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#244256 - 11/05/18 06:58 AM Re: Harvard admissions lawsuit [Re: Bostonian]
Loc: MA
I hope the judge orders that any use of "racial boxes" be ended.
Arguments Over How to Prove Racial Bias Drive Final Day at Harvard Trial
By Nicole Hong
Friday's closing arguments focused on a central question: Does Harvard's admissions process impose an illegal penalty on Asian-American applicants because of their race?
Harvard's lawyers said no, arguing the institution's data showed there was a slight, positive effect on the likelihood of admission for Asian Americans who were women or from California. Both sides also agreed Harvard didn't racially discriminate against Asian American legacies. And Harvard says it gives preference to low-income applicants of all races, including Asian Americans.
"If there was discriminatory animus," said William Lee, a lawyer for Harvard, "why would it be directed only to certain categories of Asian-American applicants?"
The plaintiffs' lawyers said it was possible to discriminate against a group's subset, such as against pregnant women on the basis of their sex.
Harvard's own internal reports from 2013 concluded being Asian American hurt an applicant's likelihood of admission, the plaintiffs said. They said Harvard's admissions dean ignored those conclusions and failed to investigate further, which they called evidence of intentional discrimination. Harvard said those reports were preliminary and incomplete.
Harvard's lawyers said race is only used as a preference among the most competitive applicants, in the same way exceptional musical talent can make a difference in admissions.
If the judge finds Harvard liable on any counts, she then would determine a remedy. The plaintiffs originally sought to prohibit Harvard from considering race in future admissions decisions.
In his opening statement, an attorney for the plaintiffs suggested the judge could remedy any disparate treatment of white and Asian-American applicants by ordering Harvard to group them into the same racial box during admissions.
#244260 - 11/05/18 10:18 PM Re: Harvard admissions lawsuit [Re: Bostonian]
Loc: California
If the use of racial boxes has to go, then legacy, donor, celebrity, and other discriminatory preferences also need to go. IMO, they're worse than racial preferences in that they enforce and perpetuate privilege.
If you advocate for discrimination in favor of any group, you advocate for blanket discrimination, whether you want to admit so or not. If you want to end discrimination favoring one group, you need to end it for all of them.
Admissions need to be merit based, and nothing but. And of course, we as a society need to fix the problems and gross inequalities that create the admissions gaps.
#244262 - 11/06/18 06:31 AM Re: Harvard admissions lawsuit [Re: Val]
Originally Posted By: Val
The judge does not have jurisdiction to ban those preferences. One may think it is unseemly for Harvard to prefer the children of celebrities, but what law is it violating by doing so? Congress could decide that elite schools have become so corrupt that their tax benefits should be withdrawn. I have written repeatedly that purchases of seats should not be deductible as as charity.
Discrimination is discrimination, regardless of which group is being favored.
I didn't say anything about the judge's jurisdiction. I simply said that if Harvard is forced to end one discriminatory admissions practice, it should end them all.
A student whose mommy or daddy went to Harvard may be more likely than a random person to be qualified for admission there. But this possibility should be irrelevant to the actual admissions decision. All that should matter is the student's qualifications.
And the tax deduction thing is just a distraction. The practice of buying a seat for an unqualified student is wrong and shouldn't happen.
If Harvard can prefer the children of celebrities, why can't it prefer the children of members of a given ethnic or racial group?
Not all discrimination is equally problematic. I don't know many people who think women's colleges such as Wellesley should be forced to admit men. I've read that many private liberal arts colleges favor male applicants, because if the sex ratio gets too skewed, the schools will become unattractive to both sexes. I think MIT has some preference for females. Many colleges are residential communities as well as educational institutions, and they admit students accordingly.
You're trying to avoid the point.
Say a college decides to admit a less qualified candidate because mommy or daddy is a graduate/famous/a donor. The college does this because it sees the admission as benefiting the college in some way.
The college has the same opinion about admitting a less qualified student from North Dakota or from a given racial/ethnic group. There is no difference.
If one discriminatory practice ("racial boxes") is unfair and must be ended, then they all are (alumni boxes, donor boxes, fame boxes), and they must all be ended. Admissions have to be fair, for everyone.
Discrimination in all its forms undermines society as a whole. Discrimination in favor of the wealthy is simply another form of discrimination, albeit with more serious consequences than discrimination in favor of the underprivileged.
atticcat
What if anything did it have to do with with intellectual property rights?
Harvard charges $70K a year and has a $37 billion endowment. I favor treating it like other businesses. Businesses are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, but they do discriminate on the basis of willingness and ability to pay. That's how a market economy works.
Don't forget merit boxes. Seems fair.
Harvard is not a business. It's a non-profit. If it wants to go the for-profit college route and start paying all sorts of taxes, it can give what it likes to its biggest customers.
Until then, the argument that it's okay to discriminate in admissions in favor of wealthy people but not poor people is intellectually dishonest in its face. This type of discrimination has led this nation into a hot mess, and it's time that overprivileged Americans grow up and share their cake.
Prince William had to get the minimum A-level scores to get into St. Andrews, the same as everyone else. My friend, who was the provost's kid, did too. No one is suffering unduly because of transparent admissions, but many people do suffer when the deck is stacked in favor of small groups. A perfect example of that is the admissions arms race that's been damaging the mental health of school kids for over 20 years now.