Harvard just made this statement after the Trump administration backed the Asian Americans suing Harvard.
"Harvard does not discriminate against applicants from any group, and will continue to vigorously defend the legal right of every college and university to consider race as one factor among many in college admissions,"
How are they not discriminating against applicants when they consider race as a factor? Am I missing something?
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The line is drawn past including underrepresented minorities versus discriminating against "overrepresented" races. That line, however, can be extremely hard to define. My guess is Harvard will lose this battle.
The real question is when will firms be sued as well for a similar bias when it comes recruiting/promoting people? I always thought that ethnicity/sexual orientation/gender should never be considered in applications.
Wrong - they have better attorneys than the White House.
It's not the WH that's suing them but ok
I like that they consider race as a factor, 'officially', in the sense that it's message and goal is to include these multi-racial demographic. If it was the other way around, I think only then it would be true discrimination. If the numbers for certain groups start to shrink, why shouldn't they be sued, as empirical evidence will be impossible to disprove. Not sure if that's a legal argument, as I'm not a lawyer. But Justice is on the wrong side of this one, and sad that Trump is still putting a wedge between citizens.
Your comment is exactly the issue with Harvard. In one breath Harvard denies that it uses race illegally as a factor in admissions; in the next breath, Harvard's lawyers admit that Harvard uses race heavily as a factor in admissions and then tries to "morally" justify the behavior.
Harvard has an utterly incoherent defense.
Edited in italics.
This is how I read it.
liberal cognitive dissonance
Explain: "Harvard denies that it uses race as a factor"
I edited my original statement for accuracy.
Every Harvard statement surrounding this topic has Harvard saying that it uses race as a factor in admissions and then denies, against overwhelming statistical evidence, that it uses illegal discrimination based on race.
“In the weeks and months ahead, a lawsuit aimed to compromise Harvard’s ability to compose a diverse student body will move forward in the courts and in the media,” Faust wrote in the email. She said the plaintiffs “will seek to paint an unfamiliar and inaccurate image” of Harvard admissions. “These claims will rely on misleading, selectively presented data taken out of context,” Faust wrote. “Their intent is to question the integrity of the undergraduate admissions process and to advance a divisive agenda.”
Harvard clearly uses illegal discrimination based on race. Harvard's lawyers are almost not even arguing the point; they are arguing that what they're doing is moral, not necessarily legal. Harvard is saying that race is a fundamental admissions criteria necessary for its student body.
You’re just making this up.
http://thehill.com/opinion/education/393821-harvards-defense-of-anti-as…
Harvard’s admissions committee regularly de-selects Asian-American students because it judges them 'lower than others on traits like ‘positive personality,’ likeability, courage, kindness, and being ‘widely respected.’”
This is illegal discrimination. You can't say in one breath that you don't discriminate against Asians and in the next breath admit that you use race as a factor for admissions, especially when the data back up that you heavily discriminate against Asian students.
Lol did Harvard write this opinion piece? I’m confused where Harvard contradicts itself. It consistently states that it has a mission to recruit a diverse student body
Harvard says 1) it uses race as a factor in admissions; 2) denies that it discriminates against Asian applicants. This is an intellectually impossible argument to make.
Some say To-maa-toe; some say To-ma-toe. I’m not good with writing out accents.
I think you’re trying to say that because it says it does use race as a factor, it’s equivalent with admitting to discrimination. I would think the burden of proof is discrimination. But if Asians comprise ~6% of the US population, make up ~40% of the Harvard demographic, that seems like a leap and a jump, to say they discriminate AGAINST Asians.
OK, you're using that quote disingenuously, as it doesn't actually pertain to what Harvard's standards are, it pertains to what an outside group perceived/analyzed Harvard's admissions standards as.
And while there is obviously an optical issue here, Harvard has been pretty cogent in explaining why it's admissions standards are what they are. That there is a disconnect between the logic and the legality of it comes from the fact that the laws surrounding ethnic/religious bias in this country are due to a horrifically violent and prejudiced past, in which bigotry was overwhelmingly directed at a select few out groups.
That being said, Harvard's stance is that no one is disqualified on the basis of race; as in, no admissions officer looks at an Asian-American name and throws it in the reject pile. They contend that building a ethnically, geographically, and religiously diverse student body is and should be a goal for the university, because it ostensibly promotes a more vibrant discourse and experience on campus. There is a lot to be said for that, from an educational as well as ethical/moral point of view.
It's also incredibly stupid for Harvard to come out and say it. I mean, how do you prove this if you're the litigant? Admissions officers have nearly unlimited leeway in determining acceptance... all they had to do was keep quiet!
U can literally google what he said and it will direct you to Harvard's official statement.
This is insane. This is directly from their legal brief:
"SFFA’s invocation of ancient history should be seen for what it is: a publicity-seeking attempt to distract from its lack of any evidence that Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants," the Harvard brief argues.
While spending the rest of the brief admitting that it uses race as a factor and justifying it
-Liberals discriminate against Asians in university admissions -Asians sue said Liberal university ---->Liberal dude: ''DRUMF IS DIVIDING THE COUNTRY REEEE!'''
Where is the logical connection here? Seriously? Have you guys dynamited the bridges with logic and completely divorced from reality? Trump has barely anything to do with it, just one tweet and he tweets about everything, who cares. Who's dividing the country here are the ones that want to discriminate against a racial group, just like they want to discriminate against anyone with a different opinion and that's not the President.
I'm going to assume that you're not shouting, and you don't actually need to use all caps, like a fucking monkey trying to type. If you keep acting like little bitch down there, instead of keeping this a civil conversation, then you're done.
But, first thing on your post, I will say, that we all know this has nothing to do with how "hardworking" Asians are. Because, although you're claiming that Harvard groups Asians together negatively, you're doing the same thing using this caricature of them, which is hypocritical and illogical.
Secondly, this is either about telling liberals like De Blasio to go fuck himself, or it's about trying to get a deal done with The Middle Kingdom, like we see how shit spillsover with the denuclearization talks with trade.
Third, this whole debate rests on a very unacknowledged fallacy--which is the self-selection of Asian immigrants, whose kids in the 2nd or 3rd generations are the ones being pushed to college.
How "hardworking" they are is really beside the point, in the grand scheme of things, because their wealth places them in proximity to better schools, and they're almost guaranteed, based on their current rate of education attainment, to a good life, and that doesn't depend on Harvard.
When you look at most fights for Civil Rights, it seems like a fight for individuals. I mean even Abigail Fisher fought U of Texas as an individual. Who are these groups in the Asian battle? They're politically charged groups stirring the pot. That's fine, but don't be dumb to think this is really for Asians because they 'deserve' it.
In fact, some people are not convinced on this because you can sniff the bullshit being covered up. This is just my 2c. That's why, for now, I support the AA practice.
I generally find this to be a divisive ploy against Americans. Beyond that, I don't care that it matters too much. AA should probably end at some point, is that time now?
This thread is going to go REALLY well. Just like the other 100 threads on affirmative action have gone really well.
lmao, I'm staying on the sidelines with this one
They should just come out and say what they do... which is "We discriminate based on race, among other factors, to mold what we think is the ideal culture / diversity / racial breakdown of each admitted class"
THEN we can riot with pitchforks if we don't agree with that.
This. I hate how they deny something that is this apparent.
This is funny but literally how the world works when Harvard doesn’t have its existing practice ’(-;-)/‘
Could it be that many of the Asian (top students perform very well on the Academic side of things, but underperform in certain other aspects?
Most colleges want to sell / promote their school as a full "college experience", which means socializing with others, having fun, and what not. Not only being confined to the library for 12 hours a day.
I'm not saying that all, or even the majority of Asian students are like that, but when I went to college the Asians were certainly overly represented when it came to living in libraries, skimping on parties / student / social activities, and similar. But don't take my anecdotes for representative data.
Usually people will argue "But isn't that why they are there in the first place, to study and learn?" Sure, but diversity is good, IMO.
Hey I honestly think what you say makes some sort of sense. But I'm just wondering why they keep on denying this shit.
This is straight-up racism. I went to a high school that was 40% Asian. Asian-Americans are generally as American as apple pie. They play sports, do school gov't, etc. If you're talking about non-American Asians, maybe. But the Asian applicant from Michigan is probably just a regular American with a strong academic work ethic.
Yes, sorry, Asian students from abroad, through exchange programs (for a semester or two). Usually from China.
Harvard, and the rest of these schools, operate under a false premise. They believe that immorally using race as a factor in admissions is the only way to achieve a diverse student body. But we all know that similar racial diversity could be achieved through many affirmative action programs, such as geographic diversity, socio-economic diversity, and even diversity of interests. There are all kinds of ways to achieve racial diversity without de-humanizing Asians as being less interesting human beings because of their ethnicity. That's horseshit.
Yeah but to them they'll just say that its more demanding to collect many different data points such as the ones detailed above when they can just use race (presuming it highly correlates with the factors you listed).
Right. It's super easy to use racial stereotypes.
Lol. You are okay with these guys using racial stereotypes? Would you be okay as well if people use racial stereotypes against these said underrepresented minorities to deny their admission? Fckin horseshit.
The admission officers at elite colleges are lazy. Instead of seeking out applicants from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, they instead fulfill the racial diversity agenda by accepting upper middle class and affluent black and latino applicants from the typical feeder high schools.
Hoping like hell Harvard loses this. Fuck AA
I have written multiple threads on affirmative action, so I'm not going to delve too deep here. Suffice it to say, I support the Harvard lawsuit and the DOJ, and believe that affirmative action in its current form is a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
SCOTUS rulings on affirmative action has been rather vague over the years. Although it has struck down actual racial quotas (e.g. X% must be black, etc.), it has stated that colleges do have a right to pursue racial diversity and that race must be one of many factors used in admissions. Well, what exactly does this mean? Given the broad nature of the directive, colleges have a very wide latitude in its admissions process. And since they do not divulge internal data, there is no way for SCOTUS to know whether they are in violation until an actual case is brought up, one in which detailed data is revealed.
If you read the Harvard lawsuit, amongst other sources, the evidence for Asian discrimination is extremely strong. For instance, the % of Asians at Ivies has consistently been in the 15-20% range, although the population of Asians in the U.S. has doubled since the early 90s. In fact, at several of the Ivies, the Asian % is actually lower now than it was in the early 90s. And in the Harvard lawsuit, we are able to see internal statistics that were previously not available to the public. We see that on both academics and extracurriculars, Asians on the aggregate were ranked higher than whites, blacks, and latinos. However, the admission officers applied a harsh penalty to Asians when it came to "personal" qualities. But here's the real kicker. The alumni interviewers who actually interviewed the Asian applicants gave them personal ratings that were as high as the white applicants. So simply put, the admission officers who never even met the applicants were automatically discounting their personal qualities based on race. Moreover, Harvard's internal study showed that without affirmative action, the Asian % at Harvard would be around 30%, compared to the present rate of 20%.
What's happening here is that in order to promote racial diversity, colleges are artificially deflating the % of Asian students by subjecting them to higher standards simply by virtue of their racial background. That's discrimination: pure and simple.
Could you point me to the internal study at the end of point 2? I would like to reference it later.
Relevant charts here.
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/06/harvard-office-of-institutional_21…
My other issue with the whole affirmative action is where does it end? In the Fisher v Texas you had a Justice (probably Scalia) ask and hound the Texas layer about critical mass, defining it, and getting him/her to explain what level is the critical mass achieved...and I think this is important.
At what point is Harvard diverse enough? Do you need Blacks and Hispanics to be 40% of your incoming class YoY for Harvard to say, "Yep we did it!" When does this stupidity stop?
In the seminal 1978 Bakke case, in which the SCOTUS ruled that racial quotas are unconstitutional, the majority ruled in favor of using race as a factor amongst many but stated that within several decades the practice should be discontinued. Affirmative action made sense in the 60s and 70s in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Era, to counteract the systemic discrimination that blacks faced. What really doesn't make sense though is that in the current system, affluent blacks and latinos get preferential treatment as well as non-American blacks. By simply checking the "black" or "latino" box, the applicant receives tremendous advantage in the admission process. It's sickening.
It doesn’t end. It’s an endless hypocritical moral-posturing game. There are enough simple-minded morons that have always and will always blindly support retarded, backwards shit like this because they’re too stupid and/or lazy to look past the idea at face-value and critically analyze the actual end results (not even taking into account the fact that they’re literally perpetuating and supporting racial discrimination on a policy (i.e., systematic) level).
These morons want people to be admitted to medical or law schools based on their skin color? They’re willing to block competition and stop other higher-scoring, more intelligent individuals from achieving these goals because they don’t have a dark enough complexion? Good fucking luck with that. The dipshits that support this trash need to be the ones who suffer the inevitable consequences of breeding incompetency through their racial discrimination.
Decries discrimination.
Proceeds to be reverse discriminate.
That's rich when alumni wrote this book;
The Bell Curve" (co-authored with Richard Herrnstein) prevails as the flagship modern work reporting on racial differences in IQ score. Black people in the U.S. score lower on average than white people (this isn't the book's primary focus, but it's the centerpiece and main draw of attention). As much as progressives don't want to hear such a thing, this book puts it plainly: It's in the data. With the book’s standing intact, armchair sociologists at large may defend certain stereotypes by simply pointing its way. As for attempts to take the book down, most critics go after its reasoning or its sources (or the authors' associations with the more notorious sources).
Rutledge M. Dennis suggests that through soundbites of works like Jensen's famous study on the achievement gap, and Herrnstein and Murray's book The Bell Curve, the media "paints a picture of Blacks and other people of color as collective biological illiterates—as not only intellectually unfit but evil and criminal as well," thus providing, he says "the logic and justification for those who would further disenfranchise and exclude racial and ethnic minorities.
I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I'm excited to see where the liberal infighting goes. If I had to pick, I'm leaning towards Harvard's side on this, though I would like more data broken down my race that is probably unavailable (campus activity participation rates, IM sports participation, Greek and social club participation, alumni donation rates, etc.).
I also can't wait for Asians to turn against Jews, the latter who are VASTLY over-represented in elite higher education (I say this as a Jew myself) and are essentially getting the treatment that Asians want. I believe something like 40-45% of Harvard's "white" demographic actually has an Askenazi Jewish background, though Jews only make up like 1.5-2.0% of the US population. We all know why this is, and why there is something like a 400 point SAT gap between Asians and blacks at Harvard, but it'll be funny as hell seeing everyone trying to square these circles.
While supporting equality and providing opportunities to disadvantaged people is always important to me, I think there's another aspect to diversity in college admissions that's being left out of the conversation. That campus diversity can actually add to the education and experience of all students enrolled.
To me, what separates the american college experience from international one is an emphasis on personal growth and development alongside what you learn in the classroom. Admissions officers help support this by selecting a set of students that when together will, hopefully, build a community that is greater than the sum of its parts. One that creates an environment that fosters the exchange of ideas and creative thinking that leads to real innovation.
Having a diverse set of peers (not just racially or ethnically, but also in interests, personality types etc) is an important part of achieving this. Therefore, by diminishing diversity (again, diversity in all its forms), you are actually reducing the quality of the college experience for all those who attend, even the whites and asians who are admitted. This is why I, and many people I know, valued seeing diversity stats when touring colleges as highschoolers. Not because we wanted to feel less guilty about going to a school that provided opportunities for others, but because we believed (and still do today) that it actually provides added value to the entire experience.
I'll admit this is all extremely abstract and some may think a preposterous concept. But in the end, I believe people who think that college admissions should be based 100% on objective metrics are never likely to truly understand nor appreciate how diversity enhances a college education anyways. Similar to how someone who is entirely focused on technical skills will never understand nor appreciate how less tangible soft skills can contribute to your career (not to diminish the importance of technical skills, but you know what I mean). The whole idea of a college education, after all, is that it produces graduates that are more than just number crunching robots. And if that's all you aspire to, then you'll never get the true value of an elite education anyways, even if you got in.
I asked this to someone else...why do you think that "Asian-Americans" can not provide this kind of stated diversity that you claim to want? Korean culture is different from Japanese culture and Chinese culture and Filipino culture and Vietnamese culture. Why should "Asian" be lumped into one broad category?
BINGO. An underlying assumption of liberals' diversity argument is that they don't include Asians in their basket of the "right" type of diversity, even though Asians clearly are minorities. The argument also presupposes that racial diversity is more important than other forms of diversity. It is worth noting that at elite colleges, most blacks and latinos actually come from upper middle class or affluent backgrounds.
I didn't say that they can't. In fact I agree very much that they do. But the same goes for hispanics as well (20+ countries) and blacks if they're including international students. Yet asian students make up 20% of the Harvard student body, which is more than both black (~5%) and hispanic (~10%) students combined. So it's not exactly like asians aren't represented, and asians and whites combined make up 2/3rds or the student body already. This is with affirmative action already in place. This is also before taking income into account where I'd predict that the average asian applicant comes from a higher income household than the average black or hispanic applicant, so blacks and hispanics are likely more commonly seen as "disadvantaged" applicants.
Now if you want to see an example of when you remove all considerations for diversity and have admissions based 100% on objective considerations, look at stuyvesant highschool in NYC where admissions are based on an exam score. 70% asian, 20% white, 2% black, 1% hispanic. Interpret that however you want.
Side note: asians are only "lumped together" as a race, when you're distinguishing between nations you're talking about ethnicities. This isn't to be PC but it's important to distinguish between race and ethnicity when talking about people's heritage for the reasons you pointed out (not all asians are chinese)
My prediction is that it will go up to the Supreme Court in a few years and there Harvard will get deservedly annihilated, receive an exemplary sentence, then heads in the management will roll and it'll be a rally flag to kick out SJWs from admissions departments.
Looking forward to it. It's fucking insane that an ethnic group develops a successful cultural practice that fosters discipline and delivers success and gets discriminated against for it. This is un-American as it can possible be: the punishment of success. Who's doing it? Marxists, again, who hijacked the term liberalism to push their disastrous agenda one more time.
The Asian-American success story is an extremely inconvenient narrative for liberals: that minorities are perpetual victims of "white racism" and thus cannot succeed without government intervention.
In NYC socialist Bill DeBlasio is launching a full-scale assault on the meritocratic admission system of the city's elite magnet high schools.
It's exactly like that.
The real world undeniable evidence that the liberal narrative is false, thus needs to be ''corrected''.
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