Hacker News Reader

Comment by MiroF | Hacker News Reader

Part of the reason that those numbers aren't explicitly or obviously available is due to the tenuous legal nature - while it may technically be legal, quotas certainly aren't - so better to obfuscate a bit.

I'm not sure the "personal ratings" were an intentional way of enacting affirmative action here, I think that was actually more a product of racist alumni interviewers.

View on HN

The paper actually mentioned that alumni interviewers tended to give asian applicants personal scores that were better than what the admissions officers gave them (page 5 first paragraph). Which I personally find worse. The student does their best to prepare for the interview to represent who they are as a multifaceted individual. The interviewer that actually meets the student and talks to them gives them a high personal rating and shows that these students are actually not stereotypical math robots. Then the admissions officers lower those personal ratings, negating the work the students did for the interview (and essays and the truth of who they actually are) to find a way to get their admissions statistics to work out. They're discarding the students, the interviewer, rec letters from teachers that knew them well. And, they're doing it in a blatantly racist way that perpetuates deeply harmful stereotypes. An "Asian: -10 points" line would be less damaging than this. We have to live with these stereotypes, we have to see them be perpetuated as we fail to pass "holistic" application processes, we face these barriers in employment, in getting promotions to management, in every step. As you can tell, it really pisses me off, and hey, maybe you are right and it is just actual racism that's seeping through instead of a way of burying affirmative action ratings. I'd almost prefer that - plain and clear racism rather than a perversion of affirmative action (something meant to help end structural inequality) in a way that perpetuates racism.

I agree that schools should have a "-10 Asian" line rather a "character" line where Asians are deemed to have poor character.

Now action.

Here is how we can use EXISTING LAW to fix this. First, cause schools to send admissions scores with full details to students (via a regulation, policy, or an admissions employees union). Next have students stipulate that all materials they receive will be published -- effectively making the school sending it an act of publication.

Now argue that an improperly low "character" score is "defamatory" and "harms" the applicant.

You have now met the burden of proof for libel in Pennsylvania https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/consCheck.cfm?...

> Next have students stipulate that all materials they receive will be published -- effectively making the school sending it an act of publication.

Your genius strategy fails at this point - sending records in response to a FERPA request isn't a publication, unless I get to sue my school for the hypothetical D I got in my transcript after I publish it online.

e: removed because I'm not sure if what I stated was factually accurate

Reply on news.ycombinator.com