Old school Princeton gasbags

[gigi]

They’re at it again. Pretty much every issue of the alumni magazine, there’s some letter ranting about the good old days, how things have gone downhill, those crazy liberals. Pan to the end and it’s always some gasbag from a class in the 40s or 50s. Part of me says, ignore it, it’s typical, and part wants to rant. The latest, from the 9/26/07 issue:

<<Color-blind admissions

Affirmative action in favor of black students by Princeton’s admission office is a blatant violation of the 14th Amendment and hopefully will cease with the Class of 2012. The U.S. Supreme Court in a 5–4 decision, with Justice Thomas in the majority, ruled that “discriminating among individual students based on race by relying upon racial classifications in making school assignments” is unlawful. Granted, the cases before the court were specifically brought by white parents of schoolchildren in the Seattle and Louisville school districts who had been denied admission to local schools because of the color of their skin. How many otherwise highly qualified white, Asian, and Latino students were denied admission to Princeton in the classes of 2010 and 2011?

Princeton’s experiment in social diversity, and by the way ending the early-admission plan, still is subject to the results for the success/failure of the Classes of 2010 and 2011. Nevertheless, its effect on the Prospect Avenue eating clubs, number of dropouts, suspensions, and violations of the Honor Code in these two classes still is in question. I urge the University’s registrar to quantify these numbers for PAW and alumni/ae and most certainly study the effects of the presumed benefits of students in racially balanced classrooms. Chief Justice Roberts, in his decision, wrote most poignantly: “[T]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” I urge Princeton to adopt a truly color-blind admission policy for the Class of 2012.

HENRY R. WHITEHOUSE II ’54
Gainesville, Fla. [bolding mine]
Is he really saying what I think he’s saying, that black folks are really more likely to violate the Honor Code, or be suspended? Dropouts/transfers maybe, but even there I don’t think the numbers are significant for any race. Effect on the eating clubs?? What, they’ll have to have separate tables?

I think the hypocrisy is what gets me, because if you have such a hard-on about black people, why would you be so worried about the qualified Latino folks who didn’t get in? It really focuses on who he is worried about. :rolleyes:

PU’s study showed that ending affirmative action would reduce chances for black and Latino students, increase them for Asians, and have little effect on whites.

[thelurkinghorror]

Of course not, how dare you accuse him of saying that black students will commit those offenses. I’m sure he meant to say that the Latino students do that too. Seriously though, it’s just an opinion column, but what a telling slip. It seems like he’s saying that integration causes these problems. I also like how he threw out a “with justice Thomas in the majority,” as if that automatically makes his argument stronger.

What the heck is an eating club? Like dining and conversation, or competitive eating. Everyone knows ending affirmative action would increase the number, as Asians are best at eating contests.

[CalMeacham]

What the heck is an eating club? Like dining and conversation, or competitive eating. Everyone knows ending affirmative action would increase the number, as Asians are best at eating contests.

Princeton long ago banned fraternities. As a result, organizations of students are in the form of “eating clubs”, where, as you’d expect, they get their meals. I don’t think they can be used as housing. Nevertheless, the Eating Club buildings are absolutely gorgeous, and would do any frat proud.

[Defensive_Indifference]

I’m curious what an Eating Club is, too. Anyway, as Bill O’Reilly can attest, the affect of diversity on eating establishments is minimal.

(On Preview, I see CalMeacham has answered my question.)

[Freddy_the_Pig]

@gigi

Princeton’s experiment in social diversity, and by the way ending the early-admission plan, still is subject to the results for the success/failure of the Classes of 2010 and 2011.

What did Princeton do in 2006, whose effects Mr. Whitehouse seeks to measure? That can’t be when they instituted affirmative action–that would have been decades earlier. Did they possibly switch from a race-based to a class-based AA program at that time?

If so, his fear might not be Negroes in the eating clubs, but hoi polloi in general. You know, as in the conversation used to be all about rowing and investment trusts, and now it’s pro wrestling and NASCAR.

[CalMeacham]

Princeton University’s Eating Clubs:

http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/eating_clubs.html

[wolfman]

In reading it, It looks like he was taking pains to avoid saying that, even if he does think it. I think he is trying to bring up the old argument that bringing in people who are not qualified to make it on merit, are more likely to drop out, or cheat in an effort to keep up, ask hoping it’s clear in the bare numbers.

[gigi]

@CalMeacham

Princeton long ago banned fraternities. As a result, organizations of students are in the form of “eating clubs”, where, as you’d expect, they get their meals. I don’t think they can be used as housing. Nevertheless, the Eating Club buildings are absolutely gorgeous, and would do any frat proud.

IIRC a handful of members did live at each.

Freddy, I believe early action went away in 2006, and no student debt measures went in maybe a year or two before that? I’m not aware of any changes in AA policy.

[gigi]

dupe

[11811]

@thelurkinghorror

What the heck is an eating club? Like dining and conversation, or competitive eating. Everyone knows ending affirmative action would increase the number, as Asians are best at eating contests.

I think he means if blacks are encouraged to be students, there will be fewer servile waiters at the eating clubs.

[monstro]

After they kick out all the unqualified negroes (I guess they’re the only undeserving group who receives Affirmative Action), then the Supreme Court should ban universities from accepting any unqualified student.

We won’t be a true meritocracy until all forms of AA–and not just race-based programs–are abolished. But I’m not holding my breath.

[Algher]

@wolfman

In reading it, It looks like he was taking pains to avoid saying that, even if he does think it. I think he is trying to bring up the old argument that bringing in people who are not qualified to make it on merit, are more likely to drop out, or cheat in an effort to keep up, ask hoping it’s clear in the bare numbers.

That arguement might be old, but it is also reflected in recent scholarship regarding bar passing rates and law school admissions:

Law.com

In his 2004 study published in The Stanford Law Review, Sander used bar exam failure and passage rates obtained for a national study by the nonprofit Law School Admissions Council to assert that race-based preferences had opened the doors of elite law schools to minority students who were academically unprepared. As a result of that “mismatch,” Sander postulated, there were about 8 percent fewer black attorneys in 2004 than there would have been if law schools had employed color-blind admissions practices.

Sander’s study concluded that black students who attended less-elite law schools – for which they were more academically fit – were half as likely as their counterparts at prestigious law schools to fail the bar exam on their first attempt.

[athelas]

@CalMeacham

Princeton long ago banned fraternities. As a result, organizations of students are in the form of “eating clubs”, where, as you’d expect, they get their meals. I don’t think they can be used as housing. Nevertheless, the Eating Club buildings are absolutely gorgeous, and would do any frat proud.

Yeah; essentially they’re dining halls by day, frat houses (party nuclei) by night. The admissions propaganda tries to pretend they don’t really exist.

[Algher]

@monstro

After they kick out all the unqualified negroes (I guess they’re the only undeserving group who receives Affirmative Action), then the Supreme Court should ban universities from accepting any unqualified student.

We won’t be a true meritocracy until all forms of AA–and not just race-based programs–are abolished. But I’m not holding my breath.

Have your read the book? Does he have any data showing that legacy admits are unqualified?

This is the question I have always had since I started college (at the time I was a poor white male with delusions of becoming a rich white male):

I want a table that shows:

• across the top is the median data for admissions (GPA, SAT), the median data for performance in school (GPA, graduation rate) and the median data for alumni participation (% giving and $ given).
• The breakout is scholarship athlete, gender, race, major, and Socio-economic status at matriculation.

THEN we can answer questions regarding qualified and unqualified candidates (and what happens to them during and after school).

[athelas]

According to this study (oddly enough, conducted at Princeton),

even though athlete and legacy applicants are disproportionately white and despite the fact that athlete and alumni children admission bonuses are substantial, preferences for athletes and legacies do little to displace minority applicants, largely because athletes and legacies make up a small share of all applicants to highly selective universities.

Comparing giving unfair advantages to underperforming minorities to giving the same advantages to legacies and athletes is, if not apples and oranges, at least crabapples and genetically engineered behemoths.

(The main conclusion of the study, by the way, is that being black is worth 230 points on the SAT, being Hispanic is worth 185, athletes get 200, legacies get 160, and Asians get shafted by 50; I’m assuming the baseline is the average white applicant.)

[Khan]

@thelurkinghorror

I also like how he threw out a “with justice Thomas in the majority,” as if that automatically makes his argument stronger.

It would have probably helped his case if he’d also shared that he’s donated money to Colin Powell.

Anyway, gigi, Harvard sucks and Princeton doesn’t matter–go Bulldogs.

0Y4

[Hippy_Hollow]

Wow, as if there is some objective measure of merit out there. Dude needs to read Nicholas Lehman’s The Big Test and get back to us about the history of merit-based admissions. (Hint: Not much merit going on there.) We had a national conference on admissions this week in Austin - hands down, the officers are fully in favor of full file review that considers many aspects of student identity… and yes, Ivies give consideration to kids from places like North Dakota as compared to those from, say, New York.

@Khan

Anyway, gigi, Harvard sucks and Princeton doesn’t matter–go Bulldogs.

0Y4

Oh no, you’ve got it wrong… Both Princeton and Yale suck.

0H7

[you_with_the_face]

@athelas

According to this study (oddly enough, conducted at Princeton),

even though athlete and legacy applicants are disproportionately white and despite the fact that athlete and alumni children admission bonuses are substantial, preferences for athletes and legacies do little to displace minority applicants, largely because athletes and legacies make up a small share of all applicants to highly selective universities.

Am I the only person who finds this to be rather meaningless statement? The argument about legacies isn’t that they displace minorities (the offenderati don’t care even about minorities); it’s that these preferences are never railed about by those who like to whine about the hordes of unqualified blacks stealing admission slots that they don’t deserve. If anything should be targeted, it should be legacies. It is the only system of privileges that gives an unearned advantage to rich white kids–the one demographic group that needs the least in the way of an educational helping hand. Given that for years blacks and others were not even allowed to schools like Princeton, and therefore, weren’t able to produce future beneficiaries of the system, legacy admission only promotes the racist status quo that Affirmative Action is intended to counteract.

If legacies are just as qualified as other applicants as is frequently insisted upon by defenders of the program, Princeton and other schools should simply do away with the system and let the admission process work as nature intended. Of course I have a strong feeling the alumni won’t like this very much, and they may cry and stamp their feet, and maybe even hold their breath. But if the schools abolished the legacy system, it would give them more standing to dump ethnicity-based AA, too. You can’t really complain about one without complaining about the other. You can’t really complain about blacks getting an unearned advantage when whites have been getting it for centuries and are still getting it through legacy.

For a Princeton grad, I’m surprised that Henry “Won’t someone think of the Eating Clubs!” Whitehouse doesn’t know that blacks and Latinos benefit from AA. With just a little homework, he could have made his bias and dumbassity a little less obvious. Such a pity.

[Fiveyearlurker]

My kids will be:

a) Underrepresented racial minorities
b) Double legacies (both my wife and I) at two different Ivy League schools

They will be permitted to use neither toward admission.

The latter is just ridiculous. My wife and I succeeded, but that should have no bearing on whether my kids get into that school, except insofar as we can instill a sense of education in them that will allow them to qualify.

The former is only relevant if that minority status correlates with disadvantage. It should be used to say, “Hey, this kid may have scored 100 points lower on the SATs, but Jesus Christ, the school he came from is for shit, so that’s pretty goddamn impressive that he was that close to this other kid from Bob’s Expensive Private School.”

My kids will have no such disadvantage.

I think the majority of people who believe in a meritocracy are opposed to both sorts of preferences. I’m not saying there aren’t those in favor of legacy and opposed to racial affirmative action, just that it’s a pretty rare (in my experience) and indefensible position.

Upon edit: Legacies are defended not on moral grounds, but financial grounds. Alumni give donations partly to keep this system going. It won’t change in our lifetimes.

[Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake]

@Hippy Hollow

Oh no, you’ve got it wrong… Both Princeton and Yale suck.

Yes, yes, we all know that the Ivy League schools can’t compete with real academic colleges.

Go Maroons! Land of Cecil!