Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

The assumption underlying these arguments against Harvard's admission is that GPA/SAT scores represent merit and that any deviation from the distribution of GPA/SAT scores in admittance is unjust discrimination. But this is missing what is at stake for Harvard. Harvard wants to increase its prestige, and it does so by having future CEOs, Senators, and Presidents go to Harvard. But the distribution of potential leaders of society is not equal to the distribution of GPA/test scores past a certain point.

But this isn't even mostly about leadership potential. It's about the social environment that makes it so people with certain traits will more likely rise to leadership positions in society. Power concentrates not by merit, but through complex social and cultural factors, and race is very politically relevant. Existing institutions and cultural factors will favor a white Harvard graduate over an Asian graduate becoming a leader of some political institution. So in service to Harvard's goal of having the next generation of leaders in society go to Harvard, they are correct to bias their admissions towards whites (and blacks, hispanics, etc).

That's like saying that you won't hire black employees because your customers are racists who don't want to see n-words while they're shopping.

Sure, I recognize the analogy. But we have determined that economic services are sufficiently critical to override one's right to free association in the context of operating a business. The question is whether admittance to a private educational institution can justly discriminate in their admittance based on race (SCOTUS says yes, presumably with caveats), and what sort of justifications are acceptable. Are the racial biases inherent in society that influences life outcomes across demographics a justifiable criteria? I don't know. But the purpose of my comment was to highlight that this is what's at stake, and this is the debate we should be having.

The larger issue is less actionable than the issue at hand. Point out Harvard’s bias, have them fix it. This is an actionable step in breaking the market preferences of what you suggested in so many words - the white, male, connected, rich Ivy Leaguer that will undoubtedly fit right into a Goldman, ripe for the inevitably bump to head the SEC, or similarly equipped to make a run for Congress or the Presidency. This is something we as a society have discussed ad nauseam, and it’s better to take whatever incremental steps we can than sit here and go ‘gee I wonder what the real root cause of the issue here is? Is society racist?’.

Put the Asians kids into Harvard. They a historically an American scape-goat, and now somehow even in their attempts at uplifting, we found out some stupid ass explanation how it’s fucking up Harvard’s diversity, which I’m willing to bet is still mostly white.

I'm just not sure we should demand Harvard change their admissions to be based on some particular metric. Ensuring Harvard's student demographic matches the demographic of peak GPA and test scores just harms Harvard in the long run while doing nothing to improve the systemic issues in society that lead to institutions like Harvard. Harvard isn't creating business and political leaders, they just won the game of getting future leaders to come to their school. And that's the paradox of this whole thing, a Harvard that's mostly Asian isn't Harvard. Wherever the rich well-connected white males are going will just be the next Harvard. The underlying issue here is systemic and can't be solved by punishing Harvard.