SCOTUS to Consider Challenges to Race-Conscious Admissions at Harvard, UNC | Hacker News Reader

SCOTUS to Consider Challenges to Race-Conscious Admissions at Harvard, UNC

wsj.com

47 pointscwwc43 comments

From a couple minutes of quick googling I see that both Harvard and UNC consider legacy as part of their decision making criteria for admissions. If racism may have prevented some students from entering either of these institutions 1-2 generations ago then that racism is affecting current applicants. I'm fine with universities dropping race-conscious admissions but they should also stop considering legacy status at the same time.

As private institutions, they can do whatever they want. Race is a special case since it falls under a protected attribute.

I don't think there's any grounds for asking them to stop considering legacy.

UNC is a public university, not a private institution.

ETA: If you believe that legacy admissions perpetuate the impacts of racism from 1-2 generations ago then there is a moral and ethical grounds to ask them to stop considering legacy.

Referring specifically to Harvard and other Ivys. I have no idea why any public university would consider legacy as a factor.

Edit: I think it's a leap to tie legacy admission from 2 generations ago to racism. Because that's attributing wide spread societal faults to a few specific institution.

I'm not attributing wide spread societal faults to specific institutions. This is simply a question of garbage in, garbage out. The sample of students from 1-2 generations ago is biased towards certain races. Therefore, using that biased data to decide who gets into a university today perpetuates that bias. The exact source of that bias isn't important and doesn't mean the bias doesn't exist.

Legacy is usually a family that donates or at least a well known family so admitting the family member for donations or clout seems to me like admitting a football player on scholarship who will win games but not good academically?

These situations are few and sort of cancel each other out- they don't matter... what matters is how the other people are let in.... and ivy league has a reputation of being very gifted minds (high IQ measured through SAT). Ultimately unis have discretion to some degree... but race happens to be protected. I think it's the large difference in scores by race that cause problems. And if you think it's unfair bc of upbringing.. how is putting them in with way more gifted students the answer--- unless ivy league is now just a signal and not a learning institution? If so it's time is limited.

I actually think these ivy leagues are just operating under woke capitalism- the more elite blacks (the best blacks with the highest SAT scores) they let in the better their clout right now- even if whites or asians have higher scores--- that is bc race is the only thing that matters right now. This transfers to hiring too- so the blacks that go to Harvard today are probably worth 100X any white or asian. At least politically... which is where power resides.

Perhaps that means that the issue is deeper. It isn't just okay to discriminate against whites and asians. Blacks are a rare commodity, at least ones that can succeed at Harvard and the ivy leagues want to make sure they get as many as they can. What though does that tell us of the importance of race and who is being worshiped just bc of their skin color?

Public vs private- I mean they both are tax exempt. One takes more in tax dollars.. so what? Do we have more control over the public school- not really.

Just over 2/5 of the white students at Harvard at ADLC admissions. These are overwhelmingly white. To make up for that imbalance, you need very biased admissions for non-ADLC students, indeed.

It's not a small number.

Legacy means having a family member, usually a parent or grandparent, who graduated from that school. People benefiting from this are going to be disproportionately white.

I believe students getting in based on donations is the Dean's interest list or some similar term. Unfortunately, racist policies in the past, such as redlining, made it harder for some groups to build up generational wealth so this group is disproportionately white as well. I do agree that this group is probably small enough to be ignored if it was on its own. If it isn't, they should raise their cutoff for the amount of donations it requires until it is small enough.

As for athletics, those are very towards wealthier students. Lots of sports require expensive equipment or facilities to train in that poor students won't have access to. This impacts racial minorities for the same reasons as the above point.

> I think it's the large difference in scores by race that cause problems. And if you think it's unfair bc of upbringing.. how is putting them in with way more gifted students the answer

This assumes that differences in testing are the result of differences in ability. There are lots of reasons why someone might have lower scores on a standardized test or the SATs that aren't related to how smart they are. The children of wealthy parents are going to have access to better teachers, private tutoring in subjects they have trouble with, test prep, etc.

> Blacks are a rare commodity, at least ones that can succeed at Harvard

Why do you think this is the case?

All of the money given out by the federal government to institutions has stipulations attached.

Private institutions are free not to take any federal money, but they all do it.

Glad to know scotus is reconsidering the policies. I'm struck by "Race Conscious Admissions". Hopefully they'll see the same fate as "Race Conscious Water Fountain Usage Rules", and will join other nakedly racist things now on the ash heap of history.

>"Race Conscious Water Fountain Usage Rules"

This was exactly what I laughed at as well. How are they not self-aware enough to see they tacitly support racial discrimination. Giving it a cute name doesn't change it.

I assume a ruling in favor of the challengers would mean Universities could only take into account GPA and test scores, but nothing about the background of an applicant? If you still allow background to be taken into account, you could look at things like an applicant's class, the neighborhood they grew up in, the schools they went to, etc. These could act as a proxy for race, so I'm not sure how much ignoring only race would really change.

Those proxies are probably better than using race imho. At least that way, the black millionaires' son ends up being treated the same way as the white millionaires' son when they live in the same gated community and attend the same exclusive private school together.

Agreed, and to some extent I would think you would want your most talented students to have access to network with students that have an "in" with the rich and powerful (whether that is hereditary or whatever). If you exclude some of those, ahem, less talented progeny you lower the value of some of these schools I would think for minorities, the less privileged, etc. eg. Wouldn't you want the next Granville Woods to have access to a VCs daughter or a Senators son?

Background might be more helpful. I went to college with a rich black man whose father was a big oil executive in Nigeria. No slavery in his background. Plenty of cash. But on paper he was black (not even African American since he wasn't a US citizen.)

I couldn't find an archived version of the story, but here's the same topic on yahoo news without a paywall https://news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-hear-challenge-144716...

https://archive.fo/wNGfe

Time to challenge affirmative action or raced based hiring or discrimination of whites in the job market as well.

Certain groups are getting truly resentful of groups that benefit from this blatant discrimination.

It’ll happen.

Many companies and people keep getting their inclusivity goal’s implementations wrong and will continue doing so with the current laws and incentives.

Until they simply begin educating and recruiting in different areas, they’ll continue their pipeline problem excuse.

If colleges can discriminate based on race, then everyone and every business should be afforded the same privilege.

Meaning, there should be no diversity quotas, mandates, or accusations of racism, even if there are hardly any minorities employee at a business.

It is this double standard that no one likes.

If Harvard wants to admit only blacks for 2025 let them, but stop telling companies in CA they need at least 1 non white on the board or that there aren't enough blacks in tech.

If you don't agree that everyone should be treated the same, then we have to go by race protections and colleges are discriminating.

What is next, mandating you date a minority if you a white?

At the very least, we can start with quotas in the NBA and NFL to limit the number of people who have african ancestry, since they are horrifyingly overrepresented due to racism against non-blacks.

Yep it is horrific. Where are the asians.... If blacks are going to complain they aren't at tech companies in sufficient numbers then whites and asians have a right to demand they aren't in NBA in high enough numbers.

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