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<p>Unfortunately, this brings us about where we were … 3,000 posts ago. Asians are indeed kept out of selective schools. But so are members of every race. If some Asians were kept out solely because of their race is a question whose answer remains as elusive as it was when this thread started.</p>
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<p>I don’t think any challenge to racial preferences has been based on disparate impact. Rather, it’s the challenges to the CIVIL RIGHTS INITIATIVES that are based on disparate impact. That appeared to have been the argument used by the plaintiffs in challenging Proposal 2.</p>
<p>^^well, if there is no disparate impact then what the heck are you all arguing about?</p>
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<p>How is affirmative action as currently practiced NOT a legal form of disparate treatment?</p>
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<p>Laws are laws, and in a democracy Joe six-pack makes the laws. All institutions have to abide by laws. They can’t just do whatever the hell they want.</p>
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<p>What do you think? Are Asians kept out because of race? Would a law that bans race as a selection criteria alter the proportion of Asians in Elite U.s? Will you be in favor of or against such a law? I think I asked you this before but unfortunately didn’t get an answer.</p>
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<p>Tell me more about this balancing act when it comes to college admissions.</p>
<p>I thought a little more about this balancing act, by extrapolating from the hijab story. The question is, is an employer discriminating against Muslim women if everyone is required to show their faces all the time at work? By analogy, if AA for URMs were to be removed, the question would be - are Elite U.s discriminating against URMs by requiring them to have similar overall student index (hard and soft) as the rest of the student body. </p>
<p>Now, an argument can be made that requiring Muslim women to remove their hijabs violates their religious rights. I really don’t see how requiring URMs to get better overall student indices (hard and soft) is violating their racial rights, unless one is to believe that URMs by virtue of their race are somehow incapable of improving their overall index.</p>
<p>Is that true? I personally don’t buy that at all.</p>
<p>Fabrizio wrote:
Here’s the distinction between “disparate impact” and "disparate treatment: Disparate treatment pertains to governmental action of any kind and is probably covered by The Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.</p>
<p>Disparate impact pertains, as you so correctly stated, to the civil rights cases, a series of laws passed by Congress in the wake of the civil rights movement which basically extends similar constituional protections to public accomodations, employment, housing and – I would think – by extension, to private college admissions. </p>
<p>I think Bowen and Bok made that concession somewhere in “Shape of the River”, that if you eliminated every single spot awarded to African Americans accoring to various forms of AA, the disparate impact on whites would equal around 2% in available seats at elite colleges. But, given the enormous number of whites who apply to college every year it would be difficult to imagine a situation that would NOT have a disparate impact on their admissions rate. The same effect could be observed in the post-206 admssions rate in the UCs. The jusry is still out o what the impact would be NATIONWIDE on Asians if every URM seat due to affirmative action were eliminated.</p>
<p>Be that as it may, most of the heat on the fundamentalist side seems to be around the issue of whether racial diversity is even a legitmate educational (or “business”) goal. The fundamentalists say it doesn’t matter how small the imapact actually is it is (or should) be against the law; for some of us, it’s still a balancing act.</p>
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<li><p>The set of subjects in STEM is not disjoint from the set of subjects in LA. And there are subjects in neither category.</p></li>
<li><p>It has been hinted previously in the thread that the “comfort zone” for white people is a significantly higher percentage of white people in a school or other environment, than the percentage of a minority group that is needed for members of a minority group to be in their “comfort zone”. It has also been hinted that university administrations in trying to market themselves to students want a kind of “diversity” that means that members of each ethnic group are likely to be in their respective “comfort zones”. But is there anything documented about these phenomena, other than hints and “it makes sense from the point of view of a university administration, even if they don’t say it publicly”?</p></li>
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<p>Why do you think that those private institutions break more laws than McKinsey or Goldman Sachs with their recruiting practices? Do McKinsey of Goldman Sachs really give a damn about what Joe is thinking? </p>
<p>Anyway, I am pretty certain that you know exactly what I meant about private institutions having the right to establish the admission policies they want. Where we seem to disagree is that you seem to think that some do establish illegal policies. I do not think so, and I believe the OCR agrees with me! </p>
<p>For what it is worth, the scope of the “discrimination” problem should de facto render the opinion of Joe irrelevant. Where does this alleged discrimination takes place? A couple of dozen universities at best and perhaps a few LACs. Not many more, because as we know just a few schools carry sufficient prestige to warrant the concentration of applications.</p>
<p>Would nt Goldman Sachs have disappeared if Joe sixpack had nt bailed them out a couple of years ago? Are nt they considered one of the biggest law breakers in the country?</p>
<p>Is it the dream of Asian kids to go to Harvard, get into an investment bank, follow the Rajaratnams and Rajat Guptas of the world? If this is the true goal of going to Harvard, I would rather the Asian kids stayed out of it.</p>
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<p>Are Asians kept out because of race? Based on the evidence available today, my answer is NO. I would, however, be more than happy to accept being wrong when more evidence is uncovered, if any does exist.</p>
<p>Would a law that bans race as a selection criteria alter the proportion of Asians in Elite U.s? I do not know that answer. Some researchers have established that the removal of the preferebbces given to URM would lower their admission by 5 percent. As always, such conclusion is based on models and projections. No model can predict what admission officers DO. </p>
<p>Will you be in favor of or against such a law? NO! I am adamantly in favor of the admissions policies of say, Stanford. I believe that it would be disastrous to adopt policies that reduce the already low numbers of URM at our most selective schools. Fwiw, I would happy to see additional criteria (based on SES) added to the current targeted groups, but I would like to see the numbers of URM … expanded as efforts to incorporate MORE lower SES students in our most selective schools.</p>
<p>Although you did not ask me this question, please know that I believe that our most selective schools should be representative of our population distributions, and that until this happens we should redouble our efforts to foster systemic changes in our entire K-16 system.</p>
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<p>The short answer to my question is that affirmative action IS legal disparate treatment.</p>
<p>I like diversity in all forms. I simply feel you don’t need to consider racial classification to get it. Why is crafting a class with a multitude of interests not sufficient?</p>
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<p>So this gets back to my question from earlier. Civil rights initiatives like Proposition 209 and Proposal 2 have always been challenged after they have passed. The supporters of racial preferences always argue that it’s not good enough for "URM"s to attend Riverside / Michigan State; it matters that they attend Berkeley / Michigan. I ask then, why is it OK for whites and Asians to go to Riverside / Michigan State but not "URM"s? And their complaints are hardly limited to public universities. Why is it OK for whites and Asians to go to Maryland but it’s important that “enough” so-called “underrepresented” minorities are at Johns Hopkins</p>
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<p>Why not socioeconomic preferences regardless of racial classification?</p>
<p>Fabrizio wrote:
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<p>for some colleges it might be sufficient. You picked one (Georgia Tech) on the basis that it DIDN’T practice any sort of racial profiling in its admissions. I think that’s great. My question to YOU is why you think EVERY private college has to practice the same admissions policy?</p>
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<p>Meaning you believe that the most selective schools with nationally based student populations should limit Asian American students to about 5% of American students?</p>
<p>Now that I have answered your question(s) would you mind answering those two simple questions?</p>
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<li><p>Since you believe that Asians suffer from discrimination at selective schools, could you tell me why you think this happens at Stanford? What data do you suggest I should review to help me change my mind about discrimation. Please do not tell me to read Espenshade or the posts of Professor101. </p></li>
<li><p>Do you think that blacks and hispanics are overrepresented at Stanford, and that they are the reason why Asians only represent 20 to 30 percent of the student body.</p></li>
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<p>No, not exactly. Please focus on the second part of my sentence: </p>
<p>Although you did not ask me this question, please know that I believe that our most selective schools should be representative of our population distributions, **and that until this happens we should redouble our efforts to foster systemic changes in our entire K-16 system. **</p>
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<p>That’s not why I picked Georgia Tech. Of my choices, I felt it had the best…wait for it…fit. I thought I would’ve been happy at all my choices, but I thought I would’ve been happiest there. I told you that my alma mater didn’t practice racial preferences to show that I followed my advice of “If it bothers you, do something about it” (post #2515).</p>
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<p>I have never said that every private college has to follow my alma mater’s admissions policy. That I’m advocating race-blind admissions doesn’t mean I advocate that they all have the same admissions policy, though of course they would be the same with respect to racial preferences.</p>