<p>Indianparent wrote:
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<p>Sorry, IP, you had your Jeopardy question and chose to go with “Slavery for $500”. I’m not going to sit here while you decide what discrimination means.</p>
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<p>Hey, you are a lawyer. You know what the Constitution means by discrimination when it comes to the 14th Amendment. No need for me to decide anything here. </p>
<p>You won’t under any circumstances answer the question, eh? Can’t say I blame you. :-)</p>
<p>Indianparent wrote:
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<p>I’m glad you think the Constitution governs morality. I don’t think it does. But, it’s an interesting idea. :)</p>
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<p>Everything is interesting John, except the answer to my question - should private institutions be allowed to discriminate based on race?</p>
<p>Or is that a lawsuit waiting to happen?</p>
<p>Indianparent wrote:
We seem to be at an impasse. Neither of us seems capable of defining “discrimination”. Perhaps, it is a fitting end to an enormous thread. :)</p>
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<p>To break the impasse, let’s just take the legal definition built on multiple instances of case law and go from there. You are a lawyer so I don’t need to tell you about the case law.</p>
<p>For some reason I suspect that you will come up with some other excuse to dodge my question yet again. :-)</p>
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<p>Fatigue? :)</p>
<p>To discriminate is such a deragatory word for what private institutions do. They private institutions are using race to build a diverse and solid cultural and racial environment to stimulate intellectual and culutral community. It isn’t saying we don’t like Asians so only 10% or an another example. It is building what is in their eyes the solid and diverse class as compared to population differences in the US or past experiences.</p>
<p>Post 4625:
You forgot, xiggi, that not only are the elite colleges shockingly racist not to admit Asians at even greater disproproportion, relative to the population, than they already do, but heres the other conclusion that can be drawn:</p>
<p>*The elite colleges are amazingly foolish, stupid, and suicidal. They care not if all the other peer schools make offers to brilliant students who happen to be STEM majors and happen to be Asian. Their primary goal is social engineering, and they will sacrifice the best brains in the application pool for a suspect socio-political goal. * </p>
<p>…Except that no one reading such idiocy ^ would say the same about a highly competitive private business voracious for market share, considering candidates who were on a similar level. Youd better believe such cutthroat-competitive businesses will present fine offers to the objectively best candidates rather than allow Company Y, just up the highway in the Valley, to benefit from such prizes. I dont care how some of you brag about how well you do in business. If you do not understand this simple, bald fact about American business, then you do not understand that elite colleges have much in common with them.</p>
<p>That ^, combined with the fact that each private college is bound by a Board and by a set of ethics, combined with regulations local and federal, combined with binding agreements over application procedures respective to their NACAC memberships, the enabling of racism as an operating way of doing business is contraindicated on many levels.</p>
<p>Oh btw, IP, when will you stop beating your wife?</p>
<p>(Thats a hint: You hardly have universal acceptance for your catch-all definition of racism, which includes the consideration of race. Until you can get consensus, on or off CC, that the way elite colleges do business constitutes a legal or moral definition of racism, you can stop asking a non-answerable question.)</p>
<p>Game over!</p>
<p>Japan! Well done! Nice for Japan. Needed it.</p>
<p>On to the Olympics!</p>
<p>The legal definition built on multiple instances of case law? Essentially, in the Bakke case the Supreme Court enshrined Harvard’s approach as the model of legal behavior, and that has basically held for 35 years, including in the University of Michigan cases 8 years ago. It’s not like this hasn’t come up repeatedly. The current Supreme Court could change the law, of course, but the current practice at the Ivies has been legally blessed since I was applying to college.</p>
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<p>I just did … twice. All one has to do is reading your posts in this thread to know my list is correct. </p>
<p>And, regarding your question about SES, I am, of course, in favor of substantial investments in the education of lower SES groups. I am, however, not sure why this is germane to a discussion about racism in colleges and discrimination by two dozen elite schools. Again, I am not sure if you intimate that schools such as HYPS should stop offering need based aid and offering racial preferences to URMs. </p>
<p>But what is beyond doubt is that you support --no, demand-- an elimination of racial preferences for URM, and this for the sole purpose of decreasing their pool as well as decreasing the pool of more … deserving students. Students, you can ONLY define as being more meritorous based on test scores because you cannot establish “more Asian merit” in ANY other areas anymore than you can establish … discrimination against Asians.</p>
<p>After pretty much wading through the last few pages, I would like to reply to this comment from fabrizio:
I think anybody should be allowed to support or oppose anything, as long as they can give sensible reasons for it. I continue to think, though, that one’s motives are less likely to be questioned if you don’t personally benefit from your position. Justice Thomas is an interesting case–because I do discount his abilities. I think he was a terrible choice for the Supreme Court, with very weak qualifications, which he has confirmed by his behavior on the bench. But he was chosen almost entirely because of his race–in a scenario that I can’t really go into more here because we’re not supposed to talk politics. So I think it’s sort of the ultimate irony for him to complain about affirmative action–but again, that’s politics.</p>
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<p>But then you’re proving my point. The “achievements may be discounted” criticism is seldom accepted by supporters of racial preferences. They often respond to it by arguing that the “discounting problem” lies not with the policy but with the people who choose to discount others’ achievements. I noted with irony that the same people who argued that fell prey to it THEMSELVES when it came to Justice Thomas, which you quoted.</p>
<p>I disagree that Justice Thomas has “confirmed” his “weak qualifications” during his tenure as an Associate Justice. He frequently writes separate opinions to express his views, a behavior I find inconsistent with “weak qualifications.”</p>
<p>Why isn’t this discussion in the Cafe?</p>
<p>It’s amazing how everything proves your point, fabrizio, when you state it in some convoluted way. I don’t think the “discounting their achievements” argument is entirely wrong, but I just think it’s another price some people have to pay for the societal benefits of AA.</p>
<p>I think Thomas is out of his depth on the Supreme Court, which explains why he never asks questions from the bench. His opinions are probably written by his clerks.</p>
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<p>That’s all incorrect again xiggi.</p>
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<p>Would you say the same for Justices Brennan and Marshall? [According</a> to the Times](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/06/magazine/the-rehnquist-reins.html]According”>http://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/06/magazine/the-rehnquist-reins.html), they were likewise quiet on the bench.</p>
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<p>OK, first off, that’s true for almost every Justice. Second, you’re proving my point again. The same people who defend admitted "URM"s at private elites as being every bit as qualified as their peers are the ones who think Justice Thomas is an “affirmative action hire,” with the ironic insinuation that such a hire is unqualified.</p>
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<p>Could it be that it relates to college matters? </p>
<p>Or could it be that the OP did not want to have to compete for attention with the ever so important threads about Casey Anthony or pervert Congressmen? :)</p>
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<p>I am not talking of Bakke. I am talking of the hundreds of cases of racial discrimination lawsuits which I would presume John knows all about. I am asking him to take those as reference, and tell me if he feels private institutions should be allowed to discriminate based on race. He won’t answer that, for obvious reasons. As, he wants racial discrimination in favor of URMs.</p>