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Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

(public.econ.duke.edu)
376 points undefined1 | 1 comments | 25 Apr 20 00:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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umvi ◴[25 Apr 20 02:13 UTC] No.22974956[source]▶
This is obviously a controversial topic, and I have mixed feelings.

The bottom line (for me) is that diversity at universities and other organizations is either good, neutral, or bad. We've (mostly?) collectively agreed diversity is good as diversity in sex/age/race bring diversity in thought, which presumably results in more innovation/competition/challenging of status quo/etc. The only way to increase diversity is to practice negative discrimination on dominant groups or positive discrimination on minorities...

Either that or universities need to dedicate a large amount of funding marketing to minorities so that they get more competitive applicants from said group. However, discrimination is easier and cheaper to implement.

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1. gizmo686 ◴[25 Apr 20 02:44 UTC] No.22975116[source]▶
The problem is that we have also (mostly) agreed that discrimination is bad. In the case of discrimination being bad, we had a massive civil rights movement, and enshrine the notion into constitutional law.

Much of the success of the civil rights movement occurred on the legal front, with a strategy based heavily on fighting against discrimination.

In the case of diversity being good, we (or at least some circles of us) have a general sense that it is good, but no where near the cultural (or legal) momentum behind the notion.

It used to be the case that discrimination was so bad, that fighting against discrimination and fighting for diversity were nearly indistinguishable. Because of how much progress we have made on those fronts, the two camps now realize that they did not actually have the same goal in mind and are now starting to become opposed to each other.

I do not think that either camp has fully internalized this new reality yet, so still assumes that the old coalition all belongs to their camp.

I should also mention that discrimination in collage admissions (in the form of affirmative action) is one of the textbook examples of when we decided that discrimination was justifiable in the name of diversity under some circumstances.