Supreme Court Upholds Michigan Affirmative Action Ban

[TerryMathews]

Stop the strawing up the argument.

Here is how it should be done at a macro level.

College with little or no minority representation. If SATs come out...

Raheem - 1100
Biff - 1175

You have one slot left give it to Raheem

If Raheem's score was 825 he doesn't get in.

So are we basing this on some sort of curve? Flat or percentage? Or are we operating on the feels system?

 

[fskimospy]

I wish some pretentious prick father of a grade A idiot would take the time and break down exactly how many students he enabled to go to college by buying Junior an admission.

I imagine the numbers would be staggering.

Probably none. Large donors like that who are buying their kids admission often specifically earmark how their donations are to be used and they are often done to build new buildings, etc rather than fund continuing college operations.

I guess you could say they might be making the college nicer, but in a lot of cases they aren't enabling any additional people to go there.

 

[nehalem256]

Probably none. Large donors like that who are buying their kids admission often specifically earmark how their donations are to be used and they are often done to build new buildings, etc rather than fund continuing college operations.

I guess you could say they might be making the college nicer, but in a lot of cases they aren't enabling any additional people to go there.

So I guess in your world colleges don't need buildings to hold classes in

 

[ElFenix]

I wish some pretentious prick father of a grade A idiot would take the time and break down exactly how many students he enabled to go to college by buying Junior an admission.

I imagine the numbers would be staggering.

that you guys think BMDs go through the same application process and that somehow justifies legacy admissions ++ points is quaint.

 

[TerryMathews]

Probably none. Large donors like that who are buying their kids admission often specifically earmark how their donations are to be used and they are often done to build new buildings, etc rather than fund continuing college operations.

I guess you could say they might be making the college nicer, but in a lot of cases they aren't enabling any additional people to go there.

So buildings filled with classrooms or labs don't enable kids go go to college?

 

[nehalem256]

Stop the strawing up the argument.

Here is how it should be done at a macro level.

College with little or no minority representation. If SATs come out...

Raheem - 1100
Biff - 1175

You have one slot left give it to Raheem

If Raheem's score was 825 he doesn't get in.

“This case is ultimately about whether students of color in Michigan are allowed to compete on the same playing field as all other students,” Mark Rosenbaum, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who argued the case before the Supreme Court last fall, said in a statement. “Today, the Supreme Court said they are not.”

http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/supreme-court-upholds-affirmative-action-ban

Sounds to me like you and the ACLU are saying that minority* students should spotted X number of SAT points.

*using of cause the Hitler/Sotomayor definition of minority that declares Asians to be honorary white people.

 

[smackababy]

Probably none. Large donors like that who are buying their kids admission often specifically earmark how their donations are to be used and they are often done to build new buildings, etc rather than fund continuing college operations.

I guess you could say they might be making the college nicer, but in a lot of cases they aren't enabling any additional people to go there.

So, a school with money that would have been allocated to cover the cost of that new building being able to use that money elsewhere doesn't help anything? All at the expense of around 10-15% of admissions (the average of legacy admissions)...

Yep, clearly that money is just going into the pocket of someone.

 

[smackababy]

http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/supreme-court-upholds-affirmative-action-ban

Sounds to me like you and the ACLU are saying that minority* students should spotted X number of SAT points.

*using of cause the Hitler/Sotomayor definition of minority that declares Asians to be honorary white people.

The best part is they continue to champion "equality" while really meaning "advantage for minorities over white people". They want to be treated better than everyone else, not the same.

 

[berzerker60]

The fact is that most 'objective' measures for academic merit are at best only moderately predictive of success in college. That includes the ACTs and SATs, which don't do a great job of predicting anything.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/21/a-telling-study-about-act-sat-scores/
(There are many other links demonstrating this I can find if anyone doubts it)

Therefore, there is no clear-cut 'objective' preference between a huge mess of applicants at the margins of being accepted. The question, then, is how you select among these many applicants who have indistinguishable chance of succeeding once admitted.

You're an admissions officers and have 100 applicants for the final admittance spot, and all of them have an indistinguishable but good chance of succeeding at the university, even if some of them have lower GPA, others have lower SATs, others have fewer extracurriculars, others have worse essays, etc. Do you not think the university gains more from having different perspectives in the classrooms than it does from having the person with a 2% higher SAT score but the same background as the vast majority of other acceptances?

 

[shira]

I don't think I see as big an issue. If the school wants to give preferential treatment to the children of donors, let them. That's not at all the same thing as racial discrimination.

Would we have a problem if the school wanted to give preferential treatment to whites by virtue of their skin color?

Seems to me liberals can have it one of two ways: Say that racism is okay in some circumstances, and support affirmative action. Or, they can say what they always say, that racism is never okay, and abandon for good the entire notion of affirmative action.

If racism is wrong, so is affirmative action. Both are making prejudicial decisions on the basis of skin color. There's no escaping that.

People don't see "as big an issue" with the "money preference" because they think that schools getting more money is going to benefit everyone at the school. The problem with that argument is that schools may also want to give preference to under-represented races because DIVERSITY is a good thing for everyone at the school. Unfortunately, Michigan is now much more restricted in their freedom to pursue that preference.

 

[nehalem256]

The fact is that most 'objective' measures for academic merit are at best only moderately predictive of success in college. That includes the ACTs and SATs, which don't do a great job of predicting anything.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/21/a-telling-study-about-act-sat-scores/
(There are many other links demonstrating this I can find if anyone doubts it)

Therefore, there is no clear-cut 'objective' preference between a huge mess of applicants at the margins of being accepted. The question, then, is how you select among these many applicants who have indistinguishable chance of succeeding once admitted.

You're an admissions officers and have 100 applicants for the final admittance spot, and all of them have an indistinguishable but good chance of succeeding at the university, even if some of them have lower GPA, others have lower SATs, others have fewer extracurriculars, others have worse essays, etc. Do you not think the university gains more from having different perspectives in the classrooms than it does from having the person with a 2% higher SAT score but the same background as the vast majority of other acceptances?

The melanin content of your skin doesn't give you some kind of magical different perspective.

 

[nehalem256]

People don't see "as big an issue" with the "money preference" because they think that schools getting more money is going to benefit everyone at the school. The problem with that argument is that schools may also want to give preference to under-represented races because DIVERSITY is a good thing for everyone at the school. Unfortunately, Michigan is now much more restricted in their freedom to pursue that preference.

Come on now. Everyone knows that "diversity" is just a dog whistle for more minorities to assuage leftist white guilt.

 

[TerryMathews]

that you guys think BMDs go through the same application process and that somehow justifies legacy admissions ++ points is quaint.

If you look, I'm not the one who conflated the two. You are correct they are two separate issues.

-Legacy admissions have a higher completion rate
-BMDs fund any number of educations via direct contribution or funding facilities.

 

[TerryMathews]

Do you not think the university gains more from having different perspectives in the classrooms than it does from having the person with a 2% higher SAT score but the same background as the vast majority of other acceptances?

Do you think that all black people are battle hardened warriors from the ghetto and all white people are rich members of the Masons?

I assure you that you could craft a diverse class of all white people if you wanted to.

 

[shira]

Come on now. Everyone knows that "diversity" is just a dog whistle for more minorities to assuage leftist white guilt.

No, only imbeciles "know" this.

 

[berzerker60]

The melanin content of your skin doesn't give you some kind of magical different perspective.

Do you think that all black people are battle hardened warriors from the ghetto and all white people are rich members of the Masons?

I assure you that you could craft a diverse class of all white people if you wanted to.

No shit. Yet admissions officers also have essays written by the applicant, where the applicant lives, what high school they went to, what letter of recommendation from teachers / pastors / others say about the applicant, what clubs/sports they were involved in, how difficult of classes they chose to take and how well they did, and other information. They have plenty of information to see whether an applicant has actually had significantly different life experiences than the majority. Given the demographic realities of the country that make race correlate strongly with economic status and the increasing segregation in schools and communities, it's pretty damned likely that someone seeking to select a diverse group will select across racial lines.

 

[nehalem256]

No shit. Yet admissions officers also have essays written by the applicant, where the applicant lives, what high school they went to, what letter of recommendation from teachers / pastors / others say about the applicant, what clubs/sports they were involved in, how difficult of classes they chose to take and how well they did, and other information. They have plenty of information to see whether an applicant has actually had significantly different life experiences than the majority. Given the demographic realities of the country that make race correlate strongly with economic status and the increasing segregation in schools and communities, it's pretty damned likely that someone seeking to select a diverse group will select across racial lines.

So that based on what you are saying there is absolutely no need for racial affirmative action right?

Since they have all the information needed to instead select students based on actual diversity of experience.

 

[cabri]

People don't see "as big an issue" with the "money preference" because they think that schools getting more money is going to benefit everyone at the school. The problem with that argument is that schools may also want to give preference to under-represented races because DIVERSITY is a good thing for everyone at the school. Unfortunately, Michigan is now much more restricted in their freedom to pursue that preference.

Diversity is fine and should be encouraged; Just do not spend public $$ favoring one group over another.

 

[fskimospy]

So, a school with money that would have been allocated to cover the cost of that new building being able to use that money elsewhere doesn't help anything? All at the expense of around 10-15% of admissions (the average of legacy admissions)...

Yep, clearly that money is just going into the pocket of someone.

Of course money is fungible. My point was maybe they don't build the new wing on that building.

 

[fskimospy]

So buildings filled with classrooms or labs don't enable kids go go to college?

Are you saying that most of the buildings built with large donations are necessary structures that the college was unable to teach students without before this point?

That's clearly ridiculous. Again, I am quite sure that they make the college nicer, and I'm sure in plenty of situations they give the college new capabilities that they didn't have before. None of that means that such donations are enabling poor kids to go there.

 

[berzerker60]

So that based on what you are saying there is absolutely no need for racial affirmative action right?

Since they have all the information needed to instead select students based on actual diversity of experience.

I'm not in favor of strict AA quotas. The examples I mentioned are still 'taking race into account in college admissions,' though, which is what's forbidden in some of these state-level anti-AA laws. I think that goes too far, since being of a minority race CAN (but not always does) lead to significantly different experiences in life and thus can lead to a person with a valuable different perspective. Given the statistically weak predictive value of the "objective" measures of readiness for college, I think it's legitimate to consider this diversity in addition to the other factors in college admissions.

Are you saying that most of the buildings built with large donations are necessary structures that the college was unable to teach students without before this point?

That's clearly ridiculous. Again, I am quite sure that they make the college nicer, and I'm sure in plenty of situations they give the college new capabilities that they didn't have before. None of that means that such donations are enabling poor kids to go there.

In addition to this, there are real maintenance costs for these new buildings, and those are much less sexy contribution targets for donors.

Of course, donations wouldn't be such a big issue if states still actually funded their universities like they did a few decades ago. States paid a MUCH larger share of operating costs for the UC system, Univ. Michigan, and UVA, the three best public universities, not that long ago. (Probably other publics too, I just know for those for certain)

 

[who?]

After WW2 an abnormally large portion of the worlds money came to the U.S.of A. because we had the factories that didn't get bombed during the war so Americans could make goods to sell to the rest of the world. Having all that mopney here enabled states to support their universitys much better than they can now.

 

[smackababy]

Of course money is fungible. My point was maybe they don't build the new wing on that building.

Even if they don't build that new building, that one student has contributed to the university a lot more than the student's who place he took would. And that should, but not always I'm sure, increase the quality of the university in some way that benefits far more than the standard cost of tuition. So, unless that student who didn't get the slot turns out to be the person who would have cured cancer, the benefit for every other student is increased.

 

[smackababy]

I'm not in favor of strict AA quotas. The examples I mentioned are still 'taking race into account in college admissions,' though, which is what's forbidden in some of these state-level anti-AA laws. I think that goes too far, since being of a minority race CAN (but not always does) lead to significantly different experiences in life and thus can lead to a person with a valuable different perspective. Given the statistically weak predictive value of the "objective" measures of readiness for college, I think it's legitimate to consider this diversity in addition to the other factors in college admissions.

Race has nothing to do with diversity though, and that is what these anti-AA laws keep clear. You can easily say "applicant X is from rural Kentucky and applicant Y is from inner city NY, we already have a bunch of inner city applicants accepted, so in the sake of diversity (for whatever silly reason) we will accept X instead of Y." See how that has zero to do with race? If race was a factor, Y might get accepted, despite there not actually being diversity because they are a minority that isn't Asian. Applications should be racially blind.

 

[TerryMathews]

Are you saying that most of the buildings built with large donations are necessary structures that the college was unable to teach students without before this point?

That's clearly ridiculous. Again, I am quite sure that they make the college nicer, and I'm sure in plenty of situations they give the college new capabilities that they didn't have before. None of that means that such donations are enabling poor kids to go there.

Bullshit. I went to a public college which recently constructed three named buildings: an engineering school, a medical school, and a liberal arts building. It also had a named school of business that had been there for years. Not one of those buildings had armed guards to keep the poor black kids out.

You seem to be taking the tack that once a college is open (with one building), that no further construction is required to service a growing student body. That is clearly ridiculous. You have to have more seats to put more students into.