"Hey, SCOTUS, just reject that case, okay?"
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Background:
https://nypost.com/2021/07/04/a-chance-for-supremes-to-end-harvards-asian-discrimination/
The case positions a group of highly qualified Asian-American college applicants against the university to which they seek admission, Harvard. These applicants allege that Harvard has practiced longstanding admissions discrimination against them in favor of less-qualified minorities.
It’s been argued that Asian Americans have to score as much as 450 points higher on the SAT to have a similar chance of admission as black students. In 2020, Duke economics professor Peter Arcidiacono found that a black student in the fourth-lowest academic decile has a higher chance of admissions than an Asian in the top decile.
Harvard disproportionately scores Asian Americans the lowest on “personality” to justify this discrimination — a case of blatant snobbery not backed up by data: Asians score just as well as whites and other minorities in alumni interviews.
Now Harvard has also given up on the SAT requirement — a leading predictor of merit — for admission to the classes of 2025 and 2026. It cites the COVID-19 pandemic as its excuse, yet this makes it harder for kids to benefit from hard work studying and preparing and from high scholastic achievement: Asian Americans tend to do well on these exams because they make academics a priority.
Harvard claims its use of race lets it admit more applicants from traditionally disadvantaged communities. Yet this is only true if the only form of disadvantage that you care about is the shade of your skin. Indeed, most black students admitted to Harvard — 71 percent — are upper middle class or higher. Harvard professor Anthony Jack found that “about half of low-income black students at Ivy League colleges” come from private not public schools.
And this doesn’t even account for the huge preferences Harvard bestows on its legacy applicants and children of big donors.
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The merits of the case aren’t the issue here. This is like the Supreme Court issuing a request to the President to not go to war to defend Ukraine…
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Hope the Asian kids clean Harvard's clock...
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@george-k said in "Hey, SCOTUS, just reject that case, okay?":
Asian Americans tend to do well on these exams because they make academics a priority.
This is so true. Dont know why it is such a cultural trait, but it is. My dad had about a 8 grade formal education and my mom has about a 3-4 grade formal education, but they made sure that education was a priority for the kids.
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Worst of all, we do no one any favors. I was listening to a podcast where they were talking about this issue. As an example, one of the faculty spoke about a young woman who was a friend of the family who was interested in becoming a scientist since early childhood. She got accepted to Harvard as well as to University of Maryland. She went to Harvard where she suddenly found herself on the wrong side of the curve. She changed majors and career objectives assuming she didn't have the right stuff for science.
The professor convincingly argued that at Harvard she was the little fish among the sharks whereas if she'd gone to the University of Maryland, she'd likely have been the shark. Most importantly, from the standpoint of academic achievements, while Harvard had some advantages in starting a career, once on a faculty and publishing she'd have had an excellent chance at a career in the sciences - her dream.
Their suggestion was it was better to be a big fish among small fish than a small fish among big ones.
Taking students who have little chance of competing against top students may not do them a favor.