Comment by robbmorganf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robbmorganf | Hacker News Reader

> Third, intellectual ability and achievement are the principal requirements for admission as a student or faculty member to any university.

This is the crux of the issue as I see it. The author sees achievement as a proxy for ability, and therefore achievement-meritocracy is the only acceptable system.

By contrast, MIT sees ability as only one factor among many that create achievement. If one takes the further axiom that ability is independent of protected categories like race and gender, then achievement-meritocracy does not recruit the most able students. Hence, affirmative action and reducing oppression.

Mathematically, author believes achievement=f(ability) so ability=f^{-1}(achievement) while MIT believes achievement=f(ability,identity, background) so ability=f^{-1}(achievement,identity,background)

See, here is the thing. What you said is completely true, some people grow up in a really shitty environment and the achievements of children needs to be compared with the achievements of those around them.

However, without going into details, I have spent enough time at one of these ivy league universities to see first hand how it works it practice. The black people I met who benefited from these affirmative action policies were some of the richest most privileged human beings in the country. These policies are in no way actually implemented to help disadvantaged people.

A simple test would be your family income, for example. But MIT openly avoids this. These universities definitely don't want "those lower class people" corrupting them with their lower class ideas. They just want to feel virtuous, and the best way to do that is to have people there that "look the part" whether or not they are actually disadvantaged.

I think income-diversity is a valid and very appropriate criticism of MIT and other schools. I agree that not enough able but poor students are admitted.

Without diminishing MIT's responsibility, I also think the rest of the education system needs to take responsibility for the same problem. In many cases, a very smart kid with low income is afforded poor secondary education, so if they were admitted to MIT, they might not have the preparation to thrive. MIT's disparate impact on low income kids is unacceptable, but the solution requires cooperation from high schools.

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