Quadruplets Admitted to Yale

Dash753 · December 23, 2009, 5:06pm

You’d be surprised at how weird/bad this part of California is. It’s far away from the coast and everybody hates each other. I can’t wait to leave.

Stupefy · December 23, 2009, 5:09pm

Of course. but the instances of whites getting preferential treatment over asians is, I think, less common and harder to prove. the achievement gaps between whites and asians is way less than that between, say, asians and hispanics. so for the sake of argument, it’s easier for us to point out the unfairness between asians and URMs.

Shrinkrap · December 23, 2009, 5:16pm

Hey Dbate, “we” still love you…

Dbate · December 23, 2009, 7:18pm

While I certainly understand the basis for affirmative action, and really enjoy the fact that there are so many other black students in my classes at Yale, affirmative action does allow minorities with lower test scores and grades to be accepted over those with higher test scores or grades. That is not to say Asians and whites are more intelligent or any other silly notion that lmpw deposited, but it is simply a fact.

The entirety of the argument on this thread is meaningless, however, as being on campus allows me to see the tangible benefits of affiramtive action. Surely Sotomayor and Michele Obama are prime examples of how affirmative action can be used to imporve society. Did some abstract applicant get rejected for Sotomayor to get accepted to Yale and Princeton? Probably. But that person could never inspire thousands of Hispanics to believe that they could become a supreme court justice.

What alot of the applicants fail to realize is that when a minority gets accepted to a top school it benefits entire ethnic groups. In fact during my very first visit to campus I had a random black man come up to me and shake my hand and said verbatim: “Its nice to see that a black man can attend this university.” The same sentiment was rampant throughout my high school.

Minorities who go to top school are literally beacons that are emulated throughout minoritiy communities and can inspire other minorities to excel. It is the collective elevation of entire groups that admission committees consider when admitting minority students, because when other minorities see members of their ethnic group excelling they believe they can as well. And via this process it is hoped that minorities will rise to the point where affirmative action will be unnecessary.

theskylitup · December 23, 2009, 7:32pm

^ that’s a wonderful way of putting it Dbate!

NearL · December 23, 2009, 8:52pm

Nope. It’s called legacy status and it’s one of the only institutions, along with Affirmative Action and athletic recruiting, that keeps white enrollment over 50%. Make admissions purely objective and schools like Yale would have shrinking white populations.

No, that’s just hypocritical and self-serving.

What you don’t seem to understand is that Affirmative Action, legacy status, and athletic recruitment all help whites. It caps minority enrollment and keeps Asian numbers down as a result in the name of ‘diversity’. Get rid of that and athletic recruitment – which adds almost nothing to universities like HYPM – and white numbers would plummet. The Asian pool is actually far more competitive overall than the white pool overall. There are a lot of competitive white students, but your median Asian superstudent is better than your median white superstudent. Fact.

Sure, minorities take a small hit from the lack of athletic recruiting in basketball and football, but whites are the BIG beneficiaries from athletic recruitment. And, because competitive universities were largely white institutions, the vast majority of people that get legacy status are white.

Just wait a generation – Asians will have legacy status AND be more competitive and then the competitive schools will have to figure out another way to keep us out!

NearL · December 23, 2009, 9:03pm

It’s just you.

Were you unimpressive until you got a good score on a four hour test?

Were you unimpressive before you got to Yale?

Everyone at Yale doubted their qualifications to get into Yale. Even Asians.

There are a lot of black students at Yale with great grades. If you’re looking for a huge disparity between black students and white/Asian students, Yale is probably one of the worst places to go in the country.

Don’t buy into the crypto-racist argument about ‘qualifications’ and ‘merit’. The entire spiel is just another way for some angry white men to say you’re not good enough for anything that doesn’t involve a mop or a ball. If these same men really cared about merit, they would get rid of legacy status and athletic recruiting, which benefits them.

But they don’t because they don’t actually care about merit. They’re just gaming you.

When you, a black man, are in a good position that they believe a white man should have, they say, “Oh, the black guy probably isn’t qualified” to denigrate your achievement and halt your progress. When I, an Asian-American man, am in a good position they say, “Oh, the Asian guy probably isn’t social enough, he’s too much of a calculator”. In this manner, racists justify merit when it’s advantageous and personality or sociability - when merit doesn’t do the trick.

It’s tomfoolery and you shouldn’t buy into Dbate. I used to be really angry about Affirmative Action until I realized that Asian-Americans were doing all the right things only to be shot down time and time again for social reasons. Affirmative Action had nothing to do with it. Now I realized that it was all malarky. Affirmative Action isn’t the problem. Racism, which threatens minority mobility at all angles and at every level, is the problem! It takes different forms for both of us, but its ultimate goal is the same.

Stupefy · December 23, 2009, 9:23pm

^yes but affirmative action IS an expression of racism. can’t you see the link there?

NearL · December 23, 2009, 9:25pm

If I give the kid next to you a high five instead of you, is that an expression of hatred? Is that, in and of itself, an expression of anything but my good will to the kid next to you?

Also, I noticed you completely ignored the fact that whites do get AA. They get two kinds of active AA and a passive one. Asians are the only ones that don’t get AA. If you weren’t a bigot, you’d find the fact that Asians are being doubly screwed troubling. But since you’re only concerned with whites - because you are a racist - you completely ignore the problems of Asians and AA.

You’ve also failed to admit that without AA, white numbers would drop. There have been studies that show whites don’t gain or lose anything from AA (I’m pretty sure whites would lose ground, tho). Only Asians are hurt by AA. If you get rid of legacy status and athletic recruitment whites will get hurt with the lost of their AA, too.

Stupefy · December 23, 2009, 9:31pm

^are you talking to me? I’m asian. I’m an indignant asian
Nearl, I agree with you on everything you said about asians. but it really seems to me like you have some kind of antagonism toward whites- since you defend the right of ORMs to benefit from AA. so in short, I really don’t understand your argument here. I understood it until you started to point out the unfairness to asians. and now you just seem two-sided. do you think its fair for asians to be hurt by AA? do you think its fair for ORMs to be helped by AA? expound please :)

NearL · December 23, 2009, 9:50pm

It seems like you have some kind of antagonism toward blacks. Did blacks create Affirmative Action all by themselves? No. White men did. If it causes a division between blacks and Asians - and since the 1960’s white America has done everything in its power to create a divide between Asians and blacks - it is the fault of some white man.

I can defend URMs right to benefit from AA without supporting AA. In fact, I think it’s ridiculous to be against URMs when the guys that created AA were white and its inadvertent (?) beneficiaries are white, and when whites get two other kids of AA.

Stop being a pawn. You should be ****ed because this entire argument is just a way to create a division between Asians and blacks. Meanwhile, whites continue to have the advantage of legacy status, athletic recruiting and a centuries old network built on excluding non-whites. When Asians work so tirelessly that they cannot be ignored, they are stereotyped as robots and put on number-crunching duty. If merit was the objective of anti-AA sentiments, then whites would have no problem essentially ceding their best universities to Asians. But its’ not. Anti-AA sentiments are often just backlash against attempts to elminate white privilege.

And this is why anti-AA sentiments are framed in terms of desert. White privilege means that only whites can be deserving of anything great. If a black man has it, he’s taken it somehow. If an Asian man has it, he should because he’s a robot rather than a man.

The entire idea of AA hurting whites is BS and just a way to denigrate blacks and Hispanics. Merit doesn’t matter in the real world and the people most against AA know this. The guy that won’t hire blacks because they might be AA beneficiaries is the same guy that will reject you because you aren’t as sociable as some half-drunk WASPy fratboy.

And that’s my argument.

Tres_Elefantes · December 23, 2009, 10:15pm

EDIT: does this argument really need to continue?

mifune · December 23, 2009, 10:22pm

@Dash: It is genuinely understood that past biological warfare has indeed morphed the future of the American Indian. However, kindling centuries-old indelicacies to support a stance based on vengeful motives is not a solution. Historians cite the past as a means of guiding present circumstances. However, in the case of 500-year-old indiscretions, replacing one fragment of society with that of another is not a feasible means of solving any problem. Namely, it is socially backwards to institute discriminatory measures for the sake of evening the score due to prior misconduct. Yet as I have read throughout this discussion/argument/slander affair, this viewpoint is widely held by liberals who seek to provide some righteous verification to their arguments. They believe that it will provide some degree of moral righteousness when in essence it is nothing but illogical ethos.

I, personally, am politically left-of-center, but only to the extent of defending arguments that favor the impartial treatment of all racial groups. That is, to the extent that all individuals are held to the same paradigm in the evaluation of objective and subjective indicators of merit, talent, and intangible promise of future contribution. Indeed, the only two major facets of liberal doctrine that I feel breach the archetypal golden standards of American philosophy are the issues of affirmative action and policies granting anything less than stringent measures on illegal immigration.

NearL · December 23, 2009, 10:41pm

If mifune goes to a top university, he’s proof of AA for whites. His writing is atrocious.

lol @ this sentence. What are you, a writer for the National Geographic? Write how you speak.

You can’t grasp that wanting to help those that have been harmed time and time again is not ‘vengeful’.

Plenty of Native Americans live on reservations today. Until the late 1960’s they weren’t ensured their basic rights. The idea that the Native American genocide is anything but a living, breathing problem that continues to stifle Native American mobility is ridiculous.

Since when was Affirmative Action replacing one fragment of society with another? That’s not how it works at all. A pool of competitive applicants apply for something, and because race may be considered, some applicants get a tip and get the job.

That’s hardly replacing one fragment of society with another - unless you’re suggesting that society is fragmented by racial lines.

It’s only OK to worry about ‘discriminatory meastures’ when it harms whites, right? The fact that whites tend to hire other whites and separate along racial lines is OK. It’s OK that whites in influential positions can informally institute ‘discriminatory measures’ by only hiring people from their social group.

You have no problem with that, I’m sure, because you’re a racist intent on preserving white privilege and white dominance.

Objective indicators so that you can eliminate blacks with the good old ‘merit’/blacks-aren’t-possibly-smart-enough-to-compete-with-whites-so-there-must-be-an-'objectively-more-qualified-white argument…

Subjective indicators so that you can eliminate Asians with the old ‘sociability’/Asians-are-too-robotic-for-leadership-positions argument.

mifune · December 23, 2009, 10:42pm

This is precisely the scenario that displays racial affirmative action’s subjective measurement of a disadvantaged background. It does not measure one’s resources, experiences, talents, or future promise. In fact, in the case of competitive processes fundamentally grounded on the basis of merit, such as college admissions, race cannot even be substantiated. In the case of checking the Native American box, one must provide a tribal enrollment number to verify the validity of the claim. However, even upon leaving the tribal number box blank, a college will often not challenge a student’s Native American heritage and simply provide the student’s application with the predetermined allotment of admission points given the scarcity of American Indian students. Such a policy offers incentive to identify oneself as part of a disadvantaged background without proof for the sake of obtaining an unfair advantage. In many cases, it rewards deceit rather than merit.

However, in the case of socioeconomic AA, one must provide legitimate proof to substantiate disadvantaged claims. Such a policy does not intrinsically suggest superiority but rightfully acknowledges accomplishments attained under a student’s economic and social circumstances. For the sake of avoiding redundancy, for any further explanation regarding the objectivity regarding socioeconomic AA and the subjective of racial AA, please see post # 190.

Removing all forms of affirmative action does, however, limit social mobility. However, in its current slanted form it emulates the inequality that was propagated in previous eras. Since the subjectivity of racially-based admission paradigms is undisputable, AA must exist to a certain extent in regards to socioeconomic aspects. Fortunately, current implementation of economic factors is present, but not necessarily present in admission decisions, due to the liberality of the financial aid programs of private universities to mitigate the high cost of attendance. If financial aid was a nonconcept, how would the demographics of HYPS appear? I can assure you that the student body would be nearly constituted exclusively of students whose families earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. However, the vast majority of the most highly qualified students do not have resources to this extent. Economic status is not readily considered as an admission criterion although there is benefit to its institution as one. Socioeconomic factors undeniably have an effect on the tangible and intangible factors regarding the elements that externally effect applicants.

NearL · December 23, 2009, 10:48pm

The most ‘objectively qualified’ students almost always do have these resources. You think the average HYPMS super student, whom has almost always attended a top high school/magnet/suburban school isn’t well-off? How do you think she funded her summer trip to Africa and SAT prep? The majority of HYPMS students hail from households in the top 5% of income-earners in America - and that’s WITH significant financial aid.

The best middle-class and lower-middle class students apply to HYPMS - they just aren’t nearly as competitive on average as upper-middle class and rich students on average.

P.S. I think you are flame but find you amusing.

mifune · December 23, 2009, 11:10pm

You write in nothing but an arrogant tone that serves to slander those who hope to benefit the common good. Since you engage in nothing but overt character assassination, you do not even qualify as one who legitimately debates. You misapprehend arguments to morph them into personal attacks which is absolutely pathetic.

Read post #210.

There is a distinct difference between equitably treating individuals and preferentially treating individuals.

The only incongrous element is that this genocide occurred 500 years ago. This is undeniably one of the most embarrassing points in our nation’s early history, but it need not bear any present discrimination against those of historically non-minority groups. Native Americans have now had there fundamental rights granted for nearly fifty years. They themselves are in positions of achieving upward social mobility and many are undeniably thriving off their own autonomy with many members of tribes receiving $5 million annual wages every year. However, in processes based on academic and personal ability, they must compete in the same realm as the remainder of the applicant pool.

Throughout this thread I have explicitly reiterated that I promote the impartial treatment of all ethnic groups by initially not distinguishing between ethnic groups. Yet you blatantly misinterpret arguments to suggest that anyone against your position is expounding some ideological agenda derived from one’s own feelings of a specific ethnic groups superiority.

Your arguments have no backing - in regards to ethics or logic among others. Your ad hominem arguments simply hope to breakdown the psychological barrier of the individual which is a very malevolent intention. The argument regarding some unsubstantiated white-to-white alliance is patently false in this website’s major consideration - college admissions.

You see everything through race and misconstrue every argument to suggest I expound arguments that favor my own.

Also, have you even bothered reading the comments on pages 13-16?

Stupefy · December 23, 2009, 11:15pm

^give up. its unfortunate, but people rarely change their opinions on these matters. no matter how good of an argument you make ;)

mifune · December 23, 2009, 11:17pm

Allow me to respond to other parts of this thread before coming back to NearL.

Indeed I believe affirmative action will be less consequential as this generation grows older because frankly, affirmative action policy will indubitably receive little salute as the moral and ethical gaffes of its foundations become increasingly more recognized. Racial minorities who become epitomes of success in society without reliance on affirmative action policies will be more highly esteemed by the majority groups that these individuals will often come to represent. Thus, there will be no qualms regarding the legitimacy of their previous triumphs because there was no crutch initially available.

* The only method of promoting any type of racial equality in our nation is to not have social policy attempt to fix any perceived problem with racial relations to begin with. * Policy that prevents the encroachment of one group’s immutable rights on another is sufficient in itself.

mifune · December 23, 2009, 11:26pm

This is spot on.

What amciw is eluding to is the presence of racial quotas which undeniably exist not because of speculation but because of explicit professing by members of admission committees that they are indeed present in contemporary admission practices.

Precisely.

This is exactly one of the great dilemmas that undermines the objectives that affirmative action originally sought to correct. I appreciate your support, amciw. Your arguments are unerringly true.

Quadruplets Admitted to Yale

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