> Fix racism in academia, fix the study gap, it's that simple.
If this were the case, the study gap would have disappeared decades ago. But it persists nonetheless. On second thought, you're probably right but not in the way you think: racial discrimination creates a lowered expectations for underrepresented groups and they put in effort accordingly.
> Affirmative action does not exacerbate underrepresentation in employment sectors at all; if anything it improves representation, as more minority students are given a chance at completing college, which changes the makeup of eligible employees towards a more equitable mixture.
Did you read the paper I linked? Probably not given that you responded 6 minutes after I posted the comment. Racial discrimination does increase representation, but it shifts the concentration of affected groups out of STEM and into less demanding majors. Before you try to blame this on racism inside the university, understand that the likelihood for students to graduate in STEM is the same across all races for the same level of academic preparedness. An Asian, white, Black, etc. student with 700s on their SAT are equally likely to graduate in STEM, as are students with 600s and 500s. An Asian student and a Black student with 700s on their SAT are just as likely to graduate in STEM. A white and Black student with 500s are less likely to graduate than the former two, but equally likely relative to each other. But due to affirmative action, there's a considerably greater share of black students in the latter situation. Worse yet, since these students often try and fail to graduate in their preferred field they take longer to graduate and come away with more student debt.
> You are wrong, and harmfully so. You can continue to be wrong, but as long as you are, you also continue to be harmful.
And I would say the exact same thing to you. You're wrong and harmfully so. The soft bigotry of low expectations is more subtle, but more insidious. Instead of pushing underrepresented students to invest more time into a academics and compete with their peers as equals, you're advocating that we simply lower standards. You can continue to be wrong, but as long as you are, you also continue to be harmful.