See above: I did not concede the point because it is not valid.
There IS an asshole in here, but it’s not Bricker this time.
I have no problem with you calling me an asshole. I know that you don’t know me as I don’t know you.
Please though, parse the quote in my cite and tell me, an asshole who doesn’t seem to understand English very well, exactly what it means.
There’s conceding where you don sackcloth and surrender completely.
Then there’s conceding where you say, “We’re not going to agree on this, but that’s fine since this isn’t really important anyway. Care to read the other stuff I wrote?”
If you think you can’t give a little when arguing with people, then you’re going to be spending more time in the Pit than in GD. Just saying…
It’s in post #58. Thanks.
Thanks for your input and qualiified support. I appreciate it. I won’t be either place after Jul3, but thanks again.
It says that, but it doesn’t demonstrate that. To demonstrate it, you need a cite showing that, apart from the AA program, Thomas would not have been admitted to Holy Cross or Yale - that his grades were lower than average, but they overlooked this in their haste to admit a black, or something similar. Got one?
Incidentally, Thomas was accepted not only by Yale, but by Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, which is going to make it harder to argue that he only got into Yale because of AA.
But that is one of the problems with affirmative action. Even those who get what they get because they met all the qualifications have doubt cast on their achievements. Because there is always someone who will say that they only got there because they were black.
In witness whereof, we have oyez.com.
Regards,
Shodan
That doesn’t make any sense. Both Harvard and UPenn had affirmative action programs in 1971, and both were less competitive than Yale. His acceptance to those schools proves nothing.
So is Yale normally in the practice of turning down someone who managed to graduate Holy Cross 9th in his class?
If not, I think we can safely say that CT would probably have been accepted regardless. Non?
Oh, and dennis I think part of your problem may be some confusion over the definition of the word “cite”. Around here, it is not defined as “I found a web site that agrees with my opinion.” Your cite to oyez fails the basic test that it is not a primary site, but an opinion article. Citing an opinion article to back up an opinion is circular. For all we know, you’re the author of the oyez article.
While we’re on this subject, doesn’t the fact that Thomas is Catholic make it more likely that he would have gone to Holy Cross with or without the outreach program?
It says it, yes. But it doesn’t PROVE it. The sentence I left behind above from oyez.com is all the support for the claim that he benefitted from AA, and that’s simply not enough. It’s the writer imposing his own guess on the evidence at hand.
Oh, you say, but if Thomas came in after they started the recruitment program, he MUST have done so because of AA. What other explanation is there?
Both threads have given you perfectly reasonable explanations, PLUS the question of whether a “recruitment program” really counts as AA at all. It depends on what the nature of the “program” was; was it lightening of admissions standards? Advertising/outreach in predominantly black areas? Taking a closer look at black applicants than they did before? We don’t know, that’s the whole point. That’s what the folks in this thread have been trying to tell you.
Yes, of course. Even in the 1970’s, academic success was no guarantee of admission to Yale Law School.
More importantly, not knowing Thomas’ LSAT score means we don’t even know whether he was a good candidate by the numbers…
Yeah, but academic non-success is a sure-fire reason to not get accepted. All I’m saying is that there is prima facie evidence that his acceptance into these schools was justified by his performance. Now, as he himself has stated, the additional financial assistance offered, because of his race, went a long way toward ensuring that he was actually able to afford to attend these prestigious schools.
None of which has anything to do with the fact that dennis’ cite doesn’t prove what he thinks it proves and therefore his pitting of bricker is bullshit.
Just curious - why do you say that they were less competitive than Yale?
No, rvidence of a good academic performance at a moderately well-regarded undergraduate school is not prima facie evidence that he was qualified.
Even a high GPA and high LSAT do not mean he would have gotten into YLS without affirmative action. Therefore, we cannot even begin to assume, much less prove, that he would have been accepted without affirmative action.
Since it is clear that it cannot be proved either way, we can either stoically withhold any thought about the subject, or make an assumption one way or the other. I think the safer bet is that he did benefit from affirmative action, if only as a tipping point for an already qualified candidate (since, as I said before, even academically well-qualified candidates need something extra).
Fine.
Because Yale was generally regarded as a better school at the time and had a smaller class. Hence, more competitive admissions.
OK, I will tell you that this cite does not say that he benefitted from AA at Holy Cross.
Does that help?
As I have already noted, this is an example of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, the mistaken conclusion that because one event preceded another event, the first event caused the second event.
We do have a link to to a statement by Thomas indicating that he was, indeed, the beneficiary of AA. This quote does not provide the same evidence. This quote says only that his admission occurred later in time than the AA policy was established. Note that the quoted sentence, while implying a cause and effect, does not actually make an explicit claim. It is fine for you to infer (probably correctly) that AA figured in the decision that brought Thoams to Holy Cross. However, if you are arguing a point, this statement does not make it for you (whereas Thomas’s other autobiographical statement does).
That is the objection other posters are raising to your claim.
“As a young student, Peter Jankowski entered the College of the Holy Cross, a Jesuit institution in Massachusetts, after the school began a black recruitment program.”
The preceding statement is exactly as accurate as the sentence you quoted. Does it indicate that Jankowski got in through AA?
Well it might if the reason he was going to college and not remaining in the seminary was the racism he encountered at the seminary which was sufficient to cause him to change his mind about becoming a priest. Had there been some other reason why he left I might agree. Thus, his extant distaste for things catholic make it unlikely that he applied there without being recruited to go.
Eh. Sorry. That “honor” came with the law degree.
I’m just not sure why a literalist would ever use a metaphor. If Bricker can use “up against the wall” in a figurative sense, why does he not allow that the framers of the Constitution might have done the same from time to time?
We of the SDMB People’s Revolutionary Front (Trotskyist) have no plans regarding the mass execution of lawyers. In the impending worker’s paradise, no laws can be broken, as none exist. You will find lawyers by major highway intersections in ragged three piece suits, holding up crudely lettered signs announcing “Will Lie For Food”.
I know this was a joke. But, surely **Bricker **does not call himself a literalist, does he?