Current Events > Justice Department to take on affirmative action in college applications

(+) Yeah! (+)

I hope they consider that aa and quotas also benefits whites to the detriment of Asians.
---

Good to see the soul of Jesse Helms is still alive and will in the CEfront.
---

If race is not on the application at all, then the admissions people won't even necessarily know the race of the applicant.

White people actually believe this...
---

I support affirmative action based on class, not race.
---

Whew. Good thing I'm applying for grad school in about a month. Looks like I just made the cut


---

gamer167 posted...

I don't understand, are people trying to say that if they get rid of affirmative action campuses will have less diversity in them because people of color are not as smart as the white students and thus will not get enrolled?

Of course not. But there will be instances of schools rejecting minorities because they are non-white.
---

Trump's administration doing more racist things that only are intended to benefit straight white people?

You bet your ass.
---

--kresnik-- posted...

Good. I'm sick of this anti white bullshit. It's everywhere.

John_Galt posted...

Good

About damn time

EternalDivide posted...

Good. It's about damn time too.

White raaaaaaage
---

Sad_Face posted...

Capn Circus posted...

There's plenty of other women going to that same college those students can interact with. No student should be declined enrollment to their college and field of choice based off of their gender or race.

At a lot of engineering schools, this is absolutely not true. And realize that it's super competitive nowadays. For some schools, applicants are in 10s of thousands vying to class slots of maybe a 1000 and change. This means there are going to be a considerable number who, on paper, meet the criteria. That's when the application committee has no choice but to be selective about who they send acceptance letters to.

And women and men do gravitate to certain fields, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to recruit and garner interest in certain underrepresented demographics to join those fields.

I'm fine with universities advertising and sending the word out to women, so to speak, if they choose to do so. But I'm not fine with someone being admitted who is less qualified than another person. Like I said, there's women that meet the criteria outright already. It is what it is. No need to discriminate against people who have higher qualifications.
---

dragnmaninferno posted...

gamer167 posted...

I don't understand, are people trying to say that if they get rid of affirmative action campuses will have less diversity in them because people of color are not as smart as the white students and thus will not get enrolled?

Of course not. But there will be instances of schools rejecting minorities because they are non-white.

How can you just assume this? Especially with how liberal modern day schools are.
---

FrisbeeDude posted...

White raaaaaaage

You're the only one in this topic raging.
---

Zero_Destroyer posted...

I support affirmative action based on class, not race.

This.
---

gamer167 posted...

dragnmaninferno posted...

gamer167 posted...

I don't understand, are people trying to say that if they get rid of affirmative action campuses will have less diversity in them because people of color are not as smart as the white students and thus will not get enrolled?

Of course not. But there will be instances of schools rejecting minorities because they are non-white.

How can you just assume this? Especially with how liberal modern day schools are.

You'd be a fool to think otherwise.
---

Butterfiles posted...

hopefully they look at legacy admissions as well

but that would mainly affect white people so they wont do that

Imagine being mad that the DOJ is going after school's accepting less qualified applicants because of the color of their skin.
---

CrimsonRage posted...

This isn't an important issue for them to be focusing on when there are bigger problems out there.

Trump is fighting racism. Why would you be against that?
---

Tropicalwood posted...

Imagine being mad that the DOJ is going after school's accepting less qualified applicants because of the color of their skin.

Imagine thinking this is a such a significant issue that the full force of the DOJ should investigate rather than the section specifically designated to deal with education.

But hey, this is the new America where we want to worry about bathrooms and letting Christians discriminate against gay people.
---

Excellent! It's about time the government tackled systemic racism and black privilege.

#MAGA #Trump2020

gamer167 posted...

I don't understand, are people trying to say that if they get rid of affirmative action campuses will have less diversity in them because people of color are not as smart as the white students and thus will not get enrolled?

That's exactly what liberals say: "If acceptance is based on merit, no black people will be able to get in!!" It just goes to show who the real racists are.

Sad_Face posted...

I hope this doesn't escalate to the point where school have to take the first X amount of students that meet the on paper criteria and popular engineering schools end up with matriculating classes with 90% male populations, mostly composed of White and Asian ethnicity.

What would be wrong with that? If they're the most qualified, why not let them in?
---

hockeybub89 posted...

Tropicalwood posted...

Imagine being mad that the DOJ is going after school's accepting less qualified applicants because of the color of their skin.

Imagine thinking this is a such a significant issue that the full force of the DOJ should investigate rather than the section specifically designated to deal with education.

But hey, this is the new America where we want to worry about bathrooms and letting Christians discriminate against gay people.

asian american groups have been looking for people to investigate college admissions for a while since they are the ones disproportionately affected. so hockey, why are you such a racist?

http://archive.is/D63nO
---

The Admiral posted...

FrisbeeDude posted...

White raaaaaaage

You're the only one in this topic raging.

Nah, fam. Black folks saw this coming when white america decided the biggest threats to America were politically active black people and the LGBTQ community.
---

FightingGames posted...

based trump

I don't like him but this is amazing news.

No more qualified people getting "no" to Med school wth a 3.9 because hey have "enough" Asians. No more people with 2.5 getting in just because black.


I don't care if my doctor is black, white, Asian, Indian, etc.
but I want her to have been qualified (most people who get into med school because affirmative action don't pass, but what about the person with a 3.9 that wasn't allowed in?)
---

LittleRoyal posted...

FightingGames posted...

based trump

I don't like him but this is amazing news.

No more qualified people getting "no" to Med school wth a 3.9 because hey have "enough" Asians. No more people with 2.5 getting in just because black.


I don't care if my doctor is black, white, Asian, Indian, etc.
but I want her to have been qualified (most people who get into med school because affirmative action don't pass, but what about the person with a 3.9 that wasn't allowed in?)

They find a way to pass many people who aren't as qualified, also. That's part of the whole deal, too--if it wasn't it would be racist/sexist/discriminatory.

As long as everything looks good on paper (Plenty of diversity, low failure rates/low incarceration rates/etc) we can ignore the high crime and crumbling infrastructure and lower standards of living.

Then we can continue to get big hollywood liberals like Tom Hanks wobbling back and forth all hopped up on pills saying America is already great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpT5shvFtmI
---

Its as I've said about jobs...
The best man for the job gets it.
The best student for the spot gets it.

Race should not play a factor in admissions.
---

Sad_Face posted...

Sephiroth1288 posted...

Nomadic View posted...

I'd be fine if they took name, sex, birth, and race off applications and just let in the most qualified candidates.

This. Who could argue against this? Wouldn't this make it so you can only get admitted on merit?

The problem with this is that, for engineering schools, males VASTLY outnumber females in applications. Ethnicity-wise, Asians and whites also outnumber the other ethnicities by a significant margin. If you want a diverse student body, you have to go out of your way to look for those that can fill the niches you're looking for. It's not just looking for students that can survive the classes, you also want students who can contribute to the student life. And you do not want a class comprised of 10% females, 90% males.

That's only a problem for people who place a disproportionate value on racial and gender diversity in a student body.

For people who don't, but are just more interested in the most qualified getting in, they aren't going to care if the gender ratio is 90% men and 10% women in a class. Or if the races are not represented proportionately to the racial populations of the country/state. If most of the qualified candidates happen to be male and Asian or white, then that's just how it is and they should be the ones to get in.

A lot of people don't really care about how diverse a classroom is. If fewer women go into a particular subject because they aren't interested in the field, so what? If whites and Asians are more qualified than blacks and Hispanics because they got a better education, so what?

You're probably not going to find much compromise because staunch advocates for diversity and proponents for a meritocracy are looking at the issue with distinctly different worldviews and values.
---

Esrac posted...

Sad_Face posted...

Sephiroth1288 posted...

Nomadic View posted...

I'd be fine if they took name, sex, birth, and race off applications and just let in the most qualified candidates.

This. Who could argue against this? Wouldn't this make it so you can only get admitted on merit?

The problem with this is that, for engineering schools, males VASTLY outnumber females in applications. Ethnicity-wise, Asians and whites also outnumber the other ethnicities by a significant margin. If you want a diverse student body, you have to go out of your way to look for those that can fill the niches you're looking for. It's not just looking for students that can survive the classes, you also want students who can contribute to the student life. And you do not want a class comprised of 10% females, 90% males.

That's only a problem for people who place a disproportionate value on racial and gender diversity in a student body.

For people who don't, but are just more interested in the most qualified getting in, they aren't going to care if the gender ratio is 90% men and 10% women in a class. Or if the races are not represented proportionately to the racial populations of the country/state. If most of the qualified candidates happen to be male and Asian or white, then that's just how it is and they should be the ones to get in.

A lot of people don't really care about how diverse a classroom is. If fewer women go into a particular subject because they aren't interested in the field, so what? If whites and Asians are more qualified than blacks and Hispanics because they got a better education, so what?

You're probably not going to find much compromise because staunch advocates for diversity and proponents for a meritocracy are looking at the issue with distinctly different worldviews and values.

I get how private universities can get away with using race and sex as selection criteria in order to maintain their desired levels of diversity, but I definitely could see a strong argument for it being unconstitutional for publics.
---

It's really satisfying to see the leftist trolls getting triggered by practical egalitarianism. Really shows off their true character.

Annihilated posted...

It's really satisfying to see the leftist trolls getting triggered by practical egalitarianism. Really shows off their true character.

"Practical egalitarianism"

Lmao...
---

Annihilated posted...

It's really satisfying to see the leftist trolls getting triggered by practical egalitarianism. Really shows off their true character.

In what sense is this practical egalitarianism? In the present day, the schools the different racial groups attend are not close to equal in funding, teacher quality, safety, class offerings or achievement due to racial and economic segregation and housing based school funding/school assignments. This is due to historical patterns of the same issues.

Success in higher education is most closely associated with parental wealth and whether parents went to college, and then the quality of education received. This individualistic, "meritocratic" view is more of a morality play than any type of practicality.

Getting rid of AA is literally just rewarding the groups that secured power for themselves over the generations at the expense of the people trying to slowly pull themselves up. I have STILL never heard anyone find a way to meaningfully dispute the footrace analogy without attempting to muddy the waters with "we all have problems" rhetoric. If there is an endless marathon and some runners are beaten and handcuffed for 80 percent of the race, while other racers are allowed to run relatively free is everything "fair" the moment the handcuffs are taken off? Or would thinking that way ignore the obvious effects of the past on the present and ignore the unfair accumulated advantages some have gotten even if they haven't beaten anyone? Wouldn't the only fair thing to do be to give the formerly restrained people at least a tiny boost even though we overall are now committed not help or hinder any groups. And wouldn't calling the race fair be a farce?

Well that's why we had AA in the first place.
---

The problem with "best man for the job" arguments is that it's not usually the best man for the job. It's usually whoever is good with standardized testing and book knowledge.

Those who praise and prioritize people who abide strictly "by the book" do nothing but hamper progress.
---

Zeeak4444 posted...

The problem with "best man for the job" arguments is that it's not usually the best man for the job. It's usually whoever is good with standardized testing and book knowledge.

Those who praise and prioritize people who abide strictly "by the book" do nothing but hamper progress.

Another good point. Let's look at the factors that go into "meritocracy", especially for undergraduate admissions.

Going to a "competitive" high school (generally meaning richer, whiter, or something you get accepted to through a lottery, highly affected by racial and economic segregation and privilege)

Standardized test scores which (heavily affected by socioeconomic status, ability to afford prep, social capital of parents)

Jobs and Extracurriculars (affected by things like availability of a reliable car, time, parental income).

People can overcome all of this, but it's rare and relatively difficult because things are NOT equal and it is NOT a meritocracy out there. I personally was lucky enough to switch to a more "competitive high school, and get good test scores, but I could have done significantly better if my parents had more money. There would be no change in my actual intelligence, but I would appear to have more "merit". But because of their income, no reliable car, crappy middle school and high school, no prep classes, no extracurricular that required money, etc. AA based on race and class accounts for this. Blindly taking the so called "best applicant" ignores all of this and the factors that contribute to these inequalities. It perpetuates those inequalities and justifies them further and further with each acceptance and rejection letter.
---

legendary_zell posted...

Annihilated posted...

It's really satisfying to see the leftist trolls getting triggered by practical egalitarianism. Really shows off their true character.

In what sense is this practical egalitarianism? In the present day, the schools the different racial groups attend are not close to equal in funding, teacher quality, safety, class offerings or achievement due to racial and economic segregation and housing based school funding/school assignments. This is due to historical patterns of the same issues.

Success in higher education is most closely associated with parental wealth and whether parents went to college, and then the quality of education received. This individualistic, "meritocratic" view is more of a morality play than any type of practicality.

Getting rid of AA is literally just rewarding the groups that secured power for themselves over the generations at the expense of the people trying to slowly pull themselves up. I have STILL never heard anyone find a way to meaningfully dispute the footrace analogy without attempting to muddy the waters with "we all have problems" rhetoric. If there is an endless marathon and some runners are beaten and handcuffed for 80 percent of the race, while other racers are allowed to run relatively free is everything "fair" the moment the handcuffs are taken off? Or would thinking that way ignore the obvious effects of the past on the present and ignore the unfair accumulated advantages some have gotten even if they haven't beaten anyone? Wouldn't the only fair thing to do be to give the formerly restrained people at least a tiny boost even though we overall are now committed not help or hinder any groups. And wouldn't calling the race fair be a farce?

Well that's why we had AA in the first place.

How do you explain minority immigrants who come to America and succeed more than everyone else, including whites born here? How do you explain whites who didn't benefit from any accumulated wealth but who still did well in school?

legendary_zell posted...

People can overcome all of this, but it's rare and relatively difficult because things are NOT equal and it is NOT a meritocracy out there. I personally was lucky enough to switch to a more "competitive high school, and get good test scores, but I could have done significantly better if my parents had more money. There would be no change in my actual intelligence, but I would appear to have more "merit". But because of their income, no reliable car, crappy middle school and high school, no prep classes, no extracurricular that required money, etc. AA based on race and class accounts for this.

I see your anecdote and raise mine - I went to a crappy Chicago Public School on the south side of Chicago. Only white kid there. My parents never had a lot of money while I was growing up because they immigrated to America. No reliable car, crappy middle school, no prep classes, no extracurriculars. I turned out okay. Finished college, happily employed. Took a lot of hard work though. And discipline. Rather than a defeatist victim attitude.

legendary_zell posted...

Blindly taking the so called "best applicant" ignores all of this and the factors that contribute to these inequalities. It perpetuates those inequalities and justifies them further and further with each acceptance and rejection letter.

Haha what?

Boy, those white girls are gonna be pissed about losing their AA.

How do you explain minority immigrants who come to America and succeed more than everyone else, including whites born here? How do you explain whites who didn't benefit from any accumulated wealth but who still did well in school?

I am one of those. I'm pretty sure we've already talked about this. Please don't use my experiences for your political purposes. We have this same exact conversation every time. People who come from other countries face challenges, but not the same as the ones from the US.

Though they come from poor countries, they were probably doing pretty well over there or they generally wouldn't be allowed entry, other than refugees and lottery winners and I don't know how well they're doing. They are some of the most driven people on the planet because they were willing to leave everything they've ever known (a likely big point of disagreement is that I believe you can't expect or require this from people, very few have this mindset, it comes from desperation and a new lease on life through immigration, it's not an on-off switch), they often have family networks of established people (when my family came we lived rent free with cousins for example), they have not been beaten down by generations of segregation and discrimination within a specific area, etc. There's tons of factors that differentiate a Chinese, Indian, or Nigerian immigrant from a kid in Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, etc. There's also many immigrant groups that aren't doing too hot even within groups that are stereotyped as doing well.

As for whites, many people who don't "feel" rich and are not rich often have way more wealth than blacks and hispanics and that skews things in their favor. You may not be rich, but maybe your parents could qualify for the GI Bill and were able to buy a house that builds wealth, while others couldn't based entirely on race. That said, class alone can have a big effect and white people such as those in the Appalachians can be affected by many of the same dynamics that hurt people of color and they're not doing too well at all, even if a few make it out. That should be taken into account, but a "pure meritocracy" wouldn't acknowledge that in any meaningful way.

There's always a few people who do well regardless of the situation they're in. These people had no advantages of any kind. But you can't run a system by pointing to these people and saying everyone should just do that. Because the fact of the matter is, 99 percent of people are not gonna do that and can't under a pure meritocracy because the spots will already be filled by others who had all the necessary advantages.
---

I'm all for re-evaluating affirmative action, but boy, Trump is pulling all the stops to appeal to the most bigotted part of his fanbase recently.

legendary_zell posted...

There's tons of factors that differentiate a Chinese, Indian, or Nigerian immigrant from a kid in Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, etc.

Some of those immigrants barely speak English and their cultures are not exactly in synch with whichever US American community to which they move. Don't downplay the massive disadvantage these students face when they have to compete with US students, who are all privileged by comparison.
---

Transcendentia posted...

legendary_zell posted...

People can overcome all of this, but it's rare and relatively difficult because things are NOT equal and it is NOT a meritocracy out there. I personally was lucky enough to switch to a more "competitive high school, and get good test scores, but I could have done significantly better if my parents had more money. There would be no change in my actual intelligence, but I would appear to have more "merit". But because of their income, no reliable car, crappy middle school and high school, no prep classes, no extracurricular that required money, etc. AA based on race and class accounts for this.

I see your anecdote and raise mine - I went to a crappy Chicago Public School on the south side of Chicago. Only white kid there. My parents never had a lot of money while I was growing up because they immigrated to America. No reliable car, crappy middle school, no prep classes, no extracurriculars. I turned out okay. Finished college, happily employed. Took a lot of hard work though. And discipline. Rather than a defeatist victim attitude.

legendary_zell posted...

Blindly taking the so called "best applicant" ignores all of this and the factors that contribute to these inequalities. It perpetuates those inequalities and justifies them further and further with each acceptance and rejection letter.

Haha what?

Yep, we've definitely had this exact conversation before. My core message is that a non-defeatist attitude is no substitute for a fair system. Yes, you were able to make it out, but the gate was incredibly narrow for you to do so, unnecessarily so. You had to run a gauntlet. A lot had to go right for you to make it considering your circumstances. If your parents lost their jobs or got sick, you're probably not here. You could have been shot or put into juvi for defending yourself in a fight. On the other hand, even though you're happy with your success and you should be, an alternate you with more resources, maybe your success would have been multiplied even though you're still in possession of the same brain.

Again, I'm not opposed to hard work. I'd tell everyone to work hard and say that hard work is generally necessary for success, but focusing on that or not having a "victim attitude" and ignoring the systemic issues that overwhelmingly decide who succeeds and fails is unhelpful and short sighted. It turns the highly contextualized lives of high school students into a context less series of outputs (GPA, SAT, ACT) and a morality play about whether they "worked hard enough". Meanwhile, a student living in a housing project with lead in the paint, mud, and water and attending a dangerous, crappy, and de-facto segregated school, in a de-facto segregated neighborhood is told to just work harder and get better grades if he wants to go to a good college. Maybe he could, but that's not the real issue. That's his chance to get out and there's obstacles in his way that must be acknowledged under any fair system. You get what I'm saying?
---

Fuck that racist elf Sessions
---

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

legendary_zell posted...

There's tons of factors that differentiate a Chinese, Indian, or Nigerian immigrant from a kid in Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, etc.

Some of those immigrants barely speak English and their cultures are not exactly in synch with whichever US American community to which they move. Don't downplay the massive disadvantage these students face when they have to compete with US students, who are all privileged by comparison.

I'm an immigrant, why would I downplay the struggles of immigrants? I'm FULLY aware of language and cultural barriers to success. I dealt with them myself (not so much the language barrier though). What you're saying is simply not true though. A US native student who was living in one of the housing projects destroyed by Hurricane Katrina is not necessarily privileged in relation to an immigrant. They will face a lot of the same issues and a lot of different ones. One group faces language and cultural barriers. Another faces generational poverty and the legacy of racial and class discrimination over centuries.

Go to the 5th ward of Houston sometime. It's a truly eye opening experience. When I came to the US as a child, we didn't have much of anything. We lived in a house with 12+ people, my dad rode his bike to work at McDonalds etc. We were the immigrants you're talking about. Yet we were 10x better of than the people in the 5th ward who were facing generational poverty, segregation, disconnection, crime, and hopelessness like you wouldn't believe. They are living in tin shacks and apartments that violate every housing code ever devised. Immigrants at least have family/community to share burdens or hope or previous education or SOMETHING. The people living 10 minutes away from luxury apartments in downtown Houston on the other hand had nothing and no one they knew had anything either.
---

The outrage at the idea of getting rid of affirmative action from certain people/groups is expected. They get upset when they feel that their privilege that they've enjoyed for so long is being threatened
---

legendary_zell posted...

In what sense is this practical egalitarianism? In the present day, the schools the different racial groups attend are not close to equal in funding, teacher quality, safety, class offerings or achievement due to racial and economic segregation and housing based school funding/school assignments. This is due to historical patterns of the same issues.

Don't worry, I'm sure he wants to make sure that those schools are equal. It's why he's cutting the Department of Education, that way all the schools are shitty.
---

well, once Betsy Devos ruins all the public schools with her crazy charter program, all the graduates will be equally stupid so we won't need affirmative action anymore, as others have said.
---

DifferentialEquation posted...

They get upset when they feel that their privilege that they've enjoyed for so long is being threatened

Dunno if you're being ironic here, considering this describes a lot of the right wing posters on CE.
---

I mean...Affirmative Action wasn't benefiting Black People that much anyways. Mostly White Women got the help. Take off race from standardized test and we're getting somewhere.
---

Affirmative action is still a thing? Shit should have been abolished years ago.
---

[trump admin dog whistling intensifies]
---

legendary_zell posted...

Annihilated posted...

It's really satisfying to see the leftist trolls getting triggered by practical egalitarianism. Really shows off their true character.

In what sense is this practical egalitarianism? In the present day, the schools the different racial groups attend are not close to equal in funding, teacher quality, safety, class offerings or achievement due to racial and economic segregation and housing based school funding/school assignments. This is due to historical patterns of the same issues.

Success in higher education is most closely associated with parental wealth and whether parents went to college, and then the quality of education received. This individualistic, "meritocratic" view is more of a morality play than any type of practicality.

Getting rid of AA is literally just rewarding the groups that secured power for themselves over the generations at the expense of the people trying to slowly pull themselves up. I have STILL never heard anyone find a way to meaningfully dispute the footrace analogy without attempting to muddy the waters with "we all have problems" rhetoric. If there is an endless marathon and some runners are beaten and handcuffed for 80 percent of the race, while other racers are allowed to run relatively free is everything "fair" the moment the handcuffs are taken off? Or would thinking that way ignore the obvious effects of the past on the present and ignore the unfair accumulated advantages some have gotten even if they haven't beaten anyone? Wouldn't the only fair thing to do be to give the formerly restrained people at least a tiny boost even though we overall are now committed not help or hinder any groups. And wouldn't calling the race fair be a farce?

Well that's why we had AA in the first place.

Thank God that isn't universally true. Mom worked in a sewing factory. Dad was a lawn mower mechanic. I attended school at the 94/95th funded county in the lowest funded state in the USA. Now I hold a PhD in chemical engineering. I graduated with a 4.0 GPA. While I am a Caucasian male, I gladly took that minority fellowship. I'm the only one who thought to apply.