This is the roughest back-of-the-envelope calculation:
- There are perhaps 100 highly selective universities in the US where affirmative action makes a significant difference in enrollment.
- About 4% of Black high school students attend these universities.
- Without affirmative action, that number will be cut in half.
So the impact of the Supreme Court's ban on affirmative action is that roughly 2% of Black students will attend selective universities (UCLA, NYU, Tulane) rather than highly selective universities (Harvard, Northwestern, USC, Princeton). In numbers, that comes to 35,000 or so.
So what's the real impact of 2% of Black kids attending UCLA instead of USC? Tulane instead of Harvard? It's probably not huge. Life will stay exactly the same for the 96% of Black kids who don't benefit from affirmative action in the first place and for the 2% who attend highly selective universities regardless. The remaining 2% will now attend excellent but not quite elite universities.
In theory, the end of affirmative action is a blow to fairness and racial equity. In practice, it probably doesn't make quite as much difference as we might think:
Decades of affirmative action have increased the racial diversity on some of the most selective college campuses that often serve as the primary pipeline into high-status careers. But there isn’t much conclusive evidence affirmative-action policies have leveled the playing field in the U.S. Even as America overall has become more racially diverse, wealth gaps between whites and many minorities have proved persistent and top jobs remain elusive.
....Studies have shown that minorities, after graduating, have attained foot-in-the-door positions but leadership roles largely remain out of reach in the legal world, hospitals and corporate boardrooms.
There is so much more that has to be done. Affirmative action helped, but it was never more than a pinprick.
If highly selective schools can offer a leg up to legacy students of one type -- the kind that have parents or ancestors who attended the school -- they can give a leg up to others, on the basis of a legacy of slavery attached to the school's history.
👍👍👍👍👍
This, of course, makes sense so no, that can't be.
Worth mentioning that a generation of black students now have legacy children that can cruise into the Ivy's, too.
Given how important the "legacy" thing likely is to private university endowment funding, I wouldn't hold your breath that it will ever go away.
Precisely. Donations.
And of course the 2nd, 3rd generations from original AA have their legs up.
While from a documentary PoV one rather gets into quite the problematic complexity to attempt to document at scale ancestry tie to specific 19th century American experience - and peculiar distortions in favour of those with records (likely the better off families since 19th c. - or one goes on self-affirmation which will not only be gamed but almost certainly will not survive a challenge...
Pragmatically a pivot to ethnicity neutral focus on lower middle class revenue families and below is likely more sustainable, practically implementable and less subject to distortion (versus broad ethno-racial advantage that then redounds to in fact elite families).
Of course the Cultural Left Bobos will rather prefer intellectualised moral posturing than pragmatic results.
There are innumerable moral arguments one could make for or against Affirmative Action in college admissions. Likewise many, many practical arguments going both ways. I don't expect anyone to change their minds based on such arguments.
But there's only one legitimate conclusion if you think the Civil Rights Act means what it says.
But there's only one legitimate conclusion if you think the Civil Rights Act means what it says.
Justice Powell (1978) didn't think so. And he was pretty well-trained in constitutional jurisprudence!
Justices throughout history have been capable of amazing sophistry in pursuit of their preferred outcomes. The Civil Rights Act stated, in part "No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." No one, as far as I know, has ever claimed that Affirmative Action in admissions did not constitute discrimination on the ground of race. Justice Powell wrote that discrimination is all right in pursuit of a good cause. This level of sophistry rivals that of the Plessy decision in 1896.
Well, yes, plenty of people did declare that AA was not "discrimination based on race." You could use those very words to do a google search, and be educated by what comes up.
Yes. I wonder what the reaction would be if Harvard announced a new reparations program targeting applicants who are the descendants of enslaved persons.
Georgetown University has a program where if you can provide proof you were a descendant of a slave owned by the Jesuits who founded and run the University, if you are academically qualified, you can get a free ride to Georgetown as a means of making amends.
Almost no-one (including the people opposed to affirmative actions) approves of and supports legacies. So that’s a straw man.
Kevin fails to mention the ways in which ending affirmative action will make things better. The largest of these is that when you encounter a minority member with an Ivy League degree you won’t immediately assume “second class pity degree”, which is a huge issue with black intellectuals many of whom are extremely pissed (justifiably so) as being trapped in a situation where no matter what they do (at school and then later) white folks have created a situation where they will ALWAYS be viewed as having their degrees and careers by law, not by merit.
Almost no-one (including the people opposed to affirmative actions) approves of and supports legacies.
I do, as long as there's money* involved. I'm 100% serious. I would object to an excessive number of legacies, but, provided they're capped (15%? 20%?) as a percentage of total admissions, I think legacies are eminently justifiable. In the first place, the money they generate helps less affluent students (US prestige universities can afford very generous aid packages) and it also helps ensure America's competitive universities are the world's most well-resourced. That's a huge national advantage. How'd you like to be the chair of a university department in Denmark or Canada having to compete with Yale or Stanford to recruit a Nobel laureate? I bet it sucks.
*When there's no monetary quid-pro-quo, I agree legacies are stupid, pointless, and should be jettisoned.
Unfair situation but in end humans being humans, inevitable...
Another argument for a pivot to a family revenue approach - this beyond "need blind" admission but giving students from family revenue admission points extra to whatever scoring mechanism for academic performance.
Imperfect but at least documentarily actionable, and removing the direct demogoguery hook as it becomes race neutral (perhaps it is feasible to as well give admission point advantages to students coming from geographic zones or schooling districts with below average family revenue [national or state or whatever is at once sensible but also data actionable].
Straw man my foot! There's a ton of support for legacy admits, sure there's a bit of pushback on the percentage of legacies but there's a ton of support across the spectrum of the wealthy and elite for the status quo to remain.
Well Edward Blum, founder of SFFA, who submitted the case just decided does not support them…
Which seems a somewhat relevant datapoint…
That's utterly untrue. Do you think Donald Trump did not support preferential treatment of legacy students when his own children were applying to UPenn?
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The thing that I loved about uni was the diversity of people I encountered. I got to know Iranians, Germans, a few African-Americans, a Socialist from Reseda, and even a wet between the ears white John Birch Society fella from San Marino who threw up in his trash can because he couldn't handle his liquor.
Diversity is good.
If universities in 2023 are 1/100 of the rabid liberal factories that right wingers make them out to be, I have a hard time believing that the Ivy's are going to suddenly revert back to Jim Crow.
They'll find other ways to bring in the diversity that I think they actually want. Just focusing on income levels alone will probably do the trick.
Focusing on income levels alone doesn't do the trick. Both California and Michigan show otherwise.
Small business owners will game their income to qualify as low income. My late wife, a CPA, did work for an owner who did that. That was over 30 years ago.
Humans are humans and every policy imaginable will be gamed including the ones struck down.
What would be relevant is if the number of small business owners is statistically large enough in the application family population to have any real impact (then of course one should control for the ethnic composition of such population).
Cursory reading others re Michigan and California do not make it clear as to any structural income basis reform executed broadly (presumably for their public universities), so the bald assertion Income Alone does not work should need some proper statistical and analytical data (although it is plausible indeed this is the case and entirely plausible family income needs to be augmented with some broad category that is likely survivable to challenge as below average family income for statistical districts).
Very true. But there will be lawyers arguing that the colleges are cheating by using non-racial criteria to make "racist" decisions. And the Supremos are going to swallow those ":arguments" hook, line and sinker.
They'll find other ways to bring in the diversity that I think they actually want.
They'll still be very diverse. They'll just have slighly weaker representation from the Black and Latino communities. The numbers Kevin suggests, which sound plausible to me, indicate very little change. The richest colleges are also the ones that can afford the most robust and effective work arounds to affirmative action.
The damage will be the most at the next tier of elite education - the flagship schools in each state like say UVA - Governor Youngkin is stocking the board of visitors with Christian Nationalists. These schools are more reachable for minority students so the damage will be substantial.
If only 100 universities really practiced affirmative action as of yesterday then it mostly ended some time ago, or maybe was never universally practiced. Certainly California ended affirmative action in 1996, for example. So if the real-life impact of affirmative action was modest (as of yesterday) this may have been because it was not actually practiced much. It might be more accurate to say that the effect of the Supreme Court ending all vestiges will be modest.
A true judgement of whether affirmative action has failed or amounted only to a pinprick would have to take into account how much it was really practiced, which must be complicated. Also it should probably take into account of the fact that discrimination in favor of donors and alumni, who have been predominantly white and higher-income, is effectively anti-affirmative action.
What's the reason for thinking it will have any effect at all? If Harvard wants a diverse student body, they can find other criteria than "affirmative action" that will have the same effect. I don't think the Supreme Court told Harvard that they can't use "diversity" in any way for admission. The University of California has been banned from using affirmative action for years. What actual effect has that had?
It took 25 years for diversity to return to the levels it had before affirmative action was banned. Maybe the Ivies can learn from the experience of what happened earlier, but it would be nice to not have to worry about that.
https ://edsource.org/2020/freshmen-enrollment-csu-and-uc-by-race-and-ethnicity/642182
remove space to get the right url
What is this data supposed to show? That the end of affirmative action in California helped Hispanic students?
Links are permitted on this site. You just may not "lead" with one. So with that preamble: https://edsource.org/2020/freshmen-enrollment-csu-and-uc-by-race-and-ethnicity/642182
You're using the Wall Street Journal as an unbiased authoritative source???
It's a collaboration think-piece, not some wackadoodle editorial
The Brookings institute shows that college graduation rates increase as the selectivity of the university increases. (For each race.) So if a race is less selected, the college graduation rate of that race will decrease. Since the black college graduation rate is lower than the white rate, there is a continued and growing econimic gap from that effect.
However, I expect that highly selective universities will continue to strive for a diverse student body so that they can provide better education and research outcomes and remain highly selective. Less selective universities may see a drop in diversity. Comparing UC and CSU suggests this may happen in practice.
[ https ://edsource.org/2020/freshmen-enrollment-csu-and-uc-by-race-and-ethnicity/642182 (remove space) ]
"There is so much more that has to be done." Yes, and if we remove each tool that helps us get things done, it will always remain that there is so much more that needs to be done.
You're basically just saying "the real-life impact of having laws, rules, and norms on equal treatment is pretty small, so those laws, rules, and norms aren't important."
Also, regardless of impact, optics matter. Everybody with any sense of self-awareness and half of a working brain knows that racism is still a thing, that it's been used as a tool by privileged whites to oppress non-privileged/non-whites, and will still be used to keep non-white people out of colleges and universities by race-biased (white) folks at every opportunity. Affirmative action at least provided a thin hope that being non-white (and especially being black) was wouldn't hurt folks in their pursuit of higher education.
The message this sends is that it's OK for those who wish to discriminate against non-white people to do so again, and the Court will make up a reason to defend them in the same way that it made up a reason to kill affirmative action.
The back of the envelope calculations actually seem a little too high. There are about 42 million Black people in the US. The college age population is about 4/70 of that, which is between 2 and 3 million. Four percent of that is close to 100,000. Dividing by 100 schools is 1000 students per school. A lot of those highly selective schools have undergraduate student populations under 10,000, so that means Black people are about 10% of the population. It's 6.5% at Harvard, 6.9% at Yale, and 9% at Princeton. Are there a decent number of large highly selective schools, or are there several highly selective schools with Black student populations over 10% to make up for the Ivies, keeping in mind that state universities in California and Michigan already eliminated affirmative action, and the earlier Bollinger decisions weakened affirmative action? UNC had 1548 Black students, but that seems very much above average for a highly selective university.
UNC also has requirements that about 4/5 of the students be admitted from in state. https://mediahub.unc.edu/the-cap-on-out-of-state-student-enrollment-at-north-carolina-universities-could-be-increasing-but-only-for-hbcus/#:~:text=The%2082%2F18%20rule%2C%20mandating,policy%20have%20been%20made%20since.
Since the state itself is about 1/5 black, it would be kind of hard to admit lots of in state students without admitting a fair share of black students at the same time.
Mr. Drum is right about this. The few people who might not get into some elite university will end up at a pretty good one and do just fine. I’m not all that impressed with Harvard grads anyway.
The judgement that those who do not get into the most selective schools will be admitted to other schools assumes that those other schools are truly race-neutral, that is do not discriminate against non-whites. This was certainly not true in the South before the era of the Civil Right Act. Did all the schools in the South actually switch from segregation to affirmative action - or even to real racial neutrality? More data that have to be consulted.
While most colleges can give people an adequate education for such things as teaching and many other jobs, it is a fact that national leaders, for example in science and politics, do come disproportionately from the elite schools. This is partly because those graduates are plugged into the old-boy network, but if you want to become a leader in science and some other fields you probably need to be in contact with those who are already leaders.
I serve on an advisory board for a highly selective university (~ 10% acceptance rate). The end on affirmative action was anticipated: the university that I am familiar with, will take active steps to minimize the decline in admissions of people of color.
To be clear, I am not claiming there will be no impact: rather, a think/hope the 50% decline Kevin suggests is likely overstated.
Second point. I THINK the end of affirmative action will be more impactful at large public universities. Because of volume, large schools typically must use a more formulaic process than smaller, highly selective, private universities.
I will get an example (note, I have no relationship with either of these schools):
UCLA gets approximately 150,000 applications. In contrast, Harvard receives about 50,000. Further, while I don't have the data I would bet Harvard, relative to the number of applications, has a much larger Admission staff.
The highly selective public universities (UCLA, Berkeley, UNC, Georgia Tech, U Michigan, UVA etc) need to sort a lot of applications and lack the budget to take the bespoke care that may be possible at some private schools. Public universities will need a rapid way to legally identify applicants to ensure no drop in diversity: this will not be easy...
Use income instead. Income is highly correlated with race, is provided for everyone who files an FAFSA (which is basically all students except the very rich) and still legal to use.
Austin - "Use income instead" Perhaps but its way more difficult than one might think (I have been told):
Kids income...lol
Parent/'s income.
- today only students who apply for financial aid provide this information
- there are, apparently, significant legal obstacles to requiring all applicants to provide this information
- without information on all applicants schools would have legal vulnerability (think Ed Blum)
Surrogate information such as home zip code, demographics of the high school etc
- while possible, its my understanding that these options are FAR from perfect BUT the most likely path forward
Surrogate information such as home zip code, demographics of the high school etc
My sense is universities will have to be very careful about using proxies that easily sub in for race. Zip code is a classic example of such a proxy. Income alone is a lot less problematic as there are tens of millions of poor whites in America, so nobody will be able to claim you're gaming the system to get around this ruling. But focusing on 90% Black and Latino zip codes? That's a plaintiff lawyer's dream.
"what's the real impact of 2% of Black kids attending UCLA instead of USC?"
well, if the students not admitted to USC would get into UCLA, their life outcomes would be greatly improved, UCLA is the better school.
However, the odds of getting into UCLA (at least for CA kids) are much lower than USC. So whoever isn't accepted into USC won't make it to UCLA.
And what's wrong in the analysis is that the 2% not accepted into elite schools (say Harvard, Princeton) may displace an equal number in the less selective schools, and so on, leading down the line too fewer minorites attending college altogether.
Yeah, that bit from Kevin was a head-scratcher. I believe he's a USC fan in college football. Maybe some bias showing? Lol. Or perhaps instead of USC he was thinking of UC (Berkeley)?
Regarding this:
“n theory, the end of affirmative action is a blow to fairness and racial equity.”
I’m no expert on affirmative action, and I’m perfectly happy to acknowledge that it’s a complex topic, but didn’t Harvard just lose at the Supreme Court because of overwhelming and utterly convincing evidence that it was using affirmative action to enact egregiously racial discrimination against Asians?
As I’ve mentioned in these comments before, the evidence is clear that affirmative action is unpopular. I suspect there may be some on the Left who believe it’s unpopular because a large number of racists dislike promoting racial diversity. But I’m inclined to believe otherwise: people dislike it because they believe it’s an unfair practice, and Harvard was caught proving them right.
There may very well have been a time and place for affirmative action (as I said, I’m not an expert on its complex history). But I remain sympathetic to what seems like the majority sentiment that it’s a highly dubious if not unconstitutional practice to preference one race and to very clearly penalize other races based on their immutable traits. Rather than promoting fairness, that system sounds tailor made for promoting divisiveness.
So, based on what I do know of the situation, I can’t say I’m sorry to see race-based affirmative action go. I like to think I’m open minded and willing to change my opinion if I hear a convincing rationale, and I’m well aware that a lot of Liberals and Leftists are quite upset about the loss of affirmative action. So I’m open to arguments in its favor. But neither leading up to nor following from from this recent Supreme Court decision have I heard any defenses of race-based Affirmative Action that I have found genuinely compelling.
And the same thing happened just two or three years ago when California put a state ballot measure up for a vote in order to enact Affirmative Action (it had earlier been banned by a previous vote). I was conflicted on the issue. And I read a lot of defenses of affirmative action. Most of the so-called elite journalistic enterprises put out commentaries supporting the vote for affirmative action (at least that’s what happened in my part of the state). But I didn’t encounter any argument I found convincing.
In fact, one day I discussed the issue with a colleague (a dedicated supporter of Bernie sanders). And he advised voting in favor of affirmative action because, otherwise, there would be no one but Asians left in our schools. To me, it sounded like he was supporting racism, not opposing it.
So I voted against affirmative action, and the ballot measure failed. I saw myself as voting for fairness, not against it. And I believe most Californians felt (and still feel) the same way.
“There may very well have been a time and place for affirmative action (as I said, I’m not an expert on its complex history).”
Prior to affirmative action, many places banned non-white people from attending or working there. After those prohibitions were discontinued, usually under court order, they still subtly (or not so subtly) discouraged non-white people from going there. Things like being nasty to them or simply giving them the silent treatment until they took the hint and left “of their own volition.” So affirmative action was put into effect, to admit/employ more than just a few non-white people at each place so that, even if the white people were assholes to the non-white people, the non-white people would have others like themselves to socialize and collaborate with. Strength in numbers if you will.
This history isn’t particularly complex to understand. Any kindergartener with a disability or “uniqueness” about them quickly learns that, if all the other kids are assholes to them because of that difference and freeze them out of group play, their lives are pretty miserable.
Prior to affirmative action, many places banned non-white people from attending or working there.
A number of states, California included, have banned affirmative action in public university admissions. Have the universities in question banned non-whites?
A lot of things were different before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That's true. But that law remains on the books.
If it were up to me, Affirmative Action in college admission would still be legal. But it's not up to me: it's now illegal. But that hardly means a return to Jim Crow days.
"Operational rationality has little room and little use for historical reason."
Of course, the impact here isn't limited to the kids who are applying to Harvard next year.
You could argue that the number of black men lynched in the South after the Civil War was, proportionally speaking, very small, not that murder is a good thing. But the point of lynching wasn't merely to kill a small number of black men who were passing through a community. It was to terrorize the black people who lived there. To reinforce to them that if they were in any way "uppity" they could expect the whites around them to react with violence, perhaps lethal violence, without fear of repercussions.
Black children right now are living in some of the poorest communities in the South, with raw sewage in their yards because no sewer system ever got built, and schools so poorly funded the teachers have to bring in their own toilet paper. These kids already believed that their only hope of getting out is athletics, no matter how smart they are. They understand that the "system" is dead-set against them. This ruling does nothing to refute that understanding: it reinforces it. Every single day they live the truth that race matters, but the highest court in the land declared otherwise 6-3. Nobody has to hang them from a tree for them to get the point.
Worse, I fear the implications of this ruling for white supremacists. Because the entire framing of the question of affirmative action (and student loans, for that matter) was a zero-sum framing. If students have their loans forgiven, somebody else will lose money. If colleges or businesses discriminate in favor of minorities, they are discriminating against white people. This is 100% the language of white supremacy, founded upon the understanding that if a black man is more educated, or in a better job, that must have come at the expense of a white man. It is bigoted nonsense, but it's also been affirmed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or at least, that's how they're going to interpret this ruling.
Seen on Reddit:
The Atlantic published a piece a few weeks ago that found Harvard only admitted 3% of all their students of color from families that weren't already wealthy.
They don't want poor people at their university. That's been lost in this entire media frenzy. The students that can't get into Harvard now based on their race alone aren't going to suffer. They're already successful because of their parents' accrued wealth. This is about Millionaires complaining that they also can't get a free pass into the Billionaire club without the Harvard logo on their privilege card.
I dunno, our elites will now be in a smaller more insular bubble than they were. That's just bad fir governance
Not sure where you are getting the figure “100 selective universities.” There are many hundreds of professional and graduate programs (schools within universities) that take race into account in making admissions decisions.
I think you are underselling the effect of Affirmative Action. Without it, minorities wouldn't have the option of second tier schools. It may not have as strong an effect today, but it does provide a backstop.
As for admissions--it's a bizarre game. A lot of it targets families who the admin thinks can pay for the full four years--so they get scholarship offers for one year. Otherwise, work-study. I thought The Atlantic wrote about this directly, but can't find that now. But here's another one of their write ups about college admissions from a little while ago:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/10/supreme-court-affirmative-action-harvard-unc-case-natasha-warikoo-book/671921/
I think you are underselling the effect of Affirmative Action. Without it, minorities wouldn't have the option of second tier schools
What does this statement mean? Your wording suggests, that, without affirmative action, non-whites couldn't attend elite but not super elite universities. Maybe their numbers will drop (but then again Asians are a minority in the US, too) without affirmative action. But surely the "option" of attending such schools will continue to exist, just as the option of attending an Ivy League school will still exist. Admittance for Blacks, Latinos and Indigenous Americans will presumably become a bit more difficult, sure, but it won't drop to zero.
A 50% decrease is bad, but that's just a single data point.
Before they were forced to do otherwise, the University of Washington Law School admitted each year one non-white person and one woman. Everyone else was a white man. Some years, they covered both bases by admitting a black woman.
This was not an official policy, it's just what they did.
Three points:
1. For those 35.000 kids the "real life impact" is 100%. You can not measure "real life impacts" by percentages. If you do you will find that traffic accidents and gunshots are negligible "real life impacts".
2. This argument is much better applied to Asian students who seem to be the majority of complainers (or maybe they serve the purpose of letting the suing lawyers appear to be not racists). Those Asian kids will be accepted a step down the ladder, in a 1A2 school rather than the 1A1 school they dreamed of. There are far more than 100 schools who select their students from applicant pool. If affirmative action goes away all those schools are going to accept fewer Black students; the total number will far exceed the 35.000 estimated here.
3. Anyway, this is just the beginning. They are also going after companies that are trying to have a diverse work force (for sound business reasons I hasten to add). The Court will make this practice illegal too as soon as a suitable law suits makes it do their desks.
@AzumBrunn: I know that emotions run high on this issue, and it’s difficult (in person or online) to productively disagree. Nevertheless, I hope you will be receptive to what I intend as some genuinely constructive criticism.
I don’t think statements like this constitute a sound argument or a good look for the Left:
“This argument is much better applied to Asian students who seem to be the majority of complainers (or maybe they serve the purpose of letting the suing lawyers appear to be not racists).”
I’m going to suggest that we not refer to Asians as “complainers.” Is it not ironic, in fact, to refer to a distinct race of people with a disparaging remark while at the exact same time claiming to fight against racism?
I cannot stress strongly enough that race based affirmative action is unpopular across the country. My understanding is that it’s unpopular across every demographic group. That being the case, and assuming that we want to continue winning elections in the future, perhaps we should examine why the Left’s arguments on this topic have clearly failed rather than to more or less assume that those who disagree are doing so out of malign if not evil motives.
As it so happens, the New Yorker has a recent column on the issue of Asians and affirmative action: “Why the Champions of Affirmative Action Had to Leave Asian Americans Behind.” From that article:
“The evidence the plaintiffs had amassed that Harvard, in particular, discriminated against Asian applicants through a bizarre and unacceptable ‘personal rating’ system is overwhelming … If you acknowledged that Harvard was, in fact, engaging in behavior that by any reasonable standard would be considered discriminatory and rooted in harmful stereotypes, it was nearly impossible to then turn around and say that the university should have the right to conduct its admissions in whatever manner it pleased … It is easy and perhaps virtuous to defend the reparative version of affirmative action; it is harder to defend the system as it has actually been used … Affirmative action was toppled … because an admissions office clearly relied upon stereotypes—in this case, casting many Asian applicants as hardworking grinds with little personality … Justice Jackson’s twenty-nine-page dissent … never mentions the history of racism against Asians in America, whether the lynching of Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth century, the Chinese Exclusion Act, or Japanese internment. If a society should make decisions with a clear eye toward history—a sentiment I agree with—shouldn’t it also follow that a group who was expelled from the U.S. would at least have the right to not be lumped in with the people who kicked them out? Shouldn’t their contemporary claims of discrimination warrant some serious consideration?”
I find that these and similar points make an entirely convincing case for getting rid of race based affirmative action as it has come to be practiced in our increasingly diverse society. I have not found equally convincing arguments, in these comments or elsewhere, for supporting it.
What, if anything, am I missing? I have to eventually conclude that the modern Left no longer has a good argument for race based affirmative action at this point in the 21st century. The public clearly seems to agree. And, rather than referring to the majority as complainers and racists, the left needs to either develop a better argument or pivot away from race based affirmative action.
The anti-Affirmative Action Asians are pawns being used by the right as a means to restore the White Christian Male Patriarchy in the US. Asians will have token "progress" but the barriers to admission will continue to favor rich white males, Christian males in particular.
Luckily not all Asians are this clueless about what is going on. Polling done recently shows majority of Asian Americans are in favor of Affirmative Action.
The problem with affirmative action, it seems to me, is that no one seems to balance the benefits against the costs. What I mean is, affirmative action seems to be so easily demogogue-able that you wind up with a lot of folks voting for Trumps versus Bernies because they view AA as something Bernies support. And the Trumps rather than the Bernies, or in California terms, the Arnolds rather than the Gray Davises, tend to undercut lower levels of public education in other ways.
To put it differently, to get a few thousand minorities into Harvard, it seems the cost is reducing funding for millions of minority kids in elementary and secondary education. It doesn't seem worth it to me.
Yikes. This kind of logic can take you almost anywhere.
Letting black kids in the school was (is?) demogogue-able.
Letting dark skinned families move into the neighborhood was (is) demogogue-able.
Letting LBBTQ kids exist is demogogue-able.
Think of the costs of allowing these people to enjoy basic equality? We owe it ourselves and everyone (except of course those people), to think of the big picture and reject any basic rights that might be demogogue-able......right?
I disagree that that logic can get you anywhere, though I see your point.
For example, Obamacare was, in my view, worth the political cost because so many people benefitted and, to me, it played a role in changing our political culture for the better. So, not every backlash is worth taking into account.
As to the human rights issues you point to, if one believes that affirmative action is a human right, I could understand agreeing with you.
You simply are unable to quantify in your mind the value of a University education in a place with a diverse faculty and student body. I have to confess my parents took a very sheltering approach to raising my siblings and I - we were sent to parochial schools (1970s-1980s) where the majority of the students and nuns were what was quaintly called "ethics" in political polling - Irish, Italian and German but by the 80s some wealthy Hispanics immigrants as well as Catholic Korean immigrants and Filipino immigrants. The only black students in my HS were football and basketball standouts that were obviously recruited and were but a handful of the student body.
I knew I was sheltered and lacking in knowledge, so I chose to attend VA Tech versus UVA - I felt the student body was more egalitarian and diverse. And boy I did get an education there beyond books. I met Franko my buddy whose parents were interrned during WWII for being of Japanese heritage and then encouraged to not return to CA but to move cross country and became chicken farmers in rural VA. I shared a dorm suite with Monica a gal from Brooklyn, NY first in her family to go to college who struggled to fit in but clearly also understood my struggles to fit in as well from a completely different starting point. Monica sadly dropped out as did many poor students as the structural support didn't exist for those kids. Adam another buddy was white from a family where his dad abandoned the family and his single mom struggled - he transferred in after the school he started at lost it's accreditation but eventually struggled to juggle affording the tuition, working and maintaining the required GPA for the engineering school (Adam dropped out but finished school elsewhere when his stepdad helped him connect up with a good telephone company job that offered work-study and tuition reimbursement.)
There are thousands of different journeys being made and it's so, so helpful to live and interact with many different people to be able to successfully live and interact after graduation. I've had much career success by being able draw upon personal experiences to meet people where they are and understand the soft differences that can be a source of friction in some workplaces.
Given that black students weren’t the only beneficiaries of affirmative action, or the only victims of systematic racism, it would be good to see a more inclusive analysis.
Are the effects on black students extrapolate-able for Hispanic and indigenous students?
This is just one guy’s experience, but I lost jobs because of the university I attended (or so the supervisor/manager told me). So it can make a difference if one attended a selective or a highly selective school, especially for minorities. (Btw, I’m Hispanic.)
And I've been given a look due to the fact that I attended VA Tech versus a work buddy of mine who went to a for profit school to get her BA after going to a community college in El Paso, Texas. My buddy was super smart but her working class background, Mexican birthplace and academic credentials led to employers always offering her lowball salaries.
I was disappointed with this decision. I'd strongly prefer that universities be be allowed—to the greatest extent possible—to manage their own affairs (including in a critical area like admissions) without outside interference.
But I nonetheless believe that a failure on the part of liberals to forthrightly address the elephant in the room (negative impact on applications from Asian students) turned out to be THE damaging own goal that helped kill affirmative action.
Elite colleges should have taken the concerns of the Asian community more seriously, and should have gotten creative about mitigating the negative effects of affirmative action. Perhaps providing alternative application method for a % of slots—SAT only—would've been worth exploring.
The Asian issue is nuanced - it's a classic case of Conservatives using a bunch of tokens to preserve/restore the traditional hierarchy. Asians are underrepresented at top elite schools but over represented at great quality less competitive state schools yet at the same time some Asian groups are under represented at all levels and could use Affirmative Action type programs. The middle/upper class achievers will continue to over represent at excellent quality state schools as the population of college age kids shrinks and I really doubt that the admit stats for Asian Americans at the top elite schools will change enough to really make a difference. As long as the Conservatives control the process in terms of using the supreme court and state governments to put their thumbs on the scale for white males, Asian Americans will still find a lot of barriers to getting into the most elite corners of US society.
Asians are underrepresented at top elite schools
Because their applications are turned down at far higher rates than Black and Latino students with comparable academic credentials. There's overwhelming evidence that this is a real phenomenon.
it's not nuanced in the least.
I'm aware some truly execrable people seized upon the issue for their own ends. And as I wrote above, I'd have preferred that this case be decided differently, and perhaps a different means found to rectify the unfairness (rather than ban affirmative action). But it is unfair.
This is was definitely addressed in the court cases and based on a quick google search, it was also addressed in public discourse.
Its important to remember that the people who pushed for this lawsuit, the Activist Conservative Justices and perhaps many(most?) decision makers in the major media companies dont really care about the college or life experiences of Asian Americans. This case was never about that specific issue and thats why it didnt matter and many dont even realize that the issue was addressed and countered by thw defendants and basically ignored by the Activist Judges.
IF ONLY LIBERALS HAD DONE MORE!! is a common refrain in the face of the Activist Justices stripping away rights, freedoms and historical precedent....but its a ridiculous notion to pretend that it would have mattered.
Since when is USC more "selective" than UCLA? Expensive, sure, but not selective. (I know this is off-point, but still.)
It's not. Zero idea where Kevin got that from. My working theory is his mind was thinking "UC" (Berkeley) and his fingers inadvertently added an "S" between those two letters.
"There's a river of power that flows through this country ... And it flows from the Ivy League." -- Joe Biden
True, of course.
But if AA is merely about diversifying the ruling elite then it's probably not worth being troubled over the end of what amounts to a social justice version of trickle-down
Kevin, a couple issues that don't get picked up. 1) Affirmative Action should never have been conceived *solely* as benefitting individual students. At least part of the concern was that whole communities were deprived of access to the best scholars and ideas. Doctors, for example, could get degrees from (slightly) less competitive schools, but the cutting edge work was not available to minority communities because the students could not get there. AA made a big difference for doctors in the field, not to mention for instructors who went on to teach at less selective schools. The Bakke decision gutted that idea, and the workarounds had to ignore it as well. Even a small percent drop in diversity impacts millions of people who would never attend any higher education.
2) The impact flows the other way, too. I've watched as good, decent professors had to rethink assumptions and cherished conclusions when face to face with people whose life experiences were different. (And yes, I've seen a lot of professors refuse to change.) Critical Race Theory - the real thing - grew out of history advisors saying, "You know, I *don't* know about these experiences. Why not research that for your dissertation?" Top schools get to use top tools. Even a small drop in diversity is going to make a huge drag on this kind of scholarly work.
in short, I'm not as sanguine as you about the shifts that will likely take place as a result of the rulings against Harvard and UNC. I am not as sure the drop in diversity won't affect less selective schools. Heck, I'm not even certain Thomas would protect HBCU's at all! But even if we've seen the last of the SCOTUS led changes, and even if those changes look small, the damage will extend beyond individual students. Communities stand to lose a lot more than just individual opportunities. And scholars risk even more ossification. Those are pretty high costs.
Oddly enough, Texas has a solution for this. They enacted the Top 10% rule. If you graduate in the top 10% of your class, you get acceptance to one of the states flagship universities. They had to tighten the number for U of Texas but it guarantees that the schools have a good mix of students from different backgrounds.
For Ivies and the like, it could be a highest ranked student consideration.