Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

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This substack quotes some of the relevant bits: https://colemanhughes.substack.com/p/10-notes-on-the-end-of-...

Copying here actual conversation (revealed in the lawsuit) between admissions officers at UNC:

“I just opened a brown girl who’s an 810 [SAT].”

“If its brown and above a 1300 [SAT] put them in for [the] merit/Excel [scholarship].”

“Still yes, give these brown babies a shot at these merit $$.”

“I am reading an Am. Ind.”

“[W]ith these [URM] kids, I’m trying to at least give them the chance to compete even if the [extracurriculars] and essays are just average.”

“I don’t think I can admit or defer this brown girl.”

“perfect 2400 SAT All 5 on AP one B in 11th”

“Brown?!”

“Heck no. Asian.”

“Of course. Still impressive.”

“I just read a blk girl who is an MC and Park nominee.”....

“Stellar academics for a Native Amer/African Amer kid.”....

“I’m going through this trouble because this is a bi-racial (black/white) male.”

Well, that's not one conversation, except for

    “perfect 2400 SAT All 5 on AP one B in 11th”
    “Brown?!”
    “Heck no. Asian.”
    “Of course. Still impressive.”

those are selected comments from different chats.

Holy shit I hadn’t read the cert petition and hasn’t seen the quotes. I never believed the assertion that “all white people are racist” because I honestly thought the white people around me didn’t “see race.” This has been extremely eye-opening.

"All white people are racist" is a racist statement itself. And the Harvard admissions department is not representative of "white people".

I'm referring to that statement because it's something people say, hence the quotes. I'm not saying I agree with its full scope now. But I get where it's coming from more than I did before.

While university admissions people aren't representative of white people, they're in the class of people I had always assumed didn't see people in terms of race. I knew affirmative action was a thing, but I kind of assumed it was a mathematical, maybe computerized process. I didn't realize they were sifting through applications saying "oh, here's a hispanic, and that one's a black kid, shoot this one's an asian."

I think it's a big (and likely incorrect) assumption that all of (or even a plurality of) the people making these comments working in admissions are themselves white.

It's not just that they're not representative of an entire group of people, many aren't members of that group at all.

It's also not necessarily entirely on the admissions people - the argument made in that substack (and ultimately the conclusion of SCOTUS) is that affirmative action is a euphemism for racial discrimination.

Ultimately you have to be doing something like this somewhere if that's the policy since that's explicitly what it means, the internal comms just show the reality of the policy that's often not said in public communication (because imo it seems obviously bad to most people).

University employees are overwhelmingly white: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/28/black-adminis.... Over 75% in the mid level employee ranks, and over 80% in the administrator ranks.

I agree the reality hits harder than the theory. I imagined this statistical and detached balancing process, not this.

What. The. Fuck!? I’m actually speechless.

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