Re:Harvard Asian-American discrimination case opens with pac...
by btilly on Monday October 15, 2018 @08:10PM
(#18225293)
Slots go up and down for a variety of reasons over time. As you just demonstrated, Harvard reduced slots from 1988 to 2018. What were their motivations? What would they have done if they weren't trying to let in diversity students?
It is absolutely true that if you do something for group X, you could have done more for group Y instead with the same resources. But saying that doing something for X automatically takes away from group Y is arguing the counterfactual, "Here is what you would have done if you had not done that." But you don't actually know what they would have done. Maybe they would have reduced admissions even more than they actually did. Can you prove otherwise?
That may seem like a rhetorical question, but it is not. Discovery gives access internal communications which could make that case one way or the other. But it is a case that has to actually be made, and isn't simply a foregone conclusion.
It is absolutely true that if you do something for group X, you could have done more for group Y instead with the same resources. But saying that doing something for X automatically takes away from group Y is arguing the counterfactual, "Here is what you would have done if you had not done that." But you don't actually know what they would have done. Maybe they would have reduced admissions even more than they actually did. Can you prove otherwise?
That may seem like a rhetorical question, but it is not. Discovery gives access internal communications which could make that case one way or the other. But it is a case that has to actually be made, and isn't simply a foregone conclusion.