You are missing my point entirely. In many of the oral arguments for this case the Harvard lawyers insisted that race based affirmative action is ok because race is a factor among many.
Implying that if it was the only factor then it would not be ok. So theirs is not a principled defense of affirmative action but rather based entirely on plausible deniability
You keep throwing "plausible deniability" around, thinking that is what is happening here.
You're assuming that the decision is someone selecting a candidate solely based on their race, when it is far far more nuanced than that. For Ivy's, the pool of candidates is so unbelievably large to available spots, that they look at hundreds of different data points when evaluating candidates, and they weight certain ones higher/lower depending on the criteria set by the faculty and institutional goals.
If the goal of the institution is to have a student body that is more representative of the overall population, this isn't "plausible deniability" it is the institution attempting to prepare their students for the real world.
Prior to affirmative action (and it's not perfect by any means) these institutions were overrun with white men, and our society has still not course corrected from the overwhelming benefit that afforded that specific class of people.
I fail to see how taking two students, one from an afluent area who happens to be white, and one from a less affluent area, with fewer advantages, but the latter scored at or near the former candidate and has nearly the same extra-curriculars, volunteer experience etc. is such a bad thing. Your "plausible deniability" is really just a lazy way of saying that you would prefer purely "objective" bias when it comes to evaluating students, but the world is not purely objective, and I think we're better served with a bit more subjective consideration when we're allocating scarce resources that have traditionally benefitted (significantly) one class/race over another.
In an other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33446363) we see how simply changing race on the application from Asian to Black/Hispanic increases a person chances of getting from 4-8% to 60+%. If there is hundreds of different minor data points, but then a single major data point called race that dominate all the other minor data point, then it doesn't matter that there is hundreds of minor data points.
How strong a bias is is relevant in case of discrimination. If race changes a person chances by over 12 times then that is a very major bias.
Let us say for a moment that Misogyny University wanted to discriminate on the basis of sex. However, it quickly found out that openly doing so is illegal. But they still hated women and wanted none of them.
So, instead of saying that women automatically get rejected, they say that there are many factors that they consider and that sex is only one of them. However, of course when you look at the statistics the admission rate for women is very very low compared to men. But the university insists "one of many factors!"
Now what exactly is the difference between what Harvard is doing and Misogyny University? Clearly, "one of many factors" can't absolve them of sexism. But presumably they think they can get away with it so long as the decision is opaque enough.
I think you are giving Harvard the benefit of the doubt. But I don't think they deserve it. If you look at their history, they have used the exact same tactics. In fact they invented holistic admission for the sole reason of discriminating against Jews.
> Now what exactly is the difference between what Harvard is doing and Misogyny University?
Harvard admitted 27% or so Asians in this years class.
They aren’t turning away any “strong admit” Asian applicants.
The real decisions among the marginal candidates are who gets accepted and who gets waitlisted (iirc, that number is over 1000 at Harvard).
Underrepresented groups get a slight edge in this area. Race is one possible criterion for underrepresentation, so is geography, so is economic status, so is expressed major, etc.
Comparing the current relatively low level of consideration given to race to the explicitly exclusionary policy 100 years ago is quite a stretch, imho.
There is a huge difference between the Admission rates for Asians Vs African Americans. In fact the admission rate for Asians is lower than Whites!
It does not matter that the current percentage is 27% when Harvard itself admitted that it would be 40% if not for AA. We should always consider admission rates for a particular student.
And finally I do not understand where this degree of faith in Harvard is coming from? This is the institution that systematically gave Asian significantly lower "personality scores" without even meeting them. Even while their own alumni rated Asians similar to their peers. Is this not an explicitly exclusionary policy?
> There is a huge difference between the Admission rates for Asians Vs African Americans. In fact the admission rate for Asians is lower than Whites!
You seem to assume that the applicant pool is equally strong across races, especially with reference to the parts of the application outside of test scores and grades. I humbly suggest that this is not true.
> It does not matter that the current percentage is 27% when Harvard itself admitted that it would be 40% if not for AA.
I would like to see that exact quote. Iirc, that was the stat if they went by grades and test scores, which they never have and most likely never will.
> And finally I do not understand where this degree of faith in Harvard is coming from?
I have worked in an advisory capacity at several elite schools on the admissions process.
I’ve seen how the sausage is made. Most people get it incredibly wrong.
> This is the institution that systematically gave Asian significantly lower "personality scores" without even meeting them. Even while their own alumni rated Asians similar to their peers. Is this not an explicitly exclusionary policy?
Maybe.
The real question is if they also rated non-Asian people with similar profiles low on the personality score.
Let me tell you, there are an absurd number of applicants to elite schools that are basically doppelgängers. Strong grades, strong SAT scores, similar essays to thousands of other applicants, no outstanding hook, “standard strong” recommendations, etc. There is nothing that makes these applicants stand out to the reviewer. They may be super pleasant to be around and highly articulate, but so what? So are truckloads of other applicants.
I haven’t seen the comparable numbers for Asians versus other races, but there are no shortage of boring white applicants and boring applicants from every race that would warrant a lower personality score (however that is described).
Additionally, there are a number of reasons that one group or race might have lower average personality scores than another group that don’t involve racism. As a simple made up example, the ratio of “hail Mary” applications to strong applications might impact this. Note that I have no idea what race/group sends a higher percentage of Hail Mary apps than another, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were a few.
I can tell you one group that definitely exists. Kids of upper middle class parents in the northeast corridor who are pushing their kids to an elite school when their kid absolutely doesn’t care. The vast majority of these applicants probably have low personality ratings because they aren’t really trying that hard to stand out. Is that exclusionary? I dunno… seems reasonable to me.
> With all due respect, it is not possible for you to understand this since your salary depends on not understanding it.
Nice meme you got there. Too bad it's inappropriately applied.
For reference, my salary or income has never been related to my advising of admissions committees/personnel. It has all been volunteer by request.
I will add that I am very connected to the Asian-American community, and I would speak out strongly against any systemic bias that I witnessed or even suspected.
> The Alumni Rating invalidates any doubt about standard strong etc
That's a nice opinion you have. I suspect based on your comment that you have no idea about the strengths and weaknesses of alumni reviews.
> Any statistically minded person would look at this data and easily conclude that they are racist against Asians.
I totally agree that there is a correlation between race and lower evaluations on certain parts of the application review. I disagree on the cause.
If I had to take a guess (and it's just a guess, since I have never seen a proper comprehensive study on this), Asian-American parents encourage their kids to focus on grades and test scores to the exclusion (partial or complete) of other activities more often than White-American parents do. Focusing mostly or exclusively on grades and test scores makes for a weak applicant to an elite school.
A few notes on that last paragraph:
- There are cultural reasons that this might be true (e.g., pure entrance exam-based admissions are common in many/most Asian countries, so the parents may project this idea on schools in the US).
- Many White-American parents overly focus on grades and scores as well, and they are equally befuddled when their kid does not even get wait-listed.
For reference, if this is true, I do not think that it could be provided as justification in the Supreme Court without a comprehensive study that would be very difficult to do accurately (e.g., self-reported data can be fabulously different than observed data), even if the admissions staff and/or guidance counselors anecdotally (with hundreds or thousands of anecdotes) believe it to be true.
The underlying assumption here seems to be that there is a diabolical cabal of admissions staff (some of whom are Asian) who are all acting in-step with each other to oppress Asian-American applicants while miraculously not leaving any smoking guns (e.g., the worst documented slights are things like calling an Asian-American applicant "a typical standard strong" -- that is, direct no admit -- or something similar). It boggles my mind that people actually believe this nonsense.
Here is a picture that is closer to reality:
All strong admit applicants, Asian-Americans included, are all given offer letters. The rest of the applicants that are marginal admits are all grouped together, and then some class shaping happens. There are many aspects of that shaping of the class with folks rated marginal admit. Race is one, sports is another, arts is another, majors is another, geographic diversity is another,... the list goes on. There are no hard and fast quotas against any race, it's just a constant comparison of tradeoffs with different marginally qualified applicants. The admissions staff are extremely stressed about making the best choices for the school and for the students. Once a class is shaped to the liking of the school, offer letters and wait list offers are sent to applicants. Folks are pulled off the wait list typically in a like-for-like situation (it's usually not just ranked, with top ranked getting first open slot).
Note that if you didn't even make the wait list, no amount of race blind admissions would help you. The people I hear complaining the loudest typically were not even wait listed.
IMHO, some of the people shouting "racism" the most are folks who really do not do much to help themselves in the application process by setting themselves apart as a dynamic contributor to the student body. For example, if an applicant wants to study a popular major like pre-med or CS, then they really need to set themselves apart in the rest of their application since they will be compared to a relatively deep and competitive pool of applicants. Sometimes this is not terribly difficult -- for example, one person I know who double majored in CS and Classics at Harvard in addition to several other highly desirable attributes.
My advice to any applicants to elite schools, but especially Asian-American applicants who think that the deck is stacked against them, is to focus on developing their hook and being a (relatively) unique and positive contribution to the student body. Great grades and test scores are table stakes. Focus on going beyond that.
Anyway, I will conclude with this prediction:
If elite schools are forced to omit race from consideration, Black and Hispanic offers will initially decrease slightly, and White and Asian offers will initially increase slightly. My guess is the number for Asians will be about 3%, possibly less. I imagine that there will be significant outreach by a variety of organizations to help Black and Hispanics make their applications stronger.
My point being that there is a natural urge to defend your profession regardless of whether you are being paid for it.
There need not be a cabal. The officials can easily see that there are too many Asians for this year so the just bin some of the applicants. Just the same way they did it for the Jews. The most parsimonious analysis of the data leads to this conclusion.
Of course as you say, maybe studying too much for tests does somehow decrease the "likability, courage, kindness" in a way that does not affect an actual face to face interview with an alumni (!!) . Or maybe the Asian race is inherently unlikable, in a way that does not affect an actual face to face interview with an alumni. One can come up with so many different explanations
I mean how much more ridiculous can Harvard's defense get, really?
> My point being that there is a natural urge to defend your profession regardless of whether you are being paid for it.
I currently run a small PE firm. I don’t see any of my comments being in defense of my profession.
I was a professor in my former career. I have never worked in admissions. That has never been my career, and I feel absolutely no need to defend it.
Furthermore, I am very open to criticizing admissions processes (there is plenty to criticize), but I find myself spending so much time addressing misinformation/disinformation that the really good stuff never comes up (biggest ones being treatment of 13th year recruited athletes as well as opacity in the admissions process that seems unnecessary).
> The officials can easily see that there are too many Asians for this year so the just bin some of the applicants.
This simply does not happen.
> The most parsimonious analysis of the data leads to this conclusion.
“The district court found “no evidence of any racial animus whatsoever” toward Asian-American applicants and “no evidence” that “any particular admissions deci- sion was negatively affected by Asian American identity.’”
“The district court found the testimony of Harvard’s admissions officers—all called by SFFA—“consistent, unambiguous, and convincing” that “there was no discrimination against Asian American applicants with respect to the admissions process as a whole and the personal ratings in particular.” To the contrary, “[n]ot one of them had seen or heard anything disparaging about an Asian American applicant despite the fact that decisions were made collectively and after open discussion about each applicant.”
These are from pp 11-12 in the brief. I strongly recommend reading the entire thing.
> I mean how much more ridiculous can Harvard's defense get, really?
It’s clear to me that you are basing your comments on pre-conceived and poorly informed ideas.
At this point, I assume that you are just trolling for the sake of trolling.
Please read the brief I linked to. It will debunk much of what you claim to be true.
If the Supreme Court overrules the lower courts, it will be for a very technical legal reason — that is, that race is used at all in admissions decisions — and it will not be because any racist-based admissions process had ever been implemented.
Implying that if it was the only factor then it would not be ok. So theirs is not a principled defense of affirmative action but rather based entirely on plausible deniability