<p>Quoting Epiphany:</p>
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<p>I have asked before and I am asking again, what exactly gives you preternatural insight into the thought processes of the elite school admissions officers?</p>
<p>I will admit your tone of the “expert” without providing anything in the way of credentials bugs me.</p>
<p>And to PG, Epiphany, Hunt, Bay and Xiggi – sorry, guys. You have not convinced me. You have worked very hard at making your case but no deal.</p>
<p>sewhappy:
same here. All these are execuses.
“The only way to stop race based discrimination is to stop race based discrimination.”</p>
<p>I can’t answer for PG and others, but I agree with their analysis and my experience comes from 25+ years of volunteering for Brown, which included attending several sessions with admissions directors to provide us volunteers with insight on how admissions committees work. I’ve done at least five sessions where we were given actual admissions folders of applicants (with all names and locations changed), and discussed these folders with admissions staff. What I learned from these sessions jives with many articles and books written by reporters/writers who have sat in on admissions discussions. Books like The Gatekeepers.</p>
<p>Here’s my question back to you: What do you think happens at admissions meetings when Asians are being discriminated against? What do you think the admissions officers say? Do you think they say things like, “This kid is Asian and only scored 2350 so we have to reject him?” Or, “here’s another boring Asian who plays tennis and likes math.”</p>
<p>Obviously we have to agree to disagree. My opinion – the reality is that this country has different races, and that ignoring that variety is ignoring cultural and societal influences that shape each individual and give America a wonderfully rich diverse texture.</p>
<p>I said several pages back that I was done, but some recent posts attracted my attention.</p>
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<p>OK, xiggi. Please allow me to try again, and in turn, I request that you express your views more cogently (viz. answer sm74’s question in post #2162).</p>
<p>On the issue of racial preferences, my views are based on two principles, neither of which you agree with: (1) “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race” and (2) equality is defined in terms of opportunity, not outcome.</p>
<p>Accordingly, I don’t support racial preferences for any “group,” not even my “own.” I have consistently stated that I would oppose racial preferences even if doing so resulted in FEWER Asians being admitted. On this, my foremost concern is treatment without regard to racial classification.</p>
<p>What do racial preferences “do”? Help build diversity? What does that word mean, really? If you say it’s about bringing students of different backgrounds and interests together, then you don’t need racial preferences to accomplish that goal. Including subjective criteria such as extracurriculars and essays can go a long way in crafting a class that has a wide range of upbringings, viewpoints, and interests.</p>
<p>If you say it’s about rectifying historical grievances, well, then sure. I can’t say much if that’s what you believe the policy does. Is this rationale un-Constitutional? Yes, see Bakke and Croson. Is this rationale seriously flawed? Again, yes. Hispanics should not receive preferences if this rationale drives the policy; only blacks who descend from slaves should qualify. But setting aside the Constitutionality, I can see WHY we should have racial preferences with this rationale. (I note that if the reasoning is addressing CURRENT discrimination, then ALL minorities should qualify–not only those deemed “underrepresented.”)</p>
<p>How about the related but separate issue of “negative action,” as Jerry Kang puts it? Certainly it’s hard to prove; that I do not contest. Just ask the Jews: they could never prove that holistic admissions was responsible for capping their enrollment to 15% until decades later.</p>
<p>I thank xiggi for filling in the details that Golden left out about the OCR investigation into UCLA’s graduate math program in the early 1990s before Proposition 209. But suppose that NO discrimination against Asians occurred in the UCs at that time, not just one department at one campus. Why, then, did the percentage of Asians at “top” UCs increase after Proposition 209? To my knowledge, the only change was that racial classification was no longer considered.</p>
<p>You may say that the experience of the UCs post-209 has little to nothing to do with private elites. But that doesn’t answer why the percentage of Asians did rise at Berkeley and UCLA after 1996. I am not saying that the increase proves that discrimination against Asians occurred. Rather, given that there was no proof of discrimination pre-209 at UCLA’s graduate math department, and assuming that this lack of discrimination was true throughout all the UCs, why didn’t the percentage of Asians stay the same after 209? Why did it rise and stay there?</p>
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<p>xiggi, you really don’t have any right to lambast “pejorative comments.” You yourself described Asians as belonging to a “subculture” that prized trophy hunting in terms of Ivy League acceptances. You also insinuated that a reason why Asians are “overrepresented” is because their “culture” condones cheating.</p>
<p>I did not have a right to mock your alma mater for not “teaching you what diversity is,” but your reference to “pejorative comments” rings hollow to me in light of your comments against Asians.</p>
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<p>Every time I read this, I try to project it onto another subject matter in order to determine what it really accomplishes. Like, “The way to stop child abuse is to stop abusing children.” Problem solved, right? No. Its a catchy sound-bite, but that is about all.</p>
<p>^“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race” </p>
<p>My favorite is substituting…</p>
<p>"“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race in elite college admissions” </p>
<p>I don’t know even one person IRL who cares. And no Fab, that does not mean I am devoting weekends to your cause.</p>
<p>How about:</p>
<p>“The way to stop drunk drivers from killing people is for drunk drivers to stop killing people,” or</p>
<p>“The way to stop poverty is to stop being poor,” or my favorite,</p>
<p>“The way to achieve whirled peas is to whirl peas.”</p>
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<p>If the forty-five remaining states that have not outlawed the use of racial classification in the public sector were to do so immediately and simultaneously, we would still have discrimination on the basis of racial classification. The problem would not be solved like <em>that</em>, no.</p>
<p>But we would be on the right path. As is, there is a fatal flaw in the notion that we should use racial classification today so we don’t have to use it tomorrow. How will you EVER get to the point where you don’t use it if you keep using it?</p>
<p>Oh, because by using it today, we can create an educated class of “underrepresented” minorities in leadership roles, thereby producing a virtuous cycle, which will enable us to stop using racial classification?</p>
<p>And how well has that been working? If you say it’s “too soon to tell” or make a comparison to how long we’ve had racial preferences compared to how long we had slavery and Jim Crow, I note that blacks were doing quite well on their own at a time when they faced open discrimination, before we started “helping” them. As I wrote many pages back, according to Thomas Sowell, in 1940, 87% of blacks lived in poverty. Two decades later, the figure was down to 47%. They did that by themselves, without racial preferences, and in the face of institutionalized discrimination.</p>
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<p>Would it surprise you if I said… I don’t either? You know what my high school in rural South Georgia was like? I was one of two Asians in my graduating class, and not a single “URM” went to a school ranked higher than the University of Georgia, which doesn’t even consider racial classification in admissions. And my high school was 52% “URM” my senior year (50% black + 2% Hispanic) and 47% economically disadvantaged (i.e. qualified for free or reduced lunch).</p>
<p>It is not because my schooling was sheltered or because I am “too young” that I oppose racial preferences. I oppose them not only out of principle but because I know what a fraud the policy is.</p>
<p>Edit</p>
<p>The Post had an article this morning about [a</a> principal who quit his position](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/young-dc-principal-quits-and-tells-why/2011/06/19/AGfcP6kH_story_1.html]a”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/young-dc-principal-quits-and-tells-why/2011/06/19/AGfcP6kH_story_1.html). I couldn’t help but laugh at some of the paragraphs on the third page. I would be willing to bet a C-note that most of the “affluent and largely white areas of Northwest Washington” lean heavily to the left and support racial preferences. But I doubt they send their own kids to D.C. public schools.</p>
<p>To quote you from ages ago, Shrinkrap, your “tribe” is right: Money talks, BS walks.</p>
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<p>The way it is used in college admissions is not the same as it is used by bigots in real life. To claim so is a farce.</p>
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<p>Did you even read my next paragraph?</p>
<p>Oh, because by using it today, we can create an educated class of “underrepresented” minorities in leadership roles, thereby producing a virtuous cycle, which will enable us to stop using racial classification?</p>
<p>While I was trying to say what I think the pro-racial preference side’s argument is, I don’t deny that I wrote it sarcastically in my head. Still, did you even read that before you posted?</p>
<p>Would a 32 ACT be less qualified if I applied to top schools? Just wondering(It’s not my score or anything)</p>
<p>No, I probably didn’t read the next paragraph because you are too wordy and I get tired of your rigamarole. I could care less how we achieve racial diversity, so long as it is Constitutional.</p>
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<p>Read the next paragraph and forego an unnecessary post? Or omit it and have to come up with a defensive reply? Hey, it’s your choice.</p>
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<p>So “diversity” is just shorthand for RACIAL diversity? That’s what you REALLY mean by diversity?</p>
<p>Yes, fab, I REALLY REALLY want racial diversity in my life.</p>
<p>I do too. I’m just not willing to classify individuals by “race” to get it.</p>
<p>^^^
snipped from post #1118</p>
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<p>Odd that I have to keep repeating myself. No preternatural insight (that I’m aware of). But one heck of a lot of research over the past 7 years, which includes lots of direct talks with admissions officers and admissions reps. Also, again, access to a wide variety of school records, and I’m not about to reveal my position to you. You actually don’t have the right to such private identifiable material; you just assume you do. Thirdly, like you, I have a brain. I put two and two together, and come up with four. I do not wonder if secretly the sum might be five or three, and someone somewhere might just be trying to mess with me. </p>
<p>When I have an abundance of information, and the ability to draw deductive conclusions with that information, I use my critical thinking to make the most obvious conclusions as opposed to the most obscure or paranoid conclusions. </p>
<p>What I do respect, however, is the fact that four people on this thread have not convinced you; that’s a fair observation as long as you’ve owned it, as you did here. I do not expect always to convince others. I’m just annoyed about broad generalizations insinuated here and there (by those not convinced) that “everybody knows” or that “it’s obvious” or that “no one believes ___” because for those demanding evidence of the lack of a negative, it’s pretty inconsistent for the Mega-Doubters not to share with all of us the private polls that some of you have conducted that “prove” that “everybody knows” thus and so, and that no argument could possibly prove otherwise. (Um, speaking of unconvinced.)</p>
<p>Personally, I feel sort of troped or minimized into a narrow concept by being identified by one aspect of myself: my race, my gender, my hair color, my weight, my school, my major, my car, my paycheck, my political bent, my religion. People feel they have the right to make assumptions about me based on one attribute they choose to group me with. It is condescending to be seen in such a narrow, one-dimensional way. </p>
<p>(I do not need to wave a flag saying that I am part of a “group” to be proud of that part of myself, either.)</p>
<p>I also feel that getting a handicap in academics (like a higher grade or raise or promotion than I deserve) can be insulting. Yuh, if the means justifies the ends, well so be it, one might say. But it feels demeaning when it is a “favor” or to correct a deficit, even if the deficiency was caused by an injustice such as lack of opportunity, even bias, such as against my gender. I want to earn it, fair and square, and to overcome any odds that might occur in my particular situation. In the workplace in my field, I had to earn an extra degree to prove myself, and I did not get treated the same way men did, no matter what. It was blatantly unfair. But if I had not been seen primarily as/labelled as a member of a minority group (women), it might have all been more level. But I feel that getting a boost would have been seen as proof of relative need for a boost. Women who are making it into the upper echelons and do a good job on their own individual merits are going to be the reason why women are not seen as women but workers. Only then can the workplace be a level playing field and gender-free. </p>
<p>Also, resentment occurs with favoritism or the appearance of handicapping or unjustified reward. This is counter to the goal of harmony via diversity.</p>
<p>Is racial grouping helping us see beyond race to the individual? Isn’t seeing and labelling by skin color and race a big reason behind the ORIGINAL injustices to races such as African and Japanese and Native Latin American, who were enslaved and incarcerated and later treated as inferior in the US, because they LOOKED different and were lumped into a “different” GROUP?</p>
<p>Personally, I do not want to do anything to perpetuate that sort of “let’s group people by their differences” of thinking.
Not anything. </p>
<p>Are URM’s asking for a boost or a truly level playing field? Are Asians crying “racism” or asking for a level playing field?</p>
<p>As a female, I want a truly level playing field in the workplace. To me, achievement on a level playing field means much more than achievement with a boost. Believe me, due to gender-based grouping, I have been at a HUGE “disadvantage” most of my life in the environments I have been in! But I do not feel entitled to a boost based on my gender because I feel that would just make it worse. </p>
<p>Yes, and that also brings up a testy notion for me: that slicing the pool by race means that members of that race are competing with each other. </p>
<p>Frankly, I HATE it when women are compared with each other, even pit against each other in the workplace. It is quite divisive and demeaning. Put everyone in the same pool, please.</p>
<p>Obviously, my examples are not perfect analogies to AA and diversity goals in admissions. But I do question that stacking the odds for a “group” is really in that “group’s” best interest, or in the best interest of the full body of individuals (class, society, company). </p>
<p>As to what this means for a group like “Asians”- well, unfortunately, they are lumped into a group. Maybe they should actually get a boost, based on their supposed general deficiencies??</p>
<p>Yes, I know this post will get a rise out of many, but I am willing to say this stuff because I care so much. The world has a lot of problems. It would be nice if some things stopped being problems. Let’s stop using certain differences as crucial ways to identify ourselves. And stop worrying about superiority and inferiority in defining “fairness”.</p>
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<p>I agree that all races should be educated on a level playing field in grades k-12. Their parents should all be well educated and completely dedicated to their children and their education. The sad truth is that they are not. If we as a country allow this to happen we become unable to completely tap into the intelligence of our citizens. </p>
<p>It is so disheartening that a vocal few on this thread are more concerned about their own prospects and getting accepted into a handful (literally) of selective universities than they are about social injustice. Fortunately, the powers that be do not see things from this selfish viewpoint.</p>
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<p>Maybe we’ll get to that point when we become like other countries and stop allowing immigrants the chance to make a better life for themselves. When we do that, we should have less diversity and everyone should know their rightful place in society.</p>