Quote :

"Which is why fighting for true color blind policies rather than "discrimination that's we won't call discrimination" policies is the way to go. "

But that's the point. "Colorblind" is only possible when the ruling class is actually just and fair, and unfortunately, due to the legacy of slavery and jim crow in this country, this isn't the case. Being "Colorblind" just results in people turning a blind eye, which makes things worse.

And you're right to point out that affirmative action by itself isn't a support resource, it should be a last resort. If we had better resources for families starting at preschool up through grade school, if our politicians had handled desegregation better, it's possible we wouldn't need affirmative action policies. But currently, when you look at how our legal system treats the black community, and how the job market is tilted against applicants who are black, and how this creates feedback loops that affect young families, and society's unfounded fears of black males, there is an extra issue with fairness, that goes beyond mere SES. This is worse in some parts of the countries than others, but considering that race IS a factor through all levels of our society, irrespective of legal or political institutions, I don't see why it shouldn't be a tool in the toolset of administrators looking for fairly administer to social resource of education.

4/25/2014 12:12:49 AM

Quote :

"Turning a blind eye to present institutionalized racism isn't the right answer."

Where have you made the case that racism is institutionalized? All you've done is cite statistics that show black people aren't doing as well as other races in whatever aspect it is you are citing. Again, there has been no analysis to show that black people are being actively held down other than to say "yeah, people are still racists in America so that must be why black people aren't getting ahead".

4/25/2014 6:38:02 PM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-seems-divided-over-university-of-texas-race-conscious-admissions/2015/12/09/e413cfce-9e70-11e5-8728-1af6af208198_story.html

I thought this was ruled on, but I guess not.

I'm actually starting to change my mind on how AA is used, it clearly has not worked to achieve its goals, and I think like in Mizzou, it tends to be used by racially insensitive administrators as a crutch.

If race-based admission scores/quotas went away, but the mandate for fair admissions and diversity remained (which should stay in place), this would force leaders and communities to work together to promote true acceptance of different groups.

Whites have gotten a lot better with racism since the 60s, and we're at the point where I think with the right leadership, we don't need brute-force government to be so heavy-handed in addressing racism.

12/9/2015 4:12:00 PM

Quote :

""There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less -- a slower-track school where they do well," Scalia said, according to the transcript. "One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas.""

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/scalia-black-scientists-scotus/index.html

12/9/2015 4:33:45 PM

Quote :

"If race-based admission scores/quotas went away, but the mandate for fair admissions and diversity remained (which should stay in place), this would force leaders and communities to work together to promote true acceptance of different groups. "

Agreed. AA = We want equality and a post racial society EXCEPT when we benefit from being a minority.

12/9/2015 4:37:49 PM

^^ I heard some discussion this morning on NPR where that argument was couched a little better and without being specifically centered on race. It was basically that it's ultimately not a service to OK-but-not-great students to throw them into the big pond where they're outgunned, where they would not have landed to begin with by merit. On average, they are probably better off in respectable but a tier down schools where they can be a relatively somewhat bigger fish.



[Edited on December 9, 2015 at 7:47 PM. Reason : ]

12/9/2015 7:47:10 PM

The problem with that argument is that it suggests (even if unintentionally) that Black students are stupider than white students, on average. Scalia may have just fumbled his words, but its (somewhat) clear he was suggesting that and invoking some form of separate but "equal." Although, if you're a constitutional originalist, ala Scalia, I guess that does put you in line with a majority of the founding fathers.

What I find most interesting is how little AA has actually done for minority students:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/heres-what-happens-when-you-ban-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions/



When comparing states with AA bans to states without, we are talking a few percentage points of the student population difference going to minority students and still well below what their representation should be based on % of the population. So this basic white chick claiming she couldn't get into UT due to AA is probably just.........stupid, and needing to go to a "slower-track school."

AA may not have been super effective at achieving its goals (although for white women I think the stats may tell a better story), but let's not forget where its origins. At a time when Black students needed the national guard to escort them through the doors of their local high school for safety reasons, higher learning institutions stepped up to the plate to try close the gap between minorities and whites. It wasn't all for noble reasons, they needed those federal grants after all, but atleast they were doing something in an era of obstruction and obfuscation (it would almost be unbelievable, except we have today's republican party to compare it to).

IF you think we need to attempt to right past wrongs, then we need to consider better options than AA, for a variety of reasons, but I'd hardly say the AA process is unconstitutional.

12/9/2015 8:30:12 PM

Quote :

"The problem with that argument is that it suggests (even if unintentionally) that Black students are stupider than white students, on average."

It does not; it doesn't even mention race.

It's simply saying that bumping people up a tier or two from where they belong based on performance and capability is throwing them in with lions.

12/9/2015 9:23:39 PM

Are we reading the same quote? Scalia mentions race at least twice and suggests that marginal white students might be better off in a "sink or swim" scenario compared to marginal black students, because........... Black scientists mostly come from second tier schools?

SOUND LOGIC FROM THE TOP CONSERVATIVE JUDGE IN ALL THE LAND!!!

12/9/2015 9:55:59 PM

My problem with scalias argument, racist undertones aside, is that college isn't a competition (it is competitive), it's not zero sum, one person's success doesn't mean another must fail.

In engineering, there were lots of people (white or otherwise) who had to take calc 1 and calc 2 and struggled with it, they are not less deserving of being there because there are people that placed into calc 3 from high school. Colleges already, no matter what, have to accommodate people of various capabilities and starting points and backgrounds, affirmative action doesn't impact this. This is due to the fact that there is no perfect screening process, we have no true way of determining merit, and school districts have large variability anyway.

What affirmative action should be (and this is not new) is what Intel has recently started doing. They wanted more black employees, so they started recruiting at schools with more black students. They found even these applicants were lacking in many qualifications, so they then started working with the schools to bring their engineering programs up to standard.

The same thing should be happening at the college level. If colleges find that even when they recruit from black school district these kids are lacking in some way they should be talking to politicians and DOE and school districts to get the right resources to those places. AA based point boosts make it too easy to never look deeper.

12/9/2015 10:26:53 PM

Quote :

" What affirmative action should be (and this is not new) is what Intel has recently started doing. They wanted more black employees, so they started recruiting at schools with more black students. They found even these applicants were lacking in many qualifications, so they then started working with the schools to bring their engineering programs up to standard. "

So I actually support this approach to AA. I don't believe in hiring for the same of diversity at the expense of better qualified candidates. If things can be done on the front end to make more minority candidates qualified for roles then this makes sense. Such that their merit would lead to diverse work forces.

12/10/2015 2:45:50 PM

The liberal media's attempt to portray Scalia's AA comments as "OMG RACIST BIGOT" is pretty shitty as per usual.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/1751/left-claiming-justice-scalias-racist-thats-because-ben-shapiro

12/11/2015 11:09:20 AM

Scalia is a pretty shitty person, no surprise that you support his shitty arguments.

12/11/2015 11:49:17 AM

Their argument only works if you assume two things:

- that unqualified black people are being admitted over qualified to marginal white people and
- comparing the entire population of white students to the entire population of black students is statistically meaningful

Both of these are wrong IMO. One the first point, that's not how AA works. It admits marginal (not unqualified) blacks over marginal whites, AA is used as only a small consideration in a whole host of factors to consider admittance, it's a black B average student being admitted over a white B average student, not a C average black person being admitted over the white valedictorian. And as my graph shows the effect is tiny, like a 3-5% bump in minority populations at schools.

That's to me what makes it somewhat racist, as worded his statement assumes a marginal white student is going to better than a marginal black student

And no, I don't think that's what the statistics show. You are comparing the entire population of white students, which statistically have more higher achievers, to the entire black student population. Again we should be comparing marginal students to marginal students. Those stats also assume that academic difficulties are the only reason a student might drop out, not money problems, time difficulties, transportation issues, etc.

12/11/2015 12:01:33 PM

That's a good point

12/11/2015 12:54:32 PM

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-coders

Really great article on the complexities of what affirmative action was trying to achieve, and why the concept needs to be re thought using modern ideas.

1/21/2016 11:41:18 AM