# Racial standards in SAT and college admissions - ideal threshold? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 8, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303 "2016-03-08T18:25:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**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:** [March 19, 2016, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/101 "2016-03-19T19:47:33Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > Geez. Do you ever stop trying to move the goalposts? This whole line of argument started because you stated Asian and Hispanic immigration were similar. They are not. That was the point of the most recent cite. To remind you, you asked how the typical paths of these immigrant groups were different. I gave you a detailed cite as to how. Now you want to talk about immigration numbers relating to America’s love of a group? Even putting aside the fact that a large portion of Hispanic immigrants are not here legally, your argument makes zero sense. I asked why Hispanics should get special consideration based on race. You talked about discrimination against Hispanics and i said that America isn’t really in love with Asians either and then you brought up the circumstances of their immigration, then something about letting you know when Asians start sending their kids into the country with coyotes. I asked you what makes them entitled to race based affirmative action as opposed to socioeconomic affirmative action? The general sense I am getting is, hey shut up, Asians are doing just fine, wtf are you complaining about? > [@](#): > > Because the circumstances of their plight are due in large part to societal discrimination based on their race. If they were well educated middle class immigrants, I doubt there would be much more discrimination against them than there is against Asians. There is discrimination largely because people see them as an influx of uneducated poor immigrants that are glutting the labor market for our domestic born uneducated poor labor. You think people didn’t used to think Asians were dirty and smelly? I bet they used to think the same thing about the Irish and the Jews. I’m not saying they deserve to be poorly treated but I don’t see what we owe them based purely on their race. > [@](#): > > Because there are other factors you are not including, namely the dozens of other things you need to be admitted. Now, let’s look at the [data](http://priceonomics.com/post/48794283011/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-against-asians). When you track admission rates by test score, you see how Whites are consistently tracking above Asians regardless of score. What should we make of the fact the a White guy or girl is almost always x% more likely to get in regardless of the where we look on the score table (the exception is on the very low end where Asians tend to get in and Whites don’t). Well, it there were a soft quota, you would see the admission rates for Asians skew towards the high end because a school would be incentivized to accept high scoring Asians at the expense of lower scoring ones due to this cap. We don’t see that. If you just had a blanket rule that an Asian person must have a higher score than a White person, you would see a drop off at the lower end because low scoring Asians would not meet the given threshold for an elite school. You don’t see that. Why do you keep insisting that I am claiming that there is blatant racism at work? Its bias, Asians are handicapped. Its not a quota, its just harder for Asians across the board and this is exactly what you see. That is why the applications should be scrubbed of racial identifiers. I mean really other than a few designated spots for the most accomplished blacks and American indians (and if you want to add in hispanics (although I think they seem to be rising pretty well on their own, based on what we see in the UC system), why shouldn;t college application be race blind? > [@](#): > > So you are almost left with soft criteria by necessity because they are one of the few things that would explain the consistency. The next question would be, do we see any disparities in those criteria considered by colleges that would tend to favor Whites over Asians? Yes. Whether is sports participation, legacy status, geographic diversity, etc. All of those things, according to studies and data, would tend to favor Whites. Does race come into play at all? Almost certainly to some extent because there are real issues Asians face in this country a a minority. The issue is though that that doesn’t tend to be demonstrably true in higher education at elite schools where Asians are almost uniformally over-represented. being overrepresented doesn’t mean there isn’t discrimination. I thought Espenshade’s study tried to correct for things like sports, legacy and geographic diversity. Blacks were overrepresented in the NFL in the 1980s. Do you think that there wasn’t discrimination against blacks? > [@](#): > > Can you cite any evidence that such changes were due to prop 209? Or even that they exist? This shouldn’t be that hard to find if true. Color me a bit dubious that your cite is back the mismatch theory, something that has largely been discredited. Discredited by who? You? > [@](#): > > Which position? The position that Asians have less of these other things than whites. I mean you keep saying it with such certainty, there must be some evidence somewhere that would explain this pretty huge disparity. I mean jeez, if we saw these sort of disparities with any other minority, people would be up in arms and marching in the streets but its Asians and I guess people figure we already have enough. > [@](#): > > A lot of that is because more people take the test and an increasing reliance on it for entrance into higher education. Test prep isn’t a multi-billion dollar business for no reason. I’m pretty sure you are wrong about that. The increase in perfect scores wasn’t gradual. It occurred suddenly when they changed the test format. They just clipped off the right tail of the bell curve. > [@](#): > > Why would he do that if he believed it? Because (and I think he has said this) you can’t prove that sort of bias exists when you are using all these subjective and holistic criteria absent a flat out admission that this bias exists. And its REALLY hard when the admissions officers don’t even realize they are biased. Former admissions officers have admitted to bias in the system. And yet even THIS is not enough to convince white people that bias can exist against Asians. > **[Former Ivy League admissions dean: 'Racial stereotyping is alive and well'](https://www.businessinsider.com/former-ivy-league-admissions-dean-racial-stereotyping-is-alive-and-well-2015-6)** > > Highly qualified Asian-American college applicants may be rejected from elite schools because of their race. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/102 "2016-03-20T00:19:41Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Ugh. I can’t find the cite now but sports participation was relatively equal among all males of all races. Asian females had significantly lower sports participation rates. > > Can you find anything that shows Asian males with significantly lower rates of participation? First, the burden of proof is on you. Second, I already cited that Asians generally have lower sports participation, mostly based on cultural reasons according to the cite. That would seem to affect both boys and girls, but if you think otherwise, cite it or drop the claim. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So the Ivy league massages the criteria for football and baseball but not for lacrosse or fencing? Almost certainly. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > DeBlasio was trying to improve black and hispanic admissions. He didn’t give a shit about the effect it had on the Asian population. And THAT is the point I’m trying to make. So he should care less about people that are not represented at all than people who under either scheme would be over-represented? More importantly, how do you know he doesn’t care about Asans rather than, for example, balancing competing interests- something politicians do ALL THE TIME? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/americas\_best\_high\_school\_soft.html](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/americas_best_high_school_soft.html) > > The focus was SUPPOSED to be on getting more His[panic and black students into the school but what ended up happening was we had a bumper crop of white students who were mediocre at math and science but had great recommendations and essays. That doesn’t bolster your claim at ALL. You said: > [@](#): > > There is a magnet school here in Northern Virginia called Thomas Jefferson. They de-emphasized testing and it wasn’t until the school ranking started to drop that they went back to the system they had been using before Asians started taking over the school. You also implied that they did so because White people felt there were too many Asians. Where is the evidence of any of that? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Are you saying that discrimination doesn’t exist because there are so many Asians in good schools? Bullshit. No, I am saying that FACT makes the burden of proof, which you clearly haven’t begun to have meet, more substantial. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > For what? The fact that Asians have been about 16% of the entering class at ivy leagues for the last 20 years despite a huge increase in the number of qualified asian applicants in that time? And where is the evidence for that claim? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Once again I don’t have the cite to the peer reviewed article but at least this time I have a newspaper article that kinda refers to it. > > [Statistics Indicate an Ivy League Asian Quota - NYTimes.com](http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/19/fears-of-an-asian-quota-in-the-ivy-league/statistics-indicate-an-ivy-league-asian-quota) That article is using broad demographic data, not actual applicants to the schools. Its hypothesis is basically meaningless. Doubly so when he compares an east coast school to a school in CA where the number of Asians are more than double almost every other state. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Which metrics? You have yet to provide evidence that there is a difference. I have cited this multiple times. If you choose to ignore them, that is your issue. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think you are including graduate schools and foreign admissions. Which doesn’t matter if the issue is anti-Asian discrimination. Further, this [cite](https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics) is from Harvard itself using the class of 2019. My number is correct. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Race blind schools have higher Asian populations. First, you said MIT and other schools which don’t have race based criteria have MUCH higher Asian enrollment. This is demonstrably false. MIT’s modest increase is Asian demographic is almost certainly due to it being an STEM focused school, not a lack of strong preference on holistic admissions. One clear counter example of your claim is what happened at Berkeley before and after prop 209. The Asian representation hasn’t changed much at all. How do you explain that given your supposition. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I asked why Hispanics should get special consideration based on race. You talked about discrimination against Hispanics and i said that America isn’t really in love with Asians either and then you brought up the circumstances of their immigration, then something about letting you know when Asians start sending their kids into the country with coyotes. I asked you what makes them entitled to race based affirmative action as opposed to socioeconomic affirmative action? No, you equated typical Asian and Hispanic immigration circumstances. That was and is a laughable statement that basically disqualifies you from even having this discussion. I explained pretty clearly why Hispanics deserve AA. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The general sense I am getting is, hey shut up, Asians are doing just fine, wtf are you complaining about? No, I am saying that you’ve taken a plausible premise, and done nothing to back it up. You’ve also hurt your own credibility by misrepresenting what has been said to you, misquoting, injecting odd non sequiturs, presenting dishonest arguments, and just doing a terrible job of justifying your claim. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If they were well educated middle class immigrants, I doubt there would be much more discrimination against them than there is against Asians. There is discrimination largely because people see them as an influx of uneducated poor immigrants that are glutting the labor market for our domestic born uneducated poor labor. You think people didn’t used to think Asians were dirty and smelly? I bet they used to think the same thing about the Irish and the Jews. I’m not saying they deserve to be poorly treated but I don’t see what we owe them based purely on their race. Sure sounds like you are justifying their poor treatment. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Why do you keep insisting that I am claiming that there is blatant racism at work? Because you have implied and stated as much. Do you need me to quote you? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Its not a quota, its just harder for Asians across the board and this is exactly what you see. I explained why I think the most logical explanation for this is not bias. You need to explain why the data backs your claim despite even the people who collected the data disagreeing with that contention. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > why shouldn;t college application be race blind? First, you are changing the issue. You have largely been railing against holistic admissions, not race blind admissions. That said, I think admissions should not be race blind in large part because such schemes don’t typically result in race neutral decisions. Just look at the employment market. Even a Black sounding name will hurt you. In elite colleges, where there is often an interview and other things that reveal race, such a policy is just willful blindness. More importantly, admissions are one of the few bottlenecks where society can apply a corrective to the rampant discrimination that exists at large. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I thought Espenshade’s study tried to correct for things like sports, legacy and geographic diversity. Did you read my cite or his quote. He didn’t. Which is he even he is reluctant to cite his own work as evidence of anti-Asian bias. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Blacks were overrepresented in the NFL in the 1980s. Do you think that there wasn’t discrimination against blacks? Broadly speaking, no. There was plenty of entrenched prejudices that prevented some Blacks from playing certain positions or becoming coaches, but saying there was a broad anti-Black prejudice is hard to justify given the numbers. That said, as I noted before, the over-representation is not de facto evidence of a level playing field. However, it does mean that someone arguing the NFL is anti-Black better have some compelling evidence. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Discredited by who? You? Experts who study the matter. This is why Scalia was excoriated for even bringing it up at the SC. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The position that Asians have less of these other things than whites. I mean you keep saying it with such certainty, there must be some evidence somewhere that would explain this pretty huge disparity. I have already cited a handful of these things, multiple times. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I mean jeez, if we saw these sort of disparities with any other minority, people would be up in arms and marching in the streets but its Asians and I guess people figure we already have enough. You are hallucinating if you think any other minority group would be up in arms marching in the streets because their across the board over-representation at some of the most prestigious institutions was arguably slightly less stark. That’s even granting your questionable hypothesis that there is prejudice at work. For example, when was the last time you heard Jews complaining about not winning enough Nobel prizes, or Black people complaining about not having enough players in the NBA? It’s definitely possible being a Jewish scientist or a Black NBA player might work against you in some small way, but you will never hear either group bitching about group discrimination in a credible way. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I’m pretty sure you are wrong about that. The increase in perfect scores wasn’t gradual. It occurred suddenly when they changed the test format. They just clipped off the right tail of the bell curve. That was a change in 1995, not the scoring change that you mentioned. That happened in 2005. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Former admissions officers have admitted to bias in the system. And yet even THIS is not enough to convince white people that bias can exist against Asians. I suspect that might be because anecdotes are not data. Do you really think people are arguing no one person in the entire process is biased? More importantly, let’s look at what she actually said: > [@](#): > > In all, holistic admissions adds subjectivity to admissions decisions, and the practice makes it difficult to explain who gets in, who doesn’t, and why. But has holistic admissions become a guise for allowing cultural and even racial biases to dictate the admissions process? > > To some degree, yes. To some degree? Ok, not a slam dunk but definitely points for your side. Let’s continue: > [@](#): > > Often, it had to do with the fact that the application had no “tag.” > > A tag is the proverbial golden ticket for a student applying to an elite institution. A tag identifies a student as a high priority for the institution. Typically students with tags are recruited athletes, children of alumni, children of donors or potential donors, or students who are connected to the well connected. The lack of a tag can hinder an otherwise strong, high-achieving student. Asian American students typically don’t have these tags. > > Asian Americans are rarely children of alumni at the Ivies, for example. There aren’t as many recruited athletes coming from the Asian American applicant pool. Nor are they typically earmarked as “actual” or “potential” donors. They simply don’t have long-standing connections to these institutions. Wow! So it’s basically what I and others have been saying this entire time. The same thing that you denied vociferously; that Asians, as a group, tend to be lacking in other areas. Now, the only part that tends to justify your view are her comments here: > [@](#): > > For example, there’s an expectation that Asian Americans will be the highest test scorers and at the top of their class; anything less can become an easy reason for a denial. And yet even when Asian American students meet this high threshold, they may be destined for the wait list or outright denial because they don’t stand out among the other high-achieving students in their cohort. The most exceptional academic applicants may be seen as the least unique, and so admissions officers are rarely moved to fight for them. However, the above is not that compelling because part of the reason Asians don’t stand out among their cohort is because they lack those tags. additionally, if her hypothesis were true, we would not see a relatively uniform discrepancy in admission stats. Further, this women doesn’t even disagree with holistic admissions, something you argue is bound to “hurt” high scoring Asians. Why is this insider your quoted reluctant to scrap this system that you argue has such demonstrably negative effects on Asians? ---
**Author:** ![BrightSunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b3f665/32.png) [@BrightSunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightSunshine)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/103 "2016-03-20T15:45:20Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > “subjective” criteria were designed to favor white kids, so that a “typical” Asian kid’s resume was less attractive than a “typical” white kid’s resume because the typical white kid had the kind of stuff the admissions committee wanted to see and the “typical” Asian kid did not (or not as much)–that it put a system in place that was easier for white families to game. I only skimmed the thread so apologies if this has already be brought up. But [a study](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/13/white-definitions-merit-and-admissions-change-when-they-think-about-asian-americans) has shown that white people do in fact tend to adjust the definition of “merit” to include more subjective factors (e.g. leadership) that they perceive whites to be better at, when they are reminded that Asians have better test scores/grades. It’s not even so much allowing gaming as straight out racist prejudice, like what you were displaying when you stated that Asians have the same resumes. ---
**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:** [March 21, 2016, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/104 "2016-03-21T15:02:29Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > First, the burden of proof is on you. Second, I already cited that Asians generally have lower sports participation, mostly based on cultural reasons according to the cite. That would seem to affect both boys and girls, but if you think otherwise, cite it or drop the claim. I must have missed your cite. And when someone makes a claim that one race has sports participation rates low enough to explain away pretty big disparities in college admissions, I think the burden is on the person making THAT claim, not the one saying that the rates are the same between races. Anyways, I found something, its not the study I remember but it conveys the same notion that there isn’t some huge gap in athletic participation by Asian males compared to their white counterparts. [http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/docs/education/Project\_Play\_Underserved\_Populations\_Roundtable\_Research\_Brief.PDF](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/docs/education/Project_Play_Underserved_Populations_Roundtable_Research_Brief.PDF) > [@](#): > > Almost certainly. Cite? > [@](#): > > No, I am saying that FACT makes the burden of proof, which you clearly haven’t begun to have meet, more substantial. No it doesn’t. The burden of proof is met with the admissions data. The burden of proof is on you to prove that these disparities are not the result of bias. > [@](#): > > That article is using broad demographic data, not actual applicants to the schools. Its hypothesis is basically meaningless. Doubly so when he compares an east coast school to a school in CA where the number of Asians are more than double almost every other state. So wait, these schools in California have dramatically higher Asian populations because they are in California? SO why is Stanford largely immune to that, I mean they have somewhat higher Asian populations but it doesn’t even come close to approaching the Asian populations you get at the race blind schools. The percentage of Asians at Harvard has apparently shrunk while the pool of qualified Asians has grown over the last few decades. > [@](#): > > I have cited this multiple times. If you choose to ignore them, that is your issue. Oh OK I see, you are pointing to an article where they cite that 0.005% of Asians are engaged in a sport. First of all, that’s a typo the percentage isn’t 0.005% it is 0.5%. The comparable number for blacks is 6% and for whites 2.5%. Second, that stat refers to the percentage of Asians that play for their school in the NCAA. But those numbers really only affect athletic preferences, not the effect on run of the mill applications. Do you really think that the admission rate is several times higher for white students can be explained by coaches on school teams getting set asides for all those white kids? > [@](#): > > Which doesn’t matter if the issue is anti-Asian discrimination. Further, this [cite](https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics) is from Harvard itself using the class of 2019. My number is correct. International admissions is a separate basket AFAICT. And your number is only correct if you include all the foreign students, you know, from other countries. > [@](#): > > No, you equated typical Asian and Hispanic immigration circumstances. That was and is a laughable statement that basically disqualifies you from even having this discussion. I explained pretty clearly why Hispanics deserve AA. What does the circumstances of immigration matter? I pointed out the vietnamese boat people and the fact that there is an Asian version of coyotes (snakeheads). But that is beside the point. Why are Hispanics entitled to race based affirmative action? Why isn’t socioeconomic based affirmative action enough? > [@](#): > > No, I am saying that you’ve taken a plausible premise, and done nothing to back it up. You’ve also hurt your own credibility by misrepresenting what has been said to you, misquoting, injecting odd non sequiturs, presenting dishonest arguments, and just doing a terrible job of justifying your claim. The admissions data combined with no convincing evidence to explain the disparity is more than enough. I don’t think anything can ever convince you that there is bias in the system, you seem more intent on trying to explain away this large difference with fringe explanations and picking nits. But to be fair, I have to get back to you on the prop 209 stuff. Its all based on stuff from years ago. And AFAICT a 50% higher Asian population at MIT which still uses “holistic criteria” is a large difference, YMMV. Your argument has meandered at least as much as mine. You asked for another area where we would tolerate so much over-representation by minorities and I pointed to sports as an example where we “tolerate” vast over-representation by minorities. A recent article points out that there is another minority population that is over-represented at top schools without the huge racial gap we see between Asians and whites. Jews are about half as common as Asians but there are more Jews than Asians at most of the top schools. Their scores on the other hand seem to be in line with other white students and do not suffer from the sort of score gap that Asians suffer. I suppose its possible that Jews play more sports but if their participation in professional sports is correlated to their participation in NCAA sports teams, I wonder if those sports admits would explain the difference. > [@](#): > > Sure sounds like you are justifying their poor treatment. Well, then you are hearing things. > [@](#): > > Because you have implied and stated as much. Do you need me to quote you? Blatant racism? Yeah I think I need you to quote me. The closest that I think I have gotten to that is the reaction of white parents who see Asian students crowd out their kids. I don’t think that is blatant racism. I think that admissions committees have a bias (that is frequently not even a conscious bias) against having too many Asians. > [@](#): > > I explained why I think the most logical explanation for this is not bias. I don’t think its very convincing, I doubt very many people besides you find it very convincing. > [@](#): > > You need to explain why the data backs your claim despite even the people who collected the data disagreeing with that contention. Where does Espenshade disagree with the contention that bias exists? he only says that he cannot present us with a smoking gun. The data does not provide incontrovertible proof but the inference is very clear that there is bias in the admissions process. > [@](#): > > First, you are changing the issue. You have largely been railing against holistic admissions, I have said that there are factors beyond grades and scores that should be taken into account but that unspecified subjective holistic criteria opens up the admissions process to the biases of the admissions officers. And right now those biases seem to be in favor of everyone to varying degrees and against Asians almost across the board. > [@](#): > > not race blind admissions. I am just saying that race blind admissions would address the problems I have with holistic criteria. > [@](#): > > That said, I think admissions should not be race blind in large part because such schemes don’t typically result in race neutral decisions. Just look at the employment market. Even a Black sounding name will hurt you. And race blind application don’t have names. You think that non-Anglicized Asian names don’t hurt you? > [@](#): > > In elite colleges, where there is often an interview and other things that reveal race, such a policy is just willful blindness. More importantly, admissions are one of the few bottlenecks where society can apply a corrective to the rampant discrimination that exists at large. And there isn’t discrimination against Asians? It sounds like you are saying that there is a difference in degree of discrimination so Hispanics should get affirmative action based on race (rather than mere socioeconomic affirmative action) and Asians don’t really suffer much discrimination, and their over-representation in good schools is proof of that so we should just ignore the evidence that there are higher hurdles placed in front of Asians. > [@](#): > > Did you read my cite or his quote. He didn’t. Which is he even he is reluctant to cite his own work as evidence of anti-Asian bias. No. He is reluctant to cite his own work as PROOF of anti-Asian bias. > [@](#): > > Broadly speaking, no. There was plenty of entrenched prejudices that prevented some Blacks from playing certain positions or becoming coaches, but saying there was a broad anti-Black prejudice is hard to justify given the numbers. So you think that black quarterbacks and coaches are subject to higher standards and scrutiny than white quarterbacks and coaches but that’s not discrimination, that’s just entrenched prejudices (based on race) and the reason you don’t think there is discrimination is because there are so many blacks in the NFL. > [@](#): > > That said, as I noted before, the over-representation is not de facto evidence of a level playing field. However, it does mean that someone arguing the NFL is anti-Black better have some compelling evidence. If you don’t think there is enough evidence of anti-black bias in the NFL because their over-representation in the NFL requires extraordinary evidence, then I think I see the source of our inability to agree. > [@](#): > > Experts who study the matter. This is why Scalia was excoriated for even bringing it up at the SC. So when we have scholars at the Brookings Institute and professors at UCLA write a book about the mismatch theory in a book called MISMATCH. That means that the mismatch theory has “largely been discredited”? Of course it hasn’t. The use of mismatch theory by racists to justify racist things doesn’t invalidate the theory any more than the use of IQ by racists invalidates the concept of IQ. > [@](#): > > I have already cited a handful of these things, multiple times. The only one I can find is the article about low athletic participation by south Asians. And that article refers to professional sports players and students that are on NCAA teams. This is not a large enough population to explain the large disparity in admission rates. > [@](#): > > You are hallucinating if you think any other minority group would be up in arms marching in the streets because their across the board over-representation at some of the most prestigious institutions was arguably slightly less stark. That’s even granting your questionable hypothesis that there is prejudice at work. For example, when was the last time you heard Jews complaining about not winning enough Nobel prizes, or Black people complaining about not having enough players in the NBA? It’s definitely possible being a Jewish scientist or a Black NBA player might work against you in some small way, but you will never hear either group bitching about group discrimination in a credible way. So once again, we should shut up and sit down because we are already doing so well. Right? If we are already doing that well, we need some sort of incontrovertible proof before we can take allegations of bias seriously? > [@](#): > > That was a change in 1995, not the scoring change that you mentioned. That happened in 2005. What are you trying to say. Are you disagreeing that the right end of the curve has been clipped? Or that the change in the number of perfect scores was gradual rather than abrupt? > [@](#): > > I suspect that might be because anecdotes are not data. Do you really think people are arguing no one person in the entire process is biased? More importantly, let’s look at what she actually said: > > To some degree? Ok, not a slam dunk but definitely points for your side. Let’s continue: > > Wow! So it’s basically what I and others have been saying this entire time. The same thing that you denied vociferously; that Asians, as a group, tend to be lacking in other areas. > > Now, the only part that tends to justify your view are her comments here: > > However, the above is not that compelling because part of the reason Asians don’t stand out among their cohort is because they lack those tags. additionally, if her hypothesis were true, we would not see a relatively uniform discrepancy in admission stats. > > Further, this women doesn’t even disagree with holistic admissions, something you argue is bound to “hurt” high scoring Asians. Why is this insider your quoted reluctant to scrap this system that you argue has such demonstrably negative effects on Asians? So even when an admissions officer ADMITS to the bias, you grudgingly admit that there might be some small element of racial bias but you STILL latch on to the shred of reasonable doubt that legitimate holistic criteria might explain away the huge disparity in admission rates. People can read the article for themselves and see if its really just reasonable non-biased holistic stuff like you claim or anti-Asian bias. > **[Former Ivy League admissions dean: 'Racial stereotyping is alive and well'](https://www.businessinsider.com/former-ivy-league-admissions-dean-racial-stereotyping-is-alive-and-well-2015-6)** > > Highly qualified Asian-American college applicants may be rejected from elite schools because of their race. "Tags alone are not the only reason highly qualified Asian American applicants are turned away in droves from elite private institutions. Nowadays nobody on an admissions committee would dare use the term racial “quotas,” but racial stereotyping is alive and well. And although colleges would never admit students based on “quotas,” they fearlessly will “sculpt” the class with race and gender percentages in mind. For example, there’s an expectation that Asian Americans will be the highest test scorers and at the top of their class; anything less can become an easy reason for a denial. And yet even when Asian American students meet this high threshold, they may be destined for the wait list or outright denial because they don’t stand out among the other high-achieving students in their cohort. The most exceptional academic applicants may be seen as the least unique, and so admissions officers are rarely moved to fight for them. In the end, holistic admissions can allow for a gray zone of bias at elite institutions, working against a group such as Asian Americans that excels in the black-and-white world of academic achievement." Here is the article by the admissions officer: > **[Op-Ed: The truth about 'holistic' college admissions](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-american-admission-rates-20150609-story.html)** > > In May, 60 groups filed a complaint with the Justice and Education departments claiming that Asian Americans are held to a different standard — a higher standard — than other students applying for admission at elite universities. I think I would be satisfied with mere transparency rather than the elimination of racial tags. This would probably create enough pressure at top schools to stop most of the bigotry. I don’t think it would hurt blacks and other underrepresented minorities because they can justify those preferences at least as much as they can justify legacy preferences but biases against Asians seems hard to justify from their perspective. ---
**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:** [March 21, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/105 "2016-03-21T15:03:32Z")
So even when an admissions officer ADMITS to the bias, you grudgingly admit that there might be some small element of racial bias but you STILL latch on to the shred of reasonable doubt that legitimate holistic criteria might explain away the huge disparity in admission rates. People can read the article for themselves and see if its really just reasonable non-biased holistic stuff like you claim or anti-Asian bias. > **[Former Ivy League admissions dean: 'Racial stereotyping is alive and well'](https://www.businessinsider.com/former-ivy-league-admissions-dean-racial-stereotyping-is-alive-and-well-2015-6)** > > Highly qualified Asian-American college applicants may be rejected from elite schools because of their race. "Tags alone are not the only reason highly qualified Asian American applicants are turned away in droves from elite private institutions. Nowadays nobody on an admissions committee would dare use the term racial “quotas,” but racial stereotyping is alive and well. And although colleges would never admit students based on “quotas,” they fearlessly will “sculpt” the class with race and gender percentages in mind. For example, there’s an expectation that Asian Americans will be the highest test scorers and at the top of their class; anything less can become an easy reason for a denial. And yet even when Asian American students meet this high threshold, they may be destined for the wait list or outright denial because they don’t stand out among the other high-achieving students in their cohort. The most exceptional academic applicants may be seen as the least unique, and so admissions officers are rarely moved to fight for them. In the end, holistic admissions can allow for a gray zone of bias at elite institutions, working against a group such as Asian Americans that excels in the black-and-white world of academic achievement." Here is the article by the admissions officer: > **[Op-Ed: The truth about 'holistic' college admissions](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-american-admission-rates-20150609-story.html)** > > In May, 60 groups filed a complaint with the Justice and Education departments claiming that Asian Americans are held to a different standard — a higher standard — than other students applying for admission at elite universities. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/106 "2016-03-22T01:00:42Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I must have missed your cite. So go back and look, it’s there. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And when someone makes a claim that one race has sports participation rates low enough to explain away pretty big disparities in college admissions, I think the burden is on the person making THAT claim, not the one saying that the rates are the same between races. I didn’t say sports alone explain the disparity, so I have not made any supposition that needs justification. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Anyways, I found something, its not the study I remember but it conveys the same notion that there isn’t some huge gap in athletic participation by Asian males compared to their white counterparts. The cite is good enough, but it doesn’t address the issue directly. What does address it in a more direct manner is the disparate level of college sports participation rates. That is a more direct insight into what an admissions person may give deference to. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Cite? YOu want a cite that colleges tend to value football and basketball players over, say, flute and clarinet players? Really? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No it doesn’t. The burden of proof is met with the admissions data. The burden of proof is on you to prove that these disparities are not the result of bias. Wrong! You are the one drawing a specific inference from the data, and thus, the burden is on you. This why Espenshade, among others, doesn’t cite any of this as proof. You cannot just assume any disparity is due to racism or prejudice. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So wait, these schools in California have dramatically higher Asian populations because they are in California? Yes. Why are you surprised that state schools draw disproportionately from the students in that state? For example, roughly 66% of the incoming class at Berkeley are from CA. Also [note](http://admissions.berkeley.edu/studentprofile) that CA residents who have been admitted had lower GPAs and SAT scores than out of state students. The above fact alone proves nothing. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > SO why is Stanford largely immune to that, I mean they have somewhat higher Asian populations but it doesn’t even come close to approaching the Asian populations you get at the race blind schools. Because Stanford, unlike the UCs, is a global school that draws from everywhere more generally. Again, 66% of Berkeley students are CA residents. About [34%](http://facts.stanford.edu/academics/class-of-2018-profile) of Stanford’s students are. That makes a huge difference. Either way, we can rule out your supposition because, once again, the percentage of Asians at Berkeley pre and post prop 209 is basically the same. We can even extend this to the other great UC (UCLA). Pre-prop 209, the percentage of Asians was 30.5%. In the most recent year of data, it was 32.8%. That is hardly moving the needle. Do you really think a little more than a 2% difference is really evidence of widespread prejudice as you suggest? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The percentage of Asians at Harvard has apparently shrunk while the pool of qualified Asians has grown over the last few decades. Again, those are orthogonal metrics. Even if we accept that the pool is bigger, which for the record has not been demonstrated, the relevant number is who among those in the pool applied to Harvard, and were passed over for “less qualified” White applicants. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Do you really think that the admission rate is several times higher for white students can be explained by coaches on school teams getting set asides for all those white kids? Sports alone? Probably not. But it is one of many factors where we see a stark difference along racial lines. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > International admissions is a separate basket AFAICT. And your number is only correct if you include all the foreign students, you know, from other countries. So is your new supposition now that only _Asian-American_ students are discriminated against and not Asians from Asia? If not, it doesn’t matter. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What does the circumstances of immigration matter? It matters because it gets seemingly otherwise level headed people to contend that Hispanics would be better liked if they were “they were well educated middle class immigrants” who weren’t see as “an influx of uneducated poor immigrants that are glutting the labor market for our domestic born uneducated poor labor”. It also matters because is highlights a difference in treatment by others, resources, and circumstances. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Why are Hispanics entitled to race based affirmative action? Why isn’t socioeconomic based affirmative action enough? Please stop asking the same damn questions over and over again. I explained this a long time ago. In short, they are discriminated against and denied opportunities largely because of their race. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And AFAICT a 50% higher Asian population at MIT which still uses “holistic criteria” is a large difference, YMMV. Where are you seeing a 50% difference? More importantly, what does that allow you to conclude? Nothing at all, IMO. You noted that MIT isn’t race blind. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Your argument has meandered at least as much as mine. You asked for another area where we would tolerate so much over-representation by minorities and I pointed to sports as an example where we “tolerate” vast over-representation by minorities. Once again. You are misquoting me. I never said there were no other areas where over-representation of a singular minority group would not be tolerated. Not once. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > A recent article points out that there is another minority population that is over-represented at top schools without the huge racial gap we see between Asians and whites. Jews are about half as common as Asians but there are more Jews than Asians at most of the top schools. Their scores on the other hand seem to be in line with other white students and do not suffer from the sort of score gap that Asians suffer. Cite? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Well, then you are hearing things. Right, so please explain how when I opine that the “circumstances of [Hispanic people’s] plight [is] due in large part to societal discrimination based on their race”, it makes sense to talk about how if they were better educated and weren’t see as job thieves, they’d be treated better? Let’s switch the groups to see how not-racist it sounds. Me: Jews really face a lot of discrimination based on their religion “Non-racist”: Well, if they didn’t all decide to be bankers, and weren’t viewed as greedy devils, they’d be treated better Shucks, maybe that wasn’t clear enough: Me: You know Black people face a lot of discrimination based on their skin color “Non-racist”: Well, if they didn’t commit as many crimes, and weren’t see as inherently less intelligent than White people, they’ probably be treated better. Is it a little clearer for you now? It’s just mind-boggling that you actually had the gall to respond with that answer, then deny you were peddling some clearly prejudiced, near-racist, nonsense. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Where does Espenshade disagree with the contention that bias exists? he only says that he cannot present us with a smoking gun. The data does not provide incontrovertible proof but the inference is very clear that there is bias in the admissions process. No, not really. Let’s use his own [words](http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/do-asian-americans-face-bias-in-admissions-at-elite-colleges/?_r=0). He states first that his work is not prima facie evidence of discrimination and cautions against jumping to conclusions. It’s also noted that college counselors have not reported any evidence of such discrimination. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I am just saying that race blind admissions would address the problems I have with holistic criteria. No, it would only do so if you think that there is systemic discrimination explicitly against Asians on the basis of the self-identified race, and not their lack of tags, and that such discrimination could not happen in any other way beyond what is on the application. If you think people subconsciously discriminate against Asians, then race blind applications wouldn’t help because many of these schools still have interviews. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And race blind application don’t have names. You think that non-Anglicized Asian names don’t hurt you? Do you have a cite for this? That race blind applications don’t have names? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And there isn’t discrimination against Asians? Not broadly in a way that would justify AA IMO. I suppose you could break it down in a way where, for example, Cambodians immigrants might be deserving of it. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Asians don’t really suffer much discrimination, and their over-representation in good schools is proof of that so we should just ignore the evidence that there are higher hurdles placed in front of Asians. There isn’t really any evidence higher hurdles are placed in front of Asians. All you have is disparate admission rates along one set of factors. That isn’t really evidence of anything. For example, a higher percentage of Black NCAA college players make the NBA. Blacks are greatly over-represented in the NBA relative to the general population (about as much as Asians are at UCs FWIW). The above does not indicate non-Black athletes are discriminated against at any level. It doesn’t imply Whites have “hurdles placed in front of them”. It’s just a fact. A fact that might have 1000 explanations, and may have different explanations at different times. Inferring bad conduct just from that one things is bogus reasoning. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So you think that black quarterbacks and coaches are subject to higher standards and scrutiny than white quarterbacks and coaches but that’s not discrimination, that’s just entrenched prejudices (based on race) No, I think Black QBs and coaches tend to be subject to higher standards based on evidence that such a thing happens, an acknowledgement from the NFL that such things were happening, and a history of well known prejudices that informed such behavior. The numbers in those two particularly cases is only one aspect. They suggest that it might be something to look in to. You are making wild assumptions just based on numbers, and those numbers are already strongly in your favor. If the number of Black coaches and QBs was in line with other positions and showed stark Black OVER-REPRESENTATION, I doubt anyone would try to make the claim. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > and the reason you don’t think there is discrimination is because there are so many blacks in the NFL. Broadly speaking, yes. If someone were going to say the NFL should just make decisions based on race-blind stats because they think that would eliminate anti-Black prejudice, I would say that such a measure is not worth doing because there is no evidence of discrimination. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If you don’t think there is enough evidence of anti-black bias in the NFL because their over-representation in the NFL requires extraordinary evidence, then I think I see the source of our inability to agree. Yes, I ask for logical arguments and data, and you go on gut feeling absent anything else. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So when we have scholars at the Brookings Institute and professors at UCLA write a book about the mismatch theory in a book called MISMATCH. That means that the mismatch theory has “largely been discredited”? Of course it hasn’t. The use of mismatch theory by racists to justify racist things doesn’t invalidate the theory any more than the use of IQ by racists invalidates the concept of IQ. If it were accepted theory, you wouldn’t have most schools adopting policies that would result in worse outcomes for the people they are intending to help. The market has clearly spoken here to say nothing of the great number of other scholars who has criticized the theory. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So once again, we should shut up and sit down because we are already doing so well. Right? No. The comment was to your hysterical contention that “if we saw these sort of disparities with any other minority, people would be up in arms and marching in the streets”. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What are you trying to say. Are you disagreeing that the right end of the curve has been clipped? Or that the change in the number of perfect scores was gradual rather than abrupt? I am saying that your point about them changing the score had nothing to do with the increased number of perfect scores. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So even when an admissions officer ADMITS to the bias Again, this is bullshit. She argues biases can creep in, that that she or anyone else she works with is biased based on race. Further, this is ONE lady citing something. Note that she was head of admissions at one point. I will bet $1000 the percentage of Asians she admitted during her tenure did not significantly differ from other years. ---
**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:** [March 22, 2016, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/107 "2016-03-22T03:19:16Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > I didn’t say sports alone explain the disparity, so I have not made any supposition that needs justification. That’s true but I don;'t think you have been able to cobble together enough other things that add up to enough to explain away the difference. > [@](#): > > The cite is good enough, but it doesn’t address the issue directly. What does address it in a more direct manner is the disparate level of college sports participation rates. That is a more direct insight into what an admissions person may give deference to. Preference yes. What percentage of white students do you think end up playing on a team? What percentage of them do you think were given a preference for admission? Do you really think this plays a significant role in explaining away the rather large disparity in admission rates? I thought you were saying that athletics was a desirable part of a holistic application and that Asians are largely missing that part of the application (which apparently is true for Asian girls compared to their white counterparts). So I thought the relevant statistic was going to be athletic participation at the high school level rather than the college level. > [@](#): > > YOu want a cite that colleges tend to value football and basketball players over, say, flute and clarinet players? Really? No. I want a cite that Columbia values football and basketball players over fencers. I want a cite that Yale values football and basketball players over lacrosse players. I want a cite that Brown values football and basketball over rowing. etc. Actually I don’t really want these cites because I don’t think there are enough recruited players to come close to explaining the difference in admission rates. > [@](#): > > Wrong! You are the one drawing a specific inference from the data, and thus, the burden is on you. This why Espenshade, among others, doesn’t cite any of this as proof. You cannot just assume any disparity is due to racism or prejudice. YES! I am drawing REASONABLE inferences from the data. Inferences that social scientists have been making for a long long time. Not necessarily racism and bigotry but discrimination and bias. Espenshade says that this falls short of proof but he never says that the data does not present evidence of bias. > [@](#): > > Either way, we can rule out your supposition because, once again, the percentage of Asians at Berkeley pre and post prop 209 is basically the same. We can even extend this to the other great UC (UCLA). Pre-prop 209, the percentage of Asians was 30.5%. In the most recent year of data, it was 32.8%. That is hardly moving the needle. Do you really think a little more than a 2% difference is really evidence of widespread prejudice as you suggest? Its moving the needle relative to whites. What are the white percentages pre-prop 209 and in the most recent year? The percentage of hispanics has increased significantly (despite having race blind admission). > [@](#): > > Again, those are orthogonal metrics. Even if we accept that the pool is bigger, which for the record has not been demonstrated, the relevant number is who among those in the pool applied to Harvard, and were passed over for “less qualified” White applicants. Wait, you really need a cite for the fact that Asians make up a higher percentage of applicants to Harvard? What you are basically saying is that we need much more granular data to really figure out what is going on because the fact that everything we know so far points to bias against Asians at places like Harvard is not really enough to justify saying that there is bias at Harvard unless you can present incontrovertible proof that this is the case (and apparently an admission from an admissions officer is not even enough). > [@](#): > > Sports alone? Probably not. But it is one of many factors where we see a stark difference along racial lines. Those stark differences in recruited athletes is something on the order of 2.5% of white students versus .5% of Asians students. You need a fuckload of things like this to even come close to explaining away the disparity we see. > [@](#): > > So is your new supposition now that only _Asian-American_ students are discriminated against and not Asians from Asia? If not, it doesn’t matter. Was that not clear? There may be some bias against Asians tudents from Asia as well but we have been focusing on SAT scores, GPAs and AP test scores. foreign students as a general rule don’t have things that fit neatly into these cubbyholes, they are admitted on other critiera, aren’t they? Theya re compared to other foreign students aren’t they? > [@](#): > > It matters because it gets seemingly otherwise level headed people to contend that Hispanics would be better liked if they were “they were well educated middle class immigrants” who weren’t see as “an influx of uneducated poor immigrants that are glutting the labor market for our domestic born uneducated poor labor”. It also matters because is highlights a difference in treatment by others, resources, and circumstances. And how doesn’t socioeconomic preferences adress all of that? if indeed most of the prejudice we see against latinos has to do with their economic status then why a race based preference? > [@](#): > > Please stop asking the same damn questions over and over again. I explained this a long time ago. In short, they are discriminated against and denied opportunities largely because of their race. And in short I am saying bullshit. What opportunities are being denied to them that aren’t being denied to other poor immigrant Americans? In what way is the poor latino immigrant significantly worse off than poor asian immigrants were in the 1970s? Or are you under the impression that the first few waves of Asian immigrants were middle class? > [@](#): > > I never said there were no other areas where over-representation of a singular minority group would not be tolerated. Not once. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19183930&postcount=74](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19183930&postcount=74) “Stuff like this also highlights the magnitude of how differently Hispanics and Blacks are treated relative to Asians. There is almost no arena where Whites, in general, would be comfortable with almost half the population being Black or Hispanic unless they have NO other options.” Was my paraphrase really that off base? > [@](#): > > Cite? > **[Doors of Ivy League Colleges Reported Wide Open for Jewish Students - Jewish...](https://www.jta.org/archive/doors-of-ivy-league-colleges-reported-wide-open-for-jewish-students)** > > Enrollment of Jewish students in the Ivy League colleges has grown vastly in recent years, and decided steps toward opening more Ivy League doors to Jews have been taken this year, it was revealed here today. According to a survey of this year’s... > [@](#): > > Right, so please explain how when I opine that the “circumstances of [Hispanic people’s] plight [is] due in large part to societal discrimination based on their race”, it makes sense to talk about how if they were better educated and weren’t see as job thieves, they’d be treated better? Let’s switch the groups to see how not-racist it sounds. YOu said that they are disadvantaged compared to Asians because of the circumstances of their immigration. Are you now saying that Hispanics are subject to more discrimination based on their race than Asians were when we first started immigrating in larger numbers? > [@](#): > > Me: Jews really face a lot of discrimination based on their religion > “Non-racist”: Well, if they didn’t all decide to be bankers, and weren’t viewed as greedy devils, they’d be treated better > > Shucks, maybe that wasn’t clear enough: That’s pretty different. What hispanic stereotype is being used to discriminate against them? The stereotype that they are poor? The stereotype that they are undereducated? Well then WTF is the difference between them and a poor undereducated Asian immigrant? Sure there is a white racist component that every non-white person has to live with but Asians are not white, really, they aren’t. > [@](#): > > Me: You know Black people face a lot of discrimination based on their skin color > “Non-racist”: Well, if they didn’t commit as many crimes, and weren’t see as inherently less intelligent than White people, they’ probably be treated better. What vice or inherent inferiority do we ascribe to hispanics? I remember a time when people talked about lazy Mexicans in this country (its harder to do now when the chief complaint is that they are taking everyone’s jobs), noone thinks of them as particularly lazy and only the Donald Trumps of the world think they are any more criminal than other immigrant groups. > [@](#): > > Is it a little clearer for you now? It’s just mind-boggling that you actually had the gall to respond with that answer, then deny you were peddling some clearly prejudiced, near-racist, nonsense. That’s largely because you are looking for reasons to be offended and try to label me as racist. > [@](#): > > No, not really. Let’s use his own [words](http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/do-asian-americans-face-bias-in-admissions-at-elite-colleges/?_r=0). He states first that his work is not prima facie evidence of discrimination He says it is NOT NECESSARILY primae facie evidence of discrimination. Do you think there is a difference between what you said and what he said? > [@](#): > > and cautions against jumping to conclusions. It’s also noted that college counselors have not reported any evidence of such discrimination. So college counselors say there isn’t discrimination? You don’t say. Gee then it must be true.:rolleyes: [quote] No, it would only do so if you think that there is systemic discrimination explicitly against Asians on the basis of the self-identified race, [quote] Yes that’s almost exactly what I think. > [@](#): > > and not their lack of tags, and that such discrimination could not happen in any other way beyond what is on the application. If you think people subconsciously discriminate against Asians, then race blind applications wouldn’t help because many of these schools still have interviews. Yes and those interviews are not usually held by admissions committees. They are held by alumni and unless the interviewer makes note of their race, the admissions committee can’t really tell. Or do you think i am accusing all Ivy league grads of having a bias against Asians? > [@](#): > > Do you have a cite for this? That race blind applications don’t have names? How do you think the UC system does it? I think they assign each application a number that is used to identify the applicant throughout the admissions process. > [@](#): > > Not broadly in a way that would justify AA IMO. I suppose you could break it down in a way where, for example, Cambodians immigrants might be deserving of it. What discrimination is there against Cambodians that there isn’t against South Asian Indians? Heck what discrimination is there against Mexicans that there isn’t against Asians that can’t be explained by socioeconomic disadvantages? > [@](#): > > There isn’t really any evidence higher hurdles are placed in front of Asians. All you have is disparate admission rates along one set of factors. That isn’t really evidence of anything. For example, a higher percentage of Black NCAA college players make the NBA. Blacks are greatly over-represented in the NBA relative to the general population (about as much as Asians are at UCs FWIW). The above does not indicate non-Black athletes are discriminated against at any level. It doesn’t imply Whites have “hurdles placed in front of them”. It’s just a fact. A fact that might have 1000 explanations, and may have different explanations at different times. Inferring bad conduct just from that one things is bogus reasoning. But I’m not inferring it from ONE thing. I’m inferring it from all quantifiable variables. Espenshade used regression analysis to factor in a bunch of other stuff Its getting late again. I’ll try to get to the rest later. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/108 "2016-03-22T04:47:32Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > That’s true but I don;'t think you have been able to cobble together enough other things that add up to enough to explain away the difference. I don’t have to. Once again, it’s not my burden to prove the case. All I have been doing is explaining why you are wrong to jump to that conclusion. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Do you really think this plays a significant role in explaining away the rather large disparity in admission rates? In part, yes. Second, there is generally not a large discrepancy in admission rates. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No. I want a cite that Columbia values football and basketball players over fencers. I want a cite that Yale values football and basketball players over lacrosse players. I want a cite that Brown values football and basketball over rowing. etc. Does common sense count? How about we look at how [scholarships](http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/03/10/sports/20080310_SCHOLAR_GRAPHIC2.html) are given? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > YES! I am drawing REASONABLE inferences from the data. Inferences that social scientists have been making for a long long time. Not necessarily racism and bigotry but discrimination and bias. You dont have enough data to make the inference. Even the author cautions to NOT make that inference. His word is enough to make it unreasonable let alone the number of other people questioning the conclusion. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Espenshade says that this falls short of proof but he never says that the data does not present evidence of bias. Quote Espenshade saying his data presents evidence of bias? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Its moving the needle relative to whites. Which is meaningless. Anti-Asian bias would act against Asians regardless of who benefits. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Wait, you really need a cite for the fact that Asians make up a higher percentage of applicants to Harvard? No, that this growing pool of qualified Asian college age students were applying to Harvard and other places in sufficiently larger numbers as to make their static percentage of admittants suspicious. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Was that not clear? There may be some bias against Asians tudents from Asia as well but we have been focusing on SAT scores, GPAs and AP test scores. foreign students as a general rule don’t have things that fit neatly into these cubbyholes, they are admitted on other i, aren’t they? Theya re compared to other foreign students aren’t they? Generally no, they are pitted against everyone else in many cases. It depends on the school and he educational system the come from obviously. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And how doesn’t socioeconomic preferences adress all of that? if indeed most of the prejudice we see against latinos has to do with their economic status then why a race based preference? It doesn’t just have to do with their economic status. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And in short I am saying bullshit. What opportunities are being denied to them that aren’t being denied to other poor immigrant Americans? In what way is the poor latino immigrant significantly worse off than poor asian immigrants were in the 1970s? Or are you under the impression that the first few waves of Asian immigrants were middle class? Your terrible assumption is that I would have been against AA for Asians at that time. That is not the case. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Was my paraphrase really that off base? Yes, it was. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > [http://www.jta.org/1967/04/18/archive/doors-of-ivy-league-colleges-reported-wide-open-for-jewish-students](http://www.jta.org/1967/04/18/archive/doors-of-ivy-league-colleges-reported-wide-open-for-jewish-students) Oh, so when you said “a recent article”, you meant one from 1967? Seriously, step away from the computer. You are losing it. Your arguments have basically become a parody. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > That’s pretty different. What hispanic stereotype is being used to discriminate against them? How about that they are largely uneducated and are taking jobs? Dude, hang it up, what you said is clearly bigoted. I dare you to tell someone in real life what you said without trying to gild the turd that were your comments with some mealy mouth preamble. It was an ugly, reductive statement that sounded like something Donald Trump would say, then defend as him just telling it like it is. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So college counselors say there isn’t discrimination? You don’t say. Gee then it must be true.:rolleyes: Sorry, so you think you are in a better position to judge than people who are involved in the process for a living, and have no reason to lie, and every reason to advocate for their students? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Yes and those interviews are not usually held by admissions committees. They are held by alumni and unless the interviewer makes note of their race, the admissions committee can’t really tell. Or do you think i am accusing all Ivy league grads of having a bias against Asians? Does it matter? For systematic bias to exist at every elite school as you seem to be suggesting, why would the alumni chosen to give interviews be less biased? They don’t have to note the interviewee was Asian; they just have to be subconsciously affected by it. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > How do you think the UC system does it? I think they assign each application a number that is used to identify the applicant throughout the admissions process. So then where is your cite? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > But I’m not inferring it from ONE thing. I’m inferring it from all quantifiable variables. Espenshade used regression analysis to factor in a bunch of other stuff And yet, he says don’t jump to the conclusions you are jumping to. And yet, the pre and post prop 209 data shows almost no discernible difference in Asian enrollment at the elite schools in CA. And yet, you think ALL elite schools have either colluded, or independently come to the conclusion that they would be served by discriminating against Asian people, and that they should do it in the subtlest of ways so that their classes are roughly 2% less Asian. And yet, despite Asians being over-represented by a huge amount, you think that these seemingly progressive admission committees, who have gone to the mat to defend AA and to be more inclusive of URMs, are systematically discriminating against Asians for some unknown reason. Yep, makes perfect sense. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/109 "2016-03-22T09:24:27Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Public schools were formally segregated in lots of places throughout most of the 60s, and continue to be defacto segregated decades after. I don’t doubt your statistics because they don’t come as a big shocker to me. I’d expect lower test scores in a group that was only granted first-class citizenship when most Baby Boomers were teenagers. I have hope that we will continue to see [test gaps narrow](https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jencks-gap.html). Unfortunately, test scores have not narrowed in two decades despite the optimist of Christopher and Jencks when they wrote that back in the 90’s, based on the data that test scores did narrow from an even wider gap once educational opportunities were improved in the 60s through 80s. But now [the gaps have not changed in 20 years](http://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/SAT%20chart_1.png). Moreover, it’s well shown that the gap is not due to opportunity differences. Wealthy black children[score barely on par](http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html)with poverty stricken whites on the SAT, for example. In non-black groups, what happened to Grampa does not seem to affect what happens to a current generation. If we look at asian immigrants, their success rate is extraordinarily high, even if their ancestors suffered horribly. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/110 "2016-03-22T09:32:51Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Unfortunately, test scores have not narrowed in two decades despite the optimist of Christopher and Jencks when they wrote that back in the 90’s, based on the data that test scores did narrow from an even wider gap once educational opportunities were improved in the 60s through 80s. > > But now [the gaps have not changed in 20 years](http://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/SAT%20chart_1.png). Moreover, it’s well shown that the gap is not due to opportunity differences. Wealthy black children[score barely on par](http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html)with poverty stricken whites on the SAT, for example. > > In non-black groups, what happened to Grampa does not seem to affect what happens to a current generation. If we look at asian immigrants, their success rate is extraordinarily high, even if their ancestors suffered horribly. 20 years is nothing, especially when society is still so unequal in so many ways. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/111 "2016-03-22T09:57:39Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > 20 years is nothing, especially when society is still so unequal in so many ways. The point is that the gap initially narrowed, but is no longer narrowing. And if you take the average black SAT score from kids who have wealthy background and highly educated parents, and compare it with the average white SAT score from kids who have very poor parents and very poorly educated parents, they are about the same. Within the same socioeconomic tier, whether high or low, asians will universally be the highest–especially in STEM disciplines–and blacks (of the major self-identified groups) will always be the lowest. So while you can handwave “still unequal in so many ways,” you end up with a lotta ‘splainin’ to do. And especially so when you consider that the gap does not go away even if you look at exactly the same background in higher education. For example, blacks in medical fields have poorer scores not just at college entrance, but at med school entrance, med school graduation, and specialty exams. This doesn’t happen with any other group. Brand new asian immigrants catch up very fast once given the opportunity. Arguing for some kind of special disadvantage for blacks is unsupported. What net disadvantage accrues to a wealthy black kid with highly educated parents versus a poor white kid with sub-high-schoolers for parents? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/112 "2016-03-22T10:06:48Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > What net disadvantage accrues to a wealthy black kid with highly educated parents versus a poor white kid with sub-high-schoolers for parents? Tons of possible answers – differing media depictions and role models; differing treatment by teachers; differing experiences with regards to day-to-day racism; differing peer interactions; or a myriad of other possibilities. If society is profoundly different for white people and black people, _even when income and education are taken into account_, then differing outcomes would be expected. ---
**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:** [March 22, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/113 "2016-03-22T13:44:55Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The point is that the gap initially narrowed, but is no longer narrowing. The implication here is that we have done as much remediation as we can and it is time to remove the race based restrictions. A sub-conclusion might be that whatever the reasons for the gap, race based preferences are not going to make a difference, there is something more fundamental going on that race based preferences at late stages of development are not going to address. I think it probably makes more sense to focus on childhood development. There is already a cultural shift within the black community. There is some research that concludes that in every demographic, athletic success is the greatest predictor of self esteem and confidence (and I think it also predicted social popularity) except among black girls. Among black girls, perceived intelligence is the greatest predictor. I don’t know if this is something that can bleed over onto the male side and I don’t know how you can encourage it but I am inclined to believe that this shift in attitude would make a large difference in academic performance and even on IQ tests. > [@](#): > > And if you take the average black SAT score from kids who have wealthy background and highly educated parents, and compare it with the average white SAT score from kids who have very poor parents and very poorly educated parents, they are about the same. When were those measurements taken? I bet you that the children in middle class black communities that have sprung up around historically black colleges are doing better than that now (maybe still not at parity with their wealthy white peers). We are not that many generations removed from Jim Crow in the South and things were only a little better in the North. I saw the racism every day as a child and even as I suffered racism and bigotry for being Asian, (frequently from blacks), I knew I had it better than the black kids. > [@](#): > > Arguing for some kind of special disadvantage for blacks is unsupported. What net disadvantage accrues to a wealthy black kid with highly educated parents versus a poor white kid with sub-high-schoolers for parents? Compare the gap between poor black kids and their poor white peers and rich black kids and their rich white peers. The gap seems smaller for the wealthier black kids. Why is that? This is difficult to answer without resorting to saying that the effects of racism has a deep and abiding effect on a community that percolates into children. If you don’t think such an effect exists then you just can’t get there. How long has it been since smart black boys were Erkels? Rich or poor, no kid wants to be Erkel. There is a real world example of genetically identical groups that had widely divergent IQ scores despite only a generation or two of separation. When East and West Germany reunited, the East German children had IQ scores that approached a full standard deviation lower than their West German counterparts. And in the generation since reunification they have closed about half the gap. This is really hard to explain if you take a largely genetic approach to IQ. I don’t know what the answer is but ISTM that we should be doing more to try to reduce the disparity MUCH earlier than the college admissions process. ---
**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:** [March 23, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/114 "2016-03-23T19:16:32Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > there is generally not a large discrepancy in admission rates. -To achieve the same admission rates by elite colleges, Asian Americans must outperform Whites by 140 points; -Whites students are three times more likely to be admitted to top school than Asian students with similar test scores/grades/AP exams. -The percentage of Asians among the student bodies of Ivy League schools has been a steady 17 percent, give or take a couple of points, for about 20 years despite huge increases in the pool of qualified Asian applicants; -While more comprehensive data is unavailable, data from Duke’s entering class shows that Asian students outperform white students on everything other than “personal qualities” and income. Apparently Asians are less personal and have less money and there is no reason to believe that this is unique to Duke. [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/20/mismatch](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/20/mismatch); -The SAT score gap between whites and Asians can be as high as 140 points at some top schools and is rarely below 50 points at top schools; ISTM that these things add up to a pretty large discpreancy. > [@](#): > > Does common sense count? How about we look at how [scholarships](http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/03/10/sports/20080310_SCHOLAR_GRAPHIC2.html) are given? First of all the number of scholarships is too small to make a difference. Second, those are statistics for all division 1 schools. Columbia does not focus on the same sports as USC and Duke (both fine schools). I didn’t pick those sports entirely at random. They are sports that those schools seem to be well known for. > [@](#): > > It doesn’t just have to do with their economic status. And so I ask again, what race based non-socioeconomic discrimination do Latinos suffer that Asians do not? If it is a matter of degree and not kind than why aren’t you asking for a smaller degree of affirmative action for Asians? > [@](#): > > Your terrible assumption is that I would have been against AA for Asians at that time. That is not the case. But those are socioeconomic variables not race based ones. You are arguing for socioeconomic preferences and I think a lot of people are on board with that. > [@](#): > > Yes, it was. Then you are picking nits. > [@](#): > > Oh, so when you said “a recent article”, you meant one from 1967? Seriously, step away from the computer. You are losing it. Your arguments have basically become a parody. The article was published more recently but I did not see the date of the original article but there are other articles (I don’t agree with the notion that Jews are given a preference but its a pretty good argument that Jews are at least as over-represented as Asians. > **[The Myth of American Meritocracy](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/)** > > Hotlisted in the New York Times -- Ron Unz's expose on inequality in Ivy League admissions Are you seriously trying to say that the Jewish population at Ivy leagues is lower today than it was in 1967? You sure I am the one “losing it?” > [@](#): > > How about that they are largely uneducated and are taking jobs? Dude, hang it up, what you said is clearly bigoted. I dare you to tell someone in real life what you said without trying to gild the turd that were your comments with some mealy mouth preamble. It was an ugly, reductive statement that sounded like something Donald Trump would say, then defend as him just telling it like it is. I think you should go back and reread what I said without trying to find racism where none exists. Here is what I said: “There is discrimination largely because people see them as an influx of uneducated poor immigrants that are glutting the labor market for our domestic born uneducated poor labor. You think people didn’t used to think Asians were dirty and smelly? I bet they used to think the same thing about the Irish and the Jews. I’m not saying they deserve to be poorly treated but I don’t see what we owe them based purely on their race.” I think its pretty clear i was talking about other people. I thought that was pretty clear by the reference to dirty smelly Asians. Or were you referring to something else I wrote? Seriously if you are degenerating to accusations of racism to try and undermine my position then I think you probably realize that you have lost the argument. You know what, fuck it. The comment about affirmative action for latinos was a side note. I am not terribly bothered by affirmative action for underrepresented minorities even though that basically means all minorities other than Asians. It would be nice if there wasn’t so much evidence of affirmative action for whites. > [@](#): > > Does it matter? For systematic bias to exist at every elite school as you seem to be suggesting, why would the alumni chosen to give interviews be less biased? They don’t have to note the interviewee was Asian; they just have to be subconsciously affected by it. Because the alumni are not on the admissions committee. I don’t think that the subconscious bigotry of the average well educated civilian is enough to explain the huge disparities in college admissions, I think it takes the perspective of a college admissions officer. The civilian doesn’t see this wave of Asian applicants flooding into their school. They see one or two applicants and they can judge them on their individual merits they don’t see a metric shit ton of Asians crowding out the less qualified white applicants. They don’t feel a need to try and “balance” the racial make-up of the freshman class. > [@](#): > > And yet, you think ALL elite schools have either colluded, or independently come to the conclusion that they would be served by discriminating against Asian people, and that they should do it in the subtlest of ways so that their classes are roughly 2% less Asian. And yet, despite Asians being over-represented by a huge amount, you think that these seemingly progressive admission committees, who have gone to the mat to defend AA and to be more inclusive of URMs, are systematically discriminating against Asians for some unknown reason. Yep, makes perfect sense. This sort of racism never makes any sense. I think that they are trying really hard to maintain a predetermined racial make-up. I think that if blacks were 20% of the student body and rising, we would suddenly see blacks subjected to a higher hurdle. Same for latinos and whites (with different caps based on what the admissions committees thought was an optimal population). Do you really think its just a coincidence that the Asian population has remained so steady at Ivy league schools despite the sharp increase in the Asian population? Do you really think that you can explain away the disparities in admission rates because Asians play soccer or lacrosse instead of football or baseball? ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/115 "2016-03-23T21:58:53Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > -To achieve the same admission rates by elite colleges, Asian Americans must outperform Whites by 140 points So what? At that end of the scale, 140 points is not very meaningful in actuality or in the eyes of your typical admissions officer. Even the College Board doesn’t argue such a disparity is meaningful. This is like if I found Whites need to be 3 inches taller to make their chances of getting drafted to the NBA equal to Blacks. We can plainly see height matters to a large extent just as the SAT does to colleges, but it doesn’t tell us much in isolation as it pertains to racial biases. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > -Whites students are three times more likely to be admitted to top school than Asian students with similar test scores/grades/AP exams. I seriously question the significance of that factoid. How many people are we talking about, and how similar is “similar”. Regardless, Espenshade’s report also notes: > [@](#): > > Our finding that applicants of Asian heritage experience an apparent admissions disadvantage raises the issue of whether there are ‘‘discriminatory admissions policies against Asian American applicants to elite colleges and universities’’ (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1992:104) or, as one reviewer expressed it, whether Asian applicants are actually subject to ‘‘disaffirmative action’’ in college admissions. The two-year review that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights conducted of Harvard University’s admission policies concluded that: ‘‘Over the last ten years Asian American applicants have been admitted at a significantly lower rate than white applicants; however . . … [T]his disparity is not the result of > discriminatory polices or procedures . . … We determined that the primary cause of the disparity was the preference given to children of alumni and recruited athletes’’ (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1992:120). The Office for Civil Rights also concluded that, whereas Asian applicants were typically stronger on standardized tests and other measures of academic performance (with the exception of the SAT verbal test), white applicants were higher on such nonacademic scores as athletic and personal rating (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1992:122, n.98). Why do you think the US Commission on Civil Rights came to that conclusion after reviewing the data? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > -The percentage of Asians among the student bodies of Ivy League schools has been a steady 17 percent, give or take a couple of points, for about 20 years despite huge increases in the pool of qualified Asian applicants Once again, those numbers are not related at all. Even if they were, you are not factoring the growth of the class size, the number of other groups admitted, etc. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > -While more comprehensive data is unavailable, data from Duke’s entering class shows that Asian students outperform white students on everything other than “personal qualities” and income. Apparently Asians are less personal and have less money and there is no reason to believe that this is unique to Duke. Yes, Asian students apparently are lacking in those softer criteria as noted by the US Commission on Civil Rights, _your_ cited academic dean, and the numerous cited I linked to. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > First of all the number of scholarships is too small to make a difference. No, it isn’t. This is why the US Commission said what it said. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Columbia does not focus on the same sports as USC and Duke (both fine schools). I didn’t pick those sports entirely at random. They are sports that those schools seem to be well known for. Neither school is known for their fencing or lacrosse team (outside of the rape case). Their main sports are football and basketball respectively. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If it is a matter of degree and not kind than why aren’t you asking for a smaller degree of affirmative action for Asians? Because I don’t think Asians, broadly speaking, are being systemically discriminating against in a way that collectively harms their academic potential. I’d be perfectly fine with AA in some labor markets where Asians are significantly under-represented due to discrimination. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Then you are picking nits. Says the guy who makes up quotes out of thin air, and refers to articles that are almost 50 years old as recent. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Are you seriously trying to say that the Jewish population at Ivy leagues is lower today than it was in 1967? You sure I am the one “losing it?” I have no idea what those numbers are. I was pointing out that your choice of cite and your assertions are unsupportable. You keep throwing out baseless claims like: > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Jews are about half as common as Asians but there are more Jews than Asians at most of the top schools. Their scores on the other hand seem to be in line with other white students and do not suffer from the sort of score gap that Asians suffer. Then when you are asked to support the claim, you fall back on a lesser unrelated claim or assertion like whether or not there are more Jews at the Ivies than there were in 1967. It’s just an embarrassing, nonsensical mode of argumentation and debate. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think you should go back and reread what I said without trying to find racism where none exists. Here is what I said: > > “There is discrimination largely because people see them as an influx of uneducated poor immigrants that are glutting the labor market for our domestic born uneducated poor labor. You think people didn’t used to think Asians were dirty and smelly? I bet they used to think the same thing about the Irish and the Jews. I’m not saying they deserve to be poorly treated but I don’t see what we owe them based purely on their race.” How cute. You forgot the FIRST sentence which set the negative tone for the rest. You started by saying: > [@](#): > > If they were well educated middle class immigrants, I doubt there would be much more discrimination against them than there is against Asians… Which clearly implies that some of the discrimination Hispanic people face is partly their fault due to their not being someone worthy of being treated well, and accepts as a predicate that Hispanics are not “well-educated middle class immigrants”. But, don’t take my word for it. Go find a Hispanic person (or almost any person who isn’t biased), read them what you wrote, then ask them if they think it sounds prejudiced or racist. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Because the alumni are not on the admissions committee. Ah, so this subconscious anti-Asian bias only takes hold once you join an admission staff? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t think that the subconscious bigotry of the average well educated civilian is enough to explain the huge disparities in college admissions, I think it takes the perspective of a college admissions officer. The civilian doesn’t see this wave of Asian applicants flooding into their school. They see one or two applicants and they can judge them on their individual merits they don’t see a metric shit ton of Asians crowding out the less qualified white applicants. They don’t feel a need to try and “balance” the racial make-up of the freshman class. So this bias is what docks Asians roughly 2% or less in representation? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > This sort of racism never makes any sense. While true, the data, being fairly uniform and consistent does reflect some logic and reasoning that is best explained by factors other than racism. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Do you really think its just a coincidence that the Asian population has remained so steady at Ivy league schools despite the sharp increase in the Asian population? Unless you can document there has been a corresponding increase in the number of qualified Asian applying to elite schools and being passed over for “less qualified” people, then you shouldn’t assume the steady enrollment means anything. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/116 "2016-03-24T02:09:25Z")
I’ve read three pages of posters attempting to try to find the right mix of non-racial criteria to favor particular races. Growing up, the evil about race and schools was the unequal treatment. Before Brown v. Board, it didn’t matter if you were the smartest black dude in the South, you could not go to UT law school. Swett v. Painter changed that. For years after that, there were systemic biases in the system; some administrators would try to deny black applicants under the guise of poor test scores, not unlike some posters are trying to elevate those students for other reasons. The problem is solved. If a white kid, an Asian kid, and a black kid apply for a particular law school (absent affirmative action) they are on an equal footing. Nobody is saying that he doesn’t want that little black boy or the jap boy in his school. The competition is fair, and it involves who meets the objective criteria for admission. I think that is good enough. If that means 100% white, 100% asian, or 100% black, then we have reached a merit based color blind society that was all that was asked for by the pioneers in racial equality. Of course there are problems with upbringing, inner city schools, etc. Focus on that and not at the college level. A 22 year old white kid should not be punished for something his ancestors did. Some are saying that there is no difference between 2000 and 1800 on an SAT. That is like saying that a football team that loses 24-17 should get a win because, hey, a couple of bounces here or there and the losing team wins. If the tests are designed poorly, fix the tests. If the other admissions factors don’t really give you the best students, fix those factors. But to design a program to help boost someone based solely on race (and yes, the Texas 10% program does just that; get rid of it too) that is abhorrent to me and it seems that my grandfather, born in 1921, was more committed to true equality than most millennials. It’s damn sad. I thought that we were putting that behind us. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2016, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/117 "2016-03-25T01:57:34Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > So what? At that end of the scale, 140 points is not very meaningful in actuality or in the eyes of your typical admissions officer. Even the College Board doesn’t argue such a disparity is meaningful. This is like if I found Whites need to be 3 inches taller to make their chances of getting drafted to the NBA equal to Blacks. We can plainly see height matters to a large extent just as the SAT does to colleges, but it doesn’t tell us much in isolation as it pertains to racial biases. 140 points is more than half a standard deviation. You can lie to yourself that this is a meaningless difference but whether it is through effort or innate ability, that sort of a difference is meaningful. > **[TotalGroup-2012.pdf](https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/TotalGroup-2012.pdf)** > > 197.19 KB The combination of high school GPA and SAT has a .61 correlation with Freshman GPA. [http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/7/researchreport-2008-5-validity-sat-predicting-first-year-college-grade-point-average.pdf](http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/7/researchreport-2008-5-validity-sat-predicting-first-year-college-grade-point-average.pdf) SATs alone have a .53 correlation. There are no better predictors of freshman year performance than the SAT combined with high school GPA. This is especially true among high performing Asians and whites. [http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/7/researchreport-2008-4-differential-validity-prediction-sat.pdf](http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/7/researchreport-2008-4-differential-validity-prediction-sat.pdf) I don’t think anyone that doesn’t WANT to believe that there is no discrimination against Asians actually believes that. > [@](#): > > I seriously question the significance of that factoid. How many people are we talking about, and how similar is “similar”. Regardless, Espenshade’s report also notes: You don’t think it is significant that Asian students with similar objective criteria are admitted at one third the rate of white students is significant?:smack: We’ve got objective evidence, studies and an admissions from a former admissions officer saying that there is bias against Asians and you are contorting reason in order to find some reasonable doubt that this bias exists. We are starting to approach denialist levels of refutation of studies and facts. > [@](#): > > Why do you think the US Commission on Civil Rights came to that conclusion after reviewing the data? Do you have a link to the report? Because it sounds like it might not be a very rigorous process of review. When they say: “white applicants were higher on such nonacademic scores as athletic and **personal rating** ” What do they mean by “personal rating” > [@](#): > > Once again, those numbers are not related at all. Even if they were, you are not factoring the growth of the class size, the number of other groups admitted, etc. Asians have been increasing as a percentage of the American population over the last 20 years. It is the fastest growing minority: [http://www.newgeography.com/content/004825-asians-americas-fastest-growing-minority](http://www.newgeography.com/content/004825-asians-americas-fastest-growing-minority) > [@](#): > > Yes, Asian students apparently are lacking in those softer criteria as noted by the US Commission on Civil Rights, _your_ cited academic dean, and the numerous cited I linked to. Yes, there is some missing personal factor, some “je ne sais quoi,” some inarticulable trait that white students have and Asian students don’t. My position is that this mystery factor is bias towards white students and against Asian students. > [@](#): > > No, it isn’t. This is why the US Commission said what it said. You have a link to their study? Espenshade’s study controlled for legacies and recruited athletes. The gap is smaller (much more because of legacies than recruited athletes). > [@](#): > > Neither school is known for their fencing or lacrosse team (outside of the rape case). Their main sports are football and basketball respectively. Not USC and Duke. See where I say: “Columbia values football and basketball players over fencers. I want a cite that Yale values football and basketball players over lacrosse players. I want a cite that Brown values football and basketball over rowing. etc.” USC and Duke are fine schools that do in fact recruit for football and basketball and I would be surprised to find that more than 1% of the freshman class are recruited for those sports. > [@](#): > > Because I don’t think Asians, broadly speaking, are being systemically discriminating against in a way that collectively harms their academic potential. I’d be perfectly fine with AA in some labor markets where Asians are significantly under-represented due to discrimination. Where are Asians underrepresented where they don’t want to be underrepresented outside Asian males in the media and entertainment? I want Asians to be fairly represented according to their ability without regard to their race. > [@](#): > > Says the guy who makes up quotes out of thin air, and refers to articles that are almost 50 years old as recent. What does your picking nits have to do with that. I presented a more recent article (within the last 5 years I think). Do you STILL doubt that Jews are over-represented in the Ivy League? This coming from the guy who keep insisting that there is no evidence of almost everything until presented with evidence. Then you just drop that topic and start on another one. > [@](#): > > I have no idea what those numbers are. I was pointing out that your choice of cite and your assertions are unsupportable. You keep throwing out baseless claims like: > > Then when you are asked to support the claim, you fall back on a lesser unrelated claim or assertion like whether or not there are more Jews at the Ivies than there were in 1967. It’s just an embarrassing, nonsensical mode of argumentation and debate. Didn’t the last cite I presented support those claims? > [@](#): > > How cute. You forgot the FIRST sentence which set the negative tone for the rest. You started by saying: No need to be snide. I know its hard to lose an argument and it must be especially hard when you are forced to realize that you had a bias against Asians that you didn’t even realize you had, but trying to divert attention by accusing me of racism isn’t really helping your argument. > [@](#): > > Which clearly implies that some of the discrimination Hispanic people face is partly their fault due to their not being someone worthy of being treated well, and accepts as a predicate that Hispanics are not “well-educated middle class immigrants”. How does it imply that it is their fault. YOU are the one trying to create distinctions between how Asians are treated and how Hispanics. You are the one that claimed that Hispanics are being treated worse than Asians because of the color of their skin and not some other factor like because Asians generally have more money and education. You seem to be awfully willing to assume that things like wealth and education make little difference in how people are treated (its mostly about race) but the fact that some small percentage of white students are recruited athletes explains away a disparity that cannot possibly begin to be explained by recruited athletes. > [@](#): > > But, don’t take my word for it. Go find a Hispanic person (or almost any person who isn’t biased), read them what you wrote, then ask them if they think it sounds prejudiced or racist. I just did and they agreed that if Hispanics generally were wealthier and better educated, they would be treated better. if you don’t think that having money and education makes a difference in how you are treated, you should talk to some rich black folks and ask them if the would experience more or less racism and prejudice if they were poor and uneducated. This is just the latest in your series of truly remarkable comments. The world you live in must seem very strange to everyone you meet. > [@](#): > > Ah, so this subconscious anti-Asian bias only takes hold once you join an admission staff? Well yes and no. I think the subconscious anti-asian bias exists at virtually all top schools where Asians are grossly over-represented. I think the bias is more than subconscious at some schools where they are deliberately trying to maintain some sort of racial balance. > [@](#): > > While true, the data, being fairly uniform and consistent does reflect some logic and reasoning that is best explained by factors other than racism. Or it reflects a non-racist desire to achieve a particular racial balance. A bias against admitting asians because there are already too many. > [@](#): > > Unless you can document there has been a corresponding increase in the number of qualified Asian applying to elite schools and being passed over for “less qualified” people, then you shouldn’t assume the steady enrollment means anything. Of course that’s bullshit. You are in some serious denial (on the scale of deny the link between cigarrettes and cancer in the 1970’s level denial) if you really think that being Asian doesn’t hurt you in the admissions process at top schools. Apparently you cant be bothered to read the book so here is an article. I am sure that you are going to be able to squeeze some reasonable doubt out of this somehow but here it is anyways. [https://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webOpportunity%20Cost%20of%20Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20June%202005.pdf](https://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webOpportunity%20Cost%20of%20Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20June%202005.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/118 "2016-03-25T02:08:57Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t know what the answer is but ISTM that we should be doing more to try to reduce the disparity MUCH earlier than the college admissions process. The fact that wealthy blacks score only on par with poverty stricken whites does not seem to support your implication that starting earlier will help. Nor does the fact that no other group needs these kinds of excuses–they just catch up as soon as they get opportunity. Nor does the fact the exact same pattern is seen worldwide, across civilizations; across political boundaries; across black-majority or black-minority countries…on and on. There is the evidence staring you in the face. But I understand your motivation is good-hearted to be the excuse-generator, and I commend you for that. Unfortunately, in program after program, nothing eliminates the gap. In study after study normalizing for every known variable nothing eliminates the gap. So perhaps we might agree on one thing: there is always one more unexplored excuse for the academic disparity right around the corner, which just hasn’t been studied… 🙂 Meantime, of course, while we give them a sucky childhood, imprison them willy nilly, and give them shitty opportunity for scholastic-based team sports, blacks continue to be over-represented for basketball and football. This time the excuse-generation is for whites. (Lazy; bored; distracted; don’t care about fame and fortune…whatever). Can’t possibly be due to 70+ thousand years of evolutionary separation for the source gene pools. Nosirree. Other excuses just make more sense. Hunh… ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/119 "2016-03-25T03:47:28Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Nor does the fact the exact same pattern is seen worldwide, across civilizations; across political boundaries; across black-majority or black-minority countries…on and on. This is just absurd hyperbole. We’ve had half-way decent measures for a few decades in a few countries, and that’s it – and society still treats different races profoundly differently. > [@](#): > > But I understand your motivation is good-hearted to be the excuse-generator, and I commend you for that. Unfortunately, in program after program, nothing eliminates the gap. In study after study normalizing for every known variable nothing eliminates the gap. The vast majority of variables aren’t known, and can’t be normalized in such a profoundly unequal society. > [@](#): > > Meantime, of course, while we give them a sucky childhood, imprison them willy nilly, and give them shitty opportunity for scholastic-based team sports, blacks continue to be over-represented for basketball and football. I wonder if things like these “sucky childhood(s)” and imprisoning them “willy nilly” might have something to do with disparate outcomes in various categories… ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/120 "2016-03-25T03:57:13Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > 140 points is more than half a standard deviation. You can lie to yourself that this is a meaningless difference but whether it is through effort or innate ability, that sort of a difference is meaningful. But it’s not, and almost every person actually working in the field disagrees. Harvard could literally fill there class with people scoring over 2300. Why don’t they? Let’s just put aside URMs, legacies athletes, etc. for a second. They could only accept Asians with scores over 2300 and get enough people. Why don’t they? Would would they ever accept anyone with a lower score if there was a demonstrable difference between these students’ abilities? Why has the market completely rejected your idea of what is and isn’t a meaningful score difference? Now please don’t bother responding unless you are going to provide a logical answer to the questions I’ve asked. If you think it’s so clear that 140 points makes for a better student, why would any school accept one Asian student 140+ point score differences over another Asian student with higher scores? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The combination of high school GPA and SAT has a .61 correlation with Freshman GPA. > > SATs alone have a .53 correlation. Great, now point out how much of a difference 140 points is on the high end of the scale? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > There are no better predictors of freshman year performance than the SAT combined with high school GPA. Do you think schools are or should be only in the business of admitting people based on their expected GPA performance? How well do freshman GPAs correlate with expected earnings or career success? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You don’t think it is significant that Asian students with similar objective criteria are admitted at one third the rate of white students is significant?:smack: Not necessarily when people on all sides of the process, and those who have directly observed and studied this issue tend to disagree with your contention. Are they just all biased? Further, when you look at the data, the consistent differential is not explainable by bias for the reasons I listed before, and others. You want to keep ignoring this, the studies by the government, the universities themselves, the college counselors, and plenty of others to keep shouting about one finding from a study that has, AFAICT, never been replicated. We get it, you think it’s prima facie evidence of discrimination despite even the author not arguing that. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > We’ve got objective evidence, studies and an admissions from a former admissions officer saying that there is bias against Asians No, you have one study, and one admissions person saying there might be some degree of bias. That’s not a smoking gun; it’s not even real evidence. Further, you have actual real life data from CA that tends to pour cold water on your theory. I noticed you stopped beating that drum once you realized the claims were baseless. You have a situation where the one of the biggest states in the country just happened to test your pet theory, and it failed to substantiate your claims. Even in places where there was a _small_ gain, it is easily explainable by other factors. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > and you are contorting reason in order to find some reasonable doubt that this bias exists. We are starting to approach denialist levels of refutation of studies and facts. So why are college counselors denying this? They have no dog in the fight. Why did the government find no evidence of this? More importantly, why would Harvard and other places engage in this sort of thing, opening themselves up to liability and criticism while clearly NOT mitigating the number of Asian students by any great number? Why would these people who seemingly buy into the idea of diversity and acceptance of minorities, still seemingly practice open discrimination? It makes no sense. And yes, racism doesn’t have to make sense per se, but it does leave a greater trail of evidence than you or anyone else has managed to dredge up. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Do you have a link to the report? Because it sounds like it might not be a very rigorous process of review. It’s noted in Espenshade’s study. Not sure if it’s public, but here is a [cite](http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S44/30/14M00/index.xml?section=topstories) mentioning it along with their findings. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Asians have been increasing as a percentage of the American population over the last 20 years. It is the fastest growing minority Do you not understand basic logic? The absolute number of Asians doesn’t matter at all. What we need is the number of Asian over time who have applied to these schools, and their qualification relative to others who applied. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Yes, there is some missing personal factor, some “je ne sais quoi,” some inarticulable trait that white students have and Asian students don’t. My position is that this mystery factor is bias towards white students and against Asian students. Are you just pasting this over and over again? Even your own cite argues Asian students do in fact lack those traits. The admissions dean called them tags, and noted Asian students often lack an advocate. This is the person YOU decided to cite. Yet, like some inarticulate tourette’s patient, you keep repeating this nonsense. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You have a link to their study? No, but allow me to quote some of their [findings](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/24/ocr-clears-princeton-anti-asian-discrimination-admissions). > [@](#): > > The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights – concluding an investigation that started in 2006 and expanded in 2008 – has cleared Princeton University of charges that it discriminates against Asian-American applicants. The OCR investigation found that Princeton considered race only in ways consistent with U.S. Supreme Court rulings, and without creating a quota system that limited Asian-American admissions. > > The reason Asian-American applicants have such a tough time getting into Princeton, OCR concluded, was that everyone has a tough time getting into Princeton. > > [SNIP] > > The ruling on Princeton could be significant broadly because the argument that OCR rejected – namely that incredibly high SAT scores and grades of rejected Asian applicants are key evidence of bias – continues to be cited by advocates for Asian students. Just this week, the Asian-American Coalition for Education filed a new complaint with OCR on behalf of a rejected applicant to Harvard University. The complaint said that the applicant, an Asian student from Florida, was among the top four students (all Asians) in his class, and that all four were not accepted by any elite universities. Five other students from the high school, with lower scores and credentials but from other backgrounds, did receive such admissions offers. > > [SNIP] > > The OCR review did not just look at the university’s policies but at notes in numerous admissions files of students of a variety of backgrounds. In many cases, OCR reported finding no notations about race or ethnicity at all. And in a few cases (but without a pattern) OCR found some mentions of traits that could be related to Asian-American or Asian stereotypes. For example, OCR found references to applicants appearing shy. > In a review of more than 1,000 application files from the Class of 2010, OCR found some cases where race and ethnicity seemed to be a positive factor, and others not – and OCR found this for Asian and other applicants alike. Positive comments related to race/ethnicity also didn’t assure admission. This review was cited by OCR as evidence of nondiscrimination. Now, I am sure you are going to explain away this 2 year investigation into the school that looked at the evidence on a granular level as biased or incomplete. By all means, please keep making yourself look like a fool. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Not USC and Duke. See where I say: > > “Columbia values football and basketball players over fencers. I want a cite that Yale values football and basketball players over lacrosse players. I want a cite that Brown values football and basketball over rowing. etc.” How exactly would this be cited? If you truly think fencers and lacrosse players (and I don’t think Asians play lacrosse very often) are given equal preference to basketball and football players, I don’t know what to tell you. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Where are Asians underrepresented where they don’t want to be underrepresented outside Asian males in the media and entertainment? I want Asians to be fairly represented according to their ability without regard to their race. First, it was a hypothetical. Second, if you automatically imply that areas where Asians are underrepresented are that way because of desire, than obviously that severely limits the discussion. That said, the law is a clear field where Asians tend to face discrimination. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I presented a more recent article (within the last 5 years I think). Do you STILL doubt that Jews are over-represented in the Ivy League? I never did. What I doubted was your specific claim about the extend of their over-representation and their qualifications. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > This coming from the guy who keep insisting that there is no evidence of almost everything until presented with evidence. Then you just drop that topic and start on another one. You have demonstrated one fact: that Asian males seem to engage in athletics as much as White males. That’s pretty much it. Congratulations I guess. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Didn’t the last cite I presented support those claims? Not that I can see. Can you quote the relevant passage? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No need to be snide. I know its hard to lose an argument and it must be especially hard when you are forced to realize that you had a bias against Asians that you didn’t even realize you had, but trying to divert attention by accusing me of racism isn’t really helping your argument. Hilarious! Again, feel free to put out your statements into the real world, and see how they are received. You almost assuredly won’t because any rational person can predict the negative reception they will receive. Even more hilarious though is the idea that you think you have won the argument. You have embarrassed yourself, and although I am sure most haven’t bothered to read the lengthy back and forth, rest assured that you failed to present even a basic, coherent argument. It’s why almost every trained person who looks into this disagrees with you, and why the government investigated and found no evidence of this at all. But, yes, keep thinking you “won”. I am sure having “won” on the internet will bring you untold riches. Meanwhile, people in real life (eg. college counselors, admissions people, etc.) will continue acting the same exact way they were before you “proved” they are bigots. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > How does it imply that it is their fault. No need to debate this. Print out the exchange and ask a stranger to read it. You’ll be able to tell when they are reading your statements when they wince. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I just did and they agreed that if Hispanics generally were wealthier and better educated, they would be treated better. If you think that is the sub total of what you said, then I completely understand why you can’t understand the broader issue. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > if you don’t think that having money and education makes a difference in how you are treated, you should talk to some rich black folks and ask them if the would experience more or less racism and prejudice if they were poor and uneducated. But again, that is not the issue. If you said rich Hispanic people are treated better than poor Hispanic people, we’d have no issue. When you said, vis-a-vis their treatment relative to Asians, they’d be treated better if they weren’t uneducated, you are giving credence to the idea that one’s education should dictate how they are treated, and you are labeling a large, diverse group of people. This is effectively what Trump did. The fact that you cannot see the parallel is pretty amazing. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Of course that’s bullshit. You are in some serious denial (on the scale of deny the link between cigarrettes and cancer in the 1970’s level denial) if you really think that being Asian doesn’t hurt you in the admissions process at top schools. I guess I have a lot of company in my denial. Explain why the OCR found no evidence of this? Please explain why Espenshade himself doesn’t argue there is clear bias? I guess he’s just the one academic who eschews trumpeting his own work. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Apparently you cant be bothered to read the book so here is an article. I am sure that you are going to be able to squeeze some reasonable doubt out of this somehow but here it is anyways. What do you think I was quoting? I read the study and the book years ago. You are not enlightening me or most other people in this thread. PS. Did I mention how glad I am you and Chief Pedant are getting along so well? glad you found a community of like minded individuals. 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