# Affirmative action in the Supreme Court again **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 24, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792 "2012-02-24T02:14:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/81 "2012-02-27T19:28:17Z")
Also (had to look up your post through Google), the article you’re linking to is just describing why race is oftentimes a useful proxy. It’s not a perfect proxy, but it’s a good variable for assessing context, like everything else in the application. Without it, you risk homogeneity, which is exactly what diversity-based admissions tries to fight back against. You get socioeconomic gap growth otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/82 "2012-02-27T19:42:57Z")
> [@curioushat](#): > > Affirmative Action sounds nice in practice, but if we are going to eliminate discrimination on the basis of race, then let’s do it. > > So 40 years ago there was the civil rights legislation that was supposed to remove racial discrimination between different races. However, instead of reverse discrimination, the civil rights legislation was based on the principle of equality. > > That is, both blacks and whites are allowed in my restaurant, NOT that I need to keep a tally of how many blacks and how many whites are in my restaurant, and now entice more blacks (or whites) off the street with a coupon to make my numbers look better. > > Reverse discrimination is discrimination, if a particular race is doing better or worse than another the answer is not always just 'racism 😛 😛 ’ Entering a restaurant is a much different scenario than entering college. You can’t just walk in the door; you have to achieve things and pass the test of scrutiny before you are admitted. It’s not really “equal” unless you give everyone, relatively speaking, a comparable chance of admission. People like to cry out against this stuff because “I don’t want my seat taken by someone who was admitted just because they were black – it’s not my fault for being white.” Being black, you could _just as easily say_ “I don’t want my seat taken by someone who was born into a privileged environment whose ancestors weren’t beaten to a pulp and held back for centuries in terms of education – it’s not my fault for being black.” Is it fair to give someone an advantage because they happened to have been born black? Well, is it fair that you have had advantages just because you happened to have been born white? It swings both ways. I think society benefits much more from diversified synergy instead of putting metrics in place that certain groups will have a harder time achieving with “objective” coachable metrics like the SAT, which is biased towards those with wealth. I’m all for things like diversity/holistic admissions and see little wrong with it morally, especially considering that blacks don’t make up a significant percentage of the study body _anyway_ even with diversity-based admissions. People are really going to get bent out of shape over a few extra percentage points? Besides, race is only _one_ component of _many_ involved in admissions decisions. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/83 "2012-02-27T20:05:12Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Who determines the qualifications in this society? > > The upper echelon. People who are virtually raised from birth to winnow the wheat from the chaff. > > Who belongs in the upper echelon in American society? > > Who has always been in the upper echelon? > > I do not need to answer those last two questions. > > These folks have defined the criteria that are used to determine whether an individual is “qualified.” It is not by coincidence that their children always manage to meet the bar. If they didn’t, then they wouldn’t be able to inherit the throne. But it becomes an arms race because folks on the lower rungs eventually become hip to the game–the upper echelon does not want to share its place. So with each generation, the standards become harder to attain. The “qualifications” become more abstract. You need a divining rod to figure them out. > > All of this is just to point out that the very concept of “qualified” is a construct. SAT scores are correlated with socioeconomic status, which is correlated with parental educational attainment, which is correlated with grandparents’ committment to education as a pathway to success, and their ambition and optimism about their place in society. In other words, an SAT score is an indicator of an individual’s relative position to the upper echelon, and it is so by design. An individual’s SAT score has more to do with factors beyond their control than within their control. > > Affirmative Action, for all its flaws, is a way to counteract the tendency of the “cream of the crop” to always be the product of people who were raised to be the “cream of the crop”, so that only their children will be the “cream of the crop”, while everyone else is beaten over the head for being so very lazy and stupid. It is a way to challenge the idea that “qualification” is something that can be numerically quantified or that is objectively meaningful. > > … > > We have both systems of unfairness in place. If you want to undo one, you’ve got to undo the other. Amen ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/84 "2012-02-27T21:34:34Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The real rationale for Affirmative Action is not something speculation. An admissions officer for Amherst admitted to this in[the New York Times](http://http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/education/colleges-worry-supreme-court-could-make-diversity-more-elusive.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=affirmative%20action%20amherst&st=cse) That quotation doesn’t do anything to back up what you said the real rationale is. It directly contradicts it. You said the interest of diversity was made up because schools would lose prestige if they had not enough blacks and too many Asians. The admissions officer says that students themselves are interested in diversity qua diversity. [QUOTE=Chen019] > [@](#): > > “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” A sensible comment which will hopefully also apply in this case. [/QUOTE] It really isn’t. It’s like saying the way to stop the pollution in the Gulf is to stop polluting the Gulf, and then acting like you’ve solved any actual real-world problem. It’s useless in the abstract and offensive in context. He completely misrepresents the goal of race-conscious policies in the first place - they aren’t trying to stop discrimination on the basis of race, at least not in the super-general way he means it. They (the school districts in that case) are trying to fix the problems associated with particular discrimination on the basis of race, and pretending that there are exactly the same problems with actively including minorities as there were, historically, with actively excluding them is ridiculous. The way to stop discriminating is to stop discriminating, sure. That’s not the antidote to the poisonous society that discrimination has already created, though. In the long view, our suddenly deciding that it’s time to be race-blind will ensure that any social inequality that has its roots in segregation, Jim Crow, white flight, sundown towns, and so on, will become permanent. So either that inequality doesn’t exist or at some point it became OK that it exists. It existed at some point, right? Then what happened? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/85 "2012-02-28T10:52:46Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > I wasn’t aware that the government requires universities and colleges to report race statistics. In regards to your anecdote, why didn’t your office separate the demographic data from the application? For example, send the demographic data to another office while the admissions committee examines applicants without regard to race. What reason is there to couple an applicant to their racial designation? In my opinion, there’s an elegant way to solve the problem but it’s more convenient to blame racial preferences than ensure college admission procedures are indeed race-neutral. I don’t know about about universities but your idea is already in place in the UK for hiring purposes. Job applicants fill out a separate EOE (equal opportunity employment) form which they submit with their application. The Human Resources department keeps the EOE form and forwards the rest of the application to the selection committees. That way they can track demographic data (not just race but gender, etnicity and disability status IIRC) without it being apart of the selection process. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I suspect the admissions committee might figure out that Steve is black when he shows up for his interview. Anyway, who is supposed to ensure that the demographic data is being sent to another office and not to the admissions committee, or even being shared with certain committee members by people in the other office, and so on? Well, nothing’s perfect and it’s always possible that the HR department will do the discrimination. Of course, the EOE process would also shine a large spotlight on them should discrimination be deemed to have happened, so it keeps them moderately honest. > [@Chen019](#): > > A sensible comment which will hopefully also apply in this case. I will remember you said this the next time you link to one of your little studies showing why we should discriminate by race. ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/86 "2012-02-28T13:45:11Z")
It’s no secret that admissions officers use race as one of the many variables involved in admissions decisions. This is different, however, from discriminating against any one particular race, and there’s no proof that the latter is happening right now. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/87 "2012-02-28T15:02:20Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > White people benefited from institutional racism before. White people continue to benefit from institutional racism. One of the problematic things about institutional racism is that even if you could stamp it out in a generation, you cannot (by definition) stamp out its effects in one. > > > > To think otherwise is naive. > > I agree that there are lingering effects of institutional racism. I think it is horrific to attempt to correct these effects by more institutional racism. > > What is striking is the attempt to justify it by saying that these are “good” preferences because the goal is diversity. While true, bigots of 50 years ago also thought their preferences were “good” to achieve the goal of white supremacy. > > Let’s end it all now. There is not ever a good reason to use race as any part of any factor for anything. Ever. Sorry, I didn’t respond to this post before because I missed it. The problem with drawing an equivalence between white supremacy and diversity is that the two goals are _not_ equivalent. In any event, the primary purpose of government mandated affirmative action is _not_ diversity for its own sake; it’s to equalize opportunity. In any event, we as a society have decided that equal opportunity and diversity are laudable goals. Even during Jim Crow a majority of the national population wouldn’t have said that maintaining white supremacy is a laudable goal; indeed, it was an express contradiction of constitutional guarantees. > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > As soon as Jews were allowed to compete with Gentiles they tended to outperform them, even while hostility against Jews persisted. > > People who dislike Jews generally resent them _because_ they tend to perform well intellectually. > > As soon as blacks were allowed to compete with whites athletically they also tended to outperform the whites. > > You can see where I am going with this argument, but I think I better stop before I receive another infraction, am suspended for a month like I was previously, or get banned. :eek: I have absolutely no idea where you are going with that argument. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/88 "2012-02-28T15:07:10Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > In any event, the primary purpose of government mandated affirmative action is _not_ diversity for its own sake; it’s to equalize opportunity. Maybe that is the stated goal. But it is not uncommon for people, when discussing why we need more affirmative action, to use as evidence inequality of outcomes. I know of no particular reason why race would be particularly significant here, but that doesn’t make them the same measure. So how do we ensure equality of opportunity, if there—for some reason—_isn’t_ equality of outcome? Is affirmative action here to stay forever? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/89 "2012-02-28T15:14:09Z")
I posted this on the first page: > [@](#): > > If the general thrust of your question is that affirmative action must have an endpoint, I absolutely agree. At some point, either past and continuing inequity have been corrected, or any further effort is futile. However, demarcating that point is for the legislatures. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/90 "2012-02-28T15:28:43Z")
> [@FixMyIgnorance](#): > > It’s no secret that admissions officers use race as one of the many variables involved in admissions decisions. This is different, however, from discriminating against any one particular race, and there’s no proof that the latter is happening right now. This is incoherent, if you take race into consideration then you are discriminating by race. It is not like they have too many black people one year so they get discriminated against that year and the next year there are too many hispanics so they get discriminated against. Every year taking race into account means that asian students get discriminated against and black and hispanic students get a preference. > [@](#): > > In any event, the primary purpose of government mandated affirmative action is not diversity for its own sake; it’s to equalize opportunity. > > In any event, we as a society have decided that equal opportunity and diversity are laudable goals. In any event diversity is the only legal rationale for Affirmative Action and as discussed before equal opportunity does not mean that certain races get discriminated against, equal opportunity means that all races get the same opportunity to be admitted. Affirmative Action is the exact opposite of equal opportunity, it means that favored races get an opportunity that non favored races do not. In any event, I do not remember voting for whether diversity is a laudable goal. In fact whenever Affirmative Action is put up before voters it is usually voted against. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/91 "2012-02-28T15:39:45Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Affirmative Action is the exact opposite of equal opportunity, it means that favored races get an opportunity that non favored races do not. Except that the people you’re calling “non favored”–i.e. white males–are the beneficiaries of centuries of privilege and opportunity. Attempting to paint those with an overwhelming societal advantage as victims is disingenuous. ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/92 "2012-02-28T15:52:28Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This is incoherent, if you take race into consideration then you are discriminating by race. It is not like they have too many black people one year so they get discriminated against that year and the next year there are too many hispanics so they get discriminated against. Every year taking race into account means that asian students get discriminated against and black and hispanic students get a preference. > > In any event diversity is the only legal rationale for Affirmative Action and as discussed before equal opportunity does not mean that certain races get discriminated against, equal opportunity means that all races get the same opportunity to be admitted. Affirmative Action is the exact opposite of equal opportunity, it means that favored races get an opportunity that non favored races do not. > In any event, I do not remember voting for whether diversity is a laudable goal. In fact whenever Affirmative Action is put up before voters it is usually voted against. Yes, they are discriminating by race. Again, no secret. The difference is that it’s not _anti-insert\_race\_here_ discrimination. It may very well be the case that Asians wind up receiving the larger burden in terms of holistic admissions due to homogeneous trends being selected against for the sake of diversity, but this isn’t anti-Asian discrimination in itself. It sounds subtle, but it’s a vastly important point that completely changes things. If you have too many of _ANY_ one particular group, that will be a trend that’s selected against. For instance, if you had a huge influx of white violin players, that would be a trend that’s selected against because they don’t want the class to be homogenous. And yes you have to take into account that “favored races” are races that have been at historical disadvantages – usually unfairly so. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/93 "2012-02-28T17:06:24Z")
Affirmative Action discriminates against asians because they are asian but it is not anti-asian discrimination? That is very subtle, if by subtle you mean obviously bs. According to the Supreme Court affirmative action will no longer be necessary in 16 years. At that point Asians will have been historically disadvanted by offical government policy for over 4 decades. At that point should we start discriminating against black people and hispanics and for Asians to make up for historical disadvantages? After a couple of decades of that, we could flip the favored races again and start discriminating against asians again. We could keep alternating which race gets to be favored so any kids that is discriminated against can take comfort in knowing that in a few years kids in the favored race will get to experience discrimination first hand. Or we could start judging kids by the content of their character and not by the color of their skins. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/94 "2012-02-28T17:23:25Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > At that point Asians will have been historically disadvanted by offical government policy for over 4 decades. At that point should we start discriminating against black people and hispanics and for Asians to make up for historical disadvantages? [Blazing Saddles] “But no Irish!” [/Blazing Saddles] ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/95 "2012-02-28T18:09:18Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Affirmative Action discriminates against asians because they are asian but it is not anti-asian discrimination? That is very subtle, if by subtle you mean obviously bs. > According to the Supreme Court affirmative action will no longer be necessary in 16 years. At that point Asians will have been historically disadvanted by offical government policy for over 4 decades. At that point should we start discriminating against black people and hispanics and for Asians to make up for historical disadvantages? After a couple of decades of that, we could flip the favored races again and start discriminating against asians again. We could keep alternating which race gets to be favored so any kids that is discriminated against can take comfort in knowing that in a few years kids in the favored race will get to experience discrimination first hand. Or we could start judging kids by the content of their character and not by the color of their skins. Simply judging people by the “content of their character” is not what college admissions is about. Yes, the process is holistic, but simply being a great guy won’t get you in. You need stellar academic stats and that’s going to be much harder to do if you come from a demographic that has been disadvantaged in some way. Again, you can’t simply stop discriminating and naively claim “Look, we’re not discriminating anymore! We’re all equal!” The _damage has already been done_ and you have to compensate for that. That’s like saying “We should make everything SAT-oriented only and not discriminate people by their wealth or background!” You’re going to end up with a class of rich kids because your “blind” metrics are heavily biased towards people of a certain background. You have to branch out if you’re going to avoid homogeneity, which is exactly what the admissions officers _in your own cite_ were saying. Some data: When Berkeley changed policies, it didn’t result in a massive influx of Asians even though it was centered in a densely-populated Asian region with favorable in-state financial packages. It was a couple percentage points, and at the expense of slaughtering diversity: > **[WestFaulconFromRacePreferences.pdf](https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/WestFaulconFromRacePreferences.pdf)** > > 206.02 KB > [@](#): > > Not surprisingly, the lower admission rates for underrepresented minorities that followed Proposition 209 did have a significant impact on the racial diversity of UC Berkeley and UCLA undergraduate student enrollment. 16 _In the year before the implementation of the anti-preference policy, student enrollment at UC Berkeley was 38% Asian, 28% White, 15%Latino and 8% Black. After the elimination of race-conscious admissions policies, significant decreases in African-American and Latino enrollment, a small increase in Asian enrollment and no change in White enrollment combined to result in less racial diversity in enrollment (40% Asian, 28% White, 8% Latino and 4% Black)._\* From 1995 to 1998, UCLA’s racial diversity also decreased substantially from 36%\* Asian, 26% White, 22% Latino and 7% Black to 36% Asian, 30% White, 11% Latino and 11% Black. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/96 "2012-02-28T19:01:25Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Affirmative Action discriminates against asians because they are asian but it is not anti-asian discrimination? That is very subtle, if by subtle you mean obviously bs. Why is this so hard for people like you to understand? It’s like saying someone who promotes eating broccoli is against fast food. Yes, eating more broccoli might lead to people eating less fast food, but it doesn’t make you anti fast food, or anti carrot, or anti anything else. Nobody is saying don’t admit Asian students. In fact, they are admitted at a fairly high rate. If there were real anti-Asian sentiment at universities, they would be admitted far fewer of them. Furthermore, if colleges dropped AA, and really wanted to do admissions solely based on quantitative metrics that tend to correlate with success in adulthood, their process would more closely resemble how car insurance rates and airline prices are set. Do you really want something like that? Where the correlation between being tall, good-looking, living in a city, or having rich parents, and success, means you are more likely to get admitted to college? Lastly, all of the uproar about AA really misses the point that, as a society, we often make rules and laws to achieve a certain outcome, not in the interest of some superficial ideal. If you agree diversity in general is a good thing, then policies like AA are understandable. We have sin taxes to discourage certain behavior, we have zoning laws to achieve certain aims, and we have laws against owning certain firearms because we want to ensure a minimum level of safety for society. It’s perfectly understandable why many have decided to implement AA after working backwards from the conclusion that diversity is good. > [@puddleglum](#): > > According to the Supreme Court affirmative action will no longer be necessary in 16 years. That was just speculation. Not some grand pronouncement or a real [prediction](http://chronicle.com/article/Sandra-Day-OConnor-Revisit/63523/). > [@](#): > > Justice O’Connor argues that the majority opinion she wrote in the 2003 affirmative-action case **should not be seen as imposing a deadline on the use of race-conscious policies or as relieving the need for more research showing such policies have educational benefits.** > > “When the time comes to reassess the constitutionality of considering race in higher-education admissions,” the essay says, “we will need social scientists to clearly demonstrate the educational benefits of diverse student bodies, and to better understand the links between role models in one generation and aspirations and achievements of succeeding generations.” > [@puddleglum](#): > > At that point Asians will have been historically disadvanted by offical government policy for over 4 decades. Wrong. Even if you are going to make the argument that Asians are discriminated against in college admissions, the testing score disparities have not existed for anywhere near that long, nor have colleges focused on test scores in the way they sometimes do now. Moreover, your framing of AA as just a race issue really just highlights how little study you have done on the matter. If you are really gonna try to claw back all the gains made as a result of AA policies, you should look first towards White women, the [primary](http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2008/09/ironically-resent-affirmative-action.html) [beneficiaries](http://www.theroot.com/views/real-affirmative-action-babies). It just shows you are more interested in making this about political theater and race baiting than you are interested in addressing any real “fairness” issues. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Or we could start judging kids by the content of their character and not by the color of their skins. If WE did that, we wouldn’t need AA. You keep acting as though race is only a factor at the colleges. If parents, realtors, employers, etc would judge people by the content of their character, colleges wouldn’t feel the need to do it. It’s only because people don’t do that that college have stepped up to the task. Just as they have taken on the role of providing a means for upward social and economic mobility, helping students gain employment contacts, training professional athletes, doing the vast majority of primary research in the arts and sciences, etc. The job of utilizing AA policies to promote diversity has largely fallen to them, as have those other things, because society’s inaction in spite of being desirous for the benefits that accrue as a result. And as an aside, it’s doubly ironic that it’s mostly conservatives, who usually hate it when the government tells private entities what to do, who feel it’s the government’s responsibility to tell colleges how their admissions processes should work. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/97 "2012-02-29T01:05:59Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Ah, good old “institutional racism.” Tell me, how do you determine whether IR exists in general or in any particular institution? How do you determine whether any particular person has been harmed pr benefitted by IR? > > It seems tl me that IR is said to exist simply because there are outcome disparities among people of different races and some people can’t accept that without saying that some form of racism must be the cause. Do you believe that 400 years of slavery followed by 100 years of segregation can have lasting effects on the descendants of those slaves? Do you think having more women in law firms makes it easier for women to advance their careers at law firms? Do you think having more Jews or Asians at law firms makes it more likely that Jews and Asians can succeed at law firms? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/98 "2012-02-29T01:09:46Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Except that’s clearly not true. If SAT scores are correlated with parental income, and income is correlated with college attendance, then past discrimination against black parents will inevitably result in lower college admissions rates for their kids. You should talk to Fix My Ignorance about correlation versus causation. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/99 "2012-02-29T01:12:29Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > I didn’t say anything about the bottom 10% of students being admitted to anything. I question the usefullness of affirmative action laws that target students that have already shown themselves to be exceptional. Except that the top 10% at some schools score well below the average accepted score on the SATs. IOW they would not get into the stat schools without the top 10% rule. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792/100 "2012-02-29T01:15:30Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I suspect the admissions committee might figure out that Steve is black when he shows up for his interview. Anyway, who is supposed to ensure that the demographic data is being sent to another office and not to the admissions committee, or even being shared with certain committee members by people in the other office, and so on? You should talk to some people about having conspiracy theories about admissions committees. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-in-the-supreme-court-again/613792.md?page=6)