[Someone1234]

One issue with affirmative action which rarely gets addressed: What is the definition of a certain race anyway?

If someone is from two black parents, fine, they're black. But what if one parent was black and one was white, are they black? Are their children black? What about their children's children? Are we going to spin out genetic testing, color cards, or start looking at people's family tree to decide eligibility?

Honestly I think the US has the right idea, but has the wrong implementation.

People who are from disadvantaged households SHOULD be given a leg up. They don't get the expensive tutors, and their parents might have to work longer hours, they cannot afford that trip to Europe the rich kid wrote their essay about, and their home life could be a lot more disruptive.

And the nice "perk" of discriminating based on household income and or poverty is: A lot of minorities will benefit because they're already in that group.

It also solves another issue we're seeing: Second generation kids of minorities whose parents are college educated and or professionals. The affirmative action program is designed to give kids with a disadvantage a more fair shake, but it is being used by minority kids who are by all definitions from middle class or from affluent households even more of an advantage, which is stealing spots from poor minority kids that actually need it!

So I would like to see affirmative action based on race scrapped. Base it on income. It will still largely benefit minority applicants, but we won't have to answer awkward questions like "how white is too white to be a minority?"

[cptskippy]

I think you're spot on.

I worked for an Auto Insurance Broker in a former life and they had a state come down on them pretty hard for discriminating against minorities. At the time it was pretty common to jack up the rate factors on particular minorities for a pretty legitimate business reason.

Instead of using race as a rate factor they switched over to a combination of zip code, income, and vehicle age which encompassed pretty much the same demographic but actually ended up improving their overall loss ratio.

I would hope risk analysis has evolved since those days but if not there's a huge opportunity for any aspiring data scientists out there who wish to become actuarials.

[CM30]

I agree entirely on the 'base affirmative action on income' thing. Class/income inequality is the biggest issue there is today, and something to aims to fix that rather than a meaningless race or gender quota would be fantastic.

Might also slowly start getting rid of the overly abudant trust fund kids found in most high end professions, the kinds who seemingly get jobs and money simply because their parents were born into the same.

[yummyfajitas]

Base it on income. It will still largely benefit minority applicants...

This is probably not true. Blacks and hispanics significantly underperform whites and asians at fixed levels of income.

https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/on-c...

[ZeroGravitas]

As an outsider looking in, it seems that the one thing the US hates more than affirmative action is exactly the kind of "socialist" interventions you describe.

I'm also wondering what would stop a structurally racist society from simply choosing poor people from their preferred race? You're begging the question if you assume that people will be chosen fairly with no regard to race under this system.

[Someone1234]

> I'm also wondering what would stop a structurally racist society from simply choosing poor people from their preferred race?

It is illegal in the US. Also colleges could simply stop asking about race on applications.

[ZeroGravitas]

Is it illegal for Asian Americans to be discriminated against when applying to top colleges, because it seems to be widely accepted that it happens all the time? And even if the form didn't explicitly say "Chinese-American" on it, I'm guessing the people who scrutinize every detail of their academic and personal development for admissions purposes can find some clues, like their name, to give them a chance to continue with their discrimination.

[Steko]

I see this topic discussed all the time, not rarely.

[kelukelugames]

It's literally in the link.

"Opponents of affirmative action argue that aiming for diversity in areas other than race, such as socioeconomic class, can ensure sufficiently diverse student bodies. The most common race-neutral policy used as an alternative to affirmative action is a plan that the University of Texas already uses, in which a percentage of graduates from every high school get automatic admission. These policies have been shown to increase racial and ethnic diversity on campus, but research on whether they’re as effective as more explicit race-based affirmative action policies has been mixed, and critics say that it doesn’t make sense to use a proxy when so many colleges continue to struggle with racial diversity."

[venomsnake]

> It also solves another issue we're seeing: Second generation kids of minorities whose parents are college educated and or professionals. The affirmative action program is designed to give kids with a disadvantage a more fair shake, but it is being used by minority kids who are by all definitions from middle class or from affluent households even more of an advantage, which is stealing spots from poor minority kids that actually need it!

Not only that but it can get worse. It creates an ample opportunities for discrimination. You can never be sure if someone's credentials got some boost along the way, so the wiser course of action is to hire the default. Yeah the default could get her boost by being kid of generous donors, but at least she is well connected.

Almost any anti racism policy can be perverted to perpetuate racism.