Colleges and universities across the US are moving to ban caste discrimination | Hacker News Reader

Colleges and universities across the US are moving to ban caste discrimination

cnn.com

30 pointsxqcgrek226 comments

It’s bizarre that universities are banning caste discrimination while at the same time actively discriminating based on race. See recent Harvard lawsuit over Asian student admissions.

Yeah including discriminating against all castes of South Asian students.

Not really, considering they're both different types of discrimination. Acceptance quotas, while controversial, is different from racial discrimination.

This reminds me of the old Nixon quote, "When the president does it, it's not illegal".

It sounds like the universities aren't opposed to racial discrimination, they just don't like it when they lose their monopoly on it.

Is the university insulting Asian people to their face?

so if it's not "in your face," whatever that means, discrimination is okay? I struggle to see your point, the defense is surely more robust than this

The various racial “quotas”, etc exist to offset the impact of the other racist policies and biases in the university’s enrollment system.

It would be nice if they weren’t needed, but history shows that they are.

This is one justification for racial admissions quotas. It ignores how black students admitted to Harvard often come not from the descendants of enslaved Americans but high-income first generation African immigrant families, or how many white students such as the children of coal miners and steelworkers have also suffered historical disadvantages. It also ignores how economically-disadvantaged Asian families have successfully used merit-based admissions as a ladder out of poverty, and how racial admissions quotas pull that ladder out of reach for many.

Which is a great argument against lumping people into groups based on race.

The various racial “quotas”, etc exist to offset the impact.

What's with the ironic quotes on “quotas”? Are they instances of active discrimination, or are they not?

History shows that they are [needed].

A highly contentious assertion.

There was a long legal battle arguing that there were no race-based admission quotas, but that race was a factor taken into account in order to achieve desired levels of diversity. Or something equally nonsensical.

Stuff only intellectuals can believe, basically.

Not at all contentious.

Universities throughout the US had to be repeatedly sued over their varying attempts to remain segregated. In the absence of any forcing function they would miraculously end up excluding black students.

As far as the quotes: people who continue to believe that racism both current and historical has no impact call any form of affirmative action a quota. This is despite multiple rulings, and implementations that require race be considered, only if everything else is equal.

For another form of affirmative action we can look at legacy admissions. They make 10-15% of the annual enrollments in schools that have them, and are overwhelmingly white due to the practice of of banning non-white students that only became illegal in the 60s, and that southern states tried to continue well into the 80s. Interestingly you can argue that legacy admissions in public universities inherently violate the Constitution.

In the absence of any forcing function they would miraculously end up excluding black students.

Probably true, but it still does not mean that any given forcing function is necessary (or even on balance helpful, considering side effects). Each has to be evaluated on its own merits.

Just saying "We gotta do something!" does not mean that something has to quotas - or evaluation systems functionally equivalent to quotas, as Harvard has been accused of doing.

People who continue to believe that racism both current and historical has no impact call any form of affirmative action a quota.

We're getting off topic, here - which refers to the (soft) quota system alleged to be in use at Harvard.

Whether plaintiffs ultimately prevail or not - which of course can hinge on a myriad of technical factors - theirs is on the surface a plausible argument, based specific criteria (and hard data).

And not, as you describe, an instance of "calling any form of affirmative action a quota".

But even more to the point: If you're going to advocate a forcing function that is either explicitly, or functionally equivalent to quota system - then just call it what it is, please.

One problem is that a quota system penalizes Asians more than whites. This would imply that Asians have historically benefitted more than whites from a biased university enrollment system. What could possibly cause the (mainly white) college administrators to give Asians preferential treatment over whites?

regardless of what you guys think, Harvard seems to have a pretty good system in place to benefit themselves, until that stops working, i don't think they will stop using their own admission policies.

This would require universities to admit that people who aren't of European ancestry can also be racist. I'm betting we're going to see a serious effort on the left to start categorizing South Asians as white.

In today's edition of "Tell everyone you didn't read the article without actually saying you didn't read the article."

Also no, the left will not for a wide variety of reasons not the least of which is the lack of innate hierarchy in their worldview, typically found among right-leaning ideologies.

Shouldn’t admission be based on entrance exams/test scores so everyone excels in what they have aptitude for…is that what meritocracy is about?

You assume they care at all about meritocracy (hint: they don't)

They didn't like the results when they tried that.

"Meritocracy" seems to have been coined in a dystopian satire:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

Good news. Unfortunately because this is a niche issue that most people aren't familiar with, it can be difficult to make progress. This is a positive move

I see this a lot where I work. It's bad, but it does seem to fly under the radar.

Is this a real issue? I feel like the real issue is that colleges use race based admissions and discriminate against Asian students. This seems like a distraction.

Most Ivy leagues discriminate against everyone who isn’t white, but they do it through legacy enrollments rather than explicitly saying it’s about race. The various racial “quotas” are a very hamfisted attempt to compensate that and other racist policies and biases.

It’s important to remember that you can easily make intentionally biased policies without ever mentioning the target of the bias.

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