Oh really? I suppose it's unlikely that peoples' prejudices could cause them to make inaccurate generalizations about the world around them. And do go on about the differences between the minorites and the "regular students".
He was using those words to demonstrate why using different academic criteria for different groups of students was problematic.
The assumption being that this is actually happening to a significant degree. The SCOTUS has set down fairly strict rules governing affirmative action in admissions processes, including forbidding quotas and rigid point-systems that benefit minorities.
"The academic achievement gap between the admitted white and Asian students and those designated as "underrepresented minorities" is often huge, in statistical terms often exceeding a full standard deviation (equivalent to a 600 vs. a 700 on each of the sections of the SAT exam)."
Sounds like a significant degree to me. Should the OP pretend not to notice this is happening?
I know it doesn't cite sources, but neither do you.
You keep using that phrase, affirmative action. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Modern affirmative action in higher education isn't about meeting quotas and admitting inferior students; rather, it's more like the Rooney Rule in the NFL, a way to make sure that minority students are getting looked at.
By the way, MIT has an active affirmative action program and we still seem to be doing just fine.
The University of Michigan would give you +1.0 on GPA if you were black (e.g., 2.8 GPA -> 3.8 GPA):
http://www.cir-usa.org/Images/mich_index.gif
Medical schools have similar practices - the average black student accepted into medical school has GPA/MCAT a full standard deviation below the average white student. (I.e., 50% of black medical students are in the bottom 20% of medical students.)
http://web.archive.org/web/20080801022539/http://www.aamc.or...
But since you brought it up... At Caltech they didn't say they didn't use affirmative action at all. They said they didn't lower the "academic" criteria- i.e. test scores and GPA- for minority students. They do that at some schools. I wouldn't know about MIT.
Funny, you certainly had no problem rubbing your offensive, misguided views about minority students in my face.
They said they didn't lower the "academic" criteria- i.e. test scores and GPA- for minority students. They do that at some schools. I wouldn't know about MIT.
They don't do that at any schools in the United States, actually ... at least not at any in compliance with Federal law.
And then you say that I have offensive and misguided views about minority students when I have not professed any views about minority students.
I don't think I'm being overly inventive when I say you seem rather inventive.
Sure you have, scare quotes and all. From your comment:
The point was that the stereotype is formed quite strongly because those groups do exist on campus .... If there were no academic differences between the regular student body and minorities or athletes people wouldn't make those "offensive" generalizations.
Except that it's not the truth ... no schools do that for minority students. It's a strawman.
Having taught at UoM, I can say that unfortunately this translated to their performance on exams as well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratz_v._Bollinger
So yes, it's a strawman ... no schools do that anymore. Lots of schools never did it. And the schools that were doing so, were doing so with a fundamental misunderstanding of and in non-compliance with both the spirit and letter of the law.
Entering "minorities" and athletes enter with lower GPAs and SATs.
So? Surprise, surprise: when you start adding factors besides pre-college test scores to your admissions criteria you see ... variation in pre-college scores.
The methodology has changed. Now they use humans instead of a point system.
So you're unhappy that non SAT/GPA factors are taken into account. I'm curious if you've got the intellectual consistency to be in favor of simply ranking all students by their high school GPAs and SAT scores in descending order and taking the first N students. Maybe we don't actually need admissions committees or essays at all ...
Actually, they do. The Supreme Court decision involving the University of Michigan Law School explicitly allowed that practice.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger
* The Court's majority ruling, authored by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, held that the United States Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."
Gratz didn't overturn Grutter. (They were issued the same day.) Grutter says that some things are permissible while Graz says that some other things aren't.
Yup ... I was outside the Supreme Court that day, actually. :)
Gratz makes clear that point systems are illegal, which was my claim. I never claimed that affirmative action or race considerations are illegal, writ large.
The original claim was "They said they didn't lower the "academic" criteria- i.e. test scores and GPA- for minority students."
Grutter said that they could use race to decide admit certain folks according to different criteria than they use for other folks.
The point was that the stereotype is formed quite strongly because those groups do exist on campus. He was using those words to demonstrate why using different academic criteria for different groups of students was problematic. If there were no academic differences between the regular student body and minorities or athletes people wouldn't make those "offensive" generalizations.