There are complaints that standardize testing isn't equal. Basically that some portions of the testing reflect white culture, which puts minorities at a disadvantage. I read the article a while back, but one of the examples they gave was the choice of words to test on the SAT. One of the questions was asking for a synonym for "armoire". The article posited that that term was far more likely to be recognized by white students because their family was more likely to actually own one, and further to refer it to as an armoire instead of simply a wardrobe or cabinets. I think there was another question that involved boats that was similar.

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?

If you frame it as a fight against poverty we’re making incredible progress. Now we can ask the question in a way that might lead to a real solution. The solution could either be fix the biased vocabulary in the test or give everyone armoires. Or overhaul the economic system so that more families can afford armoires.

Wonder no more. It very explicitly is.

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.