> I also asked whether she was worried that conservative critics of affirmative action might use test scores to accuse Dartmouth of violating the recent Supreme Court ruling barring race-conscious admissions. She was not. Dartmouth can legally admit a diverse class while using test scores as one part of its holistic admissions process, she said.

I am conservative and I have no problem with poor students from disadvantaged backgrounds having their scores weighed differently.

I absolutely do have a problem with race-based admissions. Most conservatives have a problem with race-based admissions because it is not fair to poor students.

I remember a girl from my college (elite institution on west coast) that would go on and on about how disadvantaged she was because she was 'black'. Firstly, she's like a quarter black and looks completely white. Secondly, and more importantly, she's filthy rich. I mean... like multiple international trips a year growing up. Super picky about fashion, etc. Both parents had PhDs. Nevertheless, she qualified for all the diversity offerings the school had, including scholarships, special programs, etc.

Meanwhile, we had kids whose parents never attended college and grew up in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with very disadvantaged background, who were given nothing because of their race and sex.

Now, I'm certainly not part of the latter group (grew up middle class and am neither white nor black or any 'disadvantaged' minority) and frankly don't have a whole lot to lose in this debate, but seeing this with my own eyes has convinced me that we need to look at actual disadvantage, not just race. There are A LOT of high-achieving black, latinos, <insert minority here>. That's great! More power to them. I have no qualms with rich people.

I do have qualms when they pretend to be disadvantaged to get an advantage over obviously more disadvantaged others. This is annoying when Donald Trump does it. It's annoying when Elon Musk does it. And it's annoying if someone who's not white does it too.

The idea that simply because you're of a particular race, you're automatically disadvantaged is retarded.

I agree with 90% of this but I would say it's not entirely "retarded". It USED to be a very valid disadvantage across the board to have a minority race or skin color, but now as racism becomes less pervasive and "affirmative action" has had time to take effect it is becoming less of an effect. To dismiss it entirely ignores how much it seems to have accomplished.

I do hate to see poor and working class white male children pretty much hung out to dry in the eyes of progressives these days.

> It USED to be a very valid disadvantage across the board to have a minority race or skin color

I completely agree that this used to be the case. I might even argue that it is still true to an extent. I will also agree that we should still address it. My problem is when addressing it involves discriminating against asian Americans like me. The people who want to discriminate against asian Americans are just using "historical disadvantage" as an excuse, their actions are political/ideological.

The thing that made the least sense about Harvard's case was that Asians had a harder time getting in than white students. I could see the argument for other minorities being given a leg up over Asian students, but white students? That made no sense.

And the people who want to discriminate against Black Americans are just using "discriminating against Asian Americans" as an excuse, their actions are also political and ideological.

The last word of your post is considered a slur by people other people historically used it to describe.

Please don't use slurs here. There's no need for that.

I guess that by your standards "stupid" would be equally invalid. We don't use "retarded" as medical term. If you have a medical condition then you are "intellectually disabled". Retarded is now mainly used to mean "very stupid" or "incredibly stupid" in informal context e.g. like in HN comments.

We've changed to "blocklist" and "allowlist" to avoid giving offense.

Is it really too much to ask people to come up with another word to use that hasn't been hurled at innocent people as an insult?

Blockhead has definitely been hurled at innocent people as an insult.

A. People who attend poor high school and get a 29 on his ACT are admitted over students to went to a college prep private school and got a 32.

B. People who are of a certain race that get a 29 on their ACT are admitted over people of another race that get a 32.

It sounds like Dartmouth is doing A. The recent court cases had to do with schools that were doing B. If a college requires SAT/ACT tests and continues doing B, then it is pretty easy to see they are doing so based on objective data.

I believe those court cases are one of the reasons schools are moving to test optional--not because the SAT/ACT isn't useful to predict success at college, but because they see it as a liability in their acceptance process.

They still might do B but use proxies to determine probable race. It can be determined based on scales they apply to different high schools. Of course the underlining issue is US socioeconomic fabric that is the root cause of this issue.

That doesn’t actually address the concern if I understand it correctly. If Dartmouth is primarily concerned with accuracy, and SAT alone is predictive of performance, and wealthy students tend to score higher even for equally qualified applicants, then a test score only admissions process will naturally disadvantage poorer students.

> It’s worth acknowledging a crucial part of this story. Dartmouth admits disadvantaged students who have scores that are lower on average than those of privileged students.

They may have a higher bar for "privileged" students, i.e. Asian/white, but the bar is far lower for the truly Privileged legacies/donors.