Scalia: University of Texas 'Too Fast' for Black Students (1 Viewer)

[cstu]

http://www.chron.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/Scalia-Black-students-do-better-at-6686884.php

Black students may do better at "slower-track" schools than the University of Texas at Austin, Justice Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday as the state's flagship defended its race-conscious admissions policies before the high court.

Scalia, a well-known critic of affirmative action policies at stake in the case, also suggested that black scholars come from "less-advanced" schools.

"Most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas," he said, citing a brief, according to transcripts from the hearing. "They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're -- that they're being pushed ahead in -- in classes that are too -- too fast for them."

UT is defending its consideration of race in admissions for about a quarter of incoming students. Three-quarters of UT's incoming class is automatically admitted through a state law granting admission to the top-ranked high school graduates in Texas.

UT has broad backing, but higher education leaders and civil rights groups are concerned that Abigail Fisher, a white woman from Sugar Land who says she was discriminated against when UT rejected her in 2008, could strike a serious blow to affirmative action.

The core of UT's argument is that it needs to consider race to ensure diversity among its student body -- a goal supported by the U.S. government, the country's biggest businesses, former military leaders and many more, who filed dozens of briefs in UT's favor.

Scalia, however, questioned whether UT needs to increase its black student population -- which currently makes up about 4 percent of the student body and has not grown in a decade.

"I'm just not impressed by the fact that – that the University of Texas may have fewer (black students). Maybe it ought to have fewer," Scalia said. "I don't think it – it – it stands to reason that it's a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible."

 

[BigSteelThrill]

 

[jonessed]

I'd rather not see quotas or preferential treatment either. People should be accepted on their merits.

I'm not sure what he means by the first statement. Needs some context.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Anybody who gets outraged over this comment clearly hasn't been paying attention to this issue over the past decade or so. This is just a restatement of the so-called "mismatch" argument. Here's a link to a decent explanation:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-painful-truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/

 

[EYLive]

Are his statements are backed by real data?

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Are his statements are backed by real data?

From the story I linked to:

Research on the mismatch problem was almost non-existent until the mid-1990s; it has developed rapidly in the past half-dozen years, especially among labor economists. To cite just a few examples of the findings:

• Black college freshmen are more likely to aspire to science or engineering careers than are white freshmen, but mismatch causes blacks to abandon these fields at twice the rate of whites.
• Blacks who start college interested in pursuing a doctorate and an academic career are twice as likely to be derailed from this path if they attend a school where they are mismatched.
• About half of black college students rank in the bottom 20 percent of their classes (and the bottom 10 percent in law school).
• Black law school graduates are four times as likely to fail bar exams as are whites; mismatch explains half of this gap.
• Interracial friendships are more likely to form among students with relatively similar levels of academic preparation; thus, blacks and Hispanics are more socially integrated on campuses where they are less academically mismatched.

You can find lots of competing studies that attempt to rebut this hypothesis -- it's not universally accepted, of course. But there's nothing unusual or jaw-dropping about Scalia's point. I'd be stunned if the amicus brief he was referencing didn't include some of these same data points.

 

[Ditkaless Wonders]

More than 40 years since the facts in Bakke arose, 37 years since the decision.

 

[Eephus]

You’ve got a better chance of getting some speed with Latin and African-Americans

-Dusty Baker

 

[cstu]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average. Also, who cares if black students have to re-take their bar exams as long as they eventually pass.

 

[Ditkaless Wonders]

Change in this area will be next to impossible as it requires acknowledging that a central tenant of liberal orthodoxy has proved, ... what?,...thus far unsupportable by empirical data, if there are yet anecdotes saying otherwise.

The effort was well-intentioned if naïve. I would, on sum, say it was well the effort was made. I would say that having fallen short in some ways is not a bad thing, unless knee-jerk failure to admit deficiencies based upon political beliefs prevents open dialog on moving forward. Time for a more targeted and thoughtful program or idea to redress what can be redressed without propagating the dead hand of the past hampering the future.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average. Also, who cares if black students have to re-take their bar exams as long as they eventually pass.

Exactly. That's the point. Because of racial discrimination in admissions, some black students (not all black students, of course) get admitted into elite universities where they are under-prepared relative to other students. And then they underperform, which is exactly what you would expect.

Think about it like this. Suppose we can break students down into A students (elite), B students (above average), and C, D and F students. Do the same for universities: A schools (the elite), B schools (state flagships), and so on. The job of the admissions process is to sort A students into A schools, B students into B schools, etc. For white students, this works just fine. But admissions officers discriminate in favor of black students, so they get admitted into a school one notch higher: black Bs get admitted into A schools, black Cs get into B schools, and so on.

The result is that black students collectively consistently find themselves competing against better students, the only exceptions being black As who get into the same A schools that they would have gotten into without discrimination. The black student who might have done just fine at UMass struggles at MIT instead, while the black student who might have succeeded at a regional school gets kicked around at UMass.

That's the argument anyway.

 

[AnonymousBob]

Anybody who gets outraged over this comment clearly hasn't been paying attention to this issue over the past decade or so. This is just a restatement of the so-called "mismatch" argument. Here's a link to a decent explanation:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-painful-truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/

Thanks for this link.

 

[tdoss]

It's ridiculous to put students who score in the 52nd percentile in with students who score in the 89th percentile...based solely on race.

I don't know who really believes that's what should be happening.

I was always told affirmative action was if two candidates were equal in most all measures...then the minority would get preference.

When or why did it shift to simply filling a quota regardless of merit?

It's like the USMC considering lowering standards to allow women in combat roles. Either make the standard or find another MOS. Or create a separate fighting unit comprised solely of women who could not make the standard...but don't weaken our force for some kind of damned misguided and baseless attempt at "equality" or "diversity".

 

[BigSteelThrill]

I was always told affirmative action was if two candidates were equal in most all measures...then the minority would get preference.

No.

is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

 

[cstu]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average. Also, who cares if black students have to re-take their bar exams as long as they eventually pass.

Exactly. That's the point. Because of racial discrimination in admissions, some black students (not all black students, of course) get admitted into elite universities where they are under-prepared relative to other students. And then they underperform, which is exactly what you would expect.

Think about it like this. Suppose we can break students down into A students (elite), B students (above average), and C, D and F students. Do the same for universities: A schools (the elite), B schools (state flagships), and so on. The job of the admissions process is to sort A students into A schools, B students into B schools, etc. For white students, this works just fine. But admissions officers discriminate in favor of black students, so they get admitted into a school one notch higher: black Bs get admitted into A schools, black Cs get into B schools, and so on.

The result is that black students collectively consistently find themselves competing against better students, the only exceptions being black As who get into the same A schools that they would have gotten into without discrimination. The black student who might have done just fine at UMass struggles at MIT instead, while the black student who might have succeeded at a regional school gets kicked around at UMass.

That's the argument anyway.

But students are not competing with other students, they are there to learn. Someone finishing with a 2.0 GPA will still get a degree.

 

[cstu]

I was always told affirmative action was if two candidates were equal in most all measures...then the minority would get preference.

No.

is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

I believe the bolded is good for school and other students, not just for the individual students who benefit from AA.

 

[Ladsud]

I was always told affirmative action was if two candidates were equal in most all measures...then the minority would get preference.

No.

is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

I believe the bolded is good for school and other students, not just for the individual students who benefit from AA.

Not good for the student that was denied due to a race quota.

 

[BassNBrew]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average. Also, who cares if black students have to re-take their bar exams as long as they eventually pass.

Exactly. That's the point. Because of racial discrimination in admissions, some black students (not all black students, of course) get admitted into elite universities where they are under-prepared relative to other students. And then they underperform, which is exactly what you would expect.

Think about it like this. Suppose we can break students down into A students (elite), B students (above average), and C, D and F students. Do the same for universities: A schools (the elite), B schools (state flagships), and so on. The job of the admissions process is to sort A students into A schools, B students into B schools, etc. For white students, this works just fine. But admissions officers discriminate in favor of black students, so they get admitted into a school one notch higher: black Bs get admitted into A schools, black Cs get into B schools, and so on.

The result is that black students collectively consistently find themselves competing against better students, the only exceptions being black As who get into the same A schools that they would have gotten into without discrimination. The black student who might have done just fine at UMass struggles at MIT instead, while the black student who might have succeeded at a regional school gets kicked around at UMass.

That's the argument anyway.

Two thoughts come to mind...

1. Don't black students benefit overall (in the long run) from being at a better school and competing against a tougher field?

2. Your example above doesn't account for the white A- students that get bumped to the B school which makes it tougher on both the white and black B students.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

I was always told affirmative action was if two candidates were equal in most all measures...then the minority would get preference.

No.

is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

I believe the bolded is good for school and other students, not just for the individual students who benefit from AA.

Not good for the student that was denied due to a race quota.

Correct, but you are trying to bring about a tiny bit of life balance based on the historic ### ####-ing some of our citizens endured.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

http://www.chron.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/Scalia-Black-students-do-better-at-6686884.php

Black students may do better at "slower-track" schools than the University of Texas at Austin, Justice Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday as the state's flagship defended its race-conscious admissions policies before the high court.

Scalia, a well-known critic of affirmative action policies at stake in the case, also suggested that black scholars come from "less-advanced" schools.

"Most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas," he said, citing a brief, according to transcripts from the hearing. "They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're -- that they're being pushed ahead in -- in classes that are too -- too fast for them."

...

I'll tell ya something funny about this.

I went to UT and took several classes in astronomy (not quite a minor). UT you may or may not know is a major astronomy research center.

Anyway my TA, who did a lot of the teaching, was a guy named Neil deGrasse Tyson. And on my final I had the second highest grade in the class and he wrote a personal note on it, I still have that, one of my proudest academic achievements (of little note, I know).

Somewhere online there is an article about his time in Austin, he had a bit of a rough time there, never really felt comfortable. I absolutely guarandamntee you they wish he had stayed there, they would love to put him on their wall of honor now but I'm sure he wouldn't have it.

eta - Here's the article.

 

[BassNBrew]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average. Also, who cares if black students have to re-take their bar exams as long as they eventually pass.

Exactly. That's the point. Because of racial discrimination in admissions, some black students (not all black students, of course) get admitted into elite universities where they are under-prepared relative to other students. And then they underperform, which is exactly what you would expect.

Think about it like this. Suppose we can break students down into A students (elite), B students (above average), and C, D and F students. Do the same for universities: A schools (the elite), B schools (state flagships), and so on. The job of the admissions process is to sort A students into A schools, B students into B schools, etc. For white students, this works just fine. But admissions officers discriminate in favor of black students, so they get admitted into a school one notch higher: black Bs get admitted into A schools, black Cs get into B schools, and so on.

The result is that black students collectively consistently find themselves competing against better students, the only exceptions being black As who get into the same A schools that they would have gotten into without discrimination. The black student who might have done just fine at UMass struggles at MIT instead, while the black student who might have succeeded at a regional school gets kicked around at UMass.

That's the argument anyway.

But students are not competing with other students, they are there to learn. Someone finishing with a 2.0 GPA will still get a degree.

At my school we were. A good number of the classes were graded on the curve. Calc and physics were the classes known to week out the under performers.

 

[Ladsud]

I was always told affirmative action was if two candidates were equal in most all measures...then the minority would get preference.

No.

is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

I believe the bolded is good for school and other students, not just for the individual students who benefit from AA.

Not good for the student that was denied due to a race quota.

Correct, but you are trying to bring about a tiny bit of life balance based on the historic ### ####-ing some of our citizens endured.

I dont have any answers to this problem, but I could see how alot of the students that get passed over end up feeling alot of resentment. Sending away young impressionable minds away from a school because they didnt meet a racial quota creates problems this system tries to solve.

 

[BassNBrew]

I was always told affirmative action was if two candidates were equal in most all measures...then the minority would get preference.

No.

is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

I believe the bolded is good for school and other students, not just for the individual students who benefit from AA.

Not good for the student that was denied due to a race quota.

Correct, but you are trying to bring about a tiny bit of life balance based on the historic ### ####-ing some of our citizens endured.

I dont have any answers to this problem, but I could see how alot of the students that get passed over end up feeling alot of resentment. Sending away young impressionable minds away from a school because they didnt meet a racial quota creates problems this system tries to solve.

It really shouldn't be that hard, just increase enrollment and take in more student loan dollars.

 

[Christo]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average. Also, who cares if black students have to re-take their bar exams as long as they eventually pass.

Exactly. That's the point. Because of racial discrimination in admissions, some black students (not all black students, of course) get admitted into elite universities where they are under-prepared relative to other students. And then they underperform, which is exactly what you would expect.

Think about it like this. Suppose we can break students down into A students (elite), B students (above average), and C, D and F students. Do the same for universities: A schools (the elite), B schools (state flagships), and so on. The job of the admissions process is to sort A students into A schools, B students into B schools, etc. For white students, this works just fine. But admissions officers discriminate in favor of black students, so they get admitted into a school one notch higher: black Bs get admitted into A schools, black Cs get into B schools, and so on.

The result is that black students collectively consistently find themselves competing against better students, the only exceptions being black As who get into the same A schools that they would have gotten into without discrimination. The black student who might have done just fine at UMass struggles at MIT instead, while the black student who might have succeeded at a regional school gets kicked around at UMass.

That's the argument anyway.

But students are not competing with other students, they are there to learn. Someone finishing with a 2.0 GPA will still get a degree.

Have you been to college?

 

[cstu]

Have you been to college?

Yep, and never once was I competing with other students. Even if there is a grade scale you can still pass by doing well.

 

[cstu]

I dont have any answers to this problem, but I could see how alot of the students that get passed over end up feeling alot of resentment. Sending away young impressionable minds away from a school because they didnt meet a racial quota creates problems this system tries to solve.

If you don't get into a school because of AA then that means you were less qualified than the last white person to get accepted.

 

[SameSongNDance]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average. Also, who cares if black students have to re-take their bar exams as long as they eventually pass.

Exactly. That's the point. Because of racial discrimination in admissions, some black students (not all black students, of course) get admitted into elite universities where they are under-prepared relative to other students. And then they underperform, which is exactly what you would expect.

Think about it like this. Suppose we can break students down into A students (elite), B students (above average), and C, D and F students. Do the same for universities: A schools (the elite), B schools (state flagships), and so on. The job of the admissions process is to sort A students into A schools, B students into B schools, etc. For white students, this works just fine. But admissions officers discriminate in favor of black students, so they get admitted into a school one notch higher: black Bs get admitted into A schools, black Cs get into B schools, and so on.

The result is that black students collectively consistently find themselves competing against better students, the only exceptions being black As who get into the same A schools that they would have gotten into without discrimination. The black student who might have done just fine at UMass struggles at MIT instead, while the black student who might have succeeded at a regional school gets kicked around at UMass.

That's the argument anyway.

Two thoughts come to mind...

1. Don't black students benefit overall (in the long run) from being at a better school and competing against a tougher field?

2. Your example above doesn't account for the white A- students that get bumped to the B school which makes it tougher on both the white and black B students.

Bingo. I cannot see how higher standards as it pertains to education can be bad unless it's causing them to drop out at significantly higher rates.

http://www.chron.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/Scalia-Black-students-do-better-at-6686884.php

Black students may do better at "slower-track" schools than the University of Texas at Austin, Justice Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday as the state's flagship defended its race-conscious admissions policies before the high court.

Scalia, a well-known critic of affirmative action policies at stake in the case, also suggested that black scholars come from "less-advanced" schools.

"Most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas," he said, citing a brief, according to transcripts from the hearing. "They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're -- that they're being pushed ahead in -- in classes that are too -- too fast for them."

...

I'll tell ya something funny about this.

I went to UT and took several classes in astronomy (not quite a minor). UT you may or may not know is a major astronomy research center.

Anyway my TA, who did a lot of the teaching, was a guy named Neil deGrasse Tyson. And on my final I had the second highest grade in the class and he wrote a personal note on it, I still have that, one of my proudest academic achievements (of little note, I know).

Somewhere online there is an article about his time in Austin, he had a bit of a rough time there, never really felt comfortable. I absolutely guarandamntee you they wish he had stayed there, they would love to put him on their wall of honor now but I'm sure he wouldn't have it.

eta - Here's the article.

That is ####### awesome.

 

[Christo]

Have you been to college?

Yep, and never once was I competing with other students. Even if there is a grade scale you can still pass by doing well.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average.

The concern is that getting bad grades may not be optimal. It's arguably better to get good grades at a decent school than to get bad grades at a terrific school.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

This is an interesting topic, but I think the thread is mislabeled. This has nothing to do witch Scalia, really. The fact that he's asking a question based on research cited in a brief is unremarkable. The research cited in the brief (and in any opposing briefs), however, may be noteworthy.

 

[PIK95]

Wth?

 

[BassNBrew]

Have you been to college?

Yep, and never once was I competing with other students. Even if there is a grade scale you can still pass by doing well.

Your major?

I had a prof in Calc 1 flat out tell us on day one that 20% of us wouldn't be passing. Personally I would have liked for the school to be accepting inferior students rather than all the Chinese students who spent Friday and Saturday nights in the library and studied like their life depended on it.

 

[mr roboto]

This is a very interesting topic. I hope this thread doesn't devolve into political bull####. IK and MT and saints and others are fun to read.

 

[cstu]

Have you been to college?

Yep, and never once was I competing with other students. Even if there is a grade scale you can still pass by doing well.

Your major?

I had a prof in Calc 1 flat out tell us on day one that 20% of us wouldn't be passing. Personally I would have liked for the school to be accepting inferior students rather than all the Chinese students who spent Friday and Saturday nights in the library and studied like their life depended on it.

Engineering and then business.

And that is total bull####.

 

[cstu]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average.

The concern is that getting bad grades may not be optimal. It's arguably better to get good grades at a decent school than to get bad grades at a terrific school.

I would need to be convinced that good grades (B's, not A's) are more difficult at top schools. A's are understandably tougher to get because it's difficult to stand out with a lot of quality classmates.

 

[mr roboto]

I don't see why it matters that black students decide to change major more than whites or even that they finish in the bottom 20% of their class. If they are less prepared going into college than white students then they would be expected to get worse grades on average.

The concern is that getting bad grades may not be optimal. It's arguably better to get good grades at a decent school than to get bad grades at a terrific school.

I would need to be convinced that good grades (B's, not A's) are more difficult at top schools. A's are understandably tougher to get because it's difficult to stand out with a lot of quality classmates.

Youre line of reasoning assumes 'well they aren't getting A's but still graduating' as the worst outcome though. Take a B- level student (using the classification system above) and put them in an A school. First semester they have a 2.1 and feel outmatched. You really don't think that would lead to some more dropping out?What we need is to go upstream a bit farther and work on improving HS achievement among disadvantaged students (mostly of color but also white). If you are a C student in HS it does very little good to get thrown into a top tier college.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

I would need to be convinced that good grades (B's, not A's) are more difficult at top schools. A's are understandably tougher to get because it's difficult to stand out with a lot of quality classmates.

Your line of reasoning assumes 'well they aren't getting A's but still graduating' as the worst outcome though. Take a B- level student (using the classification system above) and put them in an A school. First semester they have a 2.1 and feel outmatched. You really don't think that would lead to some more dropping out?

According to The Atlantic article linked to above, the drop-out rate is greatly increased among beneficiaries of affirmative action.

 

[BassNBrew]

Have you been to college?

Yep, and never once was I competing with other students. Even if there is a grade scale you can still pass by doing well.

Your major?

I had a prof in Calc 1 flat out tell us on day one that 20% of us wouldn't be passing. Personally I would have liked for the school to be accepting inferior students rather than all the Chinese students who spent Friday and Saturday nights in the library and studied like their life depended on it.

Engineering and then business.

And that is total bull####.

May be BS, but it was the reality of the day. I had several classes where there was a test or two where the top score was in the 70s and the average below 50%. Those in the 70's got A's. It was called grading on a curve and was quite common.

I had a 400 level water jet technology class that was only being taught for the second time. My room mate had taken it the year before and I had the complete file for the class. I made a 96% of the first test (mid term that was identical to the year before) and the next highest score was in the low 40s. I think the guy teaching the class wanted me to become his assistant. I skipped most of the rest of the classes and played golf after that. If he hadn't graded that class on a curve, about 14 other students wouldn't have been graduating college that year.

 

[mr roboto]

I would need to be convinced that good grades (B's, not A's) are more difficult at top schools. A's are understandably tougher to get because it's difficult to stand out with a lot of quality classmates.

Your line of reasoning assumes 'well they aren't getting A's but still graduating' as the worst outcome though. Take a B- level student (using the classification system above) and put them in an A school. First semester they have a 2.1 and feel outmatched. You really don't think that would lead to some more dropping out?

According to The Atlantic article linked to above, the drop-out rate is greatly increased among beneficiaries of affirmative action.

Of course it is. You're artificially adjusting value in a system. Reminds me of the 'pro' arguments of price increases during blackouts like hurricanes. Or parking costing a #### ton in crowded cities.

 

[Limp Ditka]

I would be interested in Clarence Thomas' opinion of Scalia's take

 

[njherdfan]

Here's a really good article on the subject. It talks about how the University of Texas put a program in place to help first-generation students, many of whom were minorities, and the resulting improvements in performance.

 

[jonessed]

I can't think of a decent college environment where there is no competition. Maybe some of the liberal arts schools?

 

[jonessed]

Have you been to college?

Yep, and never once was I competing with other students. Even if there is a grade scale you can still pass by doing well.

Your major?

I had a prof in Calc 1 flat out tell us on day one that 20% of us wouldn't be passing. Personally I would have liked for the school to be accepting inferior students rather than all the Chinese students who spent Friday and Saturday nights in the library and studied like their life depended on it.

Engineering and then business.

And that is total bull####.

May be BS, but it was the reality of the day. I had several classes where there was a test or two where the top score was in the 70s and the average below 50%. Those in the 70's got A's. It was called grading on a curve and was quite common.

I had a 400 level water jet technology class that was only being taught for the second time. My room mate had taken it the year before and I had the complete file for the class. I made a 96% of the first test (mid term that was identical to the year before) and the next highest score was in the low 40s. I think the guy teaching the class wanted me to become his assistant. I skipped most of the rest of the classes and played golf after that. If he hadn't graded that class on a curve, about 14 other students wouldn't have been graduating college that year.

This was pretty standard in my calculus and physics classes. It was meant to weed out weaker students from heavily impacted majors.

I think they took it a bit far, but most students I know that switched majors were happy they did early. Beats floating around disqualification.

 

[Mister CIA]

I'm not articulate enough to make an excellent comparison, but I'll ask, is there a parallel with the NFL's efforts to have more black head coaches hired? Got to be an assistant coach first, right?

 

[bud29]

 

[tdoss]

I was always told affirmative action was if two candidates were equal in most all measures...then the minority would get preference.

No.

is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

I believe the bolded is good for school and other students, not just for the individual students who benefit from AA.

Not good for the student that was denied due to a race quota.

Correct, but you are trying to bring about a tiny bit of life balance based on the historic ### ####-ing some of our citizens endured.

I dont have any answers to this problem, but I could see how alot of the students that get passed over end up feeling alot of resentment. Sending away young impressionable minds away from a school because they didnt meet a racial quota creates problems this system tries to solve.

It really shouldn't be that hard, just increase enrollment and take in more student loan dollars.

But wouldn't the "quota" still will out?

I mean, if you let in another 1000 students...would you then be letting the top 80 percentile whites and 45 percentile blacks (versus current 89% & 52%, respectively)?

Or...are you saying...just let in another 1000 of the higher percentiles that didn't make the initial cut...regardless of race?

 

[Daywalker]

Just common sense.

If you get in with lower scores you will also score lower going forward.

 

[CletiusMaximus]

I was always told affirmative action was if two candidates were equal in most all measures...then the minority would get preference.

No.

is the policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances.

I believe the bolded is good for school and other students, not just for the individual students who benefit from AA.

Not good for the student that was denied due to a race quota.

Correct, but you are trying to bring about a tiny bit of life balance based on the historic ### ####-ing some of our citizens endured.

I dont have any answers to this problem, but I could see how alot of the students that get passed over end up feeling alot of resentment. Sending away young impressionable minds away from a school because they didnt meet a racial quota creates problems this system tries to solve.

It really shouldn't be that hard, just increase enrollment and take in more student loan dollars.

But wouldn't the "quota" still will out?

I mean, if you let in another 1000 students...would you then be letting the top 80 percentile whites and 45 percentile blacks (versus current 89% & 52%, respectively)?

Or...are you saying...just let in another 1000 of the higher percentiles that didn't make the initial cut...regardless of race?

"Quotas" in higher education admissions were done away with decades ago, at least in name. The UT policy at issue in the Fisher case admits 90% of its students through Texas' "top 10%" law (it was 80% the year Abigail Fisher was rejected), which guarantees automatic admission to UT to any and all state students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class. The remaining 10% are admitted using a variety of factors, including grades, extra-curriculars, race/disadvantage, etc. Schools call these admissions policies "holistic", as they can't use any terms that remotely suggest a quota. The odd thing about this case is that Fisher never submitted any evidence that she would have or should have been admitted, absent UT's holistic admissions policies. There's no argument that her grades were good enough - everyone agrees she was not in the top 10% so she had to go the holistic route. She apparently really really really wanted to go to UT, all her friends and family from Sugar Land TX went there, and she was very disappointed that she didn't make it. The evidence shows that about 5 minorities with similar grades as hers got in, together with 42 white students, under the "holistic" admissions criteria that year. There were hundreds more with similar grades of all races who, as with Abigail, did not make the cut under the "holistic" factors.

 

[parasaurolophus]

I'm not articulate enough to make an excellent comparison, but I'll ask, is there a parallel with the NFL's efforts to have more black head coaches hired? Got to be an assistant coach first, right?

I can't find the link right now, but I seem to recall this policy was actually a disservice for other reasons. They require teams to interview black coaches. So they bring in black coaches they have no intention of hiring to satisfy the rule. These coaches get interviewed frequently, but not hired, and then they get a stigma attached to them for not interviewing well.

 

[Sweet J]

http://www.chron.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/Scalia-Black-students-do-better-at-6686884.php

Black students may do better at "slower-track" schools than the University of Texas at Austin, Justice Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday as the state's flagship defended its race-conscious admissions policies before the high court.

Scalia, a well-known critic of affirmative action policies at stake in the case, also suggested that black scholars come from "less-advanced" schools.

"Most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas," he said, citing a brief, according to transcripts from the hearing. "They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're -- that they're being pushed ahead in -- in classes that are too -- too fast for them."

UT is defending its consideration of race in admissions for about a quarter of incoming students. Three-quarters of UT's incoming class is automatically admitted through a state law granting admission to the top-ranked high school graduates in Texas.

UT has broad backing, but higher education leaders and civil rights groups are concerned that Abigail Fisher, a white woman from Sugar Land who says she was discriminated against when UT rejected her in 2008, could strike a serious blow to affirmative action.

The core of UT's argument is that it needs to consider race to ensure diversity among its student body -- a goal supported by the U.S. government, the country's biggest businesses, former military leaders and many more, who filed dozens of briefs in UT's favor.

Scalia, however, questioned whether UT needs to increase its black student population -- which currently makes up about 4 percent of the student body and has not grown in a decade.

"I'm just not impressed by the fact that – that the University of Texas may have fewer (black students). Maybe it ought to have fewer," Scalia said. "I don't think it – it – it stands to reason that it's a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible."

God, I'm conflicted by all this. I really like Ivan's take on this issue. I generally love to make Scalia a villain, but here, I think it's the media having a field day. I mean, let's look at his actual statements in the block above:

"Most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools."

That's either a fact or not. If it's a fact, why are we giving Scalia a hard time? If it's not a fact, then he needs to be corrected. But that's the lawyer's job I guess).

". . . where they do not feel that they're -- that they're being pushed ahead in -- in classes that are too -- too fast for them."

Ok, I have a problem with this statement. He is attributing "feelings/conclusions/thoughts to a whole category (college students at good schools) of race of people. Based on what? Is there data to back this up? There may be data based on behaviors, but data that attributes behavior (i.e., failing at higher numbers) to "feelings" . . . fishy.

But I do have a problem with the media that exclaims: "Scalia says that college is too fast for black students!!!" No, he didn't quite say that. He said that some colleges are too fast for black students that are less "qualified" than the other "highly qualified" students (both white and black). To me, that's like saying: "If you force NFL teams to play (white/black/latino/gay) lineman who only ran a 4.9 40 in college, those lineman will find that the NFL is too fast for them." Ummm. . . yeah.

"I'm just not impressed by the fact that – that the University of Texas may have fewer (black students). Maybe it ought to have fewer.

I HATE defending that jackhole blowhard, but . . . can we have a discussion about the relative pros and cons of affirmative action without people loosing their ever-loving minds?

I don't think it – it – it stands to reason that it's a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible."

Well, I think he's just propping up a straw man to knock down. That's the old jerk I've come to know and love. Keep doing you, turdface.