(***Not ***a political debate: )
Suppose someone who is obviously white lies that they are black, Hispanic, Arab, Native-American, etc. on college applications in order to try to edge in on admissions on affirmative action - what defenses do colleges such as Harvard or Ivy Leagues/MIT/Stanford etc. employ against it? Without a face-to-face interview or requiring photos on admissions, how would they know that someone with the surname of “Smith” or “Miller” isn’t black instead of white? (Would be harder with Hispanic or other racial surnames, but there would still be ways)
Likewise, in organizations that currently permit people to use the restroom of the gender they identify with, what safeguards do they employ to verify that someone who looks 100% male but goes into the female restroom is in fact doing so out of genuine identification as XX and not just because he wants to be a gender troll?
Surnames have nothing to do with it. My kids identify as Native American and are enrolled with their tribe. Nonetheless, they have my “Jewish“ surname. The are at least twice as much Native as Jewish.
In my workplace the definition of “someone for whom it is appropriate to use the XXX restroom” is officially “someone who considers it to be appropriate for themselves to use the XXX restroom”. Not only is there no mechanism to ‘check’, it is officially a violation of policy to make any such attempt and doing so will get you in trouble. And that is as it should be.
2nd question, it’s probably the same safeguards they use to prevent harassment of transgendered people when they use the bathroom they genuinely identify with.
That is, if someone is abusing their bathroom privileges, or is abusive to people in the bathroom, they can be reported.
Probably none, much like against other issues that are so rare that any defense possible would not be worth the effort. Why institute face-to-face interviews to prevent something that almost never happens, rather than just assume that very few people would try it, and that those that might be tempted are discouraged by a fear that they’ll get into trouble when they, you know, show up for school. (Or start a political career.)
There was some forgettable college hijinks movie in the 80’s where someone pretended to be black to get a minority scholarship to Harvard(?). (“Soul Man”?)
The only part that I found memorable was the bit where the guy learns…
“Son, I’ve decided to give you a special gift.”
“What’s that, dad?”
“Your manhood.”
“Umm… what does this mean in practical terms?”
“I’ve decided to let you pay for your own college. My therapist says I should spend that money on myself, since I’ve earned it.”
I would assume that claiming a financial benefit based on a lie is fraud. If this scholarship is only open to black people, or women, or… and someone not qualified lies to obtain it, they have essentially committed fraud. If they sincerely believed it, that might be a defence against criminal prosecution. For anything else - say, joining a club or participating in a march, etc. - well, if you pass, you pass. (Much like using the washroom. What is the charge for going in the wrong washroom, if you don’t harass or disturb other occupants?) I do wonder about affirmative action - since discrimination is technically illegal, and they presumably were hired on the merits of their resume, what benefit have they gained?
Is that how it should be for the OP’s first question? When there is a tangible benefit, say a scholarship that is only open for women, or an admission where a woman gets a plus benefit in a holistic model that complies with Supreme Court precedent, should there be no sort of verification?
Which leads us to the current debate about transgender athletes. If a fairly good male athlete decides to declare himself as a female, this would give ‘him’ an unfair advantage over the women in the same event. Obviously, there are many shades to this; not least those who genuinely transition, but they still have an advantage.
Discussions about fairness belong in Great Debates. Let’s stick strictly to the question in the OP. If you want to discuss the fairness of not verifying identity, start a new thread in Great Debates.
By an old standard that certainly commonly into the 50s and certainly later less commonly, anyone with one-drop of black (though it would have been phrased Negro or worse) blood was black. By that standard it would be essentially impossible to verify blackness by looks.
This just doesn’t happen, in practice.
Transgendered people make one of their first changes by wearing clothes, makeup, etc. of the gender they identify with. Long before they start any hormonal or surgical changes. So a M-to-F transgender person would not be at all “100% male” looking by this time they begin to use the women’s restroom, th nobody would even notice them.
Well, that is part of the question, kind of. Surely there is some you-know-it-when-you-see-it standard in admissions offices that would not accept some blond-haired, blue-eyed pale-skinned applicant trying to claim black affirmative action status as someone who looks black and is black?
The fact is, you can’t tell visually if someone might have some African ancestry. So I think most admissions offices would probably accept self-identification. I think the odds of someone trying to “pass” as black are sufficiently low that it’s just not worth the hassle of investigating to try to identify them, or the risk of bad publicity (and possibly lawsuits) if you did so and were proved wrong.
I’ve posted this on here before… somewhere… but i have a related and true story…
Brother’s friend’s roommate had a boyfriend who was from Africa. Applied for a scholarship at a US state university and got it as he was from Africa and the school thought he would be black. He was mixed, which was obvious, but not “black enough” and was rolled over to another scholarship program. Requirements for acceptance to the specific scholarship program were updated.
We certainly need metrics to track, and IMO, so that everyone gets their fair chance at success.
I think a start would be to update the count of congressional seats to be more respective of the our demographics, which is clearly what is not what is represented right now.
I could also see an issue with using “African-American” as a code for Black. What if you are 100% caucasian from South Africa or a Moor from northern Africa?
I would think that rather than making an admissions decision purely on the basis that the applicant is black or Hispanic or whatever, the decision would be made on the basis of geography and disadvantage. Say the applicant’s high school is in urban Atlanta and it’s known to have mostly African-American students, most of whom either don’t go to college or only go to the state schools. An applicant from there with good grades, test scores and a compelling story is going to be considered by an Ivy League or other highly competitive college in the Northeast.
Meanwhile the African-American applicant from Greenwich, Connecticut whose father is a corporate lawyer and whose mother is a neurosurgeon is less disadvantaged.