And Here Goes Affirmative Action

[daisylu]

Jul 3, 2023 12:00:30 GMT -5 scgal said:

Jul 3, 2023 11:45:05 GMT -5 daisylu said:

First off, huh? Because that post makes no sense. Second, after decades of being blown off by male doctors who do not how a female body works and like to blame everything on "hormones", I will only see a female now.

I didn't write that well I. Thought faster than I typed. I prefer a female gyno as far as a gp I don't care. On a medical knowledge standpoint I'm not going to argue that a woman knows more about women just because she is a woman. 

Again, I'm going to say that I was blown off by many male gynos who like to blame everthing on "hormones". Female gyno was much more in tune with my body and LISTENED much more.

[scgal]

Jul 3, 2023 12:08:15 GMT -5 daisylu said:

Jul 3, 2023 12:00:30 GMT -5 scgal said:

I didn't write that well I. Thought faster than I typed. I prefer a female gyno as far as a gp I don't care. On a medical knowledge standpoint I'm not going to argue that a woman knows more about women just because she is a woman. 

Again, I'm going to say that I was blown off by many male gynos who like to blame everthing on "hormones". Female gyno was much more in tune with my body and LISTENED much more.

I agree with you. On the flip side I wouldn't say only women dr see women either. It's a personal preference. 

[pulmonarymd]

Jul 3, 2023 11:52:38 GMT -5 scgal said:

Jul 3, 2023 11:41:14 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

Because things aren't equal. The student who needs to work or watch their younger siblings so their parents can work(since we can't give people adequate childcare) doesn't get to do all the extra enrichment programs. Nor can their families afford the tutor for the SATs or for the class they are struggling with, or stay after school to get the extra help they need to understand a problem. They do not get to go on expensive vacations and all the enrichment programs.

You will respond with life is not fair. It isn't, but we can recognize it and try to make adjustments when possible. It has been shown that the educational level of the parents is a large determinant of a child's accomplishment. Not doing anything to factor that into the process just perpetuates inequality. You really thing it is a level playing field when you discount all of that? 

No I don't think I would respond that way. How about reconizing those issues and not discriminating against the ones that don't have those issues. The way it is now we are discriminating against one group because of social economic issue from another. 

let alone not factor in not all white people have it so great and not all african american have it so bad. What happens to the white kid who has all the difficulties that you described in the first paragraph and still has to battle affirmative action. Is your answer life's not fair?

I recognize those issues. I do college interviews. All things being equal, I would expect kids with well off parents to have more opportunities than those who do not. I note those in my interviews, so the admission committee can see those factors, and decide how they should be factored in. I think poverty should be recognized in all groups. I think it should be factored into these decisions. The more information the committees have, a fuller picture can be obtained about a student, and better decisions can be made.


You just do not get it. These decisions affect about 200 schools. The remainder admit more than 50% of their applicants. Those 200 schools are rejecting an overwhelming number of people. Hopkins proudly announced they rejected 200 students with perfect SATs at one information session I attended. There are going to be arbitrary decisions in these circumstances. Complaining about AA and its effects, and not caring about legacy admissions, who are many times less qualified than the average admitted students just shows how disingenuous all those fighting this are. Maybe if we got rid of those, those poor white students you are so concerned about would have a fairer chance.


AA is a blunt instrument. It has not been used as effectively as it could be. Wealthy AA use it to their advantage, just like wealthy whites use legacies to their advantage. I do not think it was meant for the Obama children for example. I can admit its flaws while still believing it is useful. You, on the other hand, cannot see nuance and do not have the ability to empathize with others situations.   

[busymom]

Saw this cartoon on DailyKos this morning.  Feel free to click if you'd like to have a look.  I agree with the tone of the Clarence Thomas cartoon:



www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/2/2178947/-And-Now-a-Message-from-Clarence-Thomas-The-Week-in-Editorial-Cartoons-Part-3

[billisonboard]

Jul 3, 2023 11:52:38 GMT -5 scgal said:

Jul 3, 2023 11:41:14 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

Because things aren't equal. The student who needs to work or watch their younger siblings so their parents can work(since we can't give people adequate childcare) doesn't get to do all the extra enrichment programs. Nor can their families afford the tutor for the SATs or for the class they are struggling with, or stay after school to get the extra help they need to understand a problem. They do not get to go on expensive vacations and all the enrichment programs.

You will respond with life is not fair. It isn't, but we can recognize it and try to make adjustments when possible. It has been shown that the educational level of the parents is a large determinant of a child's accomplishment. Not doing anything to factor that into the process just perpetuates inequality. You really thing it is a level playing field when you discount all of that? 

No I don't think I would respond that way. How about reconizing those issues and not discriminating against the ones that don't have those issues. The way it is now we are discriminating against one group because of social economic issue from another. 

let alone not factor in not all white people have it so great and not all african american have it so bad. What happens to the white kid who has all the difficulties that you described in the first paragraph and still has to battle affirmative action. Is your answer life's not fair?

Very legitimate issue. Colleges need to ensure they have a way to include quality applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds who are white. They also need to work to not admit African-American students who come from a privileged background but have lesser qualifications. Problems solved.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

While I saw this cartoon as a support for counseling, I think it applies to this discussion. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Jul 3, 2023 12:07:56 GMT -5 scgal said:

Jul 3, 2023 11:44:38 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

It shouldn't have to be, but it does. Otherwise there would literally still be slavery in the southern United States. 
Because the white kid's parents had the opportunity to go be accepted to college and thus make more money. Because they make more money, they can afford a nicer place to live with less stress. The black kid's parents did not have a realistic opportunity to go to college or trade school. The black kid lives in a noisy apartment complex and has little way to do or supervision to do additional academics at home. 

I would argue your first reply they are 2 different things. 

The second reply what about the white kid's parents who didn't get to go to college and have the same issues the black kid did? As an educator are you ok with 2 kids applying to the same college one white one black having the same home life white child grades are higher the black child get the admission the white child doesn't?

At this point I'm in the mostly yes answer. I acknowledge that this country was built on white privilege. If we only looked at completely blind applications of achievement based on white male opportunities, then white females (me) wouldn't have been able to improve college acceptance rates and participation in STEM careers. It took a long time to get women into colleges. We're still trying to figure out how to get non-POC in there more equitably. Again, as I posited, I'm not actually against removing race/ethnicity quotas. 

Here's personal anecdote: 
I raised my children in an incredibly rural area. To me, at the time, it was a good choice. However, it meant that my children didn't have any AP classes to take. My youngest child completed high school in three years with 41 college credits through our community college. She applied to but was not accepted to Northwestern. If I'd chosen to live elsewhere and raise her in a private, college prep school, make her spend four years in high school, get above a 4.0GPA, and forced her to do far more SAT prep than she did, she may have been accepted to Northwestern. But instead, she is a classically trained ballet dancer because that was the activity she wanted to do. And I don't mean oh, she took some dance classes. I mean a decade of her life with the last 5 years of middle/high school spending a minimum of 20 hours per week, 48 weeks per year at various PNW dance studios that turn kids into professional dancers. Plus earning her state accredited high school diploma in three years. But, she's white. Do I think she was excluded solely because of her race? No, but being white totally didn't help her. That part is okay with me. What's not okay with me: 
I don't think GPA, fake volunteer hours, admission essays written by someone else, and SAT/ACT scores should be the only measures of college acceptance. Those 200ish colleges we're talking about having to abandon the AA quota system are not looking holistically the applicants. 

[hurley1980]

[hurley1980]

For the record, in the video above, I would still be at the start line.  I would have taken no steps forward. 

[Pink Cashmere]

Jul 5, 2023 14:28:21 GMT -5 hurley1980 said:

I teared up the first time I saw this video.

[hurley1980]

Jul 5, 2023 14:41:38 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

Jul 5, 2023 14:28:21 GMT -5 hurley1980 said:

I teared up the first time I saw this video.

The looks on the kids faces who couldn't take steps, its so sad!

[laterbloomer]

Jul 5, 2023 14:41:38 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

Jul 5, 2023 14:28:21 GMT -5 hurley1980 said:

I teared up the first time I saw this video.

I still tear up. I often wonder how many of those white boys feel empathy for the kids at the starting line and how many just think "sucks to be you"

[hurley1980]

Jul 5, 2023 15:03:03 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

Jul 5, 2023 14:41:38 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

I teared up the first time I saw this video.

I still tear up. I often wonder how many of those white boys feel empathy for the kids at the starting line and how many just think "sucks to be you"

Some of them are probably incapable of feeling empathy for those less fortunate than them.  Because they haven't experienced is, they just cannot understand it.  I've noticed its that way with a lot of rich white people. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Jul 5, 2023 15:18:28 GMT -5 hurley1980 said:

Jul 5, 2023 15:03:03 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

I still tear up. I often wonder how many of those white boys feel empathy for the kids at the starting line and how many just think "sucks to be you"

Some of them are probably incapable of feeling empathy for those less fortunate than them.  Because they haven't experienced is, they just cannot understand it.  I've noticed its that way with a lot of rich white people. 

It's why they're so sure that meritocracy is the be-all-end-all. It's just incomprehensible to understand how many more challenges other people have. I did have those blinders. I still do in a lot of ways, but I am much more empathetic than I used to be. 

[daisylu]

And now they are going after grants and scholarships for minorities. 


Last week, the Republican speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, Robin Vos, implied that he’ll soon work to ban grants designated for minority undergraduate students. Vos took it upon himself to respond to a tweet asserting a scholarship program for Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and other minority students was equivalent to “discrimination.”



“We are reviewing the decision and will introduce legislation to correct the discriminatory laws on the books and pass repeals in the fall,” Vos wrote. Vos has always opposed anything related to diversity, equity and inclusion and even went as far as calling DEI programming at the University of Wisconsin as “indoctrination.”



Even though Wisconsin is projected to operate at a $7 billion surplus budget, Vos and other Republicans in the state Legislature voted to cut $32 million from the UW System’s budget unless it agrees to allocate the money toward workforce development as opposed to DEI resources. The Republicans are also planning on doing away with nearly 200 DEI jobs on UW campuses.



On the heels of the Supreme Court’s devastating decision, we are certain this is just the beginning.

link

[jerseygirl]

200 DEI jobs! That’s a lot of money that will be added onto already high tuitions

[haapai]

Well, it has been a week and I still haven't managed to read the opinion or make any sense of it.  I keep trying and giving up.  The bitterness and (perceived) disingenuousness are just too much for me.  I haven't even made it through the Chief's part. 

I suspect that this is happening to others too.  Usually a few days after a ruling this momentous, you start reading articles that focus on what was actually said and what it means to lawyers.  That doesn't seem to be happening this time.   They might still be stuck staring at a screen full of jots and finding themselves typing "Scalia's death was a disaster.  I hated his conservatism and I know that he would have ruled this way but the result would have been concise, coherent and civil."

If any of you can point me to less-rushed analyses of the opinion, I would appreciate it, even if it is pay-walled.  I have a couple of the most common subscriptions and the public library a mile from here subscribes to many others. 

[haapai]

Jun 29, 2023 15:19:57 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Jun 29, 2023 15:10:31 GMT -5 haapai said:

I typed too fast.  UNC was also found to have held Asian-American students to a higher standard. 

I'm confused as to why they did this.  UNC has a mandate to serve in-state students.  Only 18% of their first-time students can be from out of state.  Does North Carolina have enough Asian-American students heading toward college that limiting their numbers would actually make much difference? 

It's an unconscious stereotype that hurts Asian Americans.   How many people have you heard say, and I've seen it on the boards too, that Asian Americans are better at math?  That Indians and Asian Americans are better test takers?

It's a widely held belief even if it is not true.  As such admissions people have come to expect Asian Americans to have outstanding test scores compared to white or other minority students.  If they have what is perceived to be an "average" score for an Asian American admissions will pass on the application.  Meanwhile that score is seen as excellent for a different minority student.

It's been pretty well studied.   Asian American students do have a valid complaint there.

But that has nothing to do with affirmative action itself.   That is a need for diversity training in admissions and perhaps blind applications where the applicants name is omitted so you can't see a name and assume nationality.  There have been several studies in that regard that show the playing field evens out tremendously when names/genders are not included on applications so a bias can't form before things even get underway.

It was so systematic and went on for so long that I have trouble believing that it was unconscious.  It definitely resembles the Jewish quota that had existed before. 

[haapai]

Jun 29, 2023 21:32:19 GMT -5 busymom said:

The Supreme Court is attempting to take us back to the "bad old days", where only rich white boys had the opportunity to go to college.  Sadly, I am concerned that now that non-white Americans have fewer opportunities to attend college, the next target will be women.  I don't know the numbers nationally, but my former college has more women than men currently enrolled.  

I'm just thinking out loud here, but does anyone here think that enrollment at, for example, colleges that enroll mostly African-Americans will see increases in number of students?  

I don't know if the number of students enrolled at HBCUs can increase much beyond filling any vacant seats and dorm rooms.  It is quite expensive to expand a school.  If the school already owns undeveloped land adjacent to the campus, there's some possibility of building new dorms and classrooms and parking lots but it will cost a lot.  If the school has to buy up already developed land to expand, it gets much more expensive. 

OTOH, I do think that HBCUs will see an increased number of applicants.  They might become much more selective as a result and their endowments might grow or become less stressed as they enroll slightly wealthier students who do not need grant aid. 

I think that small, selective, private, liberal-arts schools are going to face an existential crisis as a result of this decision.  I attended a school like that in the mid-eighties and after some ugly racial incidents at other private and selective schools a year or so after I enrolled, the school that I attended absolutely positioned itself as a place where white and Asian students would encounter more students of another race than they would by going to any state school in pretty much any state.  Learning what not to say, even if you had heard your parents saying it, was a selling point for these schools.  Will they still be attractive when they become overwhelmingly white and Asian and rich?  

They can't do what they used to do anymore.  That Kellogg's Corn Flakes approach to diversity, where you start with highly processed ingredients that have had all of the vitamins processed out of them (selecting for qualifications that are highly correlated with wealth and advantage) and then spraying cheap vitamins (brown students that can afford most of the tuition) onto the shaped product is gonna get you sued.  If you paid any attention to the test gaps, the achievement gaps, and the wealth gaps in this country, you would understand that these schools absolutely cannot get the demographics that they used to get via any type of holistic consideration of applicants.  Their choices are to 1,) cheat and hope that they are too small to get caught or that they have locked down the data on admissions enough that it can't leak, 2.) radically transform their admissions criteria and mission to take inherited privilege into account and select against it, or 3.) just hope like hell that they will somehow become one of the schools that students that had previously been the ingredient added in later choose to attend. 

It's gonna get ugly. 

[jerseygirl]

Many Black students attend inner city schools. Many of these are failure schools with majority of kids failing math and English tests.
If the lower schools improved their students would be more competitive and wouldn’t need as much AA to increase Black and Hispanic kids
Or if more states increased charter schools these kids wouldn’t be trapped in failing schools

[haapai]

Jul 7, 2023 18:34:46 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

Many Black students attend inner city schools. Many of these are failure schools with majority of kids failing math and English tests.
If the lower schools improved their students would be more competitive and wouldn’t need as much AA to increase Black and Hispanic kids
Or if more states increased charter schools these kids wouldn’t be trapped in failing schools

Pass.  We are not talking about the same thing or the same people. 

[jerseygirl]

Jul 7, 2023 18:42:44 GMT -5 haapai said:

Jul 7, 2023 18:34:46 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

Many Black students attend inner city schools. Many of these are failure schools with majority of kids failing math and English tests.
If the lower schools improved their students would be more competitive and wouldn’t need as much AA to increase Black and Hispanic kids
Or if more states increased charter schools these kids wouldn’t be trapped in failing schools

Pass.  We are not talking about the same thing or the same people. 

?? Not the same people??
Many of the posts discuss the need for AA to admit Black and Hispanic students reflective of the US population. Suit against Harvard and NC brought out that Black students with lower SATs grades etc than Asian students were admitted . Failing schools certainly don’t help these Black and Hispanic kids SATs etc

[pulmonarymd]

Jul 7, 2023 18:57:09 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

Jul 7, 2023 18:42:44 GMT -5 haapai said:

Pass.  We are not talking about the same thing or the same people. 

?? Not the same people??
Many of the posts discuss the need for AA to admit Black and Hispanic students reflective of the US population. Suit against Harvard and NC brought out that Black students with lower SATs grades etc than Asian students were admitted . Failing schools certainly don’t help these Black and Hispanic kids SATs etc

1 GPA is a better determinant of college success than SAT
2 SAT is strongly correlated with parental income and educational attainment
3 white students admitted to Harvard have lower GPAs and SATs than Asian students. Are whites the beneficiaries of AA when compared to Asians?
4 once you are smart “enough”, success is more determined by factors other than academic ability/ intelligence. Better grades/SATs do not necessarily lead to better outcome. So, the idea that someone with an SAT score of 1450 is a worse candidate than someone with an SAT of 1500 is patently false

[djAdvocate]

Jul 5, 2023 14:32:42 GMT -5 hurley1980 said:

For the record, in the video above, I would still be at the start line.  I would have taken no steps forward. 

i would have taken six.  i was raised by my dad, and there were no cell phones.  

[jerseygirl]

Shameful failure of an inner city school population by their schools.
Paterson NJ 90% of seniors fail statewide math graduation exam similar failure of 60% language arts but about 80% graduated. ‘Alternative’ to passing these tests allowed
Paterson spent $18500/student compared to average NJ costs of $18000. Much of Paterson budget from state

Angry that I’m contributing to this abysmal failure by paying state taxes. How can we as a society keep functioning with failing our children. Will or does AA help??

informacja-lokalna.pl/en/paterson-nj-high-school-graduation-scores-fall-short-northjersey-com/

patch.com/new-jersey/across-nj/nj-schools-spend-18k-student-average-how-much-your-kid-gets

[Opti]

I don't know why you think Affirmative Action has anything to do with performance of students in a public high school in a poor district. I also do not understand why you take it as a personal affront instead of understanding that perhaps students from a less well fed and not so financially stable background may struggle and care less about school and tests. 

NJ12 recently did a segment on downtown Paterson. Many students may have English as a second language and their primary language might be Spanish or something similar. Might give them a disadvantage in understanding various subjects including math.

[jerseygirl]

Aug 13, 2023 19:26:42 GMT -5 Opti said:

I don't know why you think Affirmative Action has anything to do with performance of students in a public high school in a poor district. I also do not understand why you take it as a personal affront instead of understanding that perhaps students from a less well fed and not so financially stable background may struggle and care less about school and tests. 

NJ12 recently did a segment on downtown Paterson. Many students may have English as a second language and their primary language might be Spanish or something similar. Might give them a disadvantage in understanding various subjects including math.

Not a person affront I’m just so disappointed that this failure continues.

[Tennesseer]

Aug 13, 2023 20:19:41 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

Aug 13, 2023 19:26:42 GMT -5 Opti said:

I don't know why you think Affirmative Action has anything to do with performance of students in a public high school in a poor district. I also do not understand why you take it as a personal affront instead of understanding that perhaps students from a less well fed and not so financially stable background may struggle and care less about school and tests. 

NJ12 recently did a segment on downtown Paterson. Many students may have English as a second language and their primary language might be Spanish or something similar. Might give them a disadvantage in understanding various subjects including math.

Not a person affront I’m just so disappointed that this failure continues.

There are societal issues with young people which schools cannot fix. But that doesn't mean we stop contributions to schools via taxes where some children excel when they previously did not. We don't give up on the ones who can and want to achieve their goals.