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Comment by the_lego | Hacker News Reader

The conservative-majority court rejected policies used by many U.S. colleges and universities to use race as one of multiple factors in admissions in order to boost enrollment of Black, Hispanic and certain other minority students. Blum's group had argued that such programs discriminated against white and Asian American applicants.

Discussions about this topic usually happen with nobody bothering to verify, or even explicitly state, their assumptions about the demographics of Harvard/the Ivy League. Effectively arguing in the dark. Let's shed some light on the issue:

https://archive.org/details/ivy-league-demographics (And ask yourselves why such basic information was omitted from nearly all reporting)

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My guess is that for many, the demographics are irrelevant. I think these people would say that the only way to stop racism is to not be racist. But what is it exactly you’re proposing about how these demographics matter? Maybe I’m missing your point.

They matter to show how selective and deceitful the reporting has been. Do the following stories give the impression that whites are over-, or under-represented in the Ivies? Are there any stories from illustrious papers such as the NYTimes, Washington Post, or The Guardian, that even hint that whites are the most under-represented group in the Ivy League?

The Supreme Court ruling involving Harvard and the University of North Carolina was a sharp setback to affirmative action policies often used to increase the number of Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority groups on campuses. - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvard-says-it-will-comply...

The inquiry into one of the nation’s richest and most prestigious universities will examine allegations by three liberal groups that Harvard’s practice of showing preference for the relatives of alumni and donors discriminates against Black, Hispanic and Asian applicants in favor of white and wealthy students who are less qualified. - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/us/politics/harvard-admis...

But several studies have shown that legacy admissions overwhelmingly favor wealthy and White applicants, and critics have described the practice as reverse affirmative action — benefiting such students at the cost of applicants of color and other disadvantaged groups. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/07/28/legacy-a...

when the college admissions scandal, dubbed Operation Varsity Blues, crashed into headlines, it immediately became a showcase of white privilege. - https://time.com/5943645/varsity-blues-college-cheating-scan...

How elite US schools give preference to wealthy and white 'legacy' applicants - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite-school...

And these strategies, which are legal, certainly help some types of applicants: A 2019 economic study found that recruited athletes, legacies, children of faculty and staff and kids of wealthy donors represented 43% of White admitted students at Harvard. - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/affirmative-action-harvard-supr...

Why Are Ivy League Schools Still Discriminating Against Asians? - https://www.newsweek.com/why-are-ivy-league-schools-still-di...

Representation in the Ivy League compared to the US population is irrelevant. What matters is representation relative to the standard for admission into whatever elite institution. E.g. it's well documented that an Asian applicant must score several hundred points higher on the SAT to have the same chance of admission into an elite school as a black applicant.

Presumably that is why mean SAT scores are included - to show that despite having higher SAT scores than Black and Hispanic undergraduates, non-Jewish White undergraduates have a significantly lower acceptance rate.

But even ignoring SAT scores (which, when they favor Whites, are dismissed as racist [1-6]), showing the true representation is not irrelevant - it serves to dispel the carefully curated false impression that Whites are over-represented at the expense of minorities, documented in my other comment.

[1] SAT math scores mirror and maintain racial inequity - https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sat-math-scores-mirror-an...

[2] For years, the SAT has come under attack for having a certain bent. From the Harvard Educational Review to the Princeton Review, the measurement tool has been called a "white preference test." - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sat-system-needs-reform_n_853...

[3] The History of the SAT Is Mired in Racism and Elitism - https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-history-of-the-sat-is-mi...

[4] As our country grapples with its heritage of white supremacy, educators need look no further than the SAT for an example of how systemic racism perpetuates itself. - https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2020/08/17/h...

[5] Dismantling White Supremacy Includes Ending Racist Tests like the SAT and ACT - https://www.tcpress.com/blog/dismantling-white-supremacy-inc...

[6] The California system has become the biggest and best-known American institution of higher education to step away from the use of the two major standardized tests, citing charges that they disadvantage students who are poor, black, and Hispanic. - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/us/SAT-ACT-abolish-debate...

Ivy leagues accept 12% of students from overseas, which will skew the demographics towards the global average.

> Ivy leagues accept 12% of students from overseas, which will skew the demographics towards the global average.

Only if the 12% is itself a random selection of the global pool, rather than selective by the same kind of criteria the schools use for other students.

The 'Methodology' section of that image (text on the bottom) states it only looks at the fraction of non-international students with a known race. I.e. it subtracts international students and students with race listed as 'unknown' from the total, and considers that the new 100%.

Cool it with the anti-semitism.

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