[throwaway333444]

> Harvard has testified that race, when considered in admissions, can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in.

So if your race matches their preference they improve your odds of admittance. Since the number of admissions is fixed this reduces the odds of those who have a race that doesn’t match their preference.

IANAL but it sounds like Harvard just admitted that they were guilty.

[rdiddly]

I presume they're trying to have it be affirmative-action-like, but your comment did make me think of it in an interesting way: You can't say "race always helps" or "race only helps" because everybody has a race. There are no Person for which Person.Race is null. (Can you tell I'm on a break from writing code tonight?)

[ajross]

> There are no Person for which Person.Race is null.

Are there not? There are surely Person for which multiple rows with distinct Race exist. It's... complicated.

And yes: if you buy that "race" matters, for good or ill, it's not possible to have a completely just policy that is race-blind, it just isn't. If Harvard wants a campus whose diversity of background (and that obviously includes much more than just race) matches the world around it, which seems like a laudable goal to me, then there are going to have to be race-based decisions made.

Are they the right ones? Not to everyone, no. The best ones? Surely not. But let's not get too caught up in our schadenfreude here.

Be honest: the Preferred Admissions Policy of all the folks who are shouting the loudest here would result in a campus filled with middle+ class whites (with a detectable minority of east asians). We've tried that model. It sucked.

[yhoneycomb]

Actually, it would probably be mainly Asian students if it was completely merit based

Does that suck? If so IMO you're racist

[tuesdayrain]

Complaining about any kind of race composition does seem oddly racist to me, even when the poster is trying to reduce racism. I wouldn't go to a university in Africa and say "wow it sucks that there's so many black people here, you need some white people for diversity. Maybe we should tweak the admissions system".

[ajross]

You're missing the point. Let's say you go to your hypothetical "university in Africa", and that your nation had, I dunno, a significant(25%, say) Uzbek minority. Yet the student body was 98% native africans. You seriously wouldn't consider that a problem? You wouldn't ask why the Uzbeks weren't being educated at the same rate as the rest of the population? You'd consider it "oddly racist" to even ask if maybe this was wrong?

That's where we were, in just our parents generation. Harvard used to be 98%+ white as recently as the 1970's. Of of that generation, there were almost no non-white elite graduates entering the top flight law firms and investment banks and academic tenure tracks. I mean, sure, hispanic kids could "go to college". But because of "merit" they couldn't go to Harvard.

So Harvard fixed it. Harvard is now reasonably well-integrated. But the techniques they used to fix it are coarse and hard to apply in a uniformly fair way. So everyone bitches about it, and they tweak it endlessly. But bitching about the algorithm isn't a refutation of the problem.

So tell me again how that's "oddly racist" to think this is a problem.

[yhoneycomb]

Your examples all fall flat. You've completely sidestepped the issue of discrimination against Asians, instead saying that Harvard "fixed" its racism by instituting more racism.

[codyb]

You can call me racist all you want but I do think that'd suck and meeting people from different and similar backgrounds to me has been a tremendous boon to me in my life.

Getting out of your bubble is important, being challenged by others beliefs is important, and learning to have empathy for others situations is important.

And universities should strive to be places where those things happen.

[rdiddly]

You would model that as a many-to-many relationship, with a People table, and a Races table, and a cross-referencing People_Races table that only has PersonID and RaceID columns.

Anywhoo, I'm not sure what the grounds would be for feeling schadenfreude here. "Ha ha, Harvard makes race-based decisions that are not-the-right-ones to everyone, and are surely-not-the-best... THE BLIND FOOLS!" A little esoteric for me.

I'm old OK - I grew up after the leftie ideals that started their ascendancy in the 60s had already kind of arrived in the mainstream. (But before they were set on fire by the likes of Reagan and then sold out by the unholy Clinton-era alliance between erstwhile liberals and 1-percenters.) I was taught, and internalized, values of racial equality, the ennoblement of all peoples, equality for all, one big group called humanity, etc. That picture of Earth taken from the moon by the Apollo astronauts - one world. All of us.

What makes me sad is that what people call fighting "for justice" nowadays seems to mean betraying and abandoning all that. Instead of seeing one big group with no subgroups, and treating everyone equally, some people seem to want to go back to looking out only for their own little subgroup and its interests, against all the others (or against one in particular). Who does that remind you of? Reminds me of the KKK. It was practically their mission statement - "let's look out for our particular subgroup." (white people) So you might say "No no no, we're different because unlike theirs, our cause is just." Are we so sure? The KKK thought they were just. It's in fact the very thing that enabled them to commit horrible acts against human beings. Justness of the cause is ALWAYS how you rationalize injustice.

Seems to me division and hate still lead to exactly where division and hate have always led.

Not that this has much to do with Harvard admissions but I thought I'd get it off my chest.

[friedman23]

> can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in.

Ok, can someone explain to me if this distinction even matters effectively? If every group is getting a bonus and one group is not doesn't that effectively mean that one group is being penalized?

[hn_throwaway_99]

Yes, and that is exactly what is happening to Asian students, hence the lawsuit.

[adamiscool8]

Not if, e.g. $race_a applicants get +2 to their score, but $race_b applicants are more likely to be +2 in other $admissions_factors[c,d,..n].

Distinct from $race_b-2 and $race_a+2, as this only hurts the subset of $race_b applicants lacking [c,d,..n]

[jjeaff]

Whether they are "likely" to have better scores in other categories is irrelevant. You are still deducting points based on race.

[adamiscool8]

You're not deducting anything.

[jjeaff]

Call it what you want. Your race is reducing your chance at getting in due to seats being taken by those who got a bump for being a certain race.

[woodruffw]

> Since the number of admissions is fixed this reduces the odds of those who have a race that doesn’t match their preference.

Sounds like a classic example of double effect[1] to me: Harvard intends a good end (alleviating historical injustices), applies a means that is not in-itself objectionable (AA), and does not intend the bad end (that some otherwise-qualified students have a reduced chance of getting in).

That's a moral argument and not a legal one, but my intuition is that the intent of their admissions program and its necessary connection to the means (AA) will play a central role in their defense. Fisher II v. UT[2] was decided on similar grounds.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_v._University_of_Texas_...

[corndoge]

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

[ekianjo]

> IANAL but it sounds like Harvard just admitted that they were guilty.

I don't like what they seem to be doing, but Harvard is a private university - they should be able to recruit who they want to based on their own criteria. Of course, it's not a binary thing: universities in the US receive lots of subsidies from local states, so there is a certain expectation of fairness.

Maybe the right thing to do would be to completely cut subsidies if they decide to have a non-public selection process.

[commandlinefan]

Except that this was specifically what private universities (and private everything else’s) were required by law to stop doing 50 year ago, when their preferred race was white. There’s a LONG precedent against private institutions discriminating based on race in the United States - it just hasn’t been enforced evenly.

[09bjb]

I hate to be this guy, but...how is this different from affirmative action? I'm not saying it's wrong, but affirmative action is discriminating based on race. Surely it hasn't been illegal this whole time?

[tbrownaw]

It looks like it's complicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_Unit...

[Digory]

The rule in the US is that a university that wants to discriminate based on race doesn't just lose its grants, it loses its tax exempt status.

[throwawayfri10]

That's the actual issue here. Harvard receives around $600 million in federal funds a year [1].

1. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/22/federal-funding...

[Manicdave]

Thats a lot of money, what do they do with it?

[extra88]

It’s money for research.

[throwaway333444]

>I don't like what they seem to be doing, but Harvard is a private university - they should be able to recruit who they want to based on their own criteria.

So your position is that they are free to racially discriminate against candidates because they are a private university?

[protomyth]

Once you take federal money, you have public obligations spelled out in multiple laws. Harvard takes a lot of federal money.

[paulddraper]

I agree, people and private (non-government) businesses should be able to discriminate however they want on whatever factors they want.

However, that is not what the law says.

[dnautics]

Although I'd support this, cutting subsidies is going to be incredibly painful. A lot of University income is tied up as overhead on top of research grants.

[curious_fella2]

"I don't like what they seem to be doing, but Harvard is a private university - they should be able to recruit who they want to based on their own criteria"

How is this argument different than supporting a private restaurant not serving e.g. Chinese people since they "are a private company that should be able to serve whom they want based on their own criteria?"

[dnautics]

It's not. And as a person of color, I'll tell you that laws preventing discrimination offered me and my family zero protections (specifically with respect to restaurants) in the post CRA-III era.

[curious_fella2]

Edit: misunderstood

[dnautics]

Sorry that was unclear. I should have written "it's not a different argument".

[curious_fella2]

Ah, sorry. Edited.

[k_sh]

CRA-III?

[shkkmo]

I would assume that is Title III of the Civil Rights Act which covers the obligation of the Attorney General to instigate civil suites to enforce the CRA on behalf of complainants who do not have the means to pursue a civil suite on their own.

[dnautics]

Sorry for the ambiguity. It's the third civil rights act (1964) after 57 and 60. I and II dominantly were about racism in voting, but III has substantial portions that were about regulating private behavior in addition to those segments about the state sponsored racism.

[jorblumesea]

How is what Harvard is doing supported by that example? They are giving preferential treatment to certain groups or ethnicities, not actively discriminating against any certain group. If you went to a restaurant and someone that was in line after you got seated before simply because of their ethnicity, that's not the same as not being served at all right?

[lalaland1125]

If there are a limited number of seats it's exactly the same as not being served at all.

[jjeaff]

I'm sorry sir, but you've been bumped from this flight. Because someone from a more favorable race showed up.

You'll have to try and catch the next flight. We have one departing next year.

[bnm123123]

Seems like Harvard is trying to add confusion to the issue. There's a strong possibility that asian applicants are penalized relative to white students, which has nothing to do with affirmative action.

[masonic]

"... and all the children are above average", like Lake Wobegon.

[atomi]

From what I've read the allegation was that Harvard admissions was giving lower personality ratings to applicants who weren't white[1].

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollme...

[blazespin]

Affirmative action has been a big issue, but I don't think it makes you guilty.

[fromthestart]

Doublespeak

[dang]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?