zip code to your name to the kind of college you transfer from.

On June 30 2023 06:42 Djabanete wrote:
Aren’t there colorblind ways of accounting, in college admissions, for structural inequality of opportunity in earlier years of education?

Like, couldn’t you take a regression line that correlates family income with students’ SAT scores, and then evaluate students by how far above the regression line they are? (In order to be evaluated in this way, a student would need to submit financial documents, just as they would when applying for financial aid.)

Or couldn’t you give extra points to, say, a student whose parents had not gone to college? For example, you could have their adjusted test score be the average between their actual test score and the maximum. So if the maximum is 800, and they scored 720, their adjusted score could be 760.

This is predicated on the idea that an admissions office believes structural inequality of opportunity is a thing and is trying to correct for it in their admissions, but is having trouble thinking of ways that are more fair than racial quotas.

Edit: this isn’t meant as an endorsement of striking down affirmative action. I just wonder if colleges are really doing all they can at selecting for the not-wealthiest students… Why would they, I guess?

On June 30 2023 07:49 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


What if someone didn't overreach by saying "[all] minorities" and forgetting that Asians are a minority? In other words, what would you think about the assertion "The court's ruling is going to harm Black, Hispanic, and Native American applicants?" Or even if they just picked one of those three minorities to focus on?

On June 30 2023 07:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I don't agree with what she literally said ("no black person", because there exist plenty of exceptions), but I think you may be misunderstanding what our "merit-based system" is. And, to be fair, she could have been way clearer. That phrase typically assumes that everyone starts on an equal playing field, without considering the context of socioeconomic status or race or sex or anything else, and that all you need to succeed is to work as hard as anyone else, and just pick yourself up by your bootstraps.

Work ethic *and* societal factors both have an impact on success, and I imagine that this woman is (inelegantly) trying to remind us that systemic racism is still a problem, and that things are much more nuanced than just looking at merit.

On June 30 2023 08:04 BlackJack wrote:


No problem with that. I believe Sotomayor uses the term "underrepresented minorities" in her dissent. I think the blanket term "minorities" should be avoided in this discussion because there are minorities are both sides of the lawsuit. Obviously I worded my post very poorly.

On June 30 2023 10:44 ChristianS wrote:

“AAPI students are harmed by affirmative action” is also very much disputed, by the way. My understanding is that the district court (responsible for findings of fact in the case) determined that race consciousness in admissions did *not* adversely affect AAPI students. Several of the factors the court left in place (legacy, wealth, etc.) probably *do* adversely affect AAPI students, and Harvard has a weird “personal rating” that they’ll probably be allowed to keep doing which probably does adversely affect AAPI students. Of course, presumably people also disagree with the district court’s determination, but it’s not open-and-shut.

Ultimately, “what about Asian kids, huh?” feels like more of a conservative troll than a sincere argument. “Affirmative action” was and is a powerful rationalization for white parents when their kids don’t get into the school they think they should have, and officially banning affirmative action won’t change that. I know from experience! I went to UCSD after getting rejected from UCLA and Berkeley, and my mom was sure it was because of affirmative action, despite CA having already banned it in the 90’s. Parents will still convince themselves those sneaky admissions officers are smuggling in race somehow. Meanwhile people will also convince themselves any successful Black people they encounter probably don’t *really* deserve everything they’ve got.

I mean, just a page ago Introvert called this a *top 5* legal issue for conservatives. Top 5? Really? Even limiting ourselves to Constitutional issues, we can’t come up with 5 other issues more important than schools trying to give opportunities to underrepresented minorities?

But whatever, mediocre white kids will now have an easier time getting into absurdly expensive universities, either because they were better at multiple choice exams, or because their dad went there and that’s still an acceptable admissions criterion. I’m white, don’t have kids, and have no plans to apply to any colleges again in my life, so I’m not in a very strong position to assess the importance of this. I just wish if conservatives were so certain affirmative action was so unpopular, they’d do their bans by democratic means rather than getting their 6 unelected robed-kings to enact it by fiat while lecturing us about the “color-blind” original Constitution.

On June 30 2023 11:41 Introvert wrote:


I remember during oral argument that there was arguing over the lower court's finding, because the conservative justices couldn't get a good answer from the schools' counsel as to how it wasn't discrimination that Asians with a certain academic performance had such terrible odds at admittance compared to other minority students.

What feels more like a troll is this characterization of the situation, "we can’t come up with 5 other issues more important than schools trying to give opportunities to underrepresented minorities?" Now obviously I don't expect everyone to keep up on everything but affirmative action has been a hot button issue for decades now, that's why CA banned it in the 90s and why we overwhelming voted to keep it banned 2 years ago (another bit of support for my theory that CA voters are at least slightly more sane than the people they elect to represent them). And many other states have also already banned it. So this isn't just a SCOTUS thing, but AA was one of those examples of things that conservatives see as blatantly unconstitutional/illegal, a product of a previous era of the Court where the justices' desired results mattered more than the law and, because college admissions are finite resource, a unjust practice that hurt deserving students. That doesn't mean admissions departments don't do a run around based on personal essays and the like, but this is a thing most people object to.

(Your mom could still be right! Though UCSD is a fine school anyway...if you weren't planning on grad school at like a Top 5 the value of a Cal or UCLA undergrad in the sciences, which from what I recall you are in, is probably similar to San Diego.)

As for "mediocre white kids will now have an easier time getting into absurdly expensive universities, either because they were better at multiple choice exams," my understanding that is that standardized tests are actually very useful at finding disadvantaged students who would do well at a school even if the rest of their application might not show. But either way, many of these schools are now dropping the SAT. So instead of studying for a test with understandable and more practicable criteria "mediocre white kids" can just pay to have their essays written instead! wonderful.
edit: and I think the case for getting rid of, or at least curtailing, legacy admissions is strong but that wasn't the issue before the court and I'm not sure it even could be.

On June 30 2023 10:44 ChristianS wrote:

“AAPI students are harmed by affirmative action” is also very much disputed, by the way. My understanding is that the district court (responsible for findings of fact in the case) determined that race consciousness in admissions did *not* adversely affect AAPI students. Several of the factors the court left in place (legacy, wealth, etc.) probably *do* adversely affect AAPI students, and Harvard has a weird “personal rating” that they’ll probably be allowed to keep doing which probably does adversely affect AAPI students. Of course, presumably people also disagree with the district court’s determination, but it’s not open-and-shut.

Ultimately, “what about Asian kids, huh?” feels like more of a conservative troll than a sincere argument. “Affirmative action” was and is a powerful rationalization for white parents when their kids don’t get into the school they think they should have, and officially banning affirmative action won’t change that. I know from experience! I went to UCSD after getting rejected from UCLA and Berkeley, and my mom was sure it was because of affirmative action, despite CA having already banned it in the 90’s. Parents will still convince themselves those sneaky admissions officers are smuggling in race somehow. Meanwhile people will also convince themselves any successful Black people they encounter probably don’t *really* deserve everything they’ve got.

I mean, just a page ago Introvert called this a *top 5* legal issue for conservatives. Top 5? Really? Even limiting ourselves to Constitutional issues, we can’t come up with 5 other issues more important than schools trying to give opportunities to underrepresented minorities?

But whatever, mediocre white kids will now have an easier time getting into absurdly expensive universities, either because they were better at multiple choice exams, or because their dad went there and that’s still an acceptable admissions criterion. I’m white, don’t have kids, and have no plans to apply to any colleges again in my life, so I’m not in a very strong position to assess the importance of this. I just wish if conservatives were so certain affirmative action was so unpopular, they’d do their bans by democratic means rather than getting their 6 unelected robed-kings to enact it by fiat while lecturing us about the “color-blind” original Constitution.

On June 30 2023 07:15 JimmiC wrote:

I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that you did from what he wrote, it almost seems like disingenuous take. Mind unpacking that? Does it have something to do with this "everybody" that was not really almost anybody from before?

On June 30 2023 13:21 ChristianS wrote:

I don't follow this that closely but from my understanding, it's totally unambiguous that AAPI students have been discriminated against in admissions, it's just not actually clear that a SCOTUS-level ban on factoring in race actually does anything about that. I mean, if on the one hand you have Black, Latino, etc. students who are benefiting from AA and on the other, white students benefiting from systemic advantages like legacy admissions, it's not hard to see how AAPI students would wind up underrepresented by comparison. It doesn't mean the race factor was discriminating *against* them, it just means they weren't benefiting from it, and didn't have the other advantages white students have to offset it.

I mean, my guess (for what little it's worth) is that factoring race into admissions was enormously beneficial to the upper-middle tiers of Black and Latino students, fairly detrimental to the lower-middle tiers of white students, and probably a little detrimental on the margin to students of minority groups that weren't being favored. IIRC that's what the evidence showed when CA banned it: massive drop in representation of Blacks and Latinos, massive rise in representation of whites, and a small but measurable increase for AAPI.


Not sure why "it's been a hot-button issue for decades" is responsive. So? Once upon a time conservatives liked to wax poetic about how detrimental it is for everybody to want a SCOTUS ruling in their favor on every hot-button issue. Judicial activism! Legislating from the bench! Aren't we supposed to be a *democracy*?

Fundamentally, if a school applies a set of criteria to their applicant pool, and then finds that their criteria showed a racial bias, they could conclude one of two things:

1) The criteria are unbiased; students from some races are just more qualified on average.
2) The criteria are biased; students from some races are systematically under-ranked.

Advocate for whichever position you want! But if a school decides the latter, and adjusts their admissions accordingly, that's *unconstitutional*? I mean, come on.

I'm not even an AA advocate. I suspect that in a lot of cases, the skills that allow someone to succeed on the usual academic achievement metrics are the same skills that allow them to succeed at an Ivy League school. There probably is some amount of systematic bias at work, but it isn't necessarily gonna help to take the minority student who's been systematically undervalued in high school and say "Hey, how'd you like to take out hundreds of thousands in loans to go be systematically undervalued at Harvard University!!!" [cue canned applause]. It just kind of reeks to me of the sort of thing well-meaning white liberals do to "help" because they feel guilty about George Floyd or w/e.

But it seems ridiculous to me to say it's *unconstitutional*. It's a legitimate policy to address a legitimate societal issue. If a state wants to ban it, fine, but if another state wants to do it, John Roberts should fuck off and let them do it.


This is kind of a classic example of how eliminating AA isn't actually going to help at all with white people feeling aggrieved. At the heart of this issue is the fact that college admissions is one of the key moments in someone's life when they're going to either feel like they got their shot or didn't. It's a pivotal moment that at least feels like it'll determine the course of the rest of your life. It's like when Mom and Dad die, and the kids have to decide how to split millions of dollars of inheritance. Of course it's going to get ugly a lot of the time.

Nobody can be expected to objectively assess their own merit, and normally they don't have to, but when they system explicitly does an assessment and finds them wanting, of course people are going to look for reasons they were unfairly slighted. White conservatives have been telling minorities for years "Just work hard, focus on yourself, and try to excel instead of trying to prove you're the victim of some systemic bias;" but when their kid doesn't get into the school they wanted, oh Lord! oh Jesus! The unfairness of it all! Racism, that's what it is, racism! How is a white guy supposed to catch a break in this world?

Of course, I don't really think the system is good at assessing merit in the first place. So it's not so much that they're *wrong* in saying they weren't fairly weighed and measured. It's that they only *noticed* it was unfair when it had possibly disadvantaged them for a moment, and they're almost guaranteed to forget it again as soon as they get in some place else, graduate in 6 years, and land a job at the firm anyway because their dad called in a favor.

But it seems ridiculous to me to say it's *unconstitutional*. It's a legitimate policy to address a legitimate societal issue. If a state wants to ban it, fine, but if another state wants to do it, John Roberts should fuck off and let them do it.

On June 30 2023 13:21 ChristianS wrote:

I don't follow this that closely but from my understanding, it's totally unambiguous that AAPI students have been discriminated against in admissions, it's just not actually clear that a SCOTUS-level ban on factoring in race actually does anything about that. I mean, if on the one hand you have Black, Latino, etc. students who are benefiting from AA and on the other, white students benefiting from systemic advantages like legacy admissions, it's not hard to see how AAPI students would wind up underrepresented by comparison. It doesn't mean the race factor was discriminating *against* them, it just means they weren't benefiting from it, and didn't have the other advantages white students have to offset it.

I mean, my guess (for what little it's worth) is that factoring race into admissions was enormously beneficial to the upper-middle tiers of Black and Latino students, fairly detrimental to the lower-middle tiers of white students, and probably a little detrimental on the margin to students of minority groups that weren't being favored. IIRC that's what the evidence showed when CA banned it: massive drop in representation of Blacks and Latinos, massive rise in representation of whites, and a small but measurable increase for AAPI.


Not sure why "it's been a hot-button issue for decades" is responsive. So? Once upon a time conservatives liked to wax poetic about how detrimental it is for everybody to want a SCOTUS ruling in their favor on every hot-button issue. Judicial activism! Legislating from the bench! Aren't we supposed to be a *democracy*?

Fundamentally, if a school applies a set of criteria to their applicant pool, and then finds that their criteria showed a racial bias, they could conclude one of two things:

1) The criteria are unbiased; students from some races are just more qualified on average.
2) The criteria are biased; students from some races are systematically under-ranked.

Advocate for whichever position you want! But if a school decides the latter, and adjusts their admissions accordingly, that's *unconstitutional*? I mean, come on.

I'm not even an AA advocate. I suspect that in a lot of cases, the skills that allow someone to succeed on the usual academic achievement metrics are the same skills that allow them to succeed at an Ivy League school. There probably is some amount of systematic bias at work, but it isn't necessarily gonna help to take the minority student who's been systematically undervalued in high school and say "Hey, how'd you like to take out hundreds of thousands in loans to go be systematically undervalued at Harvard University!!!" [cue canned applause]. It just kind of reeks to me of the sort of thing well-meaning white liberals do to "help" because they feel guilty about George Floyd or w/e.

But it seems ridiculous to me to say it's *unconstitutional*. It's a legitimate policy to address a legitimate societal issue. If a state wants to ban it, fine, but if another state wants to do it, John Roberts should fuck off and let them do it.


This is kind of a classic example of how eliminating AA isn't actually going to help at all with white people feeling aggrieved. At the heart of this issue is the fact that college admissions is one of the key moments in someone's life when they're going to either feel like they got their shot or didn't. It's a pivotal moment that at least feels like it'll determine the course of the rest of your life. It's like when Mom and Dad die, and the kids have to decide how to split millions of dollars of inheritance. Of course it's going to get ugly a lot of the time.

Nobody can be expected to objectively assess their own merit, and normally they don't have to, but when they system explicitly does an assessment and finds them wanting, of course people are going to look for reasons they were unfairly slighted. White conservatives have been telling minorities for years "Just work hard, focus on yourself, and try to excel instead of trying to prove you're the victim of some systemic bias;" but when their kid doesn't get into the school they wanted, oh Lord! oh Jesus! The unfairness of it all! Racism, that's what it is, racism! How is a white guy supposed to catch a break in this world?

Of course, I don't really think the system is good at assessing merit in the first place. So it's not so much that they're *wrong* in saying they weren't fairly weighed and measured. It's that they only *noticed* it was unfair when it had possibly disadvantaged them for a moment, and they're almost guaranteed to forget it again as soon as they get in some place else, graduate in 6 years, and land a job at the firm anyway because their dad called in a favor.