I hope the day will come when an employer sees Harvard on a resume and rejects the candidate out of hand precisely because they don't want an over-engineered, over-confident, under-trained, under-grateful, arrogant person as part of their team.
I thought they still enjoyed the 'wow' factor. But you may be right. If you're right, talk about managing their way right into all the arrogant karma they put into the world. Only a college administration could do that!
I saw a college aged girl at the airport wearing a Harvard shirt and I kind of scoffed to myself. It’s like wearing a Vanderbilt jersey on game day or something. Just embarrassing.
I am in favor of doing everything to bankrupt Harvard. Everything ! it will not happen but Harvard will feel the pain and other universities will get the message that they must change because they cannot withstand an onslaught the way Harvard can. Columbia is next and actually Columbia should be first. If nothing else, the American public now knows the truth about these elite universities that send their graduates off to run our country.
When I was in high school, a girl one year older than me graduated salutatorian in a class of over 600 people. She had a perfect GPA (it was harder to get 15 years ago than it is now), took at least a dozen AP classes, had four years of band and four years of newspaper (if I remember right), and was a model academic student. She applied to all eight Ivy League schools, Duke, UF, and perhaps one or two other schools.
Unfortunately for her, she was American-born Chinese, so she was properly hosed. Rejected from seven of the Ivies and waitlisted from Yale, which rejected her only a few months later. She ultimately attended Duke, but they only accepted one AP class for credit (meaning she still had to take their undergraduate English, math, etc. classes) and offered her very little in the way of financial assistance. A raw deal, all said.
There was another student from her year who I shared AP Art History with. I wouldn’t have called him a friend, and I didn’t know him outside this class, but I have a distinct memory where he earned a C for one of his semesters in AP Art History, which in my opinion isn’t a ridiculously challenging course. Normally that’s the sort of blemish that a competitive admissions process uses to cull folks out, but if my memory is right (it’s honestly a little iffy here), he got accepted to Brown. Knowing this, do you care to guess what race he was?
I never bothered applying for any Ivy Leagues, I’m not quite sure why. The financial assistance wasn’t there and the odds seemed so low anyways, so I settled for a public school that offered me a full ride scholarship. Best academic decision I ever made, graduating debt-free opened a lot of doors.
I take no pity whatsoever on Harvard or any of the Ivies. I don’t doubt they attract top talent, but too much of it is just plain grift—a place where the sons and daughters of senators, sheikhs, actors, etc., get to intermingle with people whose racial backgrounds make the elites feel good about themselves. There isn’t a reliable pathway for students with academic merit because the admissions process is deeply corrupted.
"Why sell one cure, when I can profit from a thousand palliatives?" [Paraphrased from memory]
-Doctor Who, 'Dalek', 2005
Now those same types have gone full corpirativist medicsl tyranny and would rather sell poisons and palliatives than ever actually cure anything. And it only took them 15 years.
Well said. No shit, “affirmative action” in any form has always been a euphemism for literal systemic racism, ie having institutional policies of racial preference. It logically can’t be anything else without twisting words to the point of meaninglessness. By all means, argue that the problem with past racial preferences of the Jim Crow era was only that they were against the wrong races, or that it’s righteous for the tables to be turned for us to be punished for the sins of our ancestors, if that’s what you believe. But I absolutely cannot deal with this idiotic incoherent nonsense that, yes, we are proudly committed to hiring more blacks, women, gays, etc, but we’re not discriminating against anybody. Huh? The only other possible way other than discriminating against more qualified whites and Asians etc would be if you were until now disseminating against more qualified blacks. In which case you could simply stop doing that.
My aversion to these actions is based on free speech issues. I'm with Blake Dodge of Pirate Wires ~ just cut off student loans and non-stem research funds until the racial discrimination stops and quit casting the net so wide.
I totally get how you feel about this. But you also admit that a truly race-blind admission policy would make Harvard’s student body look, strongly and startlingly, a certain way.
I guess I think Harvard does have a legitimate interest in having a racially diverse student body. And I am guessing you disagree that any such interest is legitimate, that, if 100% of the top applicants are Asian by some numeric metric, then, welp, Harvard’s hand are tied, and that’s who ought to get in.
Quantitative merit-only standards certainly sound *obviously fair*. It seems obvious that anything other than such a standard is obviously unjust and immoral. But I just don’t like the look of a world I suspect such a standard will produce. I think it will look like a world I had hoped we’d left behind (and to which Trump wants to return). And I don’t think my aversion to that world is immoral. Even if no just solution exists, my aversion itself, and my wish for a world in which Harvard alumni look kind of like America, don’t strike me as inherently bad.*
Maybe I just have to accept that a fair world won’t look like I want it to, that, hey, basically no Black or Latino people, and few whites, should attend Ivy schools until other things change, somehow, however many decades or centuries that might take. But that’s hard for THIS squishy libtard to swallow.
Anyway, good piece. Makes me think. For now, I want Harvard to find a way to have a diverse student body that looks kinda sorta like America.
*but look how things have turned! …I’m verging on pleading a desperate defense of my wish for racially diverse outcomes against the implicit charge (you aren’t making it, but I can feel it lurking in this debate) that I am “the real racist” (against Asians and somewhat against whites) for wanting this diversity and seeking legitimate ways to achieve it.
Engineering Harvard, or any other publicly funded university, to have a student body that looks like America, is the definition of systemic racism and a social construct, because they are artificially engineering an outcome. The systemic racism happening now is against White and Asian Americans. Don’t believe me, look no further than the liberal reaction to the 50+ South African White refugees arrival in America versus the reaction to the arrival of tens of millions of illegal immigrants over the last four years.
So we have competing views of “racism.” You say the only NON-racist outcome is one that would have almost no people of color (other than Asians) at Harvard. And to try to achieve representation for all the races—THAT is racism. I won’t say your definition of racism is wrong—people get to define words as they wish. But I don’t define affirmative steps at inclusion as “racism,” even when it’s race-conscious.
I think we probably have competing views also of the notion of merit and deservingness.
Where we agree is that no unqualified person should ever design a building, fly a plane, or perform a surgery.
But for people who, for systemic race-related reasons (and I don’t think you’re using that word as a social scientist does) graduate high school with lower metrics, but still have the ability to become qualified through excellent education, I think it’s legitimate to try to bring at least some of them in. I promise, Asians, and probably whites, will still be overrepresented relative to their numbers in the general population, in the engineering student body.
Obviously the goal is to reach a day when, say, black high school graduates don’t look on average less qualified than Asian grads. I don’t know if that will ever happen, but I think a world of almost NO black Harvard grads is a step AWAY from that world, not toward it. And there are certainly black high schoolers who can handle the work, even if their life experience so far has not made them look on paper as good as their Asian peers.
Why do you think that without affirmative action (systemic racism in my book) African Americans, Hispanics or other non Whites could not qualify using only merit based criteria at places like Harvard? Do you automatically assume those races to be less qualified? It sure sounds like you do.
The NBA doesn’t look like America yet nobody is advocating changing the criteria to be a professional basketball player because the races aren’t represented per the US makeup. Yet there has been a push to get more African Americans into the NHL. And MLB has stated in the past that there has been a decrease in African Americans playing baseball.
Men make up the overwhelming majority of dangerous jobs, yet females aren’t complaining about opportunities to be bricklayers, utility linesmen and oil rig workers.
Should we have affirmative action for the NBA and construction trades?
My point is merit should be the sole consideration. Counting racial numbers should not be any part of the evaluation process.
I know for a fact that a metrics-only admissions will drastically reduce the number of Black and Latino students. It will also mean 85%+ foreign students.
Why Black and Latino students on average would have a harder time getting in is a complicated question with many factors feeding into it, but at this point in history, it’s the state of affairs.
I see you’ve gone for the insinuation that I’m covertly racist. I guess that’s a fair rhetorical play to undermine my position—it’s a debate after all. But I decline to get into the reasons why. It’s the factual state of affairs that, on average, some racial groups have higher metrics than others. But simultaneously, all racial groups produce candidates capable of doing high level work.
I just don’t want a world where Black Harvard grads are far more rare. I think that’s a worse world, even if you find it “more fair” (I don’t).
I’ll give you the last word. I’m kind of ready to stop going at it. I respect your view, but it’s not compatible with the world I want to live in.
I agree that we will have to agree to disagree. Thanks for your perspectives. My world is one where everyone, regardless of race, gender, background or bank account, has the same chance to pursue what they want AND have earned.
Diversity is a benefit in and if itself. And a University is under different 'obligations' than a job is. A University is to educate the populace, not just a narrow slice of it. Bringing together a mix of students with different interests and abilities from different cultural backgrounds is valuable for all there.
Then why does a “narrow slice” ideologically get employed and teach at a university. Doesn’t seem very diverse to me when professors are 90-95% liberal/marxist/communist. Diversity would mean having 50% conservatives, 50% males, a representative mix of Catholics, a representative mix of people of European decent and so on.
Diversity is code for systemic racism and social construct. If universities believed in diversity then they wouldn’t be accepting legacy applicants and kids of wealthy donors. They’d be accepting the poor kid from Appalachia, the farmers son or daughter from Iowa or the poor kid from Mississippi.
Universities are a liberal social club with virtue signaling, ideological absolutes and indoctrination. Diversity is code for discrimination, just as using “holistic” application standards.
So I’m going to leave your questions somewhat unanswered perhaps. I consider it a legitimate part of a university’s mission to have a racially diverse student body, and while I could cobble together a defense of this idea, I’m not sure that would really explain why I hold this view, as I kind of think it exists in me at the values level, prior to rational defenses. (And I don’t really want to spend that much time arguing on the internet—I’ve done too much of that lately.) I just fundamentally see this as legitimate and consistent with the society I want to live in.
To your second paragraph, I do not know what the purpose of Harvard is, and I don’t think I get to determine that. Within certain limits, Harvard gets to determine its own mission, and I can imagine multiple theories by which a racially diverse student body would be an important element of a multifaceted mission, of Harvard’s own determination, and which I’d consider legitimate.
I’ll add only that your response to me is illuminating: it suggests that you might—and many others might—consider, at a fundamental level, that it is illegitimate and impermissible for a university to have racial diversity as an element of its mission. I admit I was not expecting an attack at that root level, so it’s helpful to know this is a view that pro-diversity types like me are confronting.
I say all this fully understanding the view that, if one person has higher metrics than another, and yet the other person gets in to satisfy some element of that university’s broader mission, the unaccepted applicant will have quite an understandable reason to feel they’ve been treated unfairly.
I think it’s interesting that your commitment to racial diversity rests on such a deep level that examining it too closely appears to make you a bit uncomfortable, even a little defensive.
That said, I appreciate your comments here, and your honesty. I’m not attacking you.
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this issue myself, other than to say that I deeply dislike the ideological basis of Harvard’s discrimination. It is that, in particular, that strikes me as being illegitimate, and what Harvard does with their admissions and hiring policies is far from the worst of that ideology’s implications.
I can think of other justifications for trying to create a more diverse student body that is based on metrics other than academic merit, but in my mind Harvard is doing it for some of the worst reasons imaginable, and employing relatively blatant racial discrimination along the way, which is something that I feel is difficult to justify under any circumstances at all. And particularly when it comes with sides of what I strongly suspect are real malice and actual racism.
IMO a better way to achieve diversity (of many kinds) would be to aim for both geographic and economic diversity in student backgrounds. That would be a good way to get a population that represents the country, on more levels than just the color of their skin (but also that).
I figured you might go with the suggestion that I’m not mounting a defense because I’m afraid I have no defense. I definitely thought about what a defense would look like more than that, but decided I didn’t feel like writing an essay. And I do think it inheres at the values level, which I wouldn’t call “deeper,” just prior-to. You don’t have to believe me. Maybe in another thread on another day we can get into it.
Why should the mission of a university be to have a racially diverse student body? Why would race matter? Race only matters if we decide it matters.
The only mission of universities should be education and the pursuit of truth. If the most brilliant minds to lead us in the pursuit of truth at this specific time happen to be Asian, I am fine with it.
If I were in highschool and thinking of applying to H, and I knew they follow objective criteria for admission, this would only motivate me to become the best student I could possibly be.
I would be in favor of weeding out applicants who do not share Western democratic values though. Right now, H is doing the exact opposite though.
Imagine going into a hospital for treatment and thinking the staff weren't diverse enough, rather than wondering if these were the most qualified people to treat you? If we agree Harvard's purpose is to produce the best people, a goal of diversity would handicap this mission.
I think most university leaders would reject these limiting, narrow missions. Yes, pursuit of truth and producing “the best people” are elements of the mission, but for most academic leaders, I don’t think it stops there. Serving their country and community, introducing their students to widely varying cultures and viewpoints, having graduates from all over the world and from different cultures, having their graduates RETURN TO and make a difference in different communities around the world, bringing the best education into diverse communities. Theoretically, this would be service to all humankind.
Some may feel this is an inappropriate mission for a university, but obviously many university leaders do not. I think their view is legitimate.
While I agree in theory, how is success tracked and measured to conclude the policies actually achieve desired results? I’m not sure of specific studies conducted by Ivy’s tracking such enrollees and how they better serve their communities and lead to the hoped-for long-term results. My guess: tracking is an undesired audit trail.
I agree. For socialization and the hidden curriculum as well, a diverse student body is useful. My Grandfather was discriminated against by Columbia, Yale, etc. for being Jewish in the 1930s, so he went to Cuny Hunter. He never said he was grateful for this, but he said it gave him a chance to get out of his siloed life in an all Jewish and Polish Catholic area of Brooklyn. If he had gone to a med school or physics department that was all Jews and there was a Department of Latin and Greek that was all Wasps because there parents were cultured enough to read to them, than the Universities would not be helping their immigrant or first gen students a chance to integrate and develop friendships with the ruling class and would not be giving the Boston Brahmins a chance to meet the people they were going to rule over.
I fail to see how admitting upper class Nigerians or Argentinians of Central European descent has much to do with reparations. The kids growing up in inner cities except in extraordinary circumstances don’t make it to Harvard.
We should also note that purely meritocratic system would also see Harvard (and everywhere else) turned into a de facto women's college.
I wonder, though, if maybe accepting this - rather than engaging in what amounts to mass obfuscation via affirmative action for men - could actually be good for society, insofar as it would force us to seriously confront, and maybe even *do something about*, the collapse in male academic performance.
The “affirmative action for men” is not that extensive. Many men do just as well on standardized tests as women, they just have lower grades and don’t participate in class or butter up teachers as well. Also men are more likely to have ambitions to engineer or compete for their country, not look inward and “problematize” or “diagnose” or study people or law. We need engineers
The assumption that there is some fair and impartial measurement to choose deserving students is nonsense.
If talent is the measure, then many are at an unfair disadvantage. They may lack the money, family support or community support to compete.
If we assume racism is false, the distribution of deserving students would be random. The best 10% in any racial group would not be significantly different from any other group. So, ideal is a class that matches racial demographics. Any deviation is due to bias.
All of this ignores the legacy of failure of Asian-American Harvard graduates to become political leaders despite receiving the benefit of the Harvard degree that defines much of our political leadership.
Asian academic success actually correlates highly with success later in their career. Youre just repeating racist talking points while ignoring the success asian Americans and Asian immigrants have had across the board before and after college. Harvard should choose the people with the highest and broadest academic success not people with some invisible "racial" quality.
Yes, but “academic success” is measured poorly and the culture that Asians have imported, in which they give up a social life to jump through the next hoop set before them by their parents and teachers, is a bad culture.
1. That's still racist (and illegal). Refer the restaurant example - i.e. a restaurant that won't admit black people. Doesn't matter if they don't like their "vibe" or "culture" or whatever, you can't (and shouldn't) refuse to serve people based on their race, even if you think you're targeting their "culture".
2. How would you (or Harvard) know whether Asians make enough friends? Your experience doesn't line up with my experience (the Asians I know have plenty of friends) and is Harvard administering some credible friendship verification test I haven't heard of?
As a side note: Our measures of academic success are great. Academic success carries between different levels of schooling very closely and correlates highly with career success too.
Side side note: it's also racist to imply Asians have just one culture. Plenty of Asians have really social LATAM-style community oriented cultures.
Universities are not restaurants. In a restaurant, what matters for admittance is whether the customer can pay and whether they will refrain from ruining the meal that others are having.
A University has an “ideal type.“ The ideal type used to be Boston Brahmins who would take responsibility for the country and pass it on in better shape than they found it. Now, the ideal type is an 18 year old who got tutoring and parental help on his homework and test prep and who sucks up to teachers and writes a sob story personal admissions essay and is an unrelenting, mindless conformist. Asians have turned themselves into that ideal type at a high rate, but all that means is that Ivy Leagues should change their admission criteria. They are measuring “academic worth” poorly.
Do you believe Universities that take federal money should be able to deny black applicants if they think black culture would ruin their ideal vision of education?
That's what the argument you just made allows for.
My argument is about the posture of Universities toward their students and the standards they have. It is about the right of Universities to select for qualities which will inevitably occur more frequently in some populations.
Discrimination law ruins the standards of the University and should be repealed.
That leaves you no excuse for such a shitty response.
Harvard is a special case. That's why I made a specific point. Making the general case as you did actually supports my specific point.
The ideal case of an acceptance class would match population demographics if race is not a factor and there is no bias. That is no talking point. That is basic science and math.
I think deviations from ideal are due to bias. Your accusation of racism was idiotic.
Imagine a restaurant not letting in black people and then pleading that they were a "special case" because there were too many black people trying to eat at the restaurant for their high end clientele's preferences.
Harvard is just racist, you don't need any a degree to see that, just eyes and ears.
“Racism is false.” Racism is about wishing badly on another person because of their race alone. That does not mean groups have the same talents and same intellectual outcomes. Observing hierarchies of talent is not racist, it is truthfully seeing the world.
Personal anecdotes and personal observations aren't an adequate measure for those that want to understand the truth. They lack the rigor of the most basic science and mathematical analysis.
We don’t mean any harm to that inferior group. They need us to control their choice because we decided that’s what is best for them.
Every white supremacist will say they have “observed” how white people are superior.
You are making a common left wing mistake. We all know that people are morally and politically equal and so we don’t think of them as inferior. But we also know there is a wide range of human talents. You need the right person for the job. Some cultures and ethnic groups produce many people fit to be statesmen. Some produce many people meant to by Olympic sprinters. That is what real “diversity” means.
You are making the common mistake of partisan morons. You are doubling down on your stupid, evil BS. You ignore what I wrote because you have no counter argument.
You're a fucking liar. Republicans make laws to control others and censor others. Trump breaks the law to control others and censor others. Republicans make laws that ignore the will of the people. The people of Missouri voted for abortion rights. Republicans are taking those rights away.
Women have lost their rights. Child rape victims are targeted. Trans people are targeted. Students are targeted. Immigrants are targeted. Free speech is targeted. Peaceful protestors are targeted. Don't say gay laws even caused Disney to be targeted.
You have to avoid math and science because it doesn't support your made up idiocy and evil.
You have to avoid history because it calls out your made up idiocy and evil.
The left has broken many more laws than Donald Trump. And free speech is not a value of the left in any way. After left wing policies over the last twenty years, you cannot claim to be worried about free speech.
At some Ivy, it was found that Asian students were being marked down on the personal attribute of "courage." The idea that an academic bureaucrat would have any standing to assess Courage can't even be taken seriously.
Yeah the blood sweat and tears of the civil rights act was definitely made so that white guys could feign grievance over their college admission rates not dropping in the slightest.
idk man I don’t think one single civil rights leader would have had an issue with affirmative action, and I’m pretty sure you know that but are going to pretend otherwise.
The civil rights leaders wanted more investment in primary and middle school to help the descendants of slaves. They did not want white Americans from New England or Minnesota, descended from Union civil war soldiers, to have to compete against the sons of Nigerian Princes and the daughters of Chinese oligarchs. I am sure MLK would have trusted Episcopalian and Catholic boys from America more than the “diversity” of Brahmin Indian families.
Also, the civil rights leaders hoped that African-Americans would gain ground academically and equal white Americans. They have made progress and there are many black kids from middle class families who do much batter than Appalachian farmer children, but they have not come anywhere near the smart and well parented white kids
1) universities have a long tradition of international studies dating far back, before enlightenment even. There is a purpose of knowledge and even culture exchange. That being said, the vast majority of this history (pre 1960s) did not look like today’s multicultural overdose.
2) Harvard is an American institution, and thus owes loyalty to the American people above whatever it thinks its own interests are. The “meritocracy” experiment of elite universities, which is newer than most people realize, has failed to meaningfully produce the promised result of “best person for the job.” Instead, it produced absurdist and cynical gamesmanship, which Asian/asian Americans have embraced to the greatest degree. I’m sure Harvard and other college admissions people are aware of this, but like me, don’t have a clear solution. African Americans are heritage Americans who have been in the USA since its founding, thus, their demands for inclusion at Harvard and other universities should at least be taken seriously. The same could be said of Native American college applicants. 1st and 2nd generation Asians are not really a part of traditional Americana and thus should not be allowed as a mass majority at elite American universities. This is a failure of purpose on a fundamental level. This is part of why “meritocracy” and the idea that “America is the land for everyone, ever, to come and get ahead” needs to die. The problem is that Harvard isn’t really thinking of “America first” but rather “Harvard first.” They’re discriminating against Asians not for national interest, but for academic branding issues, ie if Harvard is associated too heavily with Asian overachievers, its brand will be devalued. Harvards actual brand is still heavily associated with “old money” and “WASP” whether they admit it or not, and an Asian majority does not scream WASP, even if many Asian students have old foreign money.
3) SJW values taking over universities is unacceptable, and must be crushed by any means necessary including physical force. If defunding etc doesn’t work, I’d love to see goon squads raid these campus sociology departments and make a public example out of all the professors and students espousing this unamerican garbage ideology that the universities are too cowardly to confront themselves. It’s deep intellectual rot that never should have flourished to begin with, and the fact that some of our “best and brightest” believe such cult like trash means that universities are failing.
Yes, point 2 is important. The idea that an immigrant family who just got here and then locks their kids in a homework room for days on end and creates suicidal ideation deserves to be at an institution built to shape young people into virtuous, socially adapted, and cultured Americans is wrong. It doesn’t matter how many Asians get perfect test scores, they have not earned a seat at Princeton.
"No, I don’t want to see Harvard’s research gutted."
It's worse than gutted: It's irrelevant. And that's not Trump's fault.
"No, I don’t want to see international students screwed over (I teach them)"
International students *are* getting screwed over when certain ones are picked over others for any reason other than merit. And that's not Trump's fault.
"No, I don’t want an important center for learning diminished."
In reputation alone, Harvard has been diminished. Its centuries-long status as an important center for learning was sacrificed years ago on the altar of political expediency. And that wasn't Trump's fault.
"No, I don’t think it’s fair for Harvard to have to turn over protest footage or disciplinary records."
What is right is not judged by what is fair.
"No, I don’t think Trump’s demands are at all consistent with academic independence or freedom of speech."
It's cute that you think this is a matter of academic independence or freedom. As with so much of our culture these days, Harvard's motto may as well be "Libertas mihi, sed non tibi."
I hope the day will come when an employer sees Harvard on a resume and rejects the candidate out of hand precisely because they don't want an over-engineered, over-confident, under-trained, under-grateful, arrogant person as part of their team.
That day is already here.
I thought they still enjoyed the 'wow' factor. But you may be right. If you're right, talk about managing their way right into all the arrogant karma they put into the world. Only a college administration could do that!
I saw a college aged girl at the airport wearing a Harvard shirt and I kind of scoffed to myself. It’s like wearing a Vanderbilt jersey on game day or something. Just embarrassing.
I am in favor of doing everything to bankrupt Harvard. Everything ! it will not happen but Harvard will feel the pain and other universities will get the message that they must change because they cannot withstand an onslaught the way Harvard can. Columbia is next and actually Columbia should be first. If nothing else, the American public now knows the truth about these elite universities that send their graduates off to run our country.
Well said.
When I was in high school, a girl one year older than me graduated salutatorian in a class of over 600 people. She had a perfect GPA (it was harder to get 15 years ago than it is now), took at least a dozen AP classes, had four years of band and four years of newspaper (if I remember right), and was a model academic student. She applied to all eight Ivy League schools, Duke, UF, and perhaps one or two other schools.
Unfortunately for her, she was American-born Chinese, so she was properly hosed. Rejected from seven of the Ivies and waitlisted from Yale, which rejected her only a few months later. She ultimately attended Duke, but they only accepted one AP class for credit (meaning she still had to take their undergraduate English, math, etc. classes) and offered her very little in the way of financial assistance. A raw deal, all said.
There was another student from her year who I shared AP Art History with. I wouldn’t have called him a friend, and I didn’t know him outside this class, but I have a distinct memory where he earned a C for one of his semesters in AP Art History, which in my opinion isn’t a ridiculously challenging course. Normally that’s the sort of blemish that a competitive admissions process uses to cull folks out, but if my memory is right (it’s honestly a little iffy here), he got accepted to Brown. Knowing this, do you care to guess what race he was?
I never bothered applying for any Ivy Leagues, I’m not quite sure why. The financial assistance wasn’t there and the odds seemed so low anyways, so I settled for a public school that offered me a full ride scholarship. Best academic decision I ever made, graduating debt-free opened a lot of doors.
I take no pity whatsoever on Harvard or any of the Ivies. I don’t doubt they attract top talent, but too much of it is just plain grift—a place where the sons and daughters of senators, sheikhs, actors, etc., get to intermingle with people whose racial backgrounds make the elites feel good about themselves. There isn’t a reliable pathway for students with academic merit because the admissions process is deeply corrupted.
Was Harvard even close to curing cancer?
"Why sell one cure, when I can profit from a thousand palliatives?" [Paraphrased from memory]
-Doctor Who, 'Dalek', 2005
Now those same types have gone full corpirativist medicsl tyranny and would rather sell poisons and palliatives than ever actually cure anything. And it only took them 15 years.
Well said. No shit, “affirmative action” in any form has always been a euphemism for literal systemic racism, ie having institutional policies of racial preference. It logically can’t be anything else without twisting words to the point of meaninglessness. By all means, argue that the problem with past racial preferences of the Jim Crow era was only that they were against the wrong races, or that it’s righteous for the tables to be turned for us to be punished for the sins of our ancestors, if that’s what you believe. But I absolutely cannot deal with this idiotic incoherent nonsense that, yes, we are proudly committed to hiring more blacks, women, gays, etc, but we’re not discriminating against anybody. Huh? The only other possible way other than discriminating against more qualified whites and Asians etc would be if you were until now disseminating against more qualified blacks. In which case you could simply stop doing that.
My aversion to these actions is based on free speech issues. I'm with Blake Dodge of Pirate Wires ~ just cut off student loans and non-stem research funds until the racial discrimination stops and quit casting the net so wide.
I totally get how you feel about this. But you also admit that a truly race-blind admission policy would make Harvard’s student body look, strongly and startlingly, a certain way.
I guess I think Harvard does have a legitimate interest in having a racially diverse student body. And I am guessing you disagree that any such interest is legitimate, that, if 100% of the top applicants are Asian by some numeric metric, then, welp, Harvard’s hand are tied, and that’s who ought to get in.
Quantitative merit-only standards certainly sound *obviously fair*. It seems obvious that anything other than such a standard is obviously unjust and immoral. But I just don’t like the look of a world I suspect such a standard will produce. I think it will look like a world I had hoped we’d left behind (and to which Trump wants to return). And I don’t think my aversion to that world is immoral. Even if no just solution exists, my aversion itself, and my wish for a world in which Harvard alumni look kind of like America, don’t strike me as inherently bad.*
Maybe I just have to accept that a fair world won’t look like I want it to, that, hey, basically no Black or Latino people, and few whites, should attend Ivy schools until other things change, somehow, however many decades or centuries that might take. But that’s hard for THIS squishy libtard to swallow.
Anyway, good piece. Makes me think. For now, I want Harvard to find a way to have a diverse student body that looks kinda sorta like America.
*but look how things have turned! …I’m verging on pleading a desperate defense of my wish for racially diverse outcomes against the implicit charge (you aren’t making it, but I can feel it lurking in this debate) that I am “the real racist” (against Asians and somewhat against whites) for wanting this diversity and seeking legitimate ways to achieve it.
Engineering Harvard, or any other publicly funded university, to have a student body that looks like America, is the definition of systemic racism and a social construct, because they are artificially engineering an outcome. The systemic racism happening now is against White and Asian Americans. Don’t believe me, look no further than the liberal reaction to the 50+ South African White refugees arrival in America versus the reaction to the arrival of tens of millions of illegal immigrants over the last four years.
So we have competing views of “racism.” You say the only NON-racist outcome is one that would have almost no people of color (other than Asians) at Harvard. And to try to achieve representation for all the races—THAT is racism. I won’t say your definition of racism is wrong—people get to define words as they wish. But I don’t define affirmative steps at inclusion as “racism,” even when it’s race-conscious.
I think we probably have competing views also of the notion of merit and deservingness.
Where we agree is that no unqualified person should ever design a building, fly a plane, or perform a surgery.
But for people who, for systemic race-related reasons (and I don’t think you’re using that word as a social scientist does) graduate high school with lower metrics, but still have the ability to become qualified through excellent education, I think it’s legitimate to try to bring at least some of them in. I promise, Asians, and probably whites, will still be overrepresented relative to their numbers in the general population, in the engineering student body.
Obviously the goal is to reach a day when, say, black high school graduates don’t look on average less qualified than Asian grads. I don’t know if that will ever happen, but I think a world of almost NO black Harvard grads is a step AWAY from that world, not toward it. And there are certainly black high schoolers who can handle the work, even if their life experience so far has not made them look on paper as good as their Asian peers.
Why do you think that without affirmative action (systemic racism in my book) African Americans, Hispanics or other non Whites could not qualify using only merit based criteria at places like Harvard? Do you automatically assume those races to be less qualified? It sure sounds like you do.
The NBA doesn’t look like America yet nobody is advocating changing the criteria to be a professional basketball player because the races aren’t represented per the US makeup. Yet there has been a push to get more African Americans into the NHL. And MLB has stated in the past that there has been a decrease in African Americans playing baseball.
Men make up the overwhelming majority of dangerous jobs, yet females aren’t complaining about opportunities to be bricklayers, utility linesmen and oil rig workers.
Should we have affirmative action for the NBA and construction trades?
My point is merit should be the sole consideration. Counting racial numbers should not be any part of the evaluation process.
I know for a fact that a metrics-only admissions will drastically reduce the number of Black and Latino students. It will also mean 85%+ foreign students.
Why Black and Latino students on average would have a harder time getting in is a complicated question with many factors feeding into it, but at this point in history, it’s the state of affairs.
I see you’ve gone for the insinuation that I’m covertly racist. I guess that’s a fair rhetorical play to undermine my position—it’s a debate after all. But I decline to get into the reasons why. It’s the factual state of affairs that, on average, some racial groups have higher metrics than others. But simultaneously, all racial groups produce candidates capable of doing high level work.
I just don’t want a world where Black Harvard grads are far more rare. I think that’s a worse world, even if you find it “more fair” (I don’t).
I’ll give you the last word. I’m kind of ready to stop going at it. I respect your view, but it’s not compatible with the world I want to live in.
I agree that we will have to agree to disagree. Thanks for your perspectives. My world is one where everyone, regardless of race, gender, background or bank account, has the same chance to pursue what they want AND have earned.
They can pursue it, they just might not get into their top choice.
Diversity is a benefit in and if itself. And a University is under different 'obligations' than a job is. A University is to educate the populace, not just a narrow slice of it. Bringing together a mix of students with different interests and abilities from different cultural backgrounds is valuable for all there.
Then why does a “narrow slice” ideologically get employed and teach at a university. Doesn’t seem very diverse to me when professors are 90-95% liberal/marxist/communist. Diversity would mean having 50% conservatives, 50% males, a representative mix of Catholics, a representative mix of people of European decent and so on.
Diversity is code for systemic racism and social construct. If universities believed in diversity then they wouldn’t be accepting legacy applicants and kids of wealthy donors. They’d be accepting the poor kid from Appalachia, the farmers son or daughter from Iowa or the poor kid from Mississippi.
Universities are a liberal social club with virtue signaling, ideological absolutes and indoctrination. Diversity is code for discrimination, just as using “holistic” application standards.
What is Harvard’s interest in having a racially diverse student body?
To answer that question, you have to know what the purpose of Harvard is. What is it, in your view?
So I’m going to leave your questions somewhat unanswered perhaps. I consider it a legitimate part of a university’s mission to have a racially diverse student body, and while I could cobble together a defense of this idea, I’m not sure that would really explain why I hold this view, as I kind of think it exists in me at the values level, prior to rational defenses. (And I don’t really want to spend that much time arguing on the internet—I’ve done too much of that lately.) I just fundamentally see this as legitimate and consistent with the society I want to live in.
To your second paragraph, I do not know what the purpose of Harvard is, and I don’t think I get to determine that. Within certain limits, Harvard gets to determine its own mission, and I can imagine multiple theories by which a racially diverse student body would be an important element of a multifaceted mission, of Harvard’s own determination, and which I’d consider legitimate.
I’ll add only that your response to me is illuminating: it suggests that you might—and many others might—consider, at a fundamental level, that it is illegitimate and impermissible for a university to have racial diversity as an element of its mission. I admit I was not expecting an attack at that root level, so it’s helpful to know this is a view that pro-diversity types like me are confronting.
I say all this fully understanding the view that, if one person has higher metrics than another, and yet the other person gets in to satisfy some element of that university’s broader mission, the unaccepted applicant will have quite an understandable reason to feel they’ve been treated unfairly.
I think it’s interesting that your commitment to racial diversity rests on such a deep level that examining it too closely appears to make you a bit uncomfortable, even a little defensive.
That said, I appreciate your comments here, and your honesty. I’m not attacking you.
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this issue myself, other than to say that I deeply dislike the ideological basis of Harvard’s discrimination. It is that, in particular, that strikes me as being illegitimate, and what Harvard does with their admissions and hiring policies is far from the worst of that ideology’s implications.
I can think of other justifications for trying to create a more diverse student body that is based on metrics other than academic merit, but in my mind Harvard is doing it for some of the worst reasons imaginable, and employing relatively blatant racial discrimination along the way, which is something that I feel is difficult to justify under any circumstances at all. And particularly when it comes with sides of what I strongly suspect are real malice and actual racism.
IMO a better way to achieve diversity (of many kinds) would be to aim for both geographic and economic diversity in student backgrounds. That would be a good way to get a population that represents the country, on more levels than just the color of their skin (but also that).
I figured you might go with the suggestion that I’m not mounting a defense because I’m afraid I have no defense. I definitely thought about what a defense would look like more than that, but decided I didn’t feel like writing an essay. And I do think it inheres at the values level, which I wouldn’t call “deeper,” just prior-to. You don’t have to believe me. Maybe in another thread on another day we can get into it.
Why should the mission of a university be to have a racially diverse student body? Why would race matter? Race only matters if we decide it matters.
The only mission of universities should be education and the pursuit of truth. If the most brilliant minds to lead us in the pursuit of truth at this specific time happen to be Asian, I am fine with it.
If I were in highschool and thinking of applying to H, and I knew they follow objective criteria for admission, this would only motivate me to become the best student I could possibly be.
I would be in favor of weeding out applicants who do not share Western democratic values though. Right now, H is doing the exact opposite though.
“I would be in favor of weeding out applicants who do not share Western democratic values though. Right now, H is doing the exact opposite though.”
💯
Imagine going into a hospital for treatment and thinking the staff weren't diverse enough, rather than wondering if these were the most qualified people to treat you? If we agree Harvard's purpose is to produce the best people, a goal of diversity would handicap this mission.
I think most university leaders would reject these limiting, narrow missions. Yes, pursuit of truth and producing “the best people” are elements of the mission, but for most academic leaders, I don’t think it stops there. Serving their country and community, introducing their students to widely varying cultures and viewpoints, having graduates from all over the world and from different cultures, having their graduates RETURN TO and make a difference in different communities around the world, bringing the best education into diverse communities. Theoretically, this would be service to all humankind.
Some may feel this is an inappropriate mission for a university, but obviously many university leaders do not. I think their view is legitimate.
While I agree in theory, how is success tracked and measured to conclude the policies actually achieve desired results? I’m not sure of specific studies conducted by Ivy’s tracking such enrollees and how they better serve their communities and lead to the hoped-for long-term results. My guess: tracking is an undesired audit trail.
In one way, simply the fact that Harvard consistently attracts large numbers of applicants is a good sign they are doing right things
I agree. For socialization and the hidden curriculum as well, a diverse student body is useful. My Grandfather was discriminated against by Columbia, Yale, etc. for being Jewish in the 1930s, so he went to Cuny Hunter. He never said he was grateful for this, but he said it gave him a chance to get out of his siloed life in an all Jewish and Polish Catholic area of Brooklyn. If he had gone to a med school or physics department that was all Jews and there was a Department of Latin and Greek that was all Wasps because there parents were cultured enough to read to them, than the Universities would not be helping their immigrant or first gen students a chance to integrate and develop friendships with the ruling class and would not be giving the Boston Brahmins a chance to meet the people they were going to rule over.
I fail to see how admitting upper class Nigerians or Argentinians of Central European descent has much to do with reparations. The kids growing up in inner cities except in extraordinary circumstances don’t make it to Harvard.
I tried to delete this as I realized your comment was not in favor and I misinterpreted. I’ll delete now.
If I was Harvard I wouldn't accept applications. Alabama football doesn't accept applications. They recruit.
We should also note that purely meritocratic system would also see Harvard (and everywhere else) turned into a de facto women's college.
I wonder, though, if maybe accepting this - rather than engaging in what amounts to mass obfuscation via affirmative action for men - could actually be good for society, insofar as it would force us to seriously confront, and maybe even *do something about*, the collapse in male academic performance.
The “affirmative action for men” is not that extensive. Many men do just as well on standardized tests as women, they just have lower grades and don’t participate in class or butter up teachers as well. Also men are more likely to have ambitions to engineer or compete for their country, not look inward and “problematize” or “diagnose” or study people or law. We need engineers
Same old bad arguments.
The assumption that there is some fair and impartial measurement to choose deserving students is nonsense.
If talent is the measure, then many are at an unfair disadvantage. They may lack the money, family support or community support to compete.
If we assume racism is false, the distribution of deserving students would be random. The best 10% in any racial group would not be significantly different from any other group. So, ideal is a class that matches racial demographics. Any deviation is due to bias.
All of this ignores the legacy of failure of Asian-American Harvard graduates to become political leaders despite receiving the benefit of the Harvard degree that defines much of our political leadership.
Asian academic success actually correlates highly with success later in their career. Youre just repeating racist talking points while ignoring the success asian Americans and Asian immigrants have had across the board before and after college. Harvard should choose the people with the highest and broadest academic success not people with some invisible "racial" quality.
Yes, but “academic success” is measured poorly and the culture that Asians have imported, in which they give up a social life to jump through the next hoop set before them by their parents and teachers, is a bad culture.
1. That's still racist (and illegal). Refer the restaurant example - i.e. a restaurant that won't admit black people. Doesn't matter if they don't like their "vibe" or "culture" or whatever, you can't (and shouldn't) refuse to serve people based on their race, even if you think you're targeting their "culture".
2. How would you (or Harvard) know whether Asians make enough friends? Your experience doesn't line up with my experience (the Asians I know have plenty of friends) and is Harvard administering some credible friendship verification test I haven't heard of?
As a side note: Our measures of academic success are great. Academic success carries between different levels of schooling very closely and correlates highly with career success too.
Side side note: it's also racist to imply Asians have just one culture. Plenty of Asians have really social LATAM-style community oriented cultures.
Universities are not restaurants. In a restaurant, what matters for admittance is whether the customer can pay and whether they will refrain from ruining the meal that others are having.
A University has an “ideal type.“ The ideal type used to be Boston Brahmins who would take responsibility for the country and pass it on in better shape than they found it. Now, the ideal type is an 18 year old who got tutoring and parental help on his homework and test prep and who sucks up to teachers and writes a sob story personal admissions essay and is an unrelenting, mindless conformist. Asians have turned themselves into that ideal type at a high rate, but all that means is that Ivy Leagues should change their admission criteria. They are measuring “academic worth” poorly.
Do you believe Universities that take federal money should be able to deny black applicants if they think black culture would ruin their ideal vision of education?
That's what the argument you just made allows for.
My argument is about the posture of Universities toward their students and the standards they have. It is about the right of Universities to select for qualities which will inevitably occur more frequently in some populations.
Discrimination law ruins the standards of the University and should be repealed.
One thing is for certain, you will never get into Harvard. You couldn't comprehend what I wrote.
I have an economics degree from University of Chicago and a CEC from Stanford in Machine Learning. I'm not some anon, you can look these things up.
That leaves you no excuse for such a shitty response.
Harvard is a special case. That's why I made a specific point. Making the general case as you did actually supports my specific point.
The ideal case of an acceptance class would match population demographics if race is not a factor and there is no bias. That is no talking point. That is basic science and math.
I think deviations from ideal are due to bias. Your accusation of racism was idiotic.
Imagine a restaurant not letting in black people and then pleading that they were a "special case" because there were too many black people trying to eat at the restaurant for their high end clientele's preferences.
Harvard is just racist, you don't need any a degree to see that, just eyes and ears.
You haven't responded to what I actually wrote. How sad you can't address basic math and science.
I haven't said anything about "special cases." You made that shit up.
Or biology and genetics. Oh, does that fly in the face of your fake bullshit blank slate worldview? Too fucking bad.
Watch out for Darwin. Stupid goes extinct.
“Racism is false.” Racism is about wishing badly on another person because of their race alone. That does not mean groups have the same talents and same intellectual outcomes. Observing hierarchies of talent is not racist, it is truthfully seeing the world.
No. Your words rationalize evil.
Personal anecdotes and personal observations aren't an adequate measure for those that want to understand the truth. They lack the rigor of the most basic science and mathematical analysis.
We don’t mean any harm to that inferior group. They need us to control their choice because we decided that’s what is best for them.
Every white supremacist will say they have “observed” how white people are superior.
You are making a common left wing mistake. We all know that people are morally and politically equal and so we don’t think of them as inferior. But we also know there is a wide range of human talents. You need the right person for the job. Some cultures and ethnic groups produce many people fit to be statesmen. Some produce many people meant to by Olympic sprinters. That is what real “diversity” means.
You are making the common mistake of partisan morons. You are doubling down on your stupid, evil BS. You ignore what I wrote because you have no counter argument.
You're a fucking liar. Republicans make laws to control others and censor others. Trump breaks the law to control others and censor others. Republicans make laws that ignore the will of the people. The people of Missouri voted for abortion rights. Republicans are taking those rights away.
Women have lost their rights. Child rape victims are targeted. Trans people are targeted. Students are targeted. Immigrants are targeted. Free speech is targeted. Peaceful protestors are targeted. Don't say gay laws even caused Disney to be targeted.
You have to avoid math and science because it doesn't support your made up idiocy and evil.
You have to avoid history because it calls out your made up idiocy and evil.
Don’t call people names as you argue with them.
The left has broken many more laws than Donald Trump. And free speech is not a value of the left in any way. After left wing policies over the last twenty years, you cannot claim to be worried about free speech.
I didn't call you a name. I said you were making the same mistakes as a partisan moron. I called out your stupid, evil lies and BS.
I gave examples to back up what I said. You continue to make the same mistakes as a partisan moron with generic smears of the left.
How sad.
At some Ivy, it was found that Asian students were being marked down on the personal attribute of "courage." The idea that an academic bureaucrat would have any standing to assess Courage can't even be taken seriously.
Yeah the blood sweat and tears of the civil rights act was definitely made so that white guys could feign grievance over their college admission rates not dropping in the slightest.
idk man I don’t think one single civil rights leader would have had an issue with affirmative action, and I’m pretty sure you know that but are going to pretend otherwise.
The civil rights leaders wanted more investment in primary and middle school to help the descendants of slaves. They did not want white Americans from New England or Minnesota, descended from Union civil war soldiers, to have to compete against the sons of Nigerian Princes and the daughters of Chinese oligarchs. I am sure MLK would have trusted Episcopalian and Catholic boys from America more than the “diversity” of Brahmin Indian families.
Also, the civil rights leaders hoped that African-Americans would gain ground academically and equal white Americans. They have made progress and there are many black kids from middle class families who do much batter than Appalachian farmer children, but they have not come anywhere near the smart and well parented white kids
What are you talking about? I'm not even trying to be rude I'm just confused.
A few inherent issues:
1) universities have a long tradition of international studies dating far back, before enlightenment even. There is a purpose of knowledge and even culture exchange. That being said, the vast majority of this history (pre 1960s) did not look like today’s multicultural overdose.
2) Harvard is an American institution, and thus owes loyalty to the American people above whatever it thinks its own interests are. The “meritocracy” experiment of elite universities, which is newer than most people realize, has failed to meaningfully produce the promised result of “best person for the job.” Instead, it produced absurdist and cynical gamesmanship, which Asian/asian Americans have embraced to the greatest degree. I’m sure Harvard and other college admissions people are aware of this, but like me, don’t have a clear solution. African Americans are heritage Americans who have been in the USA since its founding, thus, their demands for inclusion at Harvard and other universities should at least be taken seriously. The same could be said of Native American college applicants. 1st and 2nd generation Asians are not really a part of traditional Americana and thus should not be allowed as a mass majority at elite American universities. This is a failure of purpose on a fundamental level. This is part of why “meritocracy” and the idea that “America is the land for everyone, ever, to come and get ahead” needs to die. The problem is that Harvard isn’t really thinking of “America first” but rather “Harvard first.” They’re discriminating against Asians not for national interest, but for academic branding issues, ie if Harvard is associated too heavily with Asian overachievers, its brand will be devalued. Harvards actual brand is still heavily associated with “old money” and “WASP” whether they admit it or not, and an Asian majority does not scream WASP, even if many Asian students have old foreign money.
3) SJW values taking over universities is unacceptable, and must be crushed by any means necessary including physical force. If defunding etc doesn’t work, I’d love to see goon squads raid these campus sociology departments and make a public example out of all the professors and students espousing this unamerican garbage ideology that the universities are too cowardly to confront themselves. It’s deep intellectual rot that never should have flourished to begin with, and the fact that some of our “best and brightest” believe such cult like trash means that universities are failing.
Yes, point 2 is important. The idea that an immigrant family who just got here and then locks their kids in a homework room for days on end and creates suicidal ideation deserves to be at an institution built to shape young people into virtuous, socially adapted, and cultured Americans is wrong. It doesn’t matter how many Asians get perfect test scores, they have not earned a seat at Princeton.
"No, I don’t want to see Harvard’s research gutted."
It's worse than gutted: It's irrelevant. And that's not Trump's fault.
"No, I don’t want to see international students screwed over (I teach them)"
International students *are* getting screwed over when certain ones are picked over others for any reason other than merit. And that's not Trump's fault.
"No, I don’t want an important center for learning diminished."
In reputation alone, Harvard has been diminished. Its centuries-long status as an important center for learning was sacrificed years ago on the altar of political expediency. And that wasn't Trump's fault.
"No, I don’t think it’s fair for Harvard to have to turn over protest footage or disciplinary records."
What is right is not judged by what is fair.
"No, I don’t think Trump’s demands are at all consistent with academic independence or freedom of speech."
It's cute that you think this is a matter of academic independence or freedom. As with so much of our culture these days, Harvard's motto may as well be "Libertas mihi, sed non tibi."
Harvard has been doing social engineering to preserve a white plurality at the expense of Asian American applicants
At some point, you have to have an actual policy vision, not just grievance at various lefties who annoy you by not being centrists.