patio, You are usually a clear writer, so the contorted structure of your post suggests that you do not feel comfortable saying what you mean, for some reason.
There is a difference between "promoting diversity and inclusion of many social/economic/ethnic groups" vs "singling some out for extreme exclusion"
There is no difference between "No Jews in Moscow U!" and "Jews at Harvard but not too many, please" as experienced by the first kid told "no" purely because he was born to the wrong parents.
>>
the contorted structure of your post suggests that you do not feel comfortable saying what you mean, for some reason.
>>
No. I am perfectly comfortable in saying "I desire a world in which no university discriminates against any student on the basis of race." The linguistic contortion is a result of accurately repeating the arguments of e.g. Harvard University, because Harvard University desires a world in which some students are discriminated against on basis of race but prefers to lie about that.
[Edit: I'm not being unfair to Harvard, by the way. They tiptoe around it quite a bit in their amici briefs, but the Supreme Court will eventually get a little irate if you meticulously avoid saying what you're actually petitioning for, so they have committed on paper to positions like:
"[Harvard and the peer institutions signing this brief] accordingly urge the Court to interpret
the Constitution, consistent with Bakke and Grutter, to
continue to allow educational institutions to structure
admissions programs that take account of race and ethnicity as single factors within a highly individualized,
holistic review process. "
Stripped of all euphemism: "We discriminate by race and want to continue doing so. Please don't illegalize that. It would be very inconvenient for us."
Arguments advanced as to why it would be inconvenient include "Students perceiving that they were discriminated against, resulting in non-admission, would sue us, and we would not prevail in their lawsuits, because to avoid getting sued to bits for racial discrimination we don't keep objective records of which students we denied for racial reasons versus which were denied for non-racial reasons and we purposely keep our admissions criteria vague and non-objective. Accordingly, illegalizing racial discrimination would cause us to lose suits over some cases where we were not discriminating in addition to those cases where we were discriminating. That's monstrously unfair, don't you think?"]
I'm not sure that they lie about diversity driven admissions. They state pretty clearly that they actively discriminate students on the basis of race, generally favorably.[0]
But that's beside the point. Is Harvard the only place a student can go to school? For Frenkel MGU essentially was. It looks like there are a lot of differences between Harvard and MGU.
I'm not defending МГУ in any way (in fact I'm gonna troll people from there with this article to the rest of our lives), but МГУ is hardly any more unique than Harward in the USA.
Moscow had dozens of universities and "institutes" (approximate equvalent of college) and most Jews diverted to one of those after being brickwalled by МГУ.
Of course, I consider that the pure mathematics education was a pretty rare thing in USSR which had considerable aptitude towards applied sciences and engineering.
Why is discrimination even illegal in private universities? What part of the law makes it illegal, for instance, for a group of Koreans to create a private entity in Columbus OH, where the get together and teach each other things?
I've seen many Black people made to feel inferior by comments like this, which have the result of implying that the reason they probably got in was because a "superior" student didn't. But for one thing, those of privileged races who didn't get in were obviously extremely marginal candidates anyway, who even failed to capitalize on their racial privileges.
(And of course, a Black individual who happens to agree with affirmative action is less likely to publicly offer their perspective here, since ironically doing so may hamper their careers, as some future investor or employer googles them. It's much safer to hold the ideology which appeals to these gatekeepers, regardless of skill.)
Those who are truly concerned about racism have different criticisms of the (mostly private) system of expensive elite universities, as well as the US imprisoning by far more of its population than any other country. Such things affect education far more than affirmative action ever has.
And there are different kinds of affirmative action programs, with different attributes. But such subtleties seem not to matter to those who want to end them in principle.
I've seen many Black people made to feel inferior by comments like this, which have the result of implying that the reason they probably got in was because a "superior" student didn't.
This is true in many cases. If true statements about a policy cause people to experience negative feelings, that is a problem with the policy, not the people speaking truth to power.
By the way, here are the stats. The majority of black students at elite schools (at least as of 2006) didn't even get a 1400 on their SAT:
Comments
patio, You are usually a clear writer, so the contorted structure of your post suggests that you do not feel comfortable saying what you mean, for some reason.
There is a difference between "promoting diversity and inclusion of many social/economic/ethnic groups" vs "singling some out for extreme exclusion"
There is no difference between "No Jews in Moscow U!" and "Jews at Harvard but not too many, please" as experienced by the first kid told "no" purely because he was born to the wrong parents.
>> the contorted structure of your post suggests that you do not feel comfortable saying what you mean, for some reason. >>
No. I am perfectly comfortable in saying "I desire a world in which no university discriminates against any student on the basis of race." The linguistic contortion is a result of accurately repeating the arguments of e.g. Harvard University, because Harvard University desires a world in which some students are discriminated against on basis of race but prefers to lie about that.
[Edit: I'm not being unfair to Harvard, by the way. They tiptoe around it quite a bit in their amici briefs, but the Supreme Court will eventually get a little irate if you meticulously avoid saying what you're actually petitioning for, so they have committed on paper to positions like:
"[Harvard and the peer institutions signing this brief] accordingly urge the Court to interpret the Constitution, consistent with Bakke and Grutter, to continue to allow educational institutions to structure admissions programs that take account of race and ethnicity as single factors within a highly individualized, holistic review process. "
Stripped of all euphemism: "We discriminate by race and want to continue doing so. Please don't illegalize that. It would be very inconvenient for us."
Arguments advanced as to why it would be inconvenient include "Students perceiving that they were discriminated against, resulting in non-admission, would sue us, and we would not prevail in their lawsuits, because to avoid getting sued to bits for racial discrimination we don't keep objective records of which students we denied for racial reasons versus which were denied for non-racial reasons and we purposely keep our admissions criteria vague and non-objective. Accordingly, illegalizing racial discrimination would cause us to lose suits over some cases where we were not discriminating in addition to those cases where we were discriminating. That's monstrously unfair, don't you think?"]
I'm not sure that they lie about diversity driven admissions. They state pretty clearly that they actively discriminate students on the basis of race, generally favorably.[0]
But that's beside the point. Is Harvard the only place a student can go to school? For Frenkel MGU essentially was. It looks like there are a lot of differences between Harvard and MGU.
[0] http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/hrp/index.ht...
I'm not defending МГУ in any way (in fact I'm gonna troll people from there with this article to the rest of our lives), but МГУ is hardly any more unique than Harward in the USA.
Moscow had dozens of universities and "institutes" (approximate equvalent of college) and most Jews diverted to one of those after being brickwalled by МГУ.
Of course, I consider that the pure mathematics education was a pretty rare thing in USSR which had considerable aptitude towards applied sciences and engineering.
> They state pretty clearly that they actively discriminate students on the basis of race, generally favorably.[0]
Which is little comfort if you're asian and have to live up to an insane standard to get in.
Why is discrimination even illegal in private universities? What part of the law makes it illegal, for instance, for a group of Koreans to create a private entity in Columbus OH, where the get together and teach each other things?
Because big piles of public money goes to those universities. Some universities do turn up their nose at this money and do discriminate.
I've seen many Black people made to feel inferior by comments like this, which have the result of implying that the reason they probably got in was because a "superior" student didn't. But for one thing, those of privileged races who didn't get in were obviously extremely marginal candidates anyway, who even failed to capitalize on their racial privileges.
(And of course, a Black individual who happens to agree with affirmative action is less likely to publicly offer their perspective here, since ironically doing so may hamper their careers, as some future investor or employer googles them. It's much safer to hold the ideology which appeals to these gatekeepers, regardless of skill.)
Those who are truly concerned about racism have different criticisms of the (mostly private) system of expensive elite universities, as well as the US imprisoning by far more of its population than any other country. Such things affect education far more than affirmative action ever has.
And there are different kinds of affirmative action programs, with different attributes. But such subtleties seem not to matter to those who want to end them in principle.
I've seen many Black people made to feel inferior by comments like this, which have the result of implying that the reason they probably got in was because a "superior" student didn't.
This is true in many cases. If true statements about a policy cause people to experience negative feelings, that is a problem with the policy, not the people speaking truth to power.
By the way, here are the stats. The majority of black students at elite schools (at least as of 2006) didn't even get a 1400 on their SAT:
http://www.jbhe.com/features/53_SAT.html
In medical school, blacks who were accepted are a standard deviation below the mean:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080801022539/http://www.aamc.or...