Law Affirmative Action Abolished: U.S Supreme Court Outlaws Racial Discrimination In College Admissions.

[panamaican]

Or simplify it even further: "If we dont' limit Asians, our school will be 93% Asian in 10 years, and thats not good for anyone.".

Trying to complete with Asians, mostly Chinese, in academics is pretty much impossible.

My kid had 4 Chinese friends in her grade 3 class but 0 in grade 4. The reason is b/c the gifted school and gifted programs have grade 4 as the entry year.

I put my kid in Kumon at age 3. Good center. The place was filled with Asian parents. Sure, there were black and white and some hispanic ones too but the percentages were like 90% Asian (including Indian), 10% everyone else. If you take smart kids and combine that with laser like focus on academics, you can see the exceptional outcomes long before they become reality. Same neighborhood - I take my kid to soccer and basketball, it's not the same demographic representation. Now, that's very, very, very anecdotal but it's so stark that it's hard to ignore, even anecdotally.

 

[Lord Coke]

I put my kid in Kumon at age 3. Good center. The place was filled with Asian parents. Sure, there were black and white and some hispanic ones too but the percentages were like 90% Asian (including Indian), 10% everyone else. If you take smart kids and combine that with laser like focus on academics, you can see the exceptional outcomes long before they become reality. Same neighborhood - I take my kid to soccer and basketball, it's not the same demographic representation. Now, that's very, very, very anecdotal but it's so stark that it's hard to ignore, even anecdotally.

What are your thoughts on this above the law article. I haven't taken the time to review the study it cites to but it claims that people get smarter due to studying for the lsat. The studying helps creates neuroconnections etc. Do you think that is true. Is so wouldn't something similar but at a younger age do more? I personally am a little skeptical about the claim but as I said I haven't looked at the actual studies @Trotsky what do you think?


https://abovethelaw.com/2018/10/the-secret-behind-why-the-lsat-makes-you-smarter/

 

[panamaican]

What are your thoughts on this above the law article. I haven't taken the time to review the study it cites to but it claims that people get smarter due to studying for the lsat. The studying helps creates neuroconnections etc. Do you think that is true. Is so wouldn't something similar but at a younger age do more? I personally am a little skeptical about the claim but as I said I haven't looked at the actual studies @Trotsky what do you think?


https://abovethelaw.com/2018/10/the-secret-behind-why-the-lsat-makes-you-smarter/

I haven't looked at the underlying study but I do believe that studying for the LSAT changes how you think. Caveat is that studying computer science does so also. I don't know if they're the same changes though.

Learning how to read and think while reading is a massive cognitive leap for our developing brains as children. It even changes the brains of adults if they didn't learn to read as children. Both comp sci and the logic games of the LSAT build on the fundamental building block that reading requires.

So, yeah. And if you want similar results at a younger age, getting kids to read early and code early will pay dividends.

The flip side is a question: What are we losing with these changes?

When we're born, we can speak any language given enough exposure. After years speaking one language, we gradually lose the ability to hear and reproduce the sounds from those other languages. We gain proficiency in one but lose even minimal abilities in the others.

Given that...I wonder what we lose if we start some things earlier and earlier.

 

[Hog-train]

Bullshit. They score high on the extracurriculars nobody gives a shit about..

You're incorrect. The extracurriculars portion is given a score by Harvard from 1-6, with 1 being the best.

This extracurricular score takes into account different types of extracurriculars - including sports or anything else.

All the court documents have already shown Asian students score HIGHER than all other groups in the extracurricular category.

The only category that Asian students don't outscore other students is the "personality" portion. This "personality" portion has as one of its components a "diversity" score.

 

[Arkain2K]

What Is Harvard Trying to Hide?
For years, reporters have been trying to get elite universities to be more transparent about their admissions process. It might take a court to pry it all open — with unforeseen consequences.
By JOSH GERSTEIN | October 21, 2018

​

The long war over affirmative action turned hot again last week, as Harvard and lawyers for Asian-American applicants duked it out in a federal courtroom in Boston in a closely watched case that could end consideration of race in college admissions.

I’m a veteran of that war. Nearly three decades ago, as a student, I was at the vanguard of a movement that took no side in the then-intense debate over affirmative action but advocated for something more radical than it might first appear: breaking down the secrecy over how elite colleges choose whom to admit to their ranks.

Winning the chance to attend an Ivy League school is an increasingly daunting feat. If schools aren’t just going to auction spots to the highest bidder, these colleges (which receive millions in federal funding and a slew of tax benefits) have a moral responsibility to defend their admission policies. Students, parents, faculty and alumni are also entitled to know that the schools’ claims about how they dole out the coveted slots aren’t just hot air.

My role in that crusade also led to a federal courtroom, albeit in the kind-of-grimy, dual-purpose post office building that housed Boston’s federal court through the 1990s, not the far glitzier complex that now sits on the waterfront.

Read the rest at:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/21/harvard-admissions-affirmative-action-221669

 

[panamaican]

What Is Harvard Trying to Hide?
For years, reporters have been trying to get elite universities to be more transparent about their admissions process. It might take a court to pry it all open — with unforeseen consequences.
By JOSH GERSTEIN | October 21, 2018

​

The long war over affirmative action turned hot again last week, as Harvard and lawyers for Asian-American applicants duked it out in a federal courtroom in Boston in a closely watched case that could end consideration of race in college admissions.

I’m a veteran of that war. Nearly three decades ago, as a student, I was at the vanguard of a movement that took no side in the then-intense debate over affirmative action but advocated for something more radical than it might first appear: breaking down the secrecy over how elite colleges choose whom to admit to their ranks.

Winning the chance to attend an Ivy League school is an increasingly daunting feat. If schools aren’t just going to auction spots to the highest bidder, these colleges (which receive millions in federal funding and a slew of tax benefits) have a moral responsibility to defend their admission policies. Students, parents, faculty and alumni are also entitled to know that the schools’ claims about how they dole out the coveted slots aren’t just hot air.

My role in that crusade also led to a federal courtroom, albeit in the kind-of-grimy, dual-purpose post office building that housed Boston’s federal court through the 1990s, not the far glitzier complex that now sits on the waterfront.

Read the rest at:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/21/harvard-admissions-affirmative-action-221669

I read this yesterday and was hoping it would make an appearance in the thread.

Speaking just for myself - the more I read, the less surprised I am. It must have been the world's worst secret that the Ivies looked out for the kids of alumni, bent the rules for big money donors and lowered the standards significantly for athletes.

I'm shocked at how many people seem shocked that this has been going on.

I'm less shocked that once they learn it, they still don't grasp why it's necessary and will continue, no matter the outcome of the trial.

People can say whatever they want but the school's are still businesses that require significant capital to stay afloat. And the almighty dollar lies behind every decision. It starts with donors. No one is going to donate to your institution unless they feel a strong connection to it. And that connection is built on sports and history. No school is going to give up the potential donor pool just to add a few more high scoring nobodies (of any race) to the campus.

 

[Sketch]

Bottom line: Affirmative action is institutionalized racism, made by whites for whites and to the detriment of one particular group: asians.

Old rich white men made it so that their daughters can go to that ivy league school over Jimmy Chang the chinaman who is 100x more qualified.

Asian privilege is a myth, EAST Asians as a group have lower average income than: European Americans, Arab/ME Americans, South Asians, Southeast Asians and White Americans.

Asians just need to move back to Asia, I've made the decision to make the move myself and encourage other Asian westerners to do the same. Then we should do the same to them as they did to us, shut them out. No more english teaching jobs, no more preferential treatment and social ostracization.

Getting sick of you fuckers.

Yell, scream and pound your fists. You won't be leaving anytime soon. I know this, we all know this and you know this. And there's good reason for it. lol.

Enjoy your stay.

 

[Roaming East]

Lets be honest. Harvards primary product isnt education, its name recognition. Having the words 'Harvard' stamped at the top of your diploma is a status symbol. Problem with status symbols is that they got that way by being exclusive. These people arent bitching about not getting into harvard because of the 'unfairness' of it. They are bitching because they feel entitled to the esteem that being a Harvard grad brings vs being a Cal Tech grad despite Cal Tech being a superior school as far as an academic curriculum goes.

 

[cincymma79]

I haven't looked at the underlying study but I do believe that studying for the LSAT changes how you think. Caveat is that studying computer science does so also. I don't know if they're the same changes though.

Learning how to read and think while reading is a massive cognitive leap for our developing brains as children. It even changes the brains of adults if they didn't learn to read as children. Both comp sci and the logic games of the LSAT build on the fundamental building block that reading requires.

So, yeah. And if you want similar results at a younger age, getting kids to read early and code early will pay dividends.

The flip side is a question: What are we losing with these changes?

When we're born, we can speak any language given enough exposure. After years speaking one language, we gradually lose the ability to hear and reproduce the sounds from those other languages. We gain proficiency in one but lose even minimal abilities in the others.

Given that...I wonder what we lose if we start some things earlier and earlier.

Language is a tricky one
Multilingual kids lag until grade 6 then catch up
Also depending where you live it may have no value to your daily life

 

[SammyPops]

I put my kid in Kumon at age 3. Good center. The place was filled with Asian parents. Sure, there were black and white and some hispanic ones too but the percentages were like 90% Asian (including Indian), 10% everyone else. If you take smart kids and combine that with laser like focus on academics, you can see the exceptional outcomes long before they become reality. Same neighborhood - I take my kid to soccer and basketball, it's not the same demographic representation. Now, that's very, very, very anecdotal but it's so stark that it's hard to ignore, even anecdotally.

Same thing here with Kumon and Spirit of Math and music lessons. The Asian moms are called Tiger Moms here, not sure if thats a universal thing or just local.

 

[panamaican]

Same thing here with Kumon and Spirit of Math and music lessons. The Asian moms are called Tiger Moms here, not sure if thats a universal thing or just local.

It's a universal thing. A Harvard educated Asian law professor at Yale wrote an entire book called "The Ballad Hymn of the Tiger Mother".

In the book, she discusses how she applied a singular focus on academics and music to the exclusion of all other things so that her daughters could be academically successful. She spends time discussing how immigrant Asian parents view their success as parents through the academic achievements of their children.

And that's the disconnect in this ongoing conversation.

There is a cultural belief system that academic achievement is the only thing that matters in some Asian immigrant households (plenty of immigrant households to be fair). It is celebrated by those households as evidence of their quality approach. It's lauded by others as evidence of how strict academic discipline yields top notch academic outcomes.

But there's very little talk about all of the other things that are intentionally neglected to achieve those academic outcomes.

What the Harvard lawsuit is about is about how Harvard values those other things and how it hurts Asian-American applicants (whether or not it's discriminatory remains to be seen). It's simply a disconnect in some ways. If you've focused on one thing to the exclusion of other things, you cannot be surprised if you show a lack of development in those areas.

We see this all of the time with athletes. They spend so much time focusing on being better basketball players or football players that they only spend a minimum amount of time on academics (enough to stay eligible). No one is then surprised when athletes rarely score highly on academic metrics. In fact, athletes gain a reputation for being unintelligent when it's really that they're under-educated as a result of their choice of focus.

 

[SammyPops]

It's a universal thing. A Harvard educated Asian law professor at Yale wrote an entire book called "The Ballad Hymn of the Tiger Mother".

In the book, she discusses how she applied a singular focus on academics and music to the exclusion of all other things so that her daughters could be academically successful. She spends time discussing how immigrant Asian parents view their success as parents through the academic achievements of their children.

And that's the disconnect in this ongoing conversation.

There is a cultural belief system that academic achievement is the only thing that matters in some Asian immigrant households (plenty of immigrant households to be fair). It is celebrated by those households as evidence of their quality approach. It's lauded by others as evidence of how strict academic discipline yields top notch academic outcomes.

But there's very little talk about all of the other things that are intentionally neglected to achieve those academic outcomes.

What the Harvard lawsuit is about is about how Harvard values those other things and how it hurts Asian-American applicants (whether or not it's discriminatory remains to be seen). It's simply a disconnect in some ways. If you've focused on one thing to the exclusion of other things, you cannot be surprised if you show a lack of development in those areas.

We see this all of the time with athletes. They spend so much time focusing on being better basketball players or football players that they only spend a minimum amount of time on academics (enough to stay eligible). No one is then surprised when athletes rarely score highly on academic metrics. In fact, athletes gain a reputation for being unintelligent when it's really that they're under-educated as a result of their choice of focus.

Good post. Serious question, which may be off base due to my personal experience. Is it Asians as in ethnic Chinese or ethnic Chinese from China?

It seems around here its the latter, its the Chinese immigrants as opposed to others.

 

[Hog-train]

It's a universal thing. A Harvard educated Asian law professor at Yale wrote an entire book called "The Ballad Hymn of the Tiger Mother".

In the book, she discusses how she applied a singular focus on academics and music to the exclusion of all other things so that her daughters could be academically successful. She spends time discussing how immigrant Asian parents view their success as parents through the academic achievements of their children.

And that's the disconnect in this ongoing conversation.

There is a cultural belief system that academic achievement is the only thing that matters in some Asian immigrant households (plenty of immigrant households to be fair). It is celebrated by those households as evidence of their quality approach. It's lauded by others as evidence of how strict academic discipline yields top notch academic outcomes..

You are referring to Professor Amy Chua (dubbed the Tiger Mom) and her daughter did end up going to Harvard.

Her daughters have said they are glad for the upbringing they had and also they were not solely made to focus on academics to the exclusion of all other things.

Here's an interview with one of her daughters here. They are intelligent, well spoken, attractive and well rounded young women.

 

[Hog-train]

I'm pretty sure Harvard is going to lose this case (although it will most certainly appeal.)

The Asian students were given a lower preset "personality" score before they interviewed or not interviewed at all. That's a built in BIAS right there.

No matter whatever else is said to obfuscate the issue, that's the smoking gun right there.

Even though in separate alumni interviews, the Asian students did just as well as the white students.

Even though they beat every other group in every single other category.

And part of the "personality score" includes "diversity."

In addition, Harvard's OWN internal study found discrimination against Asians in the admissions process.

I don't know how anyone can argue there is no discrimination.

 

[panamaican]

Good post. Serious question, which may be off base due to my personal experience. Is it Asians as in ethnic Chinese or ethnic Chinese from China?

It seems around here its the latter, its the Chinese immigrants as opposed to others.

Asians being very broad. It's the same whether it's Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, etc. They don't all use the "tiger mom" statement (I think that's more Chinese specific) but the mindset is pretty common.

And it's not just Asian immigrants and families, it's pretty universal to most immigrant families. Because most of them come here for school and that means that academic excellence and rigor was how they got their opportunity. It's when the next generation is coming up that the academics to the exclusion of all else mindset starts having an impact. Usually the parents have done well so the kids aren't demonstrating the same drive that an immigrant trying to get to the U.S. is showing. They don't have the same economic need. They have access to things that their parents didn't have in their countries of origin (like test preps and tutoring and schools oriented to those exams). They've spoken English all of their lives. For instance, my Mom took the SAT's in English but her language skills weren't that great. When she came to the U.S., she had to take oral exams because she didn't write English well enough the first year.

All of these things that made the parents' academic accomplishments more impressive don't apply to the children. And the parents don't know this so they're applying what worked for them, without realizing that their kids need a different set of tools to stand out as Americans than the parents needed as immigrants.

 

[panamaican]

You are referring to Professor Amy Chua (dubbed the Tiger Mom) and her daughter did end up going to Harvard.

Her daughters have said they are glad for the upbringing they had and also they were not solely made to focus on academics to the exclusion of all other things.

Here's an interview with one of her daughters here. They are intelligent, well spoken, attractive and well rounded young women.

No one said they weren't inteligent or well-balanced children who grew up to be intelligent or well-balanced adults. I said that the mother applied her focus to those things. The kids did have a father (who was not Asian and thus not steeped in the same cultural background), they did do other things. But she wrote about her focus and the trials and tribulations of applying it in the Western world and the things she tried to keep them away from because it would not benefit them. Additionally, her sisters are equally brilliant and accomplished.

 

[Hog-train]

No one said they weren't inteligent or well-balanced children who grew up to be intelligent or well-balanced adults. I said that the mother applied her focus to those things. The kids did have a father (who was not Asian and thus not steeped in the same cultural background), they did do other things. But she wrote about her focus and the trials and tribulations of applying it in the Western world and the things she tried to keep them away from because it would not benefit them. Additionally, her sisters are equally brilliant and accomplished.

The husband, who is Jewish (and has similar values) agreed with all the things Amy Chua did. There are videos of them on youtube talking about how they raised their children.

 

[panamaican]

The husband, who is Jewish (and has similar values) agreed with all the things Amy Chua did. There are videos of them on youtube talking about how they raised their children.

So what? You're not about to try and argue that Asian culture and Jewish culture are interchangeable, are you?

I agree with many things that Amy Chua did, so does my wife. But that doesn't change anything about what the potential trade offs are when doing so.

 

[Arkain2K]

A bit of a side note: Why do people in this thread (intentionally or subconsciously) insists on referring to the Asian-American students in this discussion as "Asians"? Are they not Americans like everyone else? Then why do you insists on removing that part of their identity, as if they are lesser American than you and me, in a topic about equality treatment, no less?

"Asian students" means they are international students from Asia, just like European students are international students from Europe, and that's an entirely different demographic than what this thread is about.

You don't find it strange if somebody insists on referring to African-American students in that same conversation as "Africans", do you?

 

[Hog-train]

So what? You're not about to try and argue that Asian culture and Jewish culture are interchangeable, are you?

I agree with many things that Amy Chua did, so does my wife. But that doesn't change anything about what the potential trade offs are when doing so.

I only mentioned the husband because you did.

"The kids did have a father (who was not Asian and thus not steeped in the same cultural background), they did do other things."

You're implying that because the father wasn't Asian and steeped in the same cultural background is why the kids ended up doing "other things." As opposed to some kind of "typical" Asian upbringing (studying 24/7, musical instruments, etc.)

I'm saying the typical Jewish upbringing is very similar with the same pressures as an Asian household. In my personal life, I went to a specialized Math and Science HS in NYC where you need to take a test to get in. So many of my white friends are Jewish as a result. Most of the school was Jewish and Asian. Jews and Asians are very similar.