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Many white subgroups have been historically disadvantages (albeit not specifically within US policy)

eg: Scottish, Irish, Jewish people immediately come to mind

Personally I think it'd be better to avoid using skin color/race as an indicator of need and instead just look at need in isolation. A poor person needs help paying for school regardless of their skin color.

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I agree, it's just that for many Americans, including white Americans from disadvantaged groups, tracing national heritage is hard. Need and class-based considerations make sense to me, though. I think that starts getting on the right track. Anthony Jack from Harvard argues a similar framework would actually assist in advancing racially-discriminated groups like black Americans in his work on "the privileged poor" and class-blind racial affirmative action. I recommend reading his work.

This idea that there was historical disadvantage to the Irish comes from a single photograph of a sign that says "Irish Need Not Apply". This is the equivalent of putting an individual Tweet from 2016 saying "Kill All White Men" in history textbooks as some sort of meaningful thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment brings up more points

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