<p>It is. But if you can bear with me for just two more questions, I will be able to prove to you that the first question is the key one. Anyone who believes that the composition would change if laws were passed to ban use of race as a criteria is inevitably conceding that Asians are discriminated against. And, of course, anyone who believes that the composition won’t change would have no problems with a law that bans the use of race as a determinant. </p>
<p>This is where I am trying to guide this whole discussion to - that it is quite real that there is racial discrimination against Asians, and that the so called soft factors are really a racist construct designed to keep Asians out. No reasonable person can disagree with these two things.</p>
<p>Where reasonable people can disagree is whether AA is still justified, even if it penalizes Asians. Let’s have that debate. I am curious to see how the champions on one race will defend penalizing another race, who played no part whatsoever in oppressing the first race. Whenever I got the discussion to this point, invariably the other side tried to change it to social justice instead. Which is fine, but social justice is about economic justice. Race is not a proxy for the economically depressed.</p>
<p>Here is where I would tun to skrlvr’s point. URMs indeed face significant barriers to access, but so do Asians. There is a very real glass ceiling for Asians in this country. It starts at college admissions and continues throughout the career. So, penalizing Asians on that ground makes no sense.</p>
<p>At this point, I am going to bid adieu to all concerned. It has been a fascinating discussion, which I have had many times in the past, and know for a fact that discussions of this changes nothing. Change will come through the judicial system. It may be slow to come, but it will.</p>
<p>Colleges use a ranking system to classify applicants. It is a numeric index based on academic performance and ECs. Asians with high numeric indices are often bumped in favor of Caucasians and URMs with similar or lower indices. That to me is stealing a spot.</p>
Thanks, but no thanks.
I’m certain you can ask and answer them yourself.</p>
<p>If you think that this little colloquy will bring to light revolutionary new points that settle the issue and have never been considered, you may be in for a rude awakening.</p>
<p>But feel free to continue, and while you’re at it, you might prove or disprove the existence of God in the next few posts as well.</p>
<p>Oh no, I do not think that at all. It will be settled in the courts and in the donations made by the next generation of Asian kids who went to the top schools. Elite academic institutions always dance to the tune of whoever butters their bread.</p>
<p>It’s the word “discriminated against” that I have a problem with.
Suppose a law were passed banning any consideration of athletic ability in college admissions. The number of non-athletes would rise. Were non-athletes “discriminated against” in the old world?</p>
<p>“Second-tier Ivies”? Oh, really, gag. What IS with you people who keep drawing eensy-weensy distinctions of no significance between the top universities in this country?</p>
<p>Many minorities don’t have strong ECs because of family and economic situations. So that brings us to what you called “academic performance.” Do you mean SATs and GPAs? Are you saying that admission to these schools should be based on who scores highest on the SAT and has the highest GPA?</p>
<p>Let’s suppose it was indeed found / proven / settled / whatever that there was “soft” discrimination against Asians at elite schools. That while everyone’s heart was pure, and good, and in the right place, there was a tendency to discount or classify too many into “model minority compliant STEM-major” prototypes, and as a result Asian acceptance was artificially held down to some extent compared to what it would have been otherwise. Let’s not worry about figuring out how much is “to some extent” - let’s just make it some. Not overwhelming, not some.</p>
<p>And let’s also postulate the adcoms at such schools were genuinely distraught to find that they had inadvertently been doing such stereotyping – they hadn’t realized their own prejudices, they thought they were fine since they were still admitting Asians to a quarter of the class, blah blah blah.</p>
<p>Which would be the better way, IYO, to get around such prejudice?</p>
<p>1) “Race-blind” all apps (and maybe even use identifying numbers instead of names)
2) Allow race to be on the app (if the applicant so chooses - they could still decline), but have the adcom be very acutely aware of their potential biases and talk about them / keep one another in check / challenge one another if they think they are slipping back </p>
<p>And just out of curiosity - just as there are stereotypes of Asians, there are stereotypes of all different kinds of kids - blacks, Hispanics, Jews, etc. And everyone holds his or her own stereotypes to some extent - of the WASP boarding school kid, of the farmer, of the Texan, of the Southerner, of the hippy kid from Portland. Why is there a belief that the Asian stereotype is that much stronger than other stereotypes?</p>
<p>Here again I think that it’s hard to support this claim. </p>
<p>For instance, despite all the soft factors used in admissions, Harvard’s 50 percentile for SAT scores is very high. 690-800 for CR, 700-790 for math and 710-800 for writing. Could it go much higher without the soft factors? Most likely. But does that mean you get a more academically prepared or accomplished student?</p>
<p>So the higher SAT / GPA is “more deserving”? Even though the colleges themselves say they are looking just for people who can do the work as evidenced by (let’s just say) a 2050 on the SAT?</p>
<p>Great question. I would go for race-blind applications, with a number in place of a name. Do that, and you will suddenly find that using the Asian robot stereotype as a filter will start to eliminate way too many kids from other races. In other words, there are kids from other races who have just the same profile, but get a pass because they are from another race. That’s what usually happens with stereotypes. Remove the prejudice, and voila. You will be surprised by the result.</p>
<p>Don’t have the book here. It’s just that I’m confused. I would think that ECs would be a ‘soft factor’ but there are some posts by you which I interpret as considering ECs as part of the your selection index.</p>