I probably should explain this metaphor a little bit better. When I talk about equalizing and input I am doing so interms of a physical system like a pendulum. If you imagine a pendulum hanging and someone comes along and takes a big swing with a hammer and whacks it. Its going to go flying off to the side and will eventually come back to equilibrium. If you think of the income distribution being the pendulum and the rest state of the pendulum being a equal income distribution in terms of race. Slavery and racism are the big hammer that knocked the system out of whack. Eventually, like the pendulum, the system will be restored by natural forces to equilibrium.
Why is it automatically the case that the best way to pick students to admit is simply by their abilities? Is the goal of a university to admit students such that the standard of intellectual and academic excellence in this particular graduating class is as high as possible, or is it to encourage the flowering of intellect in society as a whole?
I’m not necessarily saying I have a good answer to this question, I’m just saying that it’s not automatically prima facie true that the way universities should work is just to come up with as objective a measure of individual student excellence as possible, then sort all the applicants, then accept the first N students on that list.
Siddhartha Gautama.
I’m not sure I need to be in this thread, you seem to be able to invent arguments and ascribe them to me quite easily without me taking the time to post.
Why? Why is it shameful?
Is it shameful that many professional sports are unrepresentative of society? Or how about that the percentage of female teachers vs than male teachers? How about that more waitresses and secretaries are, in general, female than male? Why are the sciences the holy grail?
Again, I couldn’t care less if every facet of the worksphere is statistically representative of the overall population. Show me qualified black candidates being rejected from science programs becasue they’re black and I’ll be up in arms right next to you. Otherwise, I really don’t see a problem. At least, not one to be solved the way SIU went about it.
Perhaps I missed it, but what actual hard numbers did your cite, erm, cite? I saw very few actual figures, and very many unsubstantiated claims. Having participated in and analyzed a good bit of educational research, I know enough to spot that your author’s methodology is, at best, suspect.
Your cite even states that racism is not the entirety of the problem.
Besides, I have trouble believing that blacks are truly all struggling once they find careers in the sciences.
I’d much rather have hard data rather than your author’s opinion.
Erunh?
Being doctors and lawyers won’t help, but being scientists will?
I agree that having more educated people within a population will in general help that ‘group’, I’m all for education. But if they want to be zooligists instead of mathamaticians, or architects instead of theatre majors, or English majors instead of physics majors, I really can’t get all that upset.
Again, show me instances of qualified black candidates being discriminated against and I’ll join you in whatever protest you’d like to make.
Again, maybe I should leave and you should just pretend I said things so you can have easy arguments to pick apart?
Egggggzactly.
As the program’s web site explains, the entire point is to specifically target an underrepresented group and entice them with a financial incentive.
What ought to be clear is that poverty as a criterion isn’t cutting it, as that’s built into the system of financial aid anyway. If economics is the only metric, then it’s effectively no affirmative action.
Well, yeah, that was kind of my point. If you accept my arguement, that test scores and grades are artificially depressed in non-white populations, then affirmative action exists simply to correct that imbalance.
Let me elaborate: if two applicants for a program have identical intelligence and aptitude levels, both should be admitted over any inferior candidates. If one of those students is non-white, his scores could be artificially low due to systematic bias. Based on test scores alone, the school may select an inferior, but higher-scoring, white student for thier program. Ideally affirmative action would compensate for the discrepancy in test scores and result in the school getting only the best candidates. This is totally idfferent from asking schools to take on inferior non-white students.
mischievous
Obviously, idfferent=different.
Sorry, it’s pretty late here in my (unusually racially diverse) lab.
mischievous
Again, Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a pogo stick.
The current problem isn’t just black kids getting rejected, it’s that hardly any ever even apply! That this is a function of endemic inequities is the entire crux not only of the problem, but everything I’ve argued about.
Compare your list of patents to the non-minority patent holders for fun, just to get a sense of relative size. Or show me the huge number of black lab chiefs, department heads, and full professors. That’s not shameful? You’re completely unconcerned? If all blacks in science find the system a pure meritocracy, whats the alternative explanation for the disparities besides bias?
Odin The Motherfucking Allfather on a crutch.
(I like this game)
So? Obviously this is upsetting you greatly. Why do you care if they’re doctors, or lawyers, or writers, or teachers? Isn’t the point to get a higher education, and do whatever you find personally rewarding? If more black students don’t want
to go into the sciences, why is that horrible?
Can you answer that question without going berserk? I’ve asked essentially the same thing before, and so far you’re doing little other than flipping out.
Saying a thing many times won’t make it true.
All you’ve shown suggests that many black students, of their own free will, do not want to go into the sciences. Why is that due to ‘endemic inequities’? Aren’t you making a rather racist pronouncement by saying that black students can’t know what gives them joy or intellectual fulfilment?
I simply can’t find any reason to fault a student who is interested in getting a higher degree for not getting the ‘right’ degree. Again, why is it bad that there are many new black students in legal and medical programs and not so many in the sciences? Why are the sciences the holy grail?
My point had nothing to do with the ratio of black to non-black patent holders, merely to the claim that blacks don’t advance. I was disagreeing with your quote that:
That, by the way, is an absolute statement. Saying that out of the few who do becomes scientists, none thrive. Your statement was not qualified in any way, shape, or form. Did you mean to qualify it? Otherwise, being a sucessful inventor would be defined as success and thriving, at least in my book. Any day of the week.
Erunh? I showed you a perfectly acceptable metric for success within the field. By your own cites, there is a tiny percentage of blacks in the sciences. It is intelletually dishonest for you to now demand that I show you a ‘huge number’ who are lab chiefs, department heads, etc…
No and yes, respectively.
And I’ll ask you again to, calmly and rationally, explain to me why you believe I should be.
I am open to rational arguments, but so far I don’t feel that you’re exactly willing to meet me half way here.
You serious?
A small number of black students choose to go into the sciences. A small percentage of those who go into the sciences rise to positions of power. Thus, a small percentage of the overall population would not be expected to make up any more than a small percentage of the positions of power.
For enticing them into a program (which you still haven’t demonstrated a need for other than via some bombastic rhetoric)? No.
For allowing poorer children to have a chance to afford an education? Yes.
Why? What’s wrong with economic affirmative action? Aren’t two dirt poor people with no education pretty much in the same boat? Should a wealthy, intelligent, private-schooled black child be included in an affirmative action program?
And if one is from an inner city school which can’t afford textbooks, his scores could be artifically low due to economic factors. And I’m simply not convinced that each and every black student in the nation, regardless of where they live or how their school system is funded, is a victim of ‘systematic bias’.
As an example, and yes, only an anecdote and not hard data: I went to one of the top high schools in the country. Black students went there and had access to all the educational opportunities that I did. As far as I could tell, there was no ‘systematic bias’ at work keeping them down. Should it be assumed that even though they were treated just like every other student at the school, they were held back by this ‘systematic bias?’
Perhaps you’re overstating the case… racism exists and is a problem, but that doesn’t mean it’s always a problem in everything. It would seem to me that being too quick to call ‘racism’ is a stumbling block.
Besides, I don’t want to use any pendulum analogies; analogies are suspect anyways. I’d rather simply see justice be done, and disadvantaged groups, no matter what the color of their skin, be given an equal chance for getting an education.
I’d support efforts toward equal education of minorities at all levels, and if minorities are under-represented in certain area, more effort toward reaching qualified candidates, who are then admitted and given aid on the basis of economic situation and ability, the same as everyone else.
I don’t support institutionalized racism using my tax dollars.
Two points:
- I don’t agree that it doesn’t matter who does science, as long as they are good scientists. We scientists like to pretend that we approach the benchtop completely objectively, leaving all our baggage at the door. Not true. The questions we dream up and our ideas for answering them are both influenced by our cultural upbringing and immediate environments. And these two things are in turn shaped by things like nationality, ethnicity, socioeconomics, and yes sometimes even race.
Any educational institution who churns out engineers and scientists should be aware of this fact.
- I don’t have a problem with a university who wants to increase the diversity of their student body, especially if that institution feels that doing so would benefit the greater community. It was a strange thing to attend grad school in Newark, NJ and see no black professors in my department (one of the largest on campus) and no other black Ph.D students besides myself. Even the black undergrads were underpresented relative to their representation in the city. I had friends among my labmates, but I admit that at times it was a lonely existance, feeling like an outsider, like perhaps I was trespassing on forbidden territory. My school did sponsor regular community outreach activities and received federal funding to support minority-targeted internship programs and fellowships. I benefitted from one such program and I will be forever grateful.
But I disagree, Loopydude, that racism has to be the reason for all the disparities. Perhaps as an ultimate cause, you might be able to say it is. But I think the proximate reasons are far more complex.
I always wanted to be a scientist, even when I was ten and dreamed of being both an artist and an astronaut. No one tried to dissuade me from going this route. No one pulled me aside and said: “Look, you have no business going into ecology with your black ass!” Although I was bussed to “white” schools (the “whiteness” stemming mainly from their location on the “white” side of town, since high school was actually 60% black), I found role models in both white and black teachers, male and female alike.
In college, I was buoyed by professors–all white and male–who took special interest me and took me under my wing. Perhaps my “outsider” status appealed to them–maybe they just felt sorry for me. But because of their attention, I went on to grad school and I am now managing a million-dollar project for one of the best ecology labs in the country.
I would say at this point, there isn’t a whole lot of “externel” oppression going on to keep minorities from going into the sciences (disregarding the inequality in public schools and the sometimes differential treatment minorities receive in public schools…these are actually major things but I’m not sure how systemic they are). There are some elements of internel oppression–the same shit you find with any lower-class group. But we can’t ignore benign cultural differences either.
Do I get heat from my family for choosing ecology as a profession? No. I come from a middle-class family and my parents never pushed their dreams for me on me. However, when I tell other people–particularly black people–what I do for a living, I do sense an inward “eye roll”. They sometimes ask how what I do helps people, or why anyone would want to study what I study.
Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is not a concept everyone gets or even wants to get. I tried explaining the value of it to my very liberal-minded mother and eventually gave up. But helping others, being a service to the community, is something that people do respect. It seems to me that among black people, if you have any modicum of having your shit together, you’re expected to choose a profession that “gives back” to your poor and suffering community. Being a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, or even a politician are all ways of being an uplifting force in the community. Choose these arenas and you will be respected. I believe this is why black people tend to go into the service industries.
However, science has never been seen as being a domain of the community. In fact, traditionally, science has been seen as “anti-community”. It is also seen as anti-God. Black people as a group, probably moreso than any other ethnic group in the country, are very spiritual and religious. There is a certain distrust when it comes to science–and one may argue with good reason. Science has been historically used to justify racial policy and has sometimes perpetuated the lies of its practitioners, all claiming to be “objective” and “value-free”.
Esoterica is usually not the endeavor of people who come from humble backgrounds. It’s hard to give much importance to the flow of neutrinos, the pulse rate of harbor seals, or the calcium content of algae in the Everglades when you do not come from a comfortable life, and everyone you know is struggling. It’s also difficult to care about esoterica if you were raised to care more about people and community than knowledge for the sake of knowledge. This is a part of a culture that is neither good or bad–it just “is”.
I’m not saying that black people don’t nurture their intelligensia. On the contrary, I think we have always respected those who are well-read and well-spoken. But our scholars traditionally have been those who are very active in the community, fighting for civil rights, uplifting the poor, and providing spiritual enlightenment. Where is the role of science in these arenas? There is little.
You see, it’s much more complicated than racism. I think by blaming racism for every disparity, you ignore the fact that different cultural groups possess different values, and sometimes these values arise totally independent from the external forces around them. As I said before, I applaud the efforts of institutions to encourage minority enrollment because I think it’s important to make science as culturally diverse as possible. But I also think people shouldn’t automatically be appalled by underrepresentation. Perhaps underrepresentation in one area (science) is compensated by overrepresentation in an area just as valid and worthy (such as education).
Apologies for the long and rambling post.
Yes, we know that. That is what we call the “end”. The problem is the “means”, as in “the end does not justify the means”. The “means” is racist. It doesn’t include, it excludes.
So, let’s address the root problem and fix it rather than bribing some people to realize your vision of racial equality. There are minority applicants to medical schools and law schools (both of which are academically challenging), so what’s unique about science? What is it about the minority experience that makes science unattractive?
I don’t understand what you’re getting at here. Can you explain in more detail?
You may not “be sure” it’s illegal.
But if that’s true, it’s because you lack either reading skills or minimal comprehension of the law on this subject. A publicly-funded program that is per-se completely closed to one race is not permissible. It is legal to use race as one of many factors - possibly. That analysis applies to admissions, not money; it may even fail ehere. But even if it holds, it doesn’t authorize this completely-race-dependent scheme.
If you had read the article closer Bricker you would realize that its not completely race dependent.
To a public school, admissions is money, for crying out loud. The state subsidizes the entirity of the program to some degree. And again, this is not a facile zero-sums game, like with a limited number of applicant slots. Because one person gets money from this program to go to the school does not mean someone else can’t get money from another program to go to the same school. And, once again, the history of the program indicates exceptions have been made for white women. As race, gender, class, and the purpose of the program to combat the negative impact of bias, are inextricably connected, it may not be entirely correct to say race is the only criterion, or gender, or class, in any isolated way. It’s clearly not a simple quota system, and while it’s perhaps a “set aside”, nobody ultimately is being denied funding. Apparrently not a single white male has applied for the grants (unlike the case of admissions, where everyone is applying for the same slots, and those are quite limited in number), so the objection at this point on the part of the Justice Dept. appears to be purely philosophical, at best. I can see no practical evidence of bias against whites that prevents them from attending SIU and getting financial aid. I cannot see how they are truly victims of discrimination because some money has been allocated to a special program targeting underrepresented minorities.
And again, this lovely philosophical debate does absolutely nothing to address the underlying purpose of program, which is the enormous disparities, which I don’t think anyone can rationally argue are not a function of a systemic bias against these minorities. As clearly the attitude is nothing else should be done about the problem, either, so long as the money comes from the public trough, and “race” gets mentioned, it’s extremely difficult not to be cynical about the character of the debate. In my oppinion, this is then, at best, one of those hopeless “letter-of-the-law” battles that, besides being about a legitimately arguable point, most certainly strips the law of many of its benefits when the language is applied in blind fashion. Really, if this is just another of those debates where reasonable nuance can be teased out in context unless everying conservatives don’t like can be assaulted from a likely specious philosphical standpoint, and decried as unoriginalist or something of that sort, we may as well stop now. I’ve seen it before, I suspect it’s a crock of shit, and I’m not going to be persuaded it’s all a high-minded argument from benevolent principle if there’s no recognition that at some level there’s a real injustice that a moral society needs to address. The “two wrongs don’t make a right” argument strikes me as overly simplistic, both from a legal and ethical standpoint, when the enormity of the problem being addressed is so evident, and the detriment to others in trying to do something of benefit seems to be practically nil.
Why should I waste my time?
Yes it is a zero sum game. The state has only so much money to spend-- it cannot simply increase spending arbitrarily.
I agree with you that there is some serious politicking going on with the timing of this action, and perhaps the location. I mean, why has this suddenly become a hot button for Bush after 5 years of being in office. And there isn’t evidence of white guys claiming bias. But that doesn’t change the fact that the program violates the ruling in the recent SCOTUS case concening Michigan admission practices.
Well, the typical course of action is to apply, be denied, and then sue. Usually the reason you apply is because you want the money, think you should have it, and find the criteria for selection (or, at least, some individual criterion) in violation of your constitutional rights. Then the courts weigh in. That’s been the pattern in the admissions cases.
If this is true, it seems any form of affirmative action that takes race into account is potentially dead, as one could always argue race is always, and in every instance, an invalid criterion if it’s the deciding factor even in individual circumstances. Really, if you take race out of the equation in this manner, then you’ve got nothing but the financial aid programs that already exist.
Maybe that’s ultimately true. We’ll have to see, I guess. I really hope SIU contests this, as, among other reasons, I’d like to see on what basis they contest it, and if my own read of what I think is legitimate nuance has any validity. As this is but one of many such programs throughout the country, I’m sure a win on the part of the JD, or a captitulation on the part of SIU, will send shocks through the world of academia, and create a new wave of troubled debate on Constitutional law. Given the new makeup of the SCOTUS, and Alito’s nomination…well, the time is ripe, isn’t it. Not so long ago, these practices weren’t under similar challenge. I sure believe it when they say the Constitution is “a living document”.
Occassionally I wonder how we could possibly function if it lay enshrined in a mausoleum.
No, the SCOTUS made it clear (in as much as they make anything “clear”) that race can be a factor, it just can’t be the only factor, and there can’t be a numerical formula used. In this case, a certain amount of money is set aside only for minority students. It’s not that minority students are given some extra consideration, this money is 100% guaranteed to go to an “underrepresented group”. That’s a quota.
I think the problem is that you are assuming that Joe WhiteBoy, if he applied for one of these scholarships, would be given consideration. Now, it’s true (at least from the details available in the article) that this has not been tested. But if the guy who runs the program says “no white male will get this award”, I think it’s safe to say he would **not **be given consideration. I’m not sure what actoin the justice dept can take if there isn’t a plaintiff, but it might come down to holding back federal monies from the university.
Well, that’s basically it, isn’t it? Joe Whitey might have a shot, as Jane Whitey seems to have had on occasion, but only some rather outlandish level of adversity would allow for it, as the money is clearly geared toward addressing bias against groups whose members are at a high risk of being adversely affected by it. That being the entire point of considering race in academics, saying it can only be “one of many” criteria is essentially stealth affirmative action, as far as I can tell. How can I prove, if there are no explicit quotas, that no quotas exist? Seems to me, you either take race out entirely, or you nod and wink and pretend it’s just like any other attribute. If only it were.