<p>It just occurred to me that if you’d like to go after an arbitrary numerical cutoff that almost certainly disadvantages Asians, how about the fact that the College Board has different cutoffs for different states for National Merit Semifinalists? Is it unfair? Well, kind of. Is it intended to discriminate on the basis of race? No, almost certainly not.</p>
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<p>You mis-parsed, or misrepresented, what was written. “Will post” and “such as” are free clues that you could have used.</p>
<p>Anyway, when Berkeley data are posted in more detail here and/or in other threads (R code not a problem!), will you be visibly withdrawing the loudmouthed claims of “made up numbers”, or just expecting everyone to forget you had made a few dozen false insinuations of that kind here and in the other threads?</p>
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<p>We’ll see as the postings (and data) accumulate whether I “made up a number” or not. For now here’s one number that can be verified in the obvious way:</p>
<p>Checking the user statistics,
- I posted to CC 21 times in the past year.
- fabrizio posted to this thread more than 210 times. The thread is two weeks old.
- recently, when I did not respond within six hours, fab claimed I was “ignoring” his questions.</p>
<p>You can work out the relative posting rates but it is not likely I can respond to every half-baked idea, mistake or loudmouthed accusation posted here. Certainly not in real time. </p>
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<p>My calculations were correct. Your notions of what is a correct denominator are an idea that you probably should “not share with your professors”, but hey, it’s your career. </p>
<p><a href=“And%20besides,%20by%202003-2004,%20Berkeley%20didn’t%20even%20participate%20in%20the%20National%20Merit%20program!”>quote</a>
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<p>Accounting for that (the data to do so are in the report) would strengthen the conclusion. Let us know if you want that R code…</p>
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<p>To clarify, I am not the OP.</p>
<p>Though I have pointed to the two top UCs as examples of schools where Asian enrollment increased after abandoning racial preferences, I don’t think anyone commented on my numbers for Michigan a few pages back. Michigan’s experience was quite different from those of Berkeley and UCLA.</p>
<p>At Ann Arbor, the figures for "URM"s and Asians didn’t really change all that much. But the figures for whites changed quite a bit. Academic year 2007-2008 was the last year before Proposal 2 entered into effect, and whites made up 63.72% of the freshman class.</p>
<p>In 2008-2009, they made up 65.64% of the class, though the total number of freshman whites decreased from the previous year because almost 200 fewer freshman enrolled in total. But in 2009-2010, the figure spiked to 71.33% before slightly receding to 69.53% in 2010-2011.</p>
<p>By contrast, Asian enrollment in these years was 12.63%, 11.86%, 13.55%, and 13.52%. Essentially, no change, with a dip in the year that every “group” saw a dip, both in magnitude and in proportion.</p>
<p>For "URM"s, the enrollment was 10.86%, 10.44%, 8.81%, and 8.78%. I add that the number of "URM"s enrolled increased from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011 though the proportion decreased.</p>
<p>In case you’re wondering if there are some confounds, the percentage of international freshmen stayed around 4%, and after Proposal 2 took place, the number of freshmen who declined to self-identify dropped dramatically each year, from 515 in 2007-2008 to 55 in 2010-2011. Perhaps whites who had been declining to self-identify out of “fear” now felt that there was no need to.</p>
<p>So, for Michigan, whites didn’t seem to “take” the place of "URM"s who would’ve been admitted, as the increase in white enrollment far exceeded the decrease in “URM” enrollment. For example, in 2009-2010, seventy fewer "URM"s were admitted compared to the previous year, but 500 more whites were admitted.</p>
<p>Moreover, Asians didn’t “benefit” from Proposal 2. One thing’s for sure though: "URM"s did not disappear. In the first year after Proposal 2 (2008-2009), only forty-seven fewer "URM"s decided to enroll compared to the year before. Seventy fewer decided to enroll the next year (2009-2010), but more enrolled in 2010-2011 than than in 2009-2010.</p>
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<p>What does all of this tell us? Unless you’re willing to argue that 10% is “critical mass” but 8% isn’t, we don’t need racial preferences.</p>
<p>Hunt’s observation is a great one. Would you consider that positive discrimination or negative discrimination, fab?</p>
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<p>Yes, siserune. Let’s pretend that you didn’t write “have posted.”</p>
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<p>Hilarious! You admit that you have yet to post the data (i.e. “will post”), but you claim that your calculations–which were not based on “the data,” since you’ve yet to post them–were correct.</p>
<p>What are the names of the labor papers, siserune? Notice how you haven’t produced any of them yet? I don’t know who taught you that asking for sources is “bad faith.” Maybe you should leave the profession if you feel that way.</p>
<p>Fab, you’re in no position to bash anyone for not producing data.</p>
<p>You have offered no proof that Asian admittance rates are appreciably different from white admittance rates - heck, I’d “accept” either among total pool or among comparably-qualified pools. You have offered no proof that affirmative action disproportionately benefits “son of two black physicians who goes to boarding school” as compared to lower socioeconomic URM’s. You have offered no proof that Asians are indeed “more qualified” than the rate at which they are being let in. Give it up.</p>
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<p>I would say it’s “positive” geographic discrimination. I don’t have a problem with geographic or socioeconomic preferences. They’re race-neutral, hence they involve no racial discrimination, “positive” or “negative.”</p>
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<p>Geographic and / or socioeconomic preferences are by no means race-neutral.</p>
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<p>Actually, I am. I provide links to my sources. I don’t spew unsourced hot air and act self-righteous when someone asks where I got my information from.</p>
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<p>I asked you if you had any substantive issues with my comments in post #1258. You didn’t respond. I’m asking you again, for the second time.</p>
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<p>Please elaborate on your “socioeconomic preferences are by no means race-neutral.”</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I think it’s fairly well accepted there’s at least some correlation between race and socioeconomic status in this country. </p>
<p>You can also find correlations between race and zip code, irrespective of socioeconomic characteristics. </p>
<p>If you wanted to target wealthy African Americans in my area you would just look for Baldwin Hills and Ladera Heights zip codes. Maybe that’s unfortunate self-segregation, but it’s statistically true (although the demographics have been changing slowly over time).</p>
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<p>Is the correlation not strong enough? That is, would socioeconomic preferences NOT get us mostly poor "URM"s? If it’s not strong enough, OK, fine–again, I see the need for racial preferences. But if it is strong enough, why not just use socioeconomic preferences?</p>
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<p>We could also target poor "URM"s via zip codes, right? Why aren’t we doing that? Because it requires more work than simply having students check a box?</p>
<p>(I ask not to be belligerent but rather to highlight that depending on how good these other methods are, we could get similar outcomes with a lot less divisiveness.)</p>
<p>Yes, probably it would be a “better” system if preferences were given either to lower socioeconomic status without regard to race, or if preferences were given to URM’s only of a lower socioeconomic status (that is, not the son of the two black physicians). I doubt anyone is arguing that the current thumb on the scale is perfect. </p>
<p>However, that’s still positive discrimination, no? I thought you were against that.</p>
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<p>There’s nothing to elaborate on. The statement is clear as is. Unless you believe that the different races are distributed exactly the same when it comes to income.</p>
<p>10% is “critical mass” but 8% isn’t, </p>
<p>More schools with eight percent would be wonderful! 5, 6 or 7 is what I “shop for” .</p>
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<p>The correct term, the one that could have been used had truthfulness been a priority, is “haven’t”. The words “can’t” and “won’t” are knowingly speculative insinuations, and it is dishonest to apply them here. </p>
<p>I don’t have a problem providing references sooner or later but these fabrizio insinuations are an ugly phenomenon that is separate from the data discussions per se.</p>
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<p>Will you provide a link to the source(s) of your very specific claims, repeated as recently as the past few weeks, that I believe in theories of a master race? That is, a CC posting in which I compare (or even discuss) essentialist attributes of racial or ethnic groups?</p>
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<p>And those race-neutral preferences show up as “race” effects, such as an Asian SAT penalty (compared to whites) due to geographic and clustering differences, when you run the Espenshade type of admissions regression study. Same with the higher weighting of verbal vs math SAT. It’s not clear whether all this nullifies or reverses a 50-point effect, if that was in fact what Espenshade found in his undocumented calculation – data-master fabrizio and others citing the study are not screaming for a disclosure of the methodology there! – but it’s also not clear that it doesn’t. The Duke calculations show that the race-neutral factors can be of the same order of magnitude, or even larger than, observed white/Asian SAT differences.</p>
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<p>Please allow me to clarify, then. I’m against racial discrimination, both positive and negative. I never said I was against socioeconomic preferences, which indeed are a form of positive discrimination.</p>
<p>You objected to my characterizing them as race-neutral. How about race-blind? Either way, socioeconomic preferences are not granted on the basis of racial classification.</p>
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<p>Well, you’re really proving my point here. You seem to believe that socioeconomic class and racial classification are VERY highly correlated. Then why NOT use socioeconomic preferences in lieu of racial preferences?</p>
<p>Yes, some people are against both, but I think many people who are against racial preferences are not against socioeconomic preferences. The civil rights initiatives that Ward Connerly espouses do not outlaw socioeconomic preferences, for example.</p>
<p>Also, a properly structured socioeconomic preference program should be based on wealth, not income. If you base it on income, you’ll get mostly low-income whites because there are more of them than low-income blacks (magnitude-wise). If you base it on wealth, you can easily make it so that most of the recipients are truly poor "URM"s.</p>
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<p>Again, it’s very possible that Michigan’s experience isn’t generalizable. But even so, it does show that fears of “URM” disappearance are greatly exaggerated.</p>