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<p>Yes, the student in A Hope in the Unseen is poor. Why would that be a reason for you to not read it? You are asking questions about student support, about whether race is a valuable ingredient in “the soup,” questioning the value of racial preferences (which sometimes mean the acceptance of low-scoring students). This book may shed some light on these issues.</p>
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<p>xiggi, you alleged that Asians are “overrepresented” because their culture (monolithic?) condones cheating. Three people, including myself, called you out for it. You show no sign of backing down from it. You have certainly helped God knows how many CC’ers do well on their standardized tests, again myself included, but that doesn’t give you a free pass for comments like that.</p>
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<p>I never said that wasn’t a reason to not read it. I was only guessing that the student was, in fact, poor, and that his growing up in poverty may have been a bigger cause for the struggles he faced in life than his racial classification. But having said that, I haven’t read the book; I’ll try to do so.</p>
<p>I am not saying that we should only accept the highest-scoring students. I’m saying that (a) you don’t need to consider racial classification to have diversity, and (b) a lot of arguments for racial preferences are actually based on socioeconomic reasons, which justify socioeconomic preferences (NOT racial preferences).</p>
<p>Unfortunately in this country, one’s race is frequently a HUGE determinant in one’s socio-economic level. </p>
<p>When you say that you can have diversity without considering race, does that mean that you consider diverse a classroom that has no blacks in it? Even if that classroom has a range of socio-economic levels?</p>
<p>…and in a very diverse country such as ours, an individual is shaped not only by one’s national culture but by one’s subculture, as a separate phenomenon, at the very least parallel to whatever economic struggle, or lack thereof, one has encountered.</p>
<p>I have not read the book fireandrain recommends. However, I read the reviews on Amazon, and found – as obviously many other readers of the site found – the first one, by a man whose last name is Finlayson, to be insightful. That review speaks of the student’s encounter with black boarding-school grads at Brown, whom, he notes, can move in and out of white culture. </p>
<p>Becoming affluent in America (or relatively so) does not eradicate one’s personal cultural ties, not for blacks, not for those from Asian origins.</p>
<p>And being poor and white is different from being poor and black.</p>
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<p>Then you could get the same results with socioeconomic preferences!</p>
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<p>First, I do not support segregation. Second, abandoning racial preferences does not mean "URM"s disappear. It hasn’t happened in any of the states that have passed civil rights initiatives. So your question is hypothetical.</p>
<p>Having said that, why couldn’t it be diverse? You’ve already said that this classroom has a “range of socioeconomic levels.” Moreover, the classroom COULD have students from different regions. The students COULD have vastly different interests outside of the classroom. None of those is unlikely, so why couldn’t it be diverse?</p>
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<p>Slavery and Jim Crow laws were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Ct (via lawsuits) and the 13th Amendment and Civil Rights Act (legislation). What else did you have in mind?</p>
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<p>Yes, I do believe this. I think race is mostly a social construct with no real biological meaning and I think the more we turn away from race as any sort of meaningful factor in evaluating human beings the better we will be as a society, and the more diverse in real terms.</p>
<p>When I look at a classroom or board room I don’t want to tick off so many blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos as if they were ingredients in a recipe for “diversity pie.” I’m sorry but i’m truly weary of this mindset.</p>
<p>sorghum wrote:
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<p>How do you propose that we, as a society, determine what is “just,” if the US Supreme Ct doesn’t do it for you? We can pass laws and legislation, but those acts must ultimately be determined to comply with the US Constitution and the US Supreme Ct is the final arbiter.</p>
<p>^^Interesting that you mention diversity in the boardroom. There is very little diversity of any kind at this level. Mostly old white men with common backgrounds. There is a huge push to bring minorities onto boards because there is a belief that these individuals bring a unique perspective that is sorely lacking and definitely needed.</p>
<p>So yes. There is a checking off of how many Blacks, Asians etc are/are not present and this is at the top level of Capitalist America.</p>
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<p>Social constructs influence individuals, their identities, their experiences. Social constructs and individual differences are not mutually exclusive; they are interdependent.</p>
<p>It depends on what you (or anybody) means by the term “evaluating.” If it means measuring the quality of a human being qua human being, I would agree with you that “race” as a social construct is not a meaningful differentiator. But that’s not what admissions committees are “evaluating.” They are examining experience, and determining the value of that individual’s experience as one of many components in structuring a freshman class.</p>
<p>Fab, my question really goes to your core values. Do you believe that a classroom, or multiple classrooms at one university, or a company, or the board of a company, can be considered diverse when there are no blacks present? Hypothetically, sure, you can address it that way. </p>
<p>Many people in American society feel very strongly that the absence of racial diversity means there is NOT diversity. Most colleges believe this, especially the elite, selective universities. </p>
<p>As for the issue of race and socio economic class: a greater proportion of blacks and Hispanics are poor compared to whites. But because whites are a majority in America, there are more poor whites than poor blacks (talking total numbers). So it would be possible to have a college that eliminates racial preferences, has socio-economic preferences and has an all-white student body. In my opinion, this hypothetical college would not be diverse.</p>
<p>^ …and in the opinions of my many high-performing, academically desirable white, Asian, black, and Hispanic students. From the colleges’ perspective, they dread reducing their attractiveness to the maximum number of excellent candidates. Variety on a campus, as an aspect of appeal, is a majority position.</p>
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<p>My core values? As I said, I agree with Chief Justice Roberts: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” I do not agree with Justice Blackmun. And my answer to your question remains unchanged. Why couldn’t it be?</p>
<p>Many Americans strongly support diversity, but they don’t support racial preferences to achieve “diversity” ([Source](<a href=“http://people-press.org/http://people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/312.pdf]Source[/url]”>http://people-press.org/http://people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/312.pdf)</a>). Moreover, in the six states that have had civil rights initiatives, the pro-racial preference side has lost five times. And you should be very careful in defining “diversity” as “racial diversity”; try that with Justice Kennedy, and you’re sure to lose:</p>
<p>Diversity, depending on its meaning and definition, is a compelling educational goal a school district may pursue.</p>
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<p>Finally I read the canonical argument against socioeconomic preferences. Thank you. What you say is true if the socioeconomic preference is poorly implemented. If you base it on family income, then yes, you will get mostly low-income whites. The standard pro-racial preference conclusion is, “Socioeconomic preferences don’t work. Racial preferences work.”</p>
<p>But that’s not the ONLY way you could design a socioeconomic preference. Base it on family wealth instead. Dalton Conley, a sociology professor at NYU, has found that the average white family has significantly higher net wealth than the average black family. A properly designed socioeconomic preference based on net wealth can thus mostly benefit poor blacks, while still benefiting poor students of other racial classifications.</p>
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<p>Which will reduce the number of total blacks of other wealth levels, resulting in an overall black campus population reduced to an impractical number, when it comes to having a core identifiable group. There are the lone students everywhere, from every subgroup, who are remarkably socially independent, but such students (and such adults!) are the exception.</p>
<p>For a group which identifies as a minority in any given population, an affinity group provides value in retention of those members within that population, and in preventing a sense of alienation or ‘apartness.’ Nowhere is this more true than during the adolescent time frame.</p>
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<p>This implies that most of the black students at private elites NEED racial preferences or else they wouldn’t be there. That is, it goes beyond just “test scores aren’t everything.”</p>
<p>What’s the minimum level for “identifiable,” and how is it not a quota? Moreover, are blacks individuals or members of the “black group”?</p>
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<p>It seems rather surprising then, that for the two years studied at Duke in the Campus Life and Learning Project, just under (over) a fifth of black (Latino) respondents came from high schools that were “all or nearly all white.” When you extend it to “mostly white,” it was just under (over) half of the respondents for both “groups.”</p>
<p>And we really should move beyond such tribalist mentalities, especially in a nation as diverse as ours.</p>
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<p>No, it does not. I just finished alluding to the ‘black boarding-school grads’ which the aforementioned (and storied) student at Brown U encountered when there. Do boarding-school grads who happen to be black “need” racial preferences (because otherwise they would supposedly not “qualify,” is that what you are trying to say?)? I doubt they “need” preferences to be examined along with other similarly qualified individuals of different racial/ethnic groups. </p>
<p>They’re all in a very large pool, Fab. Around 12,000 in that pool. The admission committees don’t need your permission to consider blacks from all backgrounds (rich, poor, middle-class, domestic, overseas) as part of the entire potential admitted pool, just as they examine all Asians, all whites, all hispanics who apply.</p>
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<p>Supposedly not “qualify[ing]” isn’t what I’m trying to say. I quoted you–a socioeconomic preference policy based on family net wealth “will reduce the number of total blacks of other wealth levels, resulting in an overall black campus population reduced to an impractical number, when it comes to having a core identifiable group”–and stated an implication of what you said.</p>
<p>Again, those were your words. But as we’re clearly not on the same page, could you please explain WHY such a policy would “reduce the number of total blacks of other wealth levels”?</p>
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<p>Then what’s the problem? We’ve got 12,000 highly qualified "URM"s. Why is there still a “UR” in “URM”?</p>
<p>“It seems rather surprising then, that for the two years studied at Duke in the Campus Life and Learning Project, just under (over) a fifth of black (Latino) respondents came from high schools that were “all or nearly all white.” When you extend it to “mostly white,” it was just under (over) half of the respondents for both “groups.””</p>
<p>I don’t know what you mean here, but it seems that you often come back to the same ideas, and suggest that it has to be either/or, one of two things. I think it is a complicated mix of things, with different weights for different people. For MY daughter at Duke, we became aware of this whole “top college” thing when she started getting invites to diversity events. The same kids seem to end up at all the events, and many had the experience of not knowing a lot of other black kids, and/or being told they “acted white”. They felt they had met kids “like them” for the first time. She for the first time in her life has a diverse group of friends. That was not going to happen at the schools kids around here usually go to. I GET that you don’t see that as special, and that you don’t value that, or that you think it’s a bad thing. So when you open YOUR school, I probably won’t be handing my money over to you. I am sure you will get a LOT of students and families that see it your way. </p>
<p>How would you handle the need blind, full need met choices? I think you are in favor of THAT kind of social engineering.</p>
<p>Can you handle a bit of humor this morning?</p>
<p>"And WE really should move beyond such tribalist mentalities, especially in a nation as diverse as ours. "</p>
<p>What is that buddy movie where I think it was a Native American guy and the white guy are surrounded by some “tribe” and the Native American guy says something like “WE???”</p>
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<p>No. Not 12,000 blacks and hispanics and Native Americans who are highly qualified. 12,000 students in the total applicant pool (just pulling some of Princeton’s nunbers out), 80-90% of whom (among the entire group) are sufficiently qualified to perform well at any random elite school, according to admissions officers and reps. A small portion of those sufficiently well qualified to succeed & graduate are black; an even smaller portion are black + poor, because being poor + black in the USA has layers of challenges for even the consideration of college as a viable prospect (including the funding, logistics, etc. of that), let alone a private college far away, let alone a campus with few students whose experience resembles what that student has likely lived through.</p>
<p>But for that small portion of students, going to an elite U can make (I didn’t say will make) a definitive difference, especially just after graduation, and that can affect their economic opportunites for a long period and even “forever.” And in turn, that has the potential for enlarging the black upper middle class, even slightly, so that educational opportunity (which is tied at least somewhat to money) is enhanced.</p>
<p>And since you’re all for the universal improvement of opportunity, you should look upon this favorably.</p>