<p>Quite frankly, if that’s going to be your standard, then you’d be hard pressed to find any test that can accurately predict students’ grades for four years, and it’s cheap to argue that the SAT doesn’t predict college performance well. It’s not surprising that the SAT doesn’t predict well past the first year. Most students take similar core coursework in their first year, so their performance can be compared to each other. The farther they progress, the more likely it is for them to take wildly different courses, thus making meaningful comparisons more difficult if not altogether impossible. </p>
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<p>What are my preferences? Tell me. I want to make sure we’re on the same page. I have a slight hunch that what you think my preferences are and what they actually are will differ.</p>
<p>You have a preference for race-blind admissions. Some of the best, most well-regarded universities in this country do not believe that preference results in an optimum freshman class. So you want to require them to admit what they believe will be a sub-optimum class in order to suit your preferences or deprive the taxpayers of their research services.</p>
<p>I don’t see how that’s any more fair to the taxpayers than requiring them to change the color of their banner, the school fight song, or anything else where your opinion differs from theirs.</p>
<p>Incidentally, it’s odd that you haven’t mentioned the affirmative action given to males by LAC’s.</p>
<p>You can make up crazy hypotheticals with fat guys and cliffs and trains full of people but these don’t help your argument when we are talking about real things that don’t align with those situations. What if we could end heart disease tomorrow, but the only university capable of doing it had AA?</p>
<p>So racial classification is so important that not using it produces a suboptimum freshman class? Have I understood you correctly?</p>
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<p>That’s because you don’t appreciate that there is such a thing as a suspect class, and that suspect classes are subject to strict scrutiny, not rational basis.</p>
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<p>In post 73, I wrote, “I don’t support [gender preferences], either, as I see no point in them whatsoever. In many universities, women actually outnumber men, and there is barely any achievement gap between the genders, making “affirmative action for men” wholly unnecessary. To answer [Bay’s] question, if gender preferences are used, then ‘yes,’ lose the federal funding.” To be fair, that post wasn’t addressed to you, so it isn’t fair to expect you to have noticed that.</p>
<p>Oh, so your tactic is not only to avoid the question but also to redirect it to its asker? Why should I answer a question that I asked you and that you have yet to answer? Here’s my deal: you give me your straight answer, and I’ll give you mine.</p>
<p>I doubt you’ve understood me correctly. I said that the universities who use it believe in their professional judgment that it enables them to pick a better freshmen class. These are well-regarded universities with excellent 4 and 6 year graduation rates. </p>
<p>I didn’t actually state my personal opinion as to whether I thought your preference was more likely to be correct than their professional judgment. </p>
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<p>Universities that don’t pass that scrutiny already don’t get federal financial aid or tax exemptions. I see no reason to deprive the taxpayers of the services of the top-ranked research universities simply because those universities believe their professional judgment about admissions is superior to yours.</p>
How about we both don’t answer the question, becuase it’s impossible to answer? There is no top white supremacist university, and there’s probably more than one that can do the same research.</p>
<p>How does what you say differ from my understanding of, “…racial classification is so important that not using it produces a suboptimum reshman class”?</p>
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<p>What’s your point? I thought you were trying to compare racial classification with school color and arguing that discrimination based on racial classification is no different than discrimination based on school color?</p>
<p>Fine by me. I wasn’t trying to give you a hard time. As I said, I really like your idea of legally separating the undergraduate and research components to solve the funding issue.</p>
<p>Because you’re stating it as though it were my opinion rather than the professional judgment of the universities involved. I haven’t given you my opinion.</p>
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<p>If the use of racial classification passes the strict scrutiny, then, yes, it is no different from school color. For you to demand that universities substitute your arbitrary opinion for their professional judgment as a requirement for doing taxpayer funded research is a disservice to the taxpayers, since you can provide nothing substantial to show that your opinion is superior to the professional judgment of the well-regarded universities involved.</p>
<p>So, am I to understand that it is the professional judgment of the universities involved that racial classification is so important that not using it produces a suboptimum freshman class? Am I to further understand that if that is the professional judgment of the universities involved, then racial classification is an extremely important factor?</p>
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<p>I am not saying that these universities cannot engage in positive racial discrimination. If the professional judgment of these well-regarded universities dictates that positive racial discrimination is so important and so valuable, they are free to distance themselves from federal funding and create the type of arrangement that lockn described whereby their undergraduate and research components are legally distinct. Problem solved.</p>
<p>Yes, obviously they think it gives them a better freshman class or they wouldn’t bother.</p>
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<p>Depends on whether you respect their judgment or not. (I hope you aren’t falsely equating the “slight tip” that comes from affirmative action with the value the U’s place on that tip).</p>
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<p>It’s a completely unnecessary problem, created by a completely arbitrary requirement. Just because universities are free to change the key their fight song is in doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to limit them to only the keys you happen to like.</p>
<p>Undergraduate research opportunities provide benefit to society. The DOD is actively seeking to recruit civilian science students who have participated in such opportunities. Closing off the best universities from granting opportunities that benefit our national security because your think your personal tastes outweigh the professional judgment of the top universities in this country would be a disservice to the taxpayers.</p>
<p>I can make up any arbitrary requirement and say it’s ok to make it a requirement for federal funding just because I think it should be----but there’s a reason that public policy isn’t set on the arbitrary preferences of random individuals.</p>
<p>You haven’t offered anything to convince anyone that your personal tastes are justification for changing public policy–you’ve only said that people could do things your way if they really wanted to.</p>
<p>I like how we are talking about about “race” as if it’s an arbitrary requirement. Isn’t it illegal for a business to say they won’t hire black/white/asian/hispanic people? The whole point is that it’s illegal to make decisions based on race.</p>
<p>So you’re saying that the tip itself is quite insignificant, but the value placed on this insignificant tip is significant?</p>
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<p>This reminds me of that scene in Futurama where Professor Frink keeps telling everyone that lava is hot but no one will listen to him. Fight song != suspect class. You’re still assuming that racial classification is no different from your average factor, but it is different. Very different.</p>
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<p>I don’t expect to be able to convince you. Obviously, you have long since made up your mind that there is no contradiction between opposing negative discrimination and supporting positive discrimination.</p>
<p>Go back to my post 73, where I wrote that, “…in light of the history of the usages of racial classficiation in our country, its continued use should not be at no cost.” That’s the key point underlining my proposal. It doesn’t surprise me that you disagree. You strike me a person who agrees with the mentality of, “If race is the problem, then race is the solution.”</p>
<p>You’ve yet to give me any reason to believe that your judgment about what makes the optimum freshman class is better than that of the finest universities in our country. Till you can, it’s arbitrary.</p>
<p>You’re saying that even though there’s no evidence that using race as a tip isn’t better than not using race as a tip, public policy should be created to discourage it (even at the expense of our national security)…simply because race is a “suspect class.”</p>
<p>Since you can’t prove there’s any value in not using a ‘suspect class’ it’s a little like saying “primary color” or “minor key.” In other words, the relative value you place on use of “suspect class” or “non-suspect class” is arbitrary.</p>
<p>I don’t expect you to understand that distinction though.</p>
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<p>I’m sure you think all kinds of things that aren’t true about all kinds of people. That’s really not to your credit the way you think it is.</p>
<p>Isn’t this just the logical fallacy of appeal to authority? </p>
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<p>Actually, there is evidence that using racial classification as a tip is worse than not using it as a tip. If you recall, Richard Sander has research on the “mismatch hypothesis.” Like I said before, his research certainly has its critics, but that doesn’t negate that he has evidence that you shouldn’t ignore.</p>
<p>Anyway, my answer is yes - public policy should be created to discourage the use of racial classification because racial classification is a suspect class. Absolutely!</p>
<p>Suspect class is not arbitrary. SCOTUS has very clearly defined which groups are suspect classes and which aren’t. And yet, you still refuse to recognize that racial classification is not the same as school color, fight song, or many other factors.</p>