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by rayiner
799 days ago
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> for instance, concern that affirmative action discriminates against Asians in spite of the well-known data that shows everyone is far more disadvantaged by legacy and wealth. First, affirmative action is morally wrong. We shouldn’t inflict the concept of race on the next generation. Second, you can get rid of both affirmative action and legacy admissions. Third, the math on that idea just doesn’t work. Eliminating affirmative action tends to almost double the percentage of Asians from 20% closer to 40%. There’s no way eliminating legacy admissions would have a similar effect. It’s simply not possible under any system of race balancing to make Asians better off than they would be in a race-blind system. More generally, when you’re a minority group that’s 6% of the population but accounts for 20% of the seats at Harvard and 40% of Silicon Valley, “equity” is simply contrary to your self interest. |
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Sure you could. But the point is about where the conversation has been directed and where the emphasis is placed, including by you.
>affirmative action is morally wrong. We shouldn’t inflict the concept of race on the next generation.
But, we should forget the impact of the legacy of race for some members of those same generations?
The problem with these kinds of arguments is that their proponents frequently recast corrective actions as "the immoral racist thing", then dismiss them as immoral and racist.
So, it begs the question of course. But, it's not exactly intellectually honest to start the clock at the place that suits one's argument.
The unfortunate truth is that race was the basis for what needs to be corrected. That wasn't a choice made by those in need of the correction.
The other elephant in the room, conspicuously missed by these kinds of arguments, is that racial discrimination continues to this day; not by law, but by biases, social networks and other artifacts from the era of overt and codified discrimination. Affirmative action also acknowledges this plain fact. The counter from those intellectually honest enough to also acknowledge it frequently runs something along the lines of "yes, but we can't fix discrimination with more discrimination". The truth is that we actually can, but it does require that people stop inciting resentment by facilely re-framing these corrections as merely more "immoral" discrimination.
And, what do we propose those on the receiving end do while society works through its ongoing issues with discrimination?
>Eliminating affirmative action tends to almost double the percentage of Asians from 20% closer to 40%
Your numbers here suspiciously align with Harvard demographics, and indeed you go on to cite that same 20% explicitly for Harvard.
And, that is stunning. You are essentially replacing every admitted student who could have taken advantage of affirmative action with Asian students.
The obvious conclusions are that:
1. Virtually every Black, Latin, indigenous and otherwise "affirmative action eligible" student at Harvard would not have been admitted, save for affirmative action.
2. Every seat taken by those students would have instead been occupied by an Asian student.
Not only is this wildly presumptuous and flat wrong, it reveals a lot about your thinking, including some "biases" (to state it euphemistically). There is a certain "they wouldn't have earned it anyway" undertone here, which also animates anti-AA arguments in the main. Poetically, these are exactly the kinds of biases I mentioned earlier, which lead to ongoing discrimination that AA seeks to address.
It also conveys a very specific POV—more accurately, narrative—that dishonestly frames affirmative action as a war between Asians and Blacks or other non-privileged groups, while de-emphasizing the effects of legacy and wealth. You have, essentially, been misdirected and enlisted as a proxy.
It's a time honored tradition to scapegoat underprivileged groups while the privileged enjoy the spoils. And, in spite of your claim that "the math doesn't work"—which you appear to have supported only with faulty assumptions—the numbers actually bear out who's really winning:
Black and LatinX admittance stands at around 7%. So even assuming their overfitting is all due to affirmative action, this pales in comparison to donors and legacies, in both percentages and real terms (butts in seats, displacing other butts in seats).[0]https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/07/05/legacy-a...