Why does legacy admissions being bad justify racial preferences? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
And I tuned out. I’m not paying for the sins of our fathers.
As far as I see, the argumentation isn't particularly novel or unusual either. It's a pragmatist take, discounting methodological concerns in favour of expected outcomes.
I think that take probably summarizes a quarter of the current debate.
I guess this is an example of how little personal brand visibility HN provides next to the comments itself.
A decade sure does change a person, especially when their kids start to demand college money in lieu of merit scholarships.
What pushed me over the edge was facing these policies from the receiving end. I now routinely have to explain my “diversity” to white decision makers in a business context. And my kids—I’ve had three since I wrote that post—are being encouraged to identify as “people of color.” So they can spend the rest of their lives writing diversity essays and trying to persuade white people to pick them.
College racial preferences aren’t the only problem here, but I’m convinced that—given how influential higher education is in American society—they’re the root of the problem.
It's not surprising or idiosyncratic that an Asian's viewpoint on race has evolved as they've spent more time being exposed to America's racial hypocrisy and experienced more and more of this in-betweenness.
And now, Asians are racialized from both sides. And on the left, it’s this pernicious sort of racialization where we’re “people of color” when they’re trying to show how big their coalition is, but expected to “check our privilege” like white people and defer to the interests of black people and Latinos.
Growing up as someone who wasn’t racialized and then becoming racialized as an adult is something most people don’t experience. That is idiosyncratic, sure, but that’s the reason my view on racial preferences changed, not the reason I oppose them now.
Make whichever argument you like. I'll only object to your use of the rhetorical frame that implies surprise that someone else would disagree with you. You disagreed with you until recently, as I do now.
The argument I’m making about why a system of racial preferences is bad is the standard conservative argument against racial preferences. It reinforces the racialization society and perpetuates it to the next generation. “The only way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
But the question you asked me above was different: why my view changed. The reason for that may be idiosyncratic and non-obvious—I didn’t appreciate color blindness as a social norm until it wasn’t my reality anymore—but that’s a different issue than the first point.
It’s like if someone is a pro-taxes and regulation Democrat and then changes his view because he inherits his dad’s small business when he passes unexpectedly. The reason for the change in view might be idiosyncratic, but the reason for opposing taxes and regulation is standard.
(Again, I agree with Rayiner Classic on this point, and not with New Rayiner, but that's neither here nor there.)
>race is such a pernicious concept
>even the good white people
...
This is nonsense, in any moral framework worth its salt.
Consider a simple situation:
1. Lying is wrong.
2. Someone's running from a mob that wants to kill them. They went right.
3. The mob stops, and asks you if the person in question went right.
4. Two wrongs don't make a right, so you tell the truth. Or don't say anything, and let the mob go off in the correct direction and chase that person down.
So in arguing for two wrongs are OK, you are suggesting you'd direct the mob to the person running away (maybe they were a person you didn't like, or were of privilege you resent).
Lying is wrong! Except, according to you, when it leads to good outcomes!
It sounds like outcome-driven morality is what you're pushing for..? Then what's the problem with AA? Not using it to compensate for structural disadvantages is being in the wrong in its case...
>Then what's the problem with AA? Not using it to compensate for structural disadvantages is being in the wrong in its case...
AA fails on that criteria as well. It isn't compensating the people who were wronged and the burden falls on people didn't do the wrong. Poor asian immigrant gets kicked out so Harvard can virtue signal and put a black face on their web page and course catalog. Never mind that kid is a wealthy immigrant from Kenya.
And to make it even worse, the AA admits do worse, drop out at higher rates, and drop down to lesser majors because many aren't academically competitive. They would have done better if they were matched on merit to schools.
> Berkeley and UCLA, the most selective public universities in the state, saw a declines in Black and Hispanic enrollment of about 40% immediately the year after the Proposition was implemented. There was no net change in black and Hispanic enrollment at less selective California universities because while some black and Hispanic students lost access to those schools because affirmative action ended, they also gained Black and Hispanic students from more selective schools like Berkeley and UCLA that those students could no longer get into.
> seems like these very selective public universities in California just provided greater value to relatively disadvantaged Black and Hispanic students who came from lower-income neighborhoods, had poorer job networks, relatively less access to otherwise successful peers, and who were thus able to better take advantage of the resources provided by these super selective universities than the white and Asian students who took their places.
Moreover, we can examine the data directly at Berkeley and realize that the only demographic that has “plummeted” long term is whites. Immediate enrollment percentages may have dropped for black and Latino students but it has recovered and it seems like Berkeley has been able to somehow return to their previous highly consistent proportion of Latino and black students. UCLA is the same.
It’s almost uncanny how the racial percentages at top schools stay so consistent over the years.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-...
Pick literally any other action that you think is always wrong. I'll give you a counterexample where failing to do it is wrong.
"Two wrongs don't make a right" is the 5-year old-level morality platitude that you should be turning your ire against. Because, as you're demonstrating, "Wrong" is entirely contextual. A 'wrong' that mitigates another wrong can make a right.