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by busyant 153 days ago
Just to throw my anecdote in ... In the 1980s, I met a handful of white people (on different occasions) who each complained that they needed a near perfect score on the State Police entrance exam whereas "other" people could be accepted with far lower scores.

So, these types of policies did exist at the time. But I'm sure there was a continuum of policies in effect at different institutions in that era.

Of course, to me it's perfectly plausible that Adams' boss told him they weren't promoting white men, but largely because I could see the supervisor lying to Adams simply for the purpose of not looking like the bad guy. ("Hey, I wanted to promote you, but you know how the Dems keep meddling in corporate affairs, right? My hands were tied.")
1 comments
mock-possum 153 days ago
> a handful of white people (on different occasions) who each complained that they needed a near perfect score on the State Police entrance exam whereas "other" people could be accepted with far lower score

Were these people trustworthy? Because that sounds exactly like the kind of urban legend that people like to parrot, or like a pretty standard way to cope with not getting hired. I heard a bit of very similar chatter about college admissions back in the day. “Maybe I would have had a shot if I was Asian.” Etc.

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kcplate 152 days ago
> I heard a bit of very similar chatter about college admissions back in the day. “Maybe I would have had a shot if I was Asian.” Etc.

I’m not sure you can really say this was an urban legend, as there was a number of court cases regarding it (At least one from that far back) and a recent SCOTUS (2023) ruling specifically ending the capability of colleges to utilize affirmative action considerations for admissions. Not to say that every person who claimed such a thing was accurate, but it was happening.

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

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busyant 152 days ago
> Were these people trustworthy?

It was a long time ago (obviously). In general, yes, they were trustworthy, but they themselves could have been victims of misinformation--I don't really know is the short answer. But this is true for just about any bit of "news." Unless you have direct knowledge of a piece of information, you evaluate the information (and the person relating the info) and you make your best guess as to its "truth/falsity."

These days, I find it extremely difficult to trust a lot of federal "truth", so I get your overall point. :-(

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