The New York Times has obtained a document that indicates that the Trump administration will be reallocating resources to the civil rights division of the Justice Department. Why does this matter? The document also states that these resources will help to begin a process of investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies. The Trump administration has taken offense to various admissions policies, which they believe discriminate against white applicants.
According to the New York Times:
The document, an internal announcement to the civil rights division, seeks current lawyers interested in working for a new project on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.The announcement suggests that the project will be run out of the division’s front office, where the Trump administration’s political appointees work, rather than its Educational Opportunities Section, which is run by career civil servants and normally handles work involving schools and universities
Roger Clegg, a former top official in the civil rights division during the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration, said he would expect the investigation to begin with complaints received about any university admissions' program. From there, Clegg hypothesized that investigators might look for "stark gaps in test scores and dropout rates among different racial cohorts within student bodies".
This would suggest that the admissions officers would be giving too much credit to the race of the applicant, which is a problem as it would cross the line that the Supreme Court has drawn on racial segregation.
Of course this is a massive issue, and as such, I want to hear what you guys think. Is affirmative action wrong? Will it be as extensively used in a couple of years as it is now?
Also, if you want to read the mentioned NYT piece, link here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/tr…
Great piece from the Atlantic about the history of affirmative action: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/201…
Affirmative action is most definitely wrong. It basically implies that if you're black you're automatically considered disadvantaged. If you're white and come from a shitty background it doesn't count because of your skin color.
I know WSO is probably the worst place to advocate for affirmative action, namely because there are tons of kids that feel they were "cheated" out of target-school spot, in favor for various minorities.
Let's take Asians. They are probably suffering the most, you can be a 4.0 Asian student, have the most impressive extracurricular activities, be a state champion, science Olympiad, and what not...but there's still a chance you won't get accepted to Ivy league schools. Do you think Trump is doing this to help more Asians in? Fuck no, the focus is white people only. He's pandering to the white masses.
They'll come crawling out with sob stories, just wait and see.
Will Trump also go after legacy admissions?
edit: Just to be clear, I think AA is a simple solution to a very complex problems. I like AA because it does create diversity at schools. We could discuss in great length the difficulties a very smart, but poor black/hispanic/native/etc. person from the projects has to go through, vs what a regular smart white upper middle-class person (that has been mentored and streamlined for Ivy League since they were kids) has to go through.
I like that people are admitted on merit alone, but we have to face the facts that people are given very uneven playing fields.
This is the case with 95% of the applicants?
This fo sho. Mediocre white people complaining about the one black dood who got in with slightly worse scores while ignoring the 10 Asian kids with better scores who were also rejected. Just work hard in your second tier safety school, get good grades in your easy finance courses, hit up the alumni network and find a cushy job because of passable technical skills and a "good culture fit" (aka being the same type of normal mediocre white dood as your interviewer).
studies show white people are more likely to stress test scores as very important for college admissions when they are being compared to Hispanics/ African-Americans but when they are being compared to Asians they diminish the importance of test scores. It's all just hypocritical mental gymnastics meant to maintain societal position.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/13/white-definitions-merit-…
Couldn't you affect change/diversity by using socioeconomic status and not race? Why should Ben Carson's kids receive affirmative action benefits?
So much ignorance and misinformation on topics like these. Admissions is a process, not a check in a box. Just because you're a minority doesn't mean you'll be admitted based on affirmative action. The money reserved for minorities is not the only part of affirmative action. When any applicant sends in their admissions package, schools review everything from transcripts, to essays, to extra merits. A guy in hs helping his parents pay the bills because they are struggling, is leadership quality no matter what his background or grades are (as long as his grades aren't shit). The reason your nerdy kid doesn't get admitted is because he's perfectly white from a perfect home with a perfect resume and that's boring, especially at top institutions where nearly 100% of the top classes desire to send their kids. Academic institutions are liberals down to their core. It would be impossible to pursue any progressive system with a bunch of Tom Dowds in vineyard vines all discussing which boat they will receive upon graduation. And I think that's the proper channel. Ideally, a perfect student would be perfect. But there's no such thing as a perfect human, and we see this when someone like Hitler was a model citizen, and heavily influenced by his community, then later tried to take over the world in an evil plot like something fictional.
You leftists love to throw around the word "ignorant" like it's going out of style, which is ironic since leftists are the actual ignoramuses.
There's no ignorance here--any admission standard that considers race is immoral, even as a part of a holistic admissions process. It's entirely irrelevant if it's 1 of 1 metric or 1 of 1 million metrics. If race is a consideration it's wrong and it violates the principle of equal protection and equal justice that our society has aimed for (and failed to attain too often) for over 200 years.
Well let's not go around trying to label each other's identity. Your politalk is bullshit. Any time one is being considered in any transaction, race is always a part of the equation. Such as the time that lady canceled an airbnb reservation because of the customer's race. When you meet someone, your measurement of them automatically takes into account their race to determine and better understand the context of their life's story--whether they could ever dunk the ball, swim well, played tennis, read a certain book, what foods they eat, age, etc. It's bullshit to act as though someone's race is not a metric we all use no matter negatively or positively. This country was morally bankrupt with slavery and that's what created any idea or principle amount of affirmative action that exists today. Slavery caused the racial difference, Jim Crow prolonged the effects and caused post-symptoms to this country.
You speak for yourself. If you are going around judging people on their race when you do business with them then that speaks volumes about you. My business partner is a FOB Asian woman, my best friend is a FOB Hispanic, and I'm white as snow. Their race isn't relevant to me. Don't speak for anyone other than yourself.
What you're saying--and this isn't my original thought (hat tip: Ben Shapiro)--is that in order to correct the past wrongs of institutional government-mandated discrimination, such as slavery and Jim Crow, the government and institutions should engage in further injustices today. That's absurd. That's immoral. That's a violation of American principles. Ben Carson and Barack Obama's kids don't need to have a notch in their admissions or hiring decisions that favor them because of their race in any way whatsoever.
I thought we already established that it's not a check in a box? Obamas kids would probably get in for being Obamas kids, in the scenario where they meet some basic core competencies.
Immoral is conducting behavior in a subjective way. It's an objective idea to reach out to minorities who are potentially able, bring a different perspective and add value to the community, but at the same time grew up in a place where none of this is likely to be the case, based on an environment that is rooted in discriminatory camps created during a time where Jim crow was still alive. Most ghettos today were made decades ago, before the civil rights movement, in an era where blacks were still viewed as dogs and kicked if they came to close to their white counterparts. It's absolutely a false premise and a delusion to not see the direct connection with today's black ghettos and the heritage of black people as white people's slaves and doormats. There's no rational or moral way to actually believe sons of people that were spat on, raped, and forced to do the laborious and exhausting deeds of another man can realistically be able to function in a world that grows more complex everyday and requires an extremely heavy amount of thought and radically different development of your muscles. It's statiscally shown that some black kids that go to top institutions are still unable to overcome the poor state inherited at birth and end up failing. At least one could do is step out of the way while providing a nice nudge of support through affirmative action for a person that was dealt a worse hand in most cases--that is moral.
Edit: I want to add that any black kid that had to endure coming from one of these black communities should be granted with much respect because it is so unlikely one succeeds. There are many kids that come from great backgrounds and heritage and fail. To figure it all out on your own, in spite of your circumstances is huge, and that is very commendable. It's reflects poorly on you to believe that some of these kids really can't be amazing people just because they had a shitty ancestry, even though they rose well above all of the negativity surrounding them. That's a shame on you.
Wow, there's so much to unpack here. Wow.
You've established nothing. If race is used at all--which it often is--then it's a check in the box, which is wrong. Given our nation's history, we should be striving toward a society that does not consider race, unlike you do when you do business with people.
What are you talking about? This literally makes no sense. Slavery and Jim Crow were objective measures of institutional discrimination. Objective and subjective has nothing to do with it.
Good, reach out. Not once has anyone ever suggested that Harvard, for example, shouldn't be recruiting in low-income neighborhoods. Let me go out on a limb and guess that Harvard doesn't spend much time sending its recruiters to SE DC or the southside of Chicago. Recruiting people to apply is not the same thing as using race as an admission standard.
This is amazing. What you're saying is so racist toward black people that I almost think you're joking. You're saying that black people aren't capable of functioning in normal society? That's a breathtakingly racist comment. But let's just set your modern day Nazism aside--we aren't talking about the "sons" of slaves, as you suggest. We're talking about 5 or 6 generations removed from slavery. And more than 50 years removed from Jim Crow. George W. Bush correctly identified people like you as "soft bigots" for holding the black community to such low standards.
So your solution to historical injustices is to set minorities up for academic failure because it feels good? The Left is so obsessed with affirmative action but is completely happy shitting down the throats of poor black children who are trying to get into a public school that isn't murder pit hell hole run by the teacher's union and the Democratic party.
"There's no rational or moral way to actually believe sons of people that were spat on, raped, and forced to do the laborious and exhausting deeds of another man can realistically be able to function in a world that grows more complex everyday and requires an extremely heavy amount of thought and radically different development of your muscles."
If this is the case, then how did my great aunt and grandfather who endured much worse in the holocaust become so successful? Same with the majority of their peers?
I'd have more sympathy for people with this position if they weren't often also the ones arguing against more equitable public k-12 education (e.g. Better funding all around through something other than property taxes which create well funded schools in richer districts while leaving poorer often majority minority districts with shitty schools). Without that it just seems like crocodile tears and an attempt to ignore the role that race plays in American society.
Affirmative Action is most certainly unfair - but it was designed to be that way. I personally disagree with the practice on the grounds that it is unfair, but as a white, upper-middle-class, male, I suppose that's to be expected. To me, Affirmative Action has always seemed more like a hammer - a blunt, oversimplified approach to create a more even playing field among races. Anything blunt and oversimplified is going to have problems, and Affirmative Action has serious flaws in my opinion in that it ignores economic status, addresses some minorities while ignoring "model minorities," and is punitive toward some while uplifting others.
I think a more interesting exercise is to brainstorm solutions to the problem Affirmative Action was created to address - namely that certain minority groups, as a whole, are inherently disadvantaged when compared to other groups - and try and come up with solutions that do not ignore economic status, separate certain minorities from others, and punish others while uplifting those who need a boost.
I'm sure this thread will descend into nonsense with people parroting their favorite talking points and throwing monkey shit at anyone who disagrees with them, but socioeconomic inequality is an outrageously complex and difficult problem to solve.
Yes, thank you for this.
Go check up on how his son-in-law got into Harvard, I wouldn't be surprised if a similar scenario occurred when Trump transferred from Fordham to Wharton. I've no problem with ending racial affirmative action for income based affirmative action, let's just make sure we end the legacy admit & wealthy connections system as well.
Why do you believe income based affirmative action is "fair"?
because a kid from a family who makes $30k a year isn't afforded the opportunities a kid who comes from a family who makes $100k+. For example, the kid from the richer family will usually have parents who push them more, send them to a private/prep HS, stay on top of them and get them tutoring. The kid from the broke family probably had parents who weren't home a lot, didn't keep their kid in line, etc.
This is my thought and I am saying this from what I've seen. Not my personal experience, you control your future at the end of the day however.
Affirmative action should be based on income, not race. You can have a poor, under-privileged white student, and a rich, advantaged black student, and still have the black student be preferred even though it was the white student who was disadvantaged.
affirmative action is not wrong and this will be a wild goose chase if it actually comes into play. Trump has statistically been the worst president in a very long time. His approval/unapproved difference is well below the average of any president since the 40s. Not only is his discourse unAmerican but his presidency is unAmerican too. Trump fucking sucks. His base is shrinking. His policies have failed. There are at least 10 reasons one could think of why he sucks. I'd be surprised if anyone can find 5 positives.
In fact, he likes to boast about the stock market but Bush and Obama saw greater growth than trump in the same time period.
Wow, such a dumb comment. I think Trump is a moron, but using opinion polls to rate presidents is utterly asinine. That's like saying Bill Clinton > Harry Truman or Hugo Chavez > Barack Obama.
I'm basing his shitty presidency on a lot of factors. He's so bad he doesn't even know he's bad. It's a case of the blind leading the blind with Trump. I got a nice pit of fire for you to follow him into.
"dicsourse unAmerican" jesus christ trump is gonna win 2020, i didn't even vote for this guy but holy shit you all know why he won, the voters told you why he won and you keep doing the same shit
cracking down on speech won't help the left win, but good luck trying to police "discourse" and cite polls! good luck getting a trump supporter that will believe a poll after many election polls said he had over a 90% chance of losing
I love the retort that Trumps demographics are dying. As in the former democrats in half a dozen hard Blue states that voted for Trump because Dems have become the party of sexual freaks and rich liberals in a handful of cities.
Trump is a crude response to an issue that is festering. What comes after him is what people should worry about.
Mussolini paved the way for Hitler. In 10-15 years when we have a former general with a populist base, no longer talking about democracy and directly calling people traitors and enemies, with disenfranchised Americans deciding that voting isn't the way to effect change anymore and we will be wishing we had Trump.
Affirmative action? Yes! Let's have it, and let it be based off of socioeconomic status. Using race to separate people is wrong.
FYI, the Justice Department said this evening that the new policies are aimed at ending discrimination, in particular, against Asian people.
We need to change the definition of race and minority. Liberals love controlling language so that's next. Try explaining AA and minorities to Chinese or Indians and you'll quickly realize how dumb it sounds.
So can we all just drop the pretense and admit what affirmative action really is all about? It's a way for white liberal Democrats to brush aside the fact that their economic development, policing, and public education policies have totally and utterly failed the black community for more than 50 years. White liberals feel that if they can bring on some token minorities to Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, et al then they can pretend like their morally and intellectually bankrupt policies aren't responsible for grinding poverty in the black community today. It can't be their policies--it must be Jefferson Davis.
Both liberal and republican policy has failed. Liberals provide too much of a crutch and Republicans refuse to believe the outright laws that prevented blacks to achieve economic, policing and education parity didn't exist just one generation ago. It may be words on a paper to some people and I get it, they may feel bad it even happened. But 20, 30, 40 years ago seem like a long time when you're just reading about it, but to others that's literally, your mom and dad telling you these stories. My oldest uncle integrated the high school in his hometown, we literally are just 1 to 1.5 generations away from these laws. The guy's oldest grandkid is 5.
The ramifications of those policies are very much still prevalent within the black community. If you can admit that receiving a willed property in certain areas with higher valuations is a product of their grand/parents hard work. One also has to admit that the community that didn't even have a chance to do this basic estate isn't impacted negatively for the generations to come.
Republicans seem to think that once these policies ended, everyone just became equal in society and others had a chance to catch up immediately. That's a very naive way of thinking.
Look I get some peoples statements that everyone wasn't racist their grandparents/parents were normal and didn't contribute the negative things that happened to african americans. Sometimes the media does not take this into account and that's wrong.
However, I don't think the truly grasp the reality that EVERY single black person was a product of obviously explicit detrimental policies/laws.
No, it hasn't. The Republican party has been divorced from the black community almost entirely since 1932 when FDR won over 70% of the black vote. Other than desegregating the military (Eisenhower) and supporting the Civil Rights Act, the Republican party has had no impact almost at all on the black community. The entire failure of the black community is in the hands of the Democrats. Don't you dare pass off your Stockholm Syndrome onto me, the descendant of a Jayhawker who fought against slavery in the brutal, bloody wars in Kansas. We Kansans have been Republicans for 150 years.
The rest of what you're saying is just lies fed to you by your sleazy political figures that keep you twisted around their finger. Black African immigrants are wildly successful in the United States. So are people from extreme poverty in SE Asia, and so are people who come from extreme poverty in Central and South America. South Koreans in Korea, in one generation, rose from total destruction from war to one of the most economically powerful nations on Earth. The problem isn't time--there's been plenty of time. The problem is out of wedlock birth, terrible schools, and no economic development. That's on your party.
I agree as an African American, I believe the current format affirmative action is not efficient. To give some insight just within the African American community affirmative action is a touchy subject because as of now most who benefit from it for getting into the tops schools are upper middle-class AA or immigrant Africans from a prestigious background. The kid who grew up disadvantaged is no longer the norm of affirmative action case, that kid is maybe 1/3 of the people who get into the top schools due to affirmative action.
Numbers say 4-5% of students are admitted to undergrad institutions due to affirmative action a number well below the 20% of legacy commits into your top schools (not assuming most weren't qualified because I believe a slight majority are). The guy who took your spot isn't the Affirmative action kid, it's the legacy guy. Peoples issues with the current admission model are pointed towards the wrong group of people and imo the powers to be made it that way for a reason.
I personally believe it should be income based and not race based, however, I have literally witnessed parents getting divorces in order to get income based scholarships for their kids. It's a loophole which will be utilized even more if we move towards a more income based model. So there are flaws with every model.
Due to working in finance I naturally work with white males that come from an upper middle to middle-class lifestyle. They seem to think with the removal of affirmative action will open up enough slots for them to enter into the top schools, they don't take into account how many spots will be taken away by Asians if we move to a 100% metric based system. There will be fewer whites in the Ivies and top schools imo.
Basically be careful about what you wish for. It may make things worse for you and your family not better.
Race-based affirmative action is progressive leftist laziness. You could do AA based on census tracts, based on certain high schools, or based on income or on some kind of mix. Harvard, with its $30 billion, could literally go into SE DC and identify strong students and get them tutors so that they crush their classes and crush the SATs. But you know what? It's so much easier for them to just change the admission standards for people based on race and then pat themselves on the back. White progressives have no interest at all in actually changing the situation for black people at large.
Race-based laws that negatively impacted blacks were lazy broad based too. I get your point, I just cant comprehend how few positive laws for the past 30-40 years have the same equal weight of the negative ones for the previous 200-300 years. Hell even if it's the last 100 years the black economic output produced in the last 30 years due to Affirmitave action no way equal the lost economic output for the previous years and that's assuming once the laws ended people actually complied.
I never dream of so much winning. It's glorious.
MAGA eternity
Wasn't Trump going to make the Mexican's pay for the wall??? OH wait president Obama ... yadda yadda.
Peso has hit record low to USD since Trump was elected. Illegal immigration has bottomed out. They pay every single day.
And we already have a wall. Thanks to Bush who signed the border wall authorizing act.
But yeah. i fully expected trump to do everything within 6 months. Took obama a year to pass Obamacare. But trump gets 6 months.
Lots of NaCl.
This fucking guy is still going at it.
The lack of understanding about how affirmative action works and the legal basis for it is quite astounding.
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