It must create a weird dynamic to have two identifiable groups where you know one got there on merit alone, while the other one maybe benefited from a quota.

Now, introducing any criteria which results in a different set of applicants than the top 100 necessarily lowers the bar of proficiency. It doesn't have to be affirmative action, it could be any arbitrary change in criteria. "We want just as many people named Michael as people named Jim." Well, if that wasn't the case in the original set of applicants, you're no longer getting the top 100. Affirmative action by race is no different. It's not that there is a debate here, as I said, it is that you are necessarily lowering the bar of proficiency by introducing another set of arbitrary criteria.

Maybe there were 6 Michaels and 1 Jim in the top 100. In order to balance them out, there would likely have to be some Michaels removed, some Jims added, and some people from other common names removed. Every person that was removed for a Jim from outside of the original 100 was more qualified and excluded due to the arbitrary criteria. The bar was lowered.

If this is the starting position, then it is mathematically possible for affirmative action to deliver more equitable outcomes without lowering the objective bar.

So yes, affirmative action produces suboptimal results if you believe the world is already perfectly fair, and the "losers" weren't as qualified, due to differences between groups in preferences or abilities. Alternatively, affirmative action provides a slight correction to an unfair world, if you believe that all groups are equally capable, and differences in outcomes indicate how much bias is left to overturn.

If that was the case they wouldn't drop SAT. Fact is they want to accept people with worse objective scores, this whole discussion and article is about that fact. Instead they will use "culture fit" and "leadership potential" to discriminate against Asians and bring in more desirable minorities.

No, just that it's as close as you can get with the imperfect tools at your disposal. Even if your tools are really bad—like, if the variation in scores on your test suite is 10% ability, 90% luck—well, if that's the best tool you have for sorting by ability, then you should use it, and to the extent that you ignore its recommendations in favor of racial or other preferences, that will lower the average ability of the candidates you accept. (Unless your tool is so bad that selecting by race outperforms it—which is a very unfortunate situation, and one that should be avoided as much as possible.)

This would no longer be the example I described. This is why people who support something approximating a meritocracy are typically in favor of any efforts to remove bias, and move in a direction of blind hiring. It is disingenuous to say that this is the objective of those in favor of affirmative action, however, as color/gender blindness is not their goal at all. The example here of getting rid of the SAT is a perfect example of that.

> you believe that all groups are equally capable, and differences in outcomes indicate how much bias is left to overturn

And this is the fundamental difference. Advocates of affirmative action/CRT believe that different population outcomes can be used as a de facto post hoc rationalization that the system which produced the outcomes must be necessarily biased in favor or against the groups. This is fallacious thinking. The conclusion doesn't even follow your own premise, and your premise is simply an assertion of what you believe to be true.

"[I] believe that all groups are equally capable, therefore differences in outcomes indicate that systems are biased." This is a fallacious statement. Capability is a minor, minor portion of the equation. Interest, culture, behavior, geography, income, wealth, history... Where do these fit into your model?

Let me tell you something about hiring. I've been responsible for hiring engineers on many occasions, and still am. If I were instructed to achieve, for example, 50/50 parity between male and female engineers: I would have to hire 100% of the female engineer applicants. If I were instructed to make sure that 13% of the engineers were black (to be in line with population levels): I would have to hire 100% of the black engineer applicants.

Your de facto reasoning that the reason that engineers are overwhelmingly white/east Asian/Indian/Eastern European is that the hiring system is favored as such. The pool of applicants, however, skews even further towards this representation. Almost all companies are already trying to capture a greater proportion of other demographics, and are simply unable to do so. But in regards to sacrificing proficiency, if you understand the proportionality of the applicant pool, your argument of not sacrificing proficiency completely falls apart. It's as I said, if I were to get 50/50 female representation, I would literally have to get rid of proficiency criteria altogether and literally hire every woman on the spot. It would absolutely be a massive hit to proficiency. That isn't saying that women are less proficient at engineering.

Lastly, I'm curious if you care about this for anything else. For example, Indians are extremely over represented in medicine as compared to their population. Filipinos are extremely over represented in nursing as compared to their population. Because you believe all group are equally capable, you surely believe that a cabal of Filipino nurses and their in group preferences are responsible for maintaining the hegemony of Filipino nurse supremacy, correct?

I'm responsible for hiring engineers as well, and I don't actually think discrimination plays much of a role at this point in the pipeline; I just rarely see candidates from underrepresented groups cross my desk. From here, it looks like a supply issue upstream (whether from preferences, abilities, or bias). So in this little corner of the world, I agree that affirmative action would require compromising on proficiency. Other corners may be different.

The one strategy I've heard of that doesn't do this, and isn't something any rational organization who saw no intrinsic benefit to "diversity" would already be doing, is "spending extra recruitment resources to yield good candidates of the underrepresented groups". For example, you could send 5 recruiters to all-female colleges or majority-black colleges that aren't highly ranked in CS, in the hopes of turning up as many good programmer candidates as you'd get from sending 1 recruiter to a highly-ranked CS college. That indeed does not require a lower bar—although it spends resources in a way I'd consider wasteful.

But I don't think that's what affirmative action normally means, and I'm generally leery of allowing proponents to redefine the term more broadly (that type of thing enables motte-and-bailey argumentation).

Did you have another strategy in mind?

How else can it be done?

So, yeah, that's true of API, but its just as true of, say, White.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000292970...

Yes, "Continental superpopulations" is a more accurate term but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue...

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSmcWGV...

The API group is basically "everyone else".

But the application of course states that race and gender are not considered....hmmm.

Sowell has an interesting take on AA and believes it actually does more harm than good because it pits those subject to it against scenarios they have not been prepared to handle and thus in turn results in over-stress, higher rates of failure, and ultimately disillusionment.

A: We want equality, why are white people successful?

B: Clearly because they went to a good college.

C: Okay easy, let’s put the underprivileged into good colleges, that should fix ‘er right up.

It doesn't seem like anybody is interested in solving the hard problem of why underprivileged communities aren’t producing good high school graduates. Maybe it has something to do with, IDK, the fact that they’re under served and underprivileged? Maybe primary education is a more important factor than the name at the top of your college transcript? Maybe good communities produce outstanding colleges and universities, not the other way around? Yet we can’t seem to spend money on primary education or figure out how to help struggling communities. Why is that?

That's not to say that racism isn't a problem; it is, and we should fix it. It's not going to magically solve problems like graduation rates and income gaps, however.

The supposition we’re exploring in this sub-thread is that AA is not actually a treatment for racism and more of a signal of virtue collectively by society. Real treatment would be to do the expensive and disruptive thing, yes.

I coach little league, and have been following a group of now ten year olds since 2016 or so. They are all awesome, but the cracks that come from family life and environment are starting to show up. I fear for a few of them.

The same people who are seeking equity in college are seeking it in high school and elementary school and preschool. The same opponents and arguments come out against them at all of these phases.

I have personal experience with this work in both the elementary school and high school levels. What you are saying here is simply false.

Let’s take the pessimistic stance that society is actively working to perpetually oppress the lower class and under privileged. If so then the fact that e.g. college AA is allowed to slip by but primary school support is opposed with death threats tells me that fixing primary school education is barking up the right tree or poking the hornets nest, what have you. The real threat is actual competition, which starts in the early years.

I tend to think is less of some insidious underbelly of society working to keep people oppressed and rather a more simple: good primary schools cost money and resources and we are ultimately selfish people who signal virtue yet balk come time to face reality and fund it. But that doesn't really change the conclusion. Democratize access to good primary school education. Increase funding and dismantle broken school district “gerrymandering” of funds allocation (in many cities rich communities produce rich and desirable primary schools because funds are allocated at the neighborhood level so it just perpetuates inequality). In my opinion the most effective thing a single concerned family can do would be to move to an under privileged neighborhood and send their kids to the public school there. Force yourself to confront reality and work to better the education for all. How many upper middle class virtue signaling anti racist parents (or parents to be) do you know who go gentrify a neighborhood and then send their kids to a charter school? Yeah. That’s literally SF in a nutshell for you.

Speaking of primary, elementary level perspective…

The school in question is where I went prior to its closing. After I graduated, white families decided to close a very new, nice school because they just didn’t want their kids among black students.

Even where there is money and great support, whites just don’t want to have any funding to go to black kids without their say-so.

It will never be solved. The hate is too deep. My old neighborhood had to resort to lengthy legal proceedings to get what they already paid for.

This is why affirmative action is necessary. The whites on the board closed the school because they wanted control.

Does anyone see how totally messed up this situation is and how it highlights the reality of deeply ingrained racism? Even middle class blacks who are not poverty level and not asking for free lunches can’t get a break. They bought and paid for a modern school, watched white people run away to other communities then forced the blacks to be bussed to the white school where the whites could allocate taxes their government controlled.

Not related but interesting: This is also where Shonda Rhimes, famous writer/producer of Grey’s Anatomy, grew up.

I can only share my experience, but in my case it is literally the same people. The same organizers and leaders. There are surely people out there who support one and not the other, but I don't observe them acting. When I see the people at the school board meetings, it is the same faces opposing initiatives trying to get more kids on free-and-reduced-lunch into accelerated elementary programs and also opposing initiatives to get more kids on free-and-reduced-lunch into magnet high schools.

> How many upper middle class virtue signaling anti racist parents (or parents to be) do you know who go gentrify a neighborhood and then send their kids to a charter school?

Lots. But this isn't some proof that the activists are all liars. Again, these don't tend to be the people actually pushing for change at school board meetings.

My point about the parents sending their kids to magnet schools is that they’re kinda cancerous turds. They are actively resisting true diversity while at the same time claiming to be woke fucking anti racist saints. Fuck that attitude.

The people you are complaining about don’t show up on either side.

What is the argument from these people that show up across the board to oppose AA programs at younger levels? What are the programs? What is their goal? Just trying to get a profile on the type of people who are frustrating you.

UncleMeat is a Zappa album title so I'm certain that others use it as a handle.

In light of that, Sowell's take makes no sense.

The author is missing the point of this education.

For almost ALL students the aim is to get a prestigious certificate as this is the gateway to a upper middle class lifestyle.

The education is largely irrelevant. (Most are going to end up as real estate agents of financial advisors anyway).

Which is why a bunch of rich Hollywood folk were recently bust for bribing their way into top Californian colleges. It was not for the calculus.

Fear not for the kids: these top universities handle the intellectual demands with soft courses, grading on a curve, supplementary exams, oral exams, etc.

The only real challenge is to get in. Politicising it is the best approach for a large demographic.

Yes, in many cases a prestigious college degree is just a social signal. But that doesn’t materially change anything. Let’s concede for a moment that all college degrees are simply a ticket to an upper middle class lifestyle. Then that seems to imply the students receiving the degree were already essentially prepared for upper middle class lifestyle upon entrance to college. Those being thrown into the mix from underprivileged communities majorly are not. It’s even worse than the charitable interpretation whereby colleges confer essential skills to their graduates. You're just giving people a fancy suit and hoping they figure out how to use it to get a job.

I’ve experienced this first hand with the posse program. One of my closest friends in college was a posse member. It has been heart breaking to watch them struggle and regress after college. My friend group and I have tried to help, motivate, and encourage, the best we could exiting college and at various points since. We helped them get into TFA. They gave up after 6 months. We tried to get him jobs. Nothing and now they’ve essentially disappeared and rarely interface with us anymore. This person has a special wit about them, they’re bright and deserving as any of a successful life. The college ticket simply isn’t enough for this person because so much of their identity is tied to the community of people they developed in the first 18 years of life. 4 years and a degree is too little too late.

So this is the entire point: it’s incredibly naive and reeks of a search for an an easy out to sit back any say that college is the only thing that matters the challenge is simply getting people in so let’s just skip the challenge and fudge the numbers and “get them in”. I don't care if your provocative econ class taught you college is just a signaling process, that’s a rash short sighted response to an intense submission to “white” guilt. The challenge is solving the challenge. The challenge is providing resources required to hoist entire communities out of their rut so they can be held to the same standards as everyone else, the answer is not to trash our standards (as we’re literally doing by removing standardized tests from admission processes) and regress our expectations to the lowest common denominator.

Oh yea, this is what should be done.

And like many other problems, I assure you its not going to be fixed. Far too many parties prefer the status quo - including the disadvantaged kids.

I hope I am wrong.

I wonder if that push toward diminishing the impact of measurable, standardized testing isn't an attempts at generating more "equally qualified applicants"

I think the article also noted that in many cases, the questions really discriminated more against poverty than race. Race gets dragged in because people of color are drastically overrepresented in poverty, so anything impacted by poverty will also show an effect along racial boundaries (at least when aggregated).

The underlying question is whether the score boost you get from being born into a high enough social class to have wide exposure to things like that actually makes you more qualified or not. It certainly boosts your test scores, but does knowing what an armoire is actually make you more qualified, or does it just keep poor people out?

Here’s the “logic”: If we give a standardized test to a random selection of people and then look at the results and add a racial overlay, white people (allegedly) disproportionately succeed. Therefore the test itself is racist. It is an unwanted artifact that encodes the privileged (alleged) majority’s innate biases and confers structural racism upon future generations. These artifacts must be purged. This is the way.

Let’s concede for a moment the definition of structural racism and agree it’s worth addressing in the admissions process. The problem then is not the desire to address the perceived oppression, but rather the conclusion that we should just tear down the racist institution without a viable replacement on hand. If we tear down pillars of rational society (or, western liberalism), then what remains is not ideologically consistent.

It might surprise people who only know California by reputation and assume it is completely full of raging lefties, but affirmative action measures have been pretty soundly rejected by voters many times in the past three decades and the state has not been allowed to implement any of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sander

They should oppose it because it likely harms black people.

The pro-209 campaign was outspent something like $27M to $1.6M but still prevailed.

This thinking model is best to be dropped into the dustbins of history.

Like many things, this is in large part about liberal white people wanting to engage in social engineering on behalf of minorities who mostly don’t support their policy. Like “defund the police.”

And yet you haven't made any persuasive argument about what it "really" is or why it's good.

> But, then again conservatives aren’t thinking people.

Imagine the hubris someone must possess to casually dismiss millions of other people as "not thinking".

Have you looked in the mirror today?

This whole controversy is about a handful of the most elite schools in the nation. I find it more than a bit silly tbh, since whatever admissions policy they choose it's not going to be even close to affecting "the majority" of prospective students. We should be working to expand access to education at every level, not just focusing on such a tiny minority.

Come on guys, to be less racist we must be MORE racist!