Harvard Begs to Discriminate | Hacker News Reader

Harvard Begs to Discriminate

powerlineblog.com

39 pointsdoppp22 comments

The key question will be, what is the admission criteria?

The reason Harvard doesn’t want to disclose it, because a lot of admissions are not performance based.

If family member is Harvard alumni and was donating really well during their life, their kid having the same academic performance vs anyone else will have an advantage.

I don't like the idea of anti-discrimination laws here in the first place. They do still make sense for things like voting.

I think it comes down to whether you think affirmative action to achieve diversity is good/fair or not. A policy that attempts to avoid a mono cultural student body (rich white men) is going to discriminate against someone. Do you exclude women from some jobs because there are more qualified men or does the organization/team/society perform better overall by their inclusion?

“Harvard’s class of 2021 is 22.2 percent Asian-American, 11.6 percent Hispanic, 14.6 percent African-American and 2.5 percent Native American or Pacific Islander. That strikes me as a university that is trying to achieve diversity. And it is no bad thing.” https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/14/does-harvard-discrimi...

Why do you say "rich white men", when the issue under suit is "Asian-American"? Is there an Asian-American hegemony over wealth and power in the USA?

Because diversity goals are usually designed to to keep rich white men from dominating something. Also, by reframing it that way you get to examine whether you think affirmative action to achieve diversity is a good thing separate from whether you think it discriminated against Asians. Of course affirmative action discriminates; and it is going to feel unfair to some people.

”The landmark case that established a legal precedent for affirmative action in higher education was University of California v. Bakke in 1978. Allan Bakke, a white man, was in his mid-30s when he applied to 12 medical schools, including University of California Medical School at Davis. After all of these school rejected him, Bakke sued the school at Davis—which had rejected him twice—because he argued that the school had discriminated against him by admitting students of color with lower medical scores than his.

At the time, Davis’ medical school reserved 16 out of 100 spots in each year’s new class for students of color. In that case, the question posed to the court was whether the policy violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

https://www.history.com/news/the-landmark-supreme-court-case...

The problem is that it's really not fair (nor ethical, I would argue) to equate "wealthy" with "white." Conflating any characteristic with race/gender/etc., regardless of how accurate it might be, is stereotyping.

I fundamentally have a problem with telling a poor white kid that a (potentially wealthy) asian / hispanic / etc. is more deserving of the spot simply because of the race of which she/he was born (assuming all else equal, like GPA, scores, etc.)

I went to a predominately White/Asian high school in a wealthy, high-performing school district where the criteria for entrance was having the money to live in that district. I subsequently attended Harvard as an Asian male and I felt that my experience was richer for having a wide diversity of classmates. Personally, I am on the side of affirmative action, but I know there are many valid opinions on this matter, depending on people's different value systems and experiences.

How is discrimination along racial grounds legal in university admissions? Isn't race a protected class you can't discriminate against? If a store refused to provide service to an Asian because they already had too many Asian customers, surely that would be discriminatory and illegal, I don't see how that is any different, unless Harvard requires diversity to function properly.

you know my parents had enough money. and i had brains. but i decided i wanted to be normal and did not pursue education abroad. i realize now that prestige is everything. smart kid without a prestigious degree is just a nerd. smart kid with a harvard degree is somebody. so i paid a very high price in not pursuing this. but at least morally i did the right thing: who would want to go to a school where the admissions criteria are about the color of your skin. now as i am much wiser i care less about morality and i would not tell anyone not to go. in fact, please go. but still. its pretty bad.

As someone that didn’t go to Harvard, didn’t apply to Harvard, and wouldn’t have gotten in if I had applied I really and truly do not understand the thought process behind the individuals bringing on the suit. Do they feel entitled to admission? Is not getting into Harvard specifically such a terrible injustice that it deserves to be litigated in the court of law? What did they lose by not gaining admission in a procedure that is a black box in nearly all institutions?

> Is not getting into Harvard specifically such a terrible injustice that it deserves to be litigated in the court of law? What did they lose by not gaining admission in a procedure that is a black box in nearly all institutions?

Maybe not, but a lot of top-tier institutions follow very similar admission policies and so an individual is at the risk of being excluded from all of them solely because of their race. Let's say if this suit against Harvard is successful, it will establish precedent and other institutions will be forced re-examine and amend their admission policies.

>individual is at the risk of being excluded from all of them solely because of their race.

For one thing, UC's and CalTech don't.

And even if they were, my resounding response is.... so? Has society regressed to the point where if you don't go to an elite private institution (i.e. not your flagship public university) you will never achieve anything? If the true problem is a lack of social upward mobility, I feel that's a bigger problem than worrying about who gets to win the lottery.

I say this as someone who got into the other school targeted by the group (UNC, I didn't go) while also being Asian and overall very mediocre.

You are not allowed to drive an Audi and have to settle for a Toyota Corolla, just because of your race, even though you have the money. See what I am getting at...

I’m not allowed to ever drive an Audi no matter what I end up earning after the age of 18 (to continue the analogy) - so I have difficulty sympathizing with the people that have to drive Lexuses instead.

Being incidentally rejected might not be worth a lawsuit. But the plaintiffs claim, in part, that Harvard is specifically trying to discriminate against Asian applicants to keep Asians out of the student body. I think that's worth litigating over if it's true.

Astute readers will recall _100 years ago_ when Harvard had an issue with a glut of over-performing Jewish students, and had debates that presaged today's debates about discrimination and diversity. The old debate may even be more illuminating than today's debate, since back then many of the racists were shamelessly clear-spoken about their race-based hatred.

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/expose/book/cloak-meritocrac...

This kind of thing also occurred in the USSR because the native Russians were underperforming, so many elite institutions had implicit quotas such that one might have answers struck down in qualifying exams for being “too right”.

It’s a hard political problem (both the discriminated against and the ones benefitting from the quota have a valid argument). Obvs an unbiased solution would be to admit the best, regardless, but for social reasons, it may not be optimal.

I am certain that, unlike 100 years ago, the fear isn't that Asians are crowding out white males; but that they are crowding out other minority groups. That is an entirely different motivation than anti-Semitism.

>that Harvard is specifically trying to discriminate against Asian applicants to keep Asians out of the student body.

If this was truly the intention they are doing a very poor job of it. Class of 2021 is 22.2% Asian-American according to their website.

> What did they lose

They lost access to a world-class education, professional network, and maybe >$1million in lifetime income premium over their alternate life path.

Are you saying I'm permanently worse off for going to a state school?

That's a totally legitimate viewpoint that I could be sympathetic to. But I also keep hearing that your undergrad degree doesn't matter - often by the same people that complain about AA after I mention I go to a state school. Now which is it?

Mods, please change link from the snarky low-information re-blog, to point to the original source the blog is copying:

https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2018/defending-divers...

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