And you think this is for a lack of trying? There are only so many levers they can pull without violating the constitution.
You could replace black with poor and get similar results.
What does restorative justice have to do with preferences for hispanics?
It’s entirely possible for the Supreme Court to get it wrong, but they have upheld affirmative action, so if you really think it doesn’t pass constitutional muster the onus would be on you to demonstrate that
EDIT: Sorry misread this comment. No as Republicans have repeatedly shown, it is entirely possible to oppress racial groups, including denying them constitutional rights, if you have enough support to do so.
This is true, but this fact has nothing to do with affirmative action. I’m not actually aware of any Democratic policy that leads to this so I have no idea why you would pin it on the dems.
The fact that there is still an educational achievement gap between hispanics and whites.
The party does this? That’s ridiculous. Sounds like Limbaugh and Hannity.
I’m not sure why you think black professionals would be more Republican than white professionals. “Taxes” aren’t everything. Maybe I’m in a liberal bubble over here by Seattle, but all the doctors, lawyers, scientists I know vote Democratic. (I don’t know any small business owners, athletes, journalists or bloggers well enough to know how they vote) Sure, people like me would rather pay less in taxes, but even if we had sane Republicans in office, I don’t see how they’d get my vote.
And how do you account for the fact that black people are more likely to be poor than white people? Assuming you don’t want to use racism as an explanation?
There are many forms of affirmative action that are in fact unconstitutional. The ones that would most reliably achieve racial balance tend to be unconstitutional. See quotas.
Can you give me a contemporary example of this?
I am saying that. I’m saying that your cite may be meaningless. Much of what you may perceive as racial disparity might actually be class disparity.
What are you restoring for Hispanics? Perhaps we have different ideas of what restorative justice means. Restorative justice as I understand it has nothing to do with gaps in achievement or disparities in income/wealth. It requires some past harm that the restorative justice is trying to reverse.
Did you miss the next sentence?
"It places diversity ahead of merit and in the case of colleges and universities, this frequently means preferences for middle class and wealthy black and hispanic kids over poor kids of any other race. "
What does that have to do with the merit vs racial preference question that we are discussing?
Are you saying that Democrats do NOT sacrifice merit for racial diversity?
If you want to discuss why black people are more likely to be poor, I suppose you could look at
legacy of slavery and segregation
but also
rates of teenage pregnancy
single parent households
hours spent reading
Hispanics don’t have a legacy of slavery.
What rationale for their racial preferences?
Diversity over merit.
That’s not something the party does. You have a beef with the particular form of AA utilized by many universities. That’s not a Democratic party policy.
And I think those universities’ policies are pretty unfair. And like most things, they’re generally unfair in a way that benefits rich white folks - legacies, kids of donors, and so forth.
I haven’t heard anyone advocating sacrifing merit for racial diversity in the Democratic Party. There’s no need to sacrifice merit for racial diversity. Sometimes racial preference simply means expanding the pool you’re searching in. Our law firm, for example, was pretty white and male. We decided that wasn’t good for us, our clients, or society in general. We started looking for non-white candidates for our next associate. The one we found was quickly viewed as our most valuable new hire since our founding 40 years ago. I’m sure there were plenty of qualified white guys who could have done the job, but the guy we found has the skills, intellect and personality to be a superstar in a few years. We wouldn’t have found him without affirmatively seeking a minority candidate. And I don’t think he expected to land at our firm like ours.
As for colleges and universities, I don’t see any unfairness in trying to achieve a diverse student body (and faculty) If a school has 100 spots available and 300 qualified applicants, I don’t care if they pick and choose in that group of 300 to achieve diversity. That’s not sacrificing merit. All 300 are qualified, although some will have higher test scores, other higher GPA, and still others have interesting extra-curricular accomplishments. The idea that there is an objective and fair way to rank the group of 300 in merit-based order is a myth.
Voter ID laws, gerrymandering and white supremacy are not Republican party policies but that’s what they do.
How many non-Asian Democrats object to discrimination against Asians in the admissions process?
They also benefit blacks and hispanics.
The effects of legacy preferences and athletic preferences seem relatively small compared to racial preferences:
So in light of that, do you still think these preferences are mostly just benefitting rich white folks?
Poor white kids get screwed by this too.
They don’t explicitly say they want to sacrifice merit for diversity but that’s the intent and effect of their positions. See the push to eliminate the SHSAT from the admissions process at NYC’s specialized high schools.
Sure. I don’t disagree with using race as a tie-breaker. That’s not how affirmative action is implemented in most situations today.
When you set the bar for “qualified” low enough to achieve diversity, you are sacrificing merit for diversity. Are you going to argue that this is not what is going on?
Yes. (Well, I don’t intend to actually argue it. I’ll just say it. That’s not what’s going on. The bar is not being set low.)
I think your central assumption is wrong.
Your argument is based on the premise that when a company has a policy of hiring only white people it’s because of merit. But why assume white people are better employees than non-white people?
You could just as easily argue that a policy of hiring only white people is a racist policy. And that a company that switches to strictly merit hiring will end up hiring people from different ethnic backgrounds because merit appears in all ethnic groups.
Why do you define hiring black people as a racial preference but you don’t define hiring white people as a racial preference? And why do you define hiring white people as merit hiring rather than racial preference hiring?
Sure, go ahead and throw all these things in. But now ask yourself why these disparities exist.
Is there something inherently in black people that causes them to be poor? To be less educated? To have higher rates of unemployment? To have higher arrest rates? Are these things all caused by some black gene?
Or are these things being done to black people? And if society is placing disadvantages on black people that it’s not placing on white people and is denying advantages to black people that are not denied to white people, isn’t that the definition of racism? If so, then shouldn’t society be trying to make changes in order to stop this racism?
I suspect the vast majority of Democrats who believe that these admissions policies discriminate against Asians object to them. I suspect most Democrats haven’t heard your arguments.
Perhaps, but only a relative few, at best.
I think the overall system mostly benefits rich white folks (this study didn’t appear to look at wealth at all). These particular preferences appear to me to be poorly designed and partially unfair in a way that probably harms everyone except a very select few, most of whom are probably wealthy and white.
So the most competitive colleges in the country accept black applicants whose test scores are on average over 2 standard deviations lower than asian applicants, you dont think they are compromising standards for the sake of diversity?
Why did the graduation rate and rate of graduating with honor go from troublingly low and embarrassingly low to average when they got rid of racial preferences in California public colleges? Were those black and hispanic kids with lower graduation rates and much lower rate of graduating with honors at UCLA really just as qualified as other students?
Wait. Where do I say anything like that? I think that would be pretty racist and not merit based.
I agree with this statement. Why do you think I do not?
This does not resemble anything I said.
I dont know. They didnt exist 75 years ago, at least not to this extent. The conservatives blame it on the welfare state and a deterioration of culture and community standards. Liberals blame it on over incarceration, the war on drugs, and maybe toxic masculinity.
Ask yourself if you will accept any answer that lays any of the responsibility for the state of black america at the feet of liberals or black America.
I suspect its cultural.
Let’s put blacks to the side for a moment. Do you think hispanics deserve the same consideration? How about asians?
That’s the problem, too many Democrats dont consider this to be discriminatory because its happening to asians. A junior partner in civil rights. Some Democrats would like them to be silent partners.
They tune out as soon as you question Democratic orthodoxy on AA.
That is pretty clearly contradicted by the link.
How does a preference for blacks and hispanics help rich whites?
You put stuff like this out and not back it up.