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Comment by codexb | Hacker News Reader

The war against standardized tests has far more to do with black students performing disproportionately poorer on them. Many people are unwilling to acknowledge the multitude of cultural and socioeconomic factors responsible for that and instead want to simply chalk it up to racism. And so there's a war against any admissions policy that results in disproportionate racial outcomes, until we're left with admissions policies that are openly racist in order to achieve race-based results.

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> And so there's a war against any admissions policy that results in disproportionate racial outcomes

Except legacy admissions and pay-to-play donations. After all, pedigree and wealth are merit (or proof thereof) - no need for pesky test scores in the face of such overwhelming evidence.

I don't think people truly care about legacy admissions and pay-to-play as long as it's fair. Put a big banner under the admissions page with clear criteria for the donation thresholds necessary and people would be fine with that. It's the hypocrisy and pretense that it's a fair meritocratic game that people cannot stand. The universities are trying to prevent brand dilution while shouting racism the moment people accuse them of having an unfair admissions process.

Can we agree that legacy admission should be completely done away with? The only people I think would be opposed would be the managers of the endowments and fundraising (and legacy beneficiaries, who are smaller in number).

None of that changes what the poster you were replying to was getting at. The opposition to standardized testing was entirely due to the performance of _some_ minorities and entirely political.

> Many people are unwilling to acknowledge the multitude of cultural and socioeconomic factors responsible for that and instead want to simply chalk it up to racism.

How many of those cultural and socioeconomic factors were almost directly related to racism though?

Considering Asians were discriminated enough against to have a law just against them + internment camps and still excel in the USA should tell you something. It's that we get very high "quality" Asian immigrants to the USA who are better than average citizens of their home country.

Racist policies against Asians in California have pretty deep history.

Yet Asians do well in California schools.

"The California Alien Land Law of 1913 (also known as the Webb–Haney Act) prohibited "aliens ineligible for citizenship" from owning agricultural land or possessing long-term leases over it, but permitted leases lasting up to three years.[1][2][3]....... The law was meant to discourage immigration from Asia, and to create an inhospitable climate for immigrants already living in California.[7][8][9]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Alien_Land_Law_of_1...

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