New "Affirmative Action" nonsense

[fromderinside]

Grades are one factor (where she was below average for UM applicants as well) but grades suffer from school based differences and, in recent years, grade inflation.

She was within the median quartile of accepted students based on grades. Her life experience advantages are probably a UM researcher's dream. Student body president, Champion debater, rich extra-curricular resume, strong community support. Where do you get the idea that ACT is predictive of anything more than it selects for those who have already been there, ie, white, mostly professional class, people.

My strongest point is my claim that the top 5 or 10 percent graduates from most any school can succeed at UM or MIT. I'm all in favor of what Texas tried to do. They attempted to accept the top five percent of graduates from each high school. It got hammered by the white elites of course.

I see no reason why someone who isn't a copy of the nation's parent needs to travel, as I did, an extra couple careers before becoming a postdoc at CalTech. It matters to walk the walk, not to just enjoy the privilege of being of the in group.

 

[Jokodo]

<snip>When a criminal cannot be found, we do not jail the criminal's daughter

Indeed we don't jail her. But we do take away the house she inherited, without any wrongdoing on her side, if we find it was fraudulently obtained by her father, so that we can return it to the heir of its rightful owner.

<snip>People who were wronged and are now dead cannot be compensated. People who were not wronged do not need to be compensated.<snip>

Do you honestly believe that no people alive today suffer from the consequences of those centuries of discrimination? That surely would be the height of <edit>absurdity</edit>.

 

[Derec]

She was within the median quartile of accepted students based on grades.

Evidence that she was in the "median quartile"? She could just as easily be in the "lower quartile" or (less likely) outside the range altogether.
But GPA is not the only variable. Her ACT scores are abysmal for someone applying to such highly selective school.

Her life experience advantages are probably a UM researcher's dream.

Why? Because she is black she automatically has better "life experience" than whitey?

Student body president, Champion debater, rich extra-curricular resume, strong community support.

You will find that most applicants these days have similarly padded high school resume. Student body president is just a popularity contest anyway. As far as "champion debater" - statements like "they rejected me because of my morals" and "I left the plantation" don't exactly bear witness to that. By the way, what does "strong community support" mean? Everyone in her neighborhood wants her to go to UM? How is that relevant to admissions?

Where do you get the idea that ACT is predictive of anything more than it selects for those who have already been there, ie, white, mostly professional class, people.

- what evidence is there that ACT selects based on race? It's like SATs - it asks questions on Math and English - nothing race based here.
- none of the kids applying for freshman class "have already been there" by definition.
Should standardized tests be the only determining factor? Of course not, but they should be one of them and they are certainly better than using race as a determining factor (what AA proponents want).

My strongest point is my claim that the top 5 or 10 percent graduates from most any school can succeed at UM or MIT. I'm all in favor of what Texas tried to do. They attempted to accept the top five percent of graduates from each high school. It got hammered by the white elites of course.

That ignores differences between schools. Top 5% at one school may be equivalent to top 20% at another. Also I have seen no numbers as to this girl's class rank anyway - what evidence do you have that she was within 10% of her graduating class? With 3.5 GPA I doubt that, especially with GPAs >4.0 being common in the high school world these days.
But you will find that the big problem with Texas policy (and the reason for the lawsuit) wasn't the "top 10% admission" but that it applied a race-based standard for the rest.

I see no reason why someone who isn't a copy of the nation's parent needs to travel

What does that even mean? Don't go all poetic on me now!

It matters to walk the walk, not to just enjoy the privilege of being of the in group.

I agree. This girl wants to enjoy the privilege of being black and be automatically admitted based on her membership in that group.

 

[Jokodo]

? The article reveals both her ACT score and her GPA, as well as the average ACT and GPA of admitted students.

The average scores are uninformative as to whether or not she should have gotten in. What's relevant is the scores of people who only just got in and/or acceptance rates for people with her scores. None of that can be deduced from the averages of those accepted. I thought you knew enough statistics for that?

 

[Jokodo]

Actually, I can see a good reason for legacy admissions--see my emphasis above. The issue is whether they actually displace anyone and so long as enough money is involved I don't think they do.

You have a university that admits 10,000 honestly. Lets say they do 500 legacy admissions also. Did that displace 500 qualified students? Or do they now have enough money to admit 10,000 qualified students *AND* the 500 legacy ones?

If it's less than enough then the legacy admissions are bad. If it's more than enough the legacy admissions are a net good. (Note that you need to average it over all donors, not on a case-by-case basis.)

So you're saying admitting individuals who individually don't merit it is a good thing as long as it is a net good for the university. This would seem to imply that lowering standards for minority students is a good thing as long as it, by increasing diversity, improves the experience of all students.

If you don't think those two are comparable, you're going to have to explain. Alternatively, you can retract you defence of legacy admissions.

 

[Derec]

Indeed we don't jail her. But we do take away the house she inherited, without any wrongdoing on her side, if we find it was fraudulently obtained by her father, so that we can return it to the heir of its rightful owner.

But you do it for specific, concrete fraudulent activity and within a timely manner. You do not punish anyone who kinda-sorta looks like (i.e. is not even necessarily related to) the long-dead fraudster to benefit anyone who kinda-sorta looks like (i.e. is not even necessarily related to) the long-dead rightful owner.

Do you honestly believe that no people alive today suffer from the consequences of those centuries of discrimination? That surely would be the height of discrimination.

Freshmen today have been born in 1996-97. Even their parents were mostly born after the civil rights legislation was passed. At some point people need to take responsibility for themselves and not blame whitey for everything!

 

[Metaphor]

Indeed we don't jail her. But we do take away the house she inherited, without any wrongdoing on her side, if we find it was fraudulently obtained by her father, so that we can return it to the heir of its rightful owner.

You know that White people are poorer for discrimination having taken place, right? Discrimination is not a zero-sum game. It's negative sum. Everyone's poorer. The United States is a poorer nation for the discrimination of the past, poorer than it would have been had no discrimination taken place, because discrimination reduces total productivity.

But yes, I agree that the children of criminals should not inherit ill-gotten gains. And where specific criminals have ripped off people's property, as much restitution as possible ought to be made. But we don't take away the property of all people who share a skin colour with the criminals of the past. And when you discriminate against people by race, which affirmative action does, you create another negative-sum cycle.

Do you honestly believe that no people alive today suffer from the consequences of those centuries of discrimination? That surely would be the height of discrimination.

The proponents of affirmative action always have some reason that the people who have earned their way in didn't earn their way in.

I've had people on the previous board say Asians that didn't get in the top percentiles were probably lazy and deserved to be passed over. People scream about 'cram' and preparatory courses, as if studying and preparing somehow makes you less worthy to get in. The principal way people claim discrimination has an ongoing effect is the reduced economic resources in historically discriminated against families, yet they never suggest affirmative action for lower socioeconomic backgrounds -- that might help poor Whites or Asians.

My parents were immigrant labourers who were not schooled beyond year 9. All my mother's siblings died from malnutrition when she was a child. We are White (Slavic), but not elite.

But, I was blessed with moderate intelligence and, especially, a boundless curiosity to read and learn. I did well in high school but I caned it at University, making the Dean's List and graduating first class honours. But affirmative action proponents would say that I was somehow unfairly advantaged by my Whiteness, despite the discrimination my own parents faced. Somehow, I'm to blame for the discrimination against other groups, and if I'm not to blame, well I still need to take one for the team.

 

[Metaphor]

The average scores are uninformative as to whether or not she should have gotten in. What's relevant is the scores of people who only just got in and/or acceptance rates for people with her scores. None of that can be deduced from the averages of those accepted. I thought you knew enough statistics for that?

Actually, I do know enough statistics to know that.

Given how opaque University admissions boards are -- and how proponents of 'holistic' criteria and 'diversity' recruiting approve of this opacity, I'm not surprised we don't have the cutoffs for the most marginal entrants.

I assume then, if we found a massive discrepancy in the acceptance rates of similarly, marginally-qualified Whites and Blacks, that that would be enough to show discrimination, right?

Because when I produced such statistics for medical schools admissions, showing that marginally qualified Blacks and Latinos were let in at twice the rate or even three times the rate of similarly marginally-qualified Whites and Asians, I was told that was no evidence at all of discrimination.

So, which is it? If we found out that UM let in 70% of Whites who were similarly qualified (grades and aptitude) to the student in question, but let in only 30% of Blacks who were similarly qualified, would you then consider that evidence of discrimination? I almost certainly would, unless there was compelling evidence of a difference in other criterion that were also used for admission.

So, when marginally-qualified Black students are let into medical school at two or three times the rate of similarly marginally-qualified Whites and Asians, is that not also evidence of discrimination?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

She was within the median quartile of accepted students based on grades. Her life experience advantages are probably a UM researcher's dream. Student body president, Champion debater, rich extra-curricular resume, strong community support. Where do you get the idea that ACT is predictive of anything more than it selects for those who have already been there, ie, white, mostly professional class, people.

My strongest point is my claim that the top 5 or 10 percent graduates from most any school can succeed at UM or MIT. I'm all in favor of what Texas tried to do. They attempted to accept the top five percent of graduates from each high school. It got hammered by the white elites of course.

I see no reason why someone who isn't a copy of the nation's parent needs to travel, as I did, an extra couple careers before becoming a postdoc at CalTech. It matters to walk the walk, not to just enjoy the privilege of being of the in group.

Is being in the top 5% of the population at large enough to get into MIT? No. Thus why would you think the top 5% from any given school is good enough?

It's just a way to discriminate without calling it discrimination.

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So you're saying admitting individuals who individually don't merit it is a good thing as long as it is a net good for the university. This would seem to imply that lowering standards for minority students is a good thing as long as it, by increasing diversity, improves the experience of all students.

If you don't think those two are comparable, you're going to have to explain. Alternatively, you can retract you defence of legacy admissions.

No. I'm saying the money brought in by the donors does more good than the legacy admissions does bad.

 

[laughing dog]

You know that White people are poorer for discrimination having taken place, right? Discrimination is not a zero-sum game. It's negative sum. Everyone's poorer.

How do figure that? Some people enriched themselves.

But, I was blessed with moderate intelligence and, especially, a boundless curiosity to read and learn. I did well in high school but I caned it at University, making the Dean's List and graduating first class honours. But affirmative action proponents would say that I was somehow unfairly advantaged by my Whiteness, despite the discrimination my own parents faced. Somehow, I'm to blame for the discrimination against other groups, and if I'm not to blame, well I still need to take one for the team.

If you are serious, you really have no idea what affirmative action or means. AA does not mean discrimination against anyone. It means making an extra effort to find and recruit qualified individuals. Yes, AA has been used to justify outright discrimination in some instances, but misuse of any tool does not mean the tool is wrong or useless.

 

[Metaphor]

How do figure that? Some people enriched themselves.

That's true of war too, but overall the destruction of lives and property, and the funneling of resources into the war instead of the ordinary business of living, makes all participants worse overall.

Every single time an act of discrimination took place that was based on an arbitrary, non-performance related factor (e.g. racial discrimination), America's GDP shrank compared to what it would have been had no discrimination taken place, and the most qualified gotten the position.

Once upon a time, women were barred from nearly every institute of higher learning. We are all the poorer now, including men, for women having been barred from it. Everyone would have been better off if women had never been discriminated against arbitrarily.

Of course, I'm talking about averages and medians; individual results would vary.

If you are serious, you really have no idea what affirmative action or means. AA does not mean discrimination against anyone. It means making an extra effort to find and recruit qualified individuals. Yes, AA has been used to justify outright discrimination in some instances, but misuse of any tool does not mean the tool is wrong or useless.

AA has a wide scope and refers to a broad spectrum of actions. Some of these actions are desirable (such as good faith efforts to canvass broadly for qualified applicants) to very bad and grossly undesirable (such as discriminating against Asians and Whites in medical school).

 

[laughing dog]

That's true of war too, but overall the destruction of lives and property, and the funneling of resources into the war instead of the ordinary business of living, makes all participants worse overall.

Every single time an act of discrimination took place that was based on an arbitrary, non-performance related factor (e.g. racial discrimination), America's GDP shrank compared to what it would have been had no discrimination taken place, and the most qualified gotten the position.

Once upon a time, women were barred from nearly every institute of higher learning. We are all the poorer now, including men, for women having been barred from it. Everyone would have been better off if women had never been discriminated against arbitrarily.

Of course, I'm talking about averages and medians; individual results would vary.

Which means we are all not necessarily poorer. Which is why discrimination persisted - it did improve the lives of those on top.

AA has a wide scope and refers to a broad spectrum of actions. Some of these actions are desirable (such as good faith efforts to canvass broadly for qualified applicants) to very bad and grossly undesirable (such as discriminating against Asians and Whites in medical school).

I agree. Which is why much of the AA rhetoric is so dismaying, because it lumps the good with bad (or bad with the good). Lots of AA critics (not all) dismiss the entire concept even though there is much good that can be generated from its proper application.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

AA does not mean discrimination against anyone. It means making an extra effort to find and recruit qualified individuals.

Individuals explicitly of a particular race, gender, etc? If so, that may be of a less objectionable sort, but it is still discrimination.

 

[Metaphor]

Which means we are all not necessarily poorer. Which is why discrimination persisted - it did improve the lives of those on top.

It probably did -- but those at the top -- and the descendants of those at the top -- are not paying the price of affirmative action. The rest are paying the price.

It's not the children of the elite who worked as fire fighters in New Haven, Connecticut, but were denied promotions because of the city's paranoia at being slammed with a disparate impact lawsuit.

 

[Toni]

That's true of war too, but overall the destruction of lives and property, and the funneling of resources into the war instead of the ordinary business of living, makes all participants worse overall.

Every single time an act of discrimination took place that was based on an arbitrary, non-performance related factor (e.g. racial discrimination), America's GDP shrank compared to what it would have been had no discrimination taken place, and the most qualified gotten the position.

Once upon a time, women were barred from nearly every institute of higher learning. We are all the poorer now, including men, for women having been barred from it. Everyone would have been better off if women had never been discriminated against arbitrarily.

Of course, I'm talking about averages and medians; individual results would vary.



AA has a wide scope and refers to a broad spectrum of actions. Some of these actions are desirable (such as good faith efforts to canvass broadly for qualified applicants) to very bad and grossly undesirable (such as discriminating against Asians and Whites in medical school).

Yeah, you make some good points up until you ride your favorite hobby horse off a cliff. And that point might be a valid one if test scores and GPAs were perfect or even the best predictor of who would make a good physician. The medical community has come to the conclusion that they do not. I've given you lots of links on the other board so I won't bother with it now.

 

[Toni]

That doesn't make any sense. You're going to need better and worse schools. The guys who go to Harvard Law don't benefit from being in the same class as the guys who go to the West Texas Legal Academy. Even if there are resources given to everybody, there's going to need to be a segregation between those in the elite courses and those who don't qualify for the elite courses.

I see where you're going with this, Tom, but you forget that without associating with the guys from West Texas Legal Academy, the Harvard boys won't have many first hand examples of who they are looking down upon.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I see where you're going with this, Tom, but you forget that without associating with the guys from West Texas Legal Academy, the Harvard boys won't have many first hand examples of who they are looking down upon.

That's why they let the butler's kid live in the mansion. This allows the children to grow up getting experience of how to be able to frown upon the lower classes while also associTing with them.

 

[Toni]

Also, does the University of Michigan not currently have a diverse student population? -- I see an uphill battle. It probably be better for her to go to junior college and prove herself there. She's probably just a naive young kid who have been spurned into this action by the reactionary group.

Disclaimer: I am a college recruiter for a Big10 university (not the one in question).

Here is a link to the University's demographics: http://ro.umich.edu/enrollment/ethnicity.php

It's a pretty white place. Given that U of Michigan is a state university (of national and even international prominence, of course), I would think that there would be a greater diversity. Since the 1960's, the U has promised that it was committed to achieving a student body that more closely reflected the state demographics, with a minimum of 10% black students. So far, they haven't hit half that.

Please note: I am not suggesting that this particular student should have been admitted--or should have been denied admission. I don't have enough information. Her grades and ACT scores were below the average for U of MI, but by definition, some students will have below average metrics. Her other achievements are notable and typically, showing leadership on a team which is nationally ranked will get you some leeway. Also worth noting is that this particular student's test scores and GPA were very, very close to that of Jennifer Gratz, who was successful in her lawsuit (which was specious: she was wait listed and the year she applied ALL wait listed candidates were offered admission. She wasn't because she claimed her application to be on the wait list was 'lost.' The University claimed it never saw it. I don't know what happened but I do know that a) 18 year olds often claim they mailed something in when they did not and b) large universities do indeed sometimes lose paperwork and documentation.

What we don't know, unless I have missed it entirely, is what the distribution of students admitted looks like: how many applicants with scores similar to Kimbroughs were admitted, how many with lower scores, etc.

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That's why they let the butler's kid live in the mansion. This allows the children to grow up getting experience of how to be able to frown upon the lower classes while also associTing with them.

Silly Tom. Harvard did away with the custom of having butlers live in student housing ages ago.

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? The article reveals both her ACT score and her GPA, as well as the average ACT and GPA of admitted students.

You are correct. I must learn not to post when I am sleep deprived and in a hurry.

 

[laughing dog]

Individuals explicitly of a particular race, gender, etc? If so, that may be of a less objectionable sort, but it is still discrimination.

Any time a choice is made, it is discrimination. So you need to be more specific. Finding qualified people from a specific class and getting them to apply does not reduce any opportunity for anyone else, so how is it discrimination?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Any time a choice is made, it is discrimination. So you need to be more specific. Finding qualified people from a specific class and getting them to apply does not reduce any opportunity for anyone else, so how is it discrimination?

If you are particularly targeting a race or gender for recruitment, going to them, and providing encouragement to them to apply that you don't provide to those of another race or gender, that is a form of discrimination. Not sure how to explain that if you can't see it. I don't think its nearly as objectionable as giving them lower entrance standards, but its still discrimination.