There's nothing intrinsically racist about legacy admissions. That being said, legacy admissions are extremely classist. These institutions have earned a reputation of being among the best in the...
There's nothing intrinsically racist about legacy admissions. That being said, legacy admissions are extremely classist. These institutions have earned a reputation of being among the best in the world off the backs of students and faculty that got there on their own merit, and legacy admits get to reap the rewards. I think it's perfectly reasonable for these universities, that receive government grant funding and tuition from tax-payer subsidized student loans, to be barred from conducting legacy admissions.
I mean, if we lived in a world in which there hadn't been a ton of policies deliberately designed to prevent non-white families (and black families in particular) from accruing generational wealth...
There's nothing intrinsically racist about legacy admissions. That being said, legacy admissions are extremely classist
I mean, if we lived in a world in which there hadn't been a ton of policies deliberately designed to prevent non-white families (and black families in particular) from accruing generational wealth for decades and decades, it would only be classist. But because of the long history of racist policies that resulted in there being a huge wealth disaproty between races in the US, they're inevitably also racist even if they wouldn't be in a vacuum.
Racist policies contributed to wealth inequality, but it seems messy and imprecise to say that every advantage gained by wealth can itself be described as racist. Especially when you consider how...
Racist policies contributed to wealth inequality, but it seems messy and imprecise to say that every advantage gained by wealth can itself be described as racist. Especially when you consider how much the institution of slavery drove down wages for white labourers and led to general poverty across the south for generations due to a lack of industrialization caused by overreliance on slaves; or the fact that a large chunk of this country is composed of immigrants whose families came here relatively recently. I would say that if you wanted to claim legacy admissions to be racist, it would have to be on the grounds of racist policies that were directly designed to exclude minorities, like Jewish quotas or barring black freshmen from staying in dorms. So, there are families today that may not have acquired Harvard legacy if it weren't for those policies that barred or pushed people away explicitly on the basis of race.
The existence of poor white people doesn't negate the disproportionate impacts of policies like redlining. It's not some old thing that ended before most immigrants came here either. Heck, it's...
Especially when you consider how much the institution of slavery drove down wages for white labourers and led to general poverty across the south for generations due to a lack of industrialization caused by overreliance on slaves; or the fact that a large chunk of this country is composed of immigrants whose families came here relatively recently.
The existence of poor white people doesn't negate the disproportionate impacts of policies like redlining. It's not some old thing that ended before most immigrants came here either. Heck, it's still a thing throughout US cities, just look at the "Current Issues" section.
But you're right, the history of direct discrimination based on race at institutions like Harvard is going to serve as better evidence in an actual court case. I'm more arguing that it's racist in principle, not that it's racial discrimination that'll hold up in court.
It definitely doesn't negate it, but there are too many factors that go into wealth inequality to use it as a proxy for racism or the legacy of racism. Redlining is racist in and of itself and...
The existence of poor white people doesn't negate the disproportionate impacts of policies like redlining.
It definitely doesn't negate it, but there are too many factors that go into wealth inequality to use it as a proxy for racism or the legacy of racism. Redlining is racist in and of itself and should be criticized as such.
I'd posit that redlining, in the same vein of legacy college admissions, isn't inherently racist, it just highlights the consequences of other socio-economic issues that plague depressed urban...
I'd posit that redlining, in the same vein of legacy college admissions, isn't inherently racist, it just highlights the consequences of other socio-economic issues that plague depressed urban areas where PoC are more likely to live just as it affects depressed rural areas (the South and parts of the Rust Belt come to mind) where non-Hispanic white folks are more likely to live.
The only real difference between the populations is density.
You don't exactly see banks wanting to lend on some backwater peckerwood town with kitty litter bags(meth lab thing) appearing on the sides of the road like mile markers.
There are plenty of PoC who've risen and continue to rise into the middle and upper classes, whether by going to college, into the military, the trades, etc, and easily qualify for a mortgage in some little suburb or other nice area. The biggest problem we have as a country right now is expecting disparities to be solved overnight with crude, overly-simplistic solutions, and creating new disparities and injustices by constantly shifting racial/cultural paradigms without thinking.
I don't think the history entirely supports that view. In Atlanta in the 80s, you had cases where lenders gave loans to poor white communities and denied loans to middle income or even upper...
I don't think the history entirely supports that view. In Atlanta in the 80s, you had cases where lenders gave loans to poor white communities and denied loans to middle income or even upper income black communities. More generally, redlining lenders explicitly relied on racial demographic information in deciding who to lend. And there also were the lingering effects of discriminatory banking practices during Jim Crow. I would also say that the idea that black urban residents should simply sign a mortgage and move into a well-off suburb, even if it's a financially sound decision isn't much of a solution for people who have a strong loyalty to where they grew up. Though I do agree the problem today is different from what it was a few decades ago.
Somewhat off topic but classism is as much a problematic thing in our society, if not worse, as racism. Not the least due to the fact that the latter has gained disproportionately more attention...
Somewhat off topic but classism is as much a problematic thing in our society, if not worse, as racism. Not the least due to the fact that the latter has gained disproportionately more attention in popular culture and media than the former. There have been so much activism, civil rights movements, donation campaigns, etc. and even political campaigning based on racism but why don't we ever talk about the subtle but grave and ever present and ever painful divide in society between the burguoise and the proletariat, the haves and have nots, the extremely wealthy and the ordinary?
It isn't as binary a divide as it used to be once but at a psychological level, it's almost always present. Your social status matters in society in most cultures and countries and that status depends on lot's of factors including your wealth, access to resources, political affiliation and even race and ethnicity. We keep talking about racism but why always silent on this more nuanced and even related societal issue which is almost as grave and important?
I mean, I'm a socialist, so I'm all for talking about classism. The issue in that classism is neither illegal nor wven particularly socially unacceptable in modern US. There's also a degree of...
I mean, I'm a socialist, so I'm all for talking about classism. The issue in that classism is neither illegal nor wven particularly socially unacceptable in modern US. There's also a degree of class mobility (though far less than most Americans believe there is) which at least makes it look more "fair", especially to your more conservative types.
In practice, classism and the flawed nature of capitalism in general touch almost everything in society and intertwine with other forms of oppression. Classism is very worth talking about (and tbh I agree that most of the moral arguments against legacy admissions rely on it) but it's also worth discussing how other forms of oppression intersect with classism.
I saw an interesting opinion article that posits legacy admissions in public schools violates the constitutional "the government shall grant no titles of nobility" clause. Effectively, the...
I saw an interesting opinion article that posits legacy admissions in public schools violates the constitutional "the government shall grant no titles of nobility" clause. Effectively, the government is granting someone a privilege based on their ancestors having that exact same privilege. It's like pseudonobility. I think it's an interesting argument but I don't know how legally sound it is.
Can you relocate this article? I didn't turn up anything fruitful from a few quick searches, and that's an interesting opinion. The idea that article 1 could prohibit organizations which accepts...
Can you relocate this article? I didn't turn up anything fruitful from a few quick searches, and that's an interesting opinion. The idea that article 1 could prohibit organizations which accepts government funding from establishing their own hereditary titles of nobility is fascinating to me.
It is enough. That's what title 6 of the 1964 civil right's act states: "No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in,...
It is enough. That's what title 6 of the 1964 civil right's act states:
"No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."
I mean, sure, but this is not the section about prohibiting the US government from establishing a nobility. I'm not arguing that Harvard is allowed to discriminate against protected classes by any...
I mean, sure, but this is not the section about prohibiting the US government from establishing a nobility. I'm not arguing that Harvard is allowed to discriminate against protected classes by any means and I hope legacy admissions do get ruled illegal!
I honestly don't get the issue with legacy enrollment. Being a legacy is a good thing and there is nothing that states that legacies have to be a certain class or demographic. Affirmative Action,...
I honestly don't get the issue with legacy enrollment. Being a legacy is a good thing and there is nothing that states that legacies have to be a certain class or demographic.
Affirmative Action, while well intentioned, was ultimately a rasict policy. It prevented one form of racism in college admission by creating a different racist issue.
Legacy Admissions isn't inherently racist, and while people want to attack it like it is, fundamentally that's not what it is.
Yes; Historically more white (male) Americans graduated college than any other demographic. Historically the upper echelon of colleges was only available to the wealthy.
This is no longer true, and hasn't been true in decades.
So why should the next generation of minority and ethnic Americans not be allowed to be legacies at their parents schools? Why should the children of minority college graduates not be afforded the same benefit that the historically white graduates have gotten?
If 28% of Harvard's admissions (in 2019) were legacies, that's a decent chunk of the student body. I'd like to see the demographics of the legacies, but I think it's probably fair to assume that...
If 28% of Harvard's admissions (in 2019) were legacies, that's a decent chunk of the student body. I'd like to see the demographics of the legacies, but I think it's probably fair to assume that they're mostly white, considering how old Harvard is and how recently people of color began to be able to attend college there in significant numbers (the first Black person to graduate was Richard Theodore Greener in 1870). Generational poverty is something that people of color can escape through getting into a good school, but if almost 30% of admissions are people who are related to alumni or donors, that is already a lot chances that other prospective students aren't going to be able to get. It's short-sighted to say that legacies aren't racist when they give a boost to white populations due to advantages that populations of color haven't had.
But that's the thing, it's still not a racist policy. The percentage of legacy students is majority white sure. Because historically the nation didn't provide a good path for minorities to go to...
But that's the thing, it's still not a racist policy.
The percentage of legacy students is majority white sure. Because historically the nation didn't provide a good path for minorities to go to college. That is no longer the case.
Even looking at Harvard, 35% of Legacy Admissions (in 2016) where people of color. Considering that the black population only accounts for 13% of the American population that is pretty high. The majority of the nation is white, that's not a fact that's going to magically go away because we want more diversity.
Policies can be racist even if they are not overtly, intentionally racist. If policies have disparate impact, they are racist: For instance, if I ran a restaurant, but only allowed entry to people...
Policies can be racist even if they are not overtly, intentionally racist. If policies have disparate impact, they are racist:
The disparate impact regulations seek to ensure that programs accepting federal money are not administered in a way that perpetuates the repercussions of past discrimination. As the Supreme Court has explained, even benignly-motivated policies that appear neutral on their face may be traceable to the nation’s long history of invidious race discrimination in employment, education, housing, and many other areas.
For instance, if I ran a restaurant, but only allowed entry to people 5'8" tall or taller, that has a huge disparate impact on women. Yes, there are some women who are that tall, so they would be able to get in, and some men who aren't, so they wouldn't be - but most women fall under this rule. My intentions as the owner may or may not have been to specifically disallow women - but it's having that effect no matter my intent. The policy is facially not sex-discriminatory (I'm not saying "No women allowed") but it's discriminatory nonetheless.
The suit is arguing that the same is occurring with the policy of legacy admissions. Due to a long history of BIPOC not being allowed into higher ed, they are less likely to be a legacy. Any legacy-based advantage in admissions is much more likely to advantage a white person than a POC.
I'm too young to have any first-hand experience with how racism was viewed decades ago, but I get the impression that racism used to be primarily defined by a personal hatred of a race. A policy...
I'm too young to have any first-hand experience with how racism was viewed decades ago, but I get the impression that racism used to be primarily defined by a personal hatred of a race. A policy was racist if it was explicitly about harming a race.
Black people sit at the back of the bus
The nice bathrooms are for white people only
Black people are banned from going to the good schools
Then the Civil Rights Act, Brown v. Board, etc. disallowed those forms of explicit exclusion and declared "separate but equal is not equal". Today we have a country where even the fairly racist Americans avoid being seen as racist. They don't want to ever go on record saying slurs and degrading comments that could have been easily spoken without a second thought decades ago. They will probably even say outright that racism is wrong, and talk about how America is no longer a racist country and how that's a good thing.
The problem with the status quo is that, even though it's an improvement, there is still a long way to go before there is true equality. So the new angle of attack is based on whether policies and laws are doing harm. Because it's clear that you can have policies written by racist people that never mention race, but still achieve their racist goals. And you can have policies written by people that aren't trying to weaponize racism but accidentally feed into the goals of racism. Regardless of the intent the effect is wrong - so both cases need to be disallowed.
They are considered negative in terms of admissions but I think they're even more heavily penalized than white people. Regardless, they are still a minority group and should be included in the "of...
They are considered negative in terms of admissions but I think they're even more heavily penalized than white people.
Regardless, they are still a minority group and should be included in the "of color" group. For them not to be would be astounding to me.
Legacy enrollment is definitely a bad thing, you don't want this little class of incestuous people controlling the elite schools and determining who can or can't get the Harvard degree that...
Legacy enrollment is definitely a bad thing, you don't want this little class of incestuous people controlling the elite schools and determining who can or can't get the Harvard degree that signifies that they can get more and better jobs than anyone else.
I don't know if It should be considered federally illegal, but It certainly not something I would ever support.
Realistically though, legacy admissions is just fancy special wording for "people who pay us a huge amount of money"
Why? I admit I'm not knowledgeable on the topic, but it's always struck me as unfair and an unearned privilege. You should be admitted to the college based on objective measures, not just because...
Being a legacy is a good thing
Why? I admit I'm not knowledgeable on the topic, but it's always struck me as unfair and an unearned privilege. You should be admitted to the college based on objective measures, not just because you were lucky enough to have a parent go there.
A legacy isn’t a bad thing, no one would argue otherwise. But legacy enrollments perpetuate an advantage that, as much as you’d like to believe has been flattened out by one or two generations of...
A legacy isn’t a bad thing, no one would argue otherwise. But legacy enrollments perpetuate an advantage that, as much as you’d like to believe has been flattened out by one or two generations of affirmative action, is preferential to white students. Here is an excerpt from an article about legacy enrollment:
“For example, a study led by an economist at Duke University in North Carolina found that legacy applicants had an admit rate of about 34% across six consecutive admissions cycles at Harvard University in Massachusetts, compared with a roughly 6% overall admit rate for nonlegacy students.”
That’s an insane advantage, with no merit, just because your parents or grandparents attended. But in some place, as little as two generations ago, minorities would have been denied educations at some of these schools.
Your mindset is a common one - “Racism ended awhile ago, so everything to fight it now is just reverse racism.” But how long does it take for black Americans, that were denied fundamental rights throughout the 20th century, to bootstrap themselves up to the genealogical education and wealth that white Americans have had access to since the inception of this nation? Do you really think something like that can be solved in 30-40 years?
Calling Affirmative Action racist tells me that you don’t know much about it, clearly thinking it’s a box black people’s names are pulled out of before a white application is assessed, where the only thing that matters is their skin color. That is racist. It rests on the logic that those people couldn’t have attended the school unless given a pass, because they aren’t smart enough. But instead, race is simply one metric, amongst many, that universities consider. It is not the end all be all of anyone’s admission.
No, legacy admissions are not inherently racist, but that doesn’t mean they don’t perpetuate an imbalance of wealth and education between races.
“This is no longer true, and hasn’t been true in decades.”
Tell me you haven’t googled college education statistics by race without telling me you haven’t googled it. Go ahead, look it up and come back, I know exactly what you’ll find. That per capita, college educated white Americans VASTLY outnumber college educated black Americans.
But by your logic, those black Americans just don’t want to be educated, right? Racism and it’s long impact doesn’t have anything to do with it, they’re just lazy or don’t find value in higher education. Because racism has been beaten, right?
According to the supreme court, race no longer needs to be a protected class in America, except in certain narrow conditions. That doesn't mean that economic status suddenly becomes one....
According to the supreme court, race no longer needs to be a protected class in America, except in certain narrow conditions. That doesn't mean that economic status suddenly becomes one. Furthermore, there is a long history and tradition in America of discriminating against people based on how much money they have. Finally, discrimination based on economic status is a deeply held religious belief by calvinist christians, and it would be a violation of their first amendment protections to deny them their ability to express it.
I'm curious where you get the basis for this statement, because there is not and never has been a Supreme Court ruling that would back up such a statement.
According to the supreme court, race no longer needs to be a protected class in America
I'm curious where you get the basis for this statement, because there is not and never has been a Supreme Court ruling that would back up such a statement.
I was extrapolating from Roberts' opinion in Shelby County where he says that laws to prevent racism were necessary in 1965, but aren't needed anymore. My whole post was hyperbolic. I was venting...
I was extrapolating from Roberts' opinion in Shelby County where he says that laws to prevent racism were necessary in 1965, but aren't needed anymore. My whole post was hyperbolic. I was venting frustrating at the bad-faith arguments put forth by the court in recent years.
Although you do raise an interesting point. The court chose not to exercise its authority to enforce a colorblind government in Haalen (the recent indian adoption case).
It's important to note the Indian adoption case was decided on political grounds rather than racial. The supreme court upheld that Tribes, as political groups, have a unique right to descendents...
It's important to note the Indian adoption case was decided on political grounds rather than racial. The supreme court upheld that Tribes, as political groups, have a unique right to descendents of their tribe.
The decision isn't perfect because Native American governments don't necessarily have the best interests of every child in mind. Many are deeply homophobic for historical reasons, but a queer teenager is obligated to stay in the tribe.
There's nothing intrinsically racist about legacy admissions. That being said, legacy admissions are extremely classist. These institutions have earned a reputation of being among the best in the world off the backs of students and faculty that got there on their own merit, and legacy admits get to reap the rewards. I think it's perfectly reasonable for these universities, that receive government grant funding and tuition from tax-payer subsidized student loans, to be barred from conducting legacy admissions.
I mean, if we lived in a world in which there hadn't been a ton of policies deliberately designed to prevent non-white families (and black families in particular) from accruing generational wealth for decades and decades, it would only be classist. But because of the long history of racist policies that resulted in there being a huge wealth disaproty between races in the US, they're inevitably also racist even if they wouldn't be in a vacuum.
Racist policies contributed to wealth inequality, but it seems messy and imprecise to say that every advantage gained by wealth can itself be described as racist. Especially when you consider how much the institution of slavery drove down wages for white labourers and led to general poverty across the south for generations due to a lack of industrialization caused by overreliance on slaves; or the fact that a large chunk of this country is composed of immigrants whose families came here relatively recently. I would say that if you wanted to claim legacy admissions to be racist, it would have to be on the grounds of racist policies that were directly designed to exclude minorities, like Jewish quotas or barring black freshmen from staying in dorms. So, there are families today that may not have acquired Harvard legacy if it weren't for those policies that barred or pushed people away explicitly on the basis of race.
The existence of poor white people doesn't negate the disproportionate impacts of policies like redlining. It's not some old thing that ended before most immigrants came here either. Heck, it's still a thing throughout US cities, just look at the "Current Issues" section.
But you're right, the history of direct discrimination based on race at institutions like Harvard is going to serve as better evidence in an actual court case. I'm more arguing that it's racist in principle, not that it's racial discrimination that'll hold up in court.
It definitely doesn't negate it, but there are too many factors that go into wealth inequality to use it as a proxy for racism or the legacy of racism. Redlining is racist in and of itself and should be criticized as such.
I'd posit that redlining, in the same vein of legacy college admissions, isn't inherently racist, it just highlights the consequences of other socio-economic issues that plague depressed urban areas where PoC are more likely to live just as it affects depressed rural areas (the South and parts of the Rust Belt come to mind) where non-Hispanic white folks are more likely to live.
The only real difference between the populations is density.
You don't exactly see banks wanting to lend on some backwater peckerwood town with kitty litter bags(meth lab thing) appearing on the sides of the road like mile markers.
There are plenty of PoC who've risen and continue to rise into the middle and upper classes, whether by going to college, into the military, the trades, etc, and easily qualify for a mortgage in some little suburb or other nice area. The biggest problem we have as a country right now is expecting disparities to be solved overnight with crude, overly-simplistic solutions, and creating new disparities and injustices by constantly shifting racial/cultural paradigms without thinking.
I don't think the history entirely supports that view. In Atlanta in the 80s, you had cases where lenders gave loans to poor white communities and denied loans to middle income or even upper income black communities. More generally, redlining lenders explicitly relied on racial demographic information in deciding who to lend. And there also were the lingering effects of discriminatory banking practices during Jim Crow. I would also say that the idea that black urban residents should simply sign a mortgage and move into a well-off suburb, even if it's a financially sound decision isn't much of a solution for people who have a strong loyalty to where they grew up. Though I do agree the problem today is different from what it was a few decades ago.
Somewhat off topic but classism is as much a problematic thing in our society, if not worse, as racism. Not the least due to the fact that the latter has gained disproportionately more attention in popular culture and media than the former. There have been so much activism, civil rights movements, donation campaigns, etc. and even political campaigning based on racism but why don't we ever talk about the subtle but grave and ever present and ever painful divide in society between the burguoise and the proletariat, the haves and have nots, the extremely wealthy and the ordinary?
It isn't as binary a divide as it used to be once but at a psychological level, it's almost always present. Your social status matters in society in most cultures and countries and that status depends on lot's of factors including your wealth, access to resources, political affiliation and even race and ethnicity. We keep talking about racism but why always silent on this more nuanced and even related societal issue which is almost as grave and important?
I mean, I'm a socialist, so I'm all for talking about classism. The issue in that classism is neither illegal nor wven particularly socially unacceptable in modern US. There's also a degree of class mobility (though far less than most Americans believe there is) which at least makes it look more "fair", especially to your more conservative types.
In practice, classism and the flawed nature of capitalism in general touch almost everything in society and intertwine with other forms of oppression. Classism is very worth talking about (and tbh I agree that most of the moral arguments against legacy admissions rely on it) but it's also worth discussing how other forms of oppression intersect with classism.
Seems like a good way to settle this would be to agree to double enrollment.
I saw an interesting opinion article that posits legacy admissions in public schools violates the constitutional "the government shall grant no titles of nobility" clause. Effectively, the government is granting someone a privilege based on their ancestors having that exact same privilege. It's like pseudonobility. I think it's an interesting argument but I don't know how legally sound it is.
The schools in question are mostly private schools anyway afaik.
They usually get taxpayer funding for research, though.
Can you relocate this article? I didn't turn up anything fruitful from a few quick searches, and that's an interesting opinion. The idea that article 1 could prohibit organizations which accepts government funding from establishing their own hereditary titles of nobility is fascinating to me.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol84/iss6/2/
This is true but I wager that wouldn't be enough to make a private university count as "The State" the way a public one does, at least legally.
It is enough. That's what title 6 of the 1964 civil right's act states:
"No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."
I mean, sure, but this is not the section about prohibiting the US government from establishing a nobility. I'm not arguing that Harvard is allowed to discriminate against protected classes by any means and I hope legacy admissions do get ruled illegal!
I honestly don't get the issue with legacy enrollment. Being a legacy is a good thing and there is nothing that states that legacies have to be a certain class or demographic.
Affirmative Action, while well intentioned, was ultimately a rasict policy. It prevented one form of racism in college admission by creating a different racist issue.
Legacy Admissions isn't inherently racist, and while people want to attack it like it is, fundamentally that's not what it is.
Yes; Historically more white (male) Americans graduated college than any other demographic. Historically the upper echelon of colleges was only available to the wealthy.
This is no longer true, and hasn't been true in decades.
So why should the next generation of minority and ethnic Americans not be allowed to be legacies at their parents schools? Why should the children of minority college graduates not be afforded the same benefit that the historically white graduates have gotten?
If 28% of Harvard's admissions (in 2019) were legacies, that's a decent chunk of the student body. I'd like to see the demographics of the legacies, but I think it's probably fair to assume that they're mostly white, considering how old Harvard is and how recently people of color began to be able to attend college there in significant numbers (the first Black person to graduate was Richard Theodore Greener in 1870). Generational poverty is something that people of color can escape through getting into a good school, but if almost 30% of admissions are people who are related to alumni or donors, that is already a lot chances that other prospective students aren't going to be able to get. It's short-sighted to say that legacies aren't racist when they give a boost to white populations due to advantages that populations of color haven't had.
But that's the thing, it's still not a racist policy.
The percentage of legacy students is majority white sure. Because historically the nation didn't provide a good path for minorities to go to college. That is no longer the case.
Even looking at Harvard, 35% of Legacy Admissions (in 2016) where people of color. Considering that the black population only accounts for 13% of the American population that is pretty high. The majority of the nation is white, that's not a fact that's going to magically go away because we want more diversity.
Policies can be racist even if they are not overtly, intentionally racist. If policies have disparate impact, they are racist:
For instance, if I ran a restaurant, but only allowed entry to people 5'8" tall or taller, that has a huge disparate impact on women. Yes, there are some women who are that tall, so they would be able to get in, and some men who aren't, so they wouldn't be - but most women fall under this rule. My intentions as the owner may or may not have been to specifically disallow women - but it's having that effect no matter my intent. The policy is facially not sex-discriminatory (I'm not saying "No women allowed") but it's discriminatory nonetheless.
The suit is arguing that the same is occurring with the policy of legacy admissions. Due to a long history of BIPOC not being allowed into higher ed, they are less likely to be a legacy. Any legacy-based advantage in admissions is much more likely to advantage a white person than a POC.
I'm too young to have any first-hand experience with how racism was viewed decades ago, but I get the impression that racism used to be primarily defined by a personal hatred of a race. A policy was racist if it was explicitly about harming a race.
Then the Civil Rights Act, Brown v. Board, etc. disallowed those forms of explicit exclusion and declared "separate but equal is not equal". Today we have a country where even the fairly racist Americans avoid being seen as racist. They don't want to ever go on record saying slurs and degrading comments that could have been easily spoken without a second thought decades ago. They will probably even say outright that racism is wrong, and talk about how America is no longer a racist country and how that's a good thing.
The problem with the status quo is that, even though it's an improvement, there is still a long way to go before there is true equality. So the new angle of attack is based on whether policies and laws are doing harm. Because it's clear that you can have policies written by racist people that never mention race, but still achieve their racist goals. And you can have policies written by people that aren't trying to weaponize racism but accidentally feed into the goals of racism. Regardless of the intent the effect is wrong - so both cases need to be disallowed.
Black <> "of color" and a significant chunk of that group is probably Asian.
Asians are considered white by a lot of college emissions boards, that was literally the reason for the suit that overturned Affirmative Action.
They are considered negative in terms of admissions but I think they're even more heavily penalized than white people.
Regardless, they are still a minority group and should be included in the "of color" group. For them not to be would be astounding to me.
Legacy enrollment is definitely a bad thing, you don't want this little class of incestuous people controlling the elite schools and determining who can or can't get the Harvard degree that signifies that they can get more and better jobs than anyone else.
I don't know if It should be considered federally illegal, but It certainly not something I would ever support.
Realistically though, legacy admissions is just fancy special wording for "people who pay us a huge amount of money"
Why? I admit I'm not knowledgeable on the topic, but it's always struck me as unfair and an unearned privilege. You should be admitted to the college based on objective measures, not just because you were lucky enough to have a parent go there.
A legacy isn’t a bad thing, no one would argue otherwise. But legacy enrollments perpetuate an advantage that, as much as you’d like to believe has been flattened out by one or two generations of affirmative action, is preferential to white students. Here is an excerpt from an article about legacy enrollment:
“For example, a study led by an economist at Duke University in North Carolina found that legacy applicants had an admit rate of about 34% across six consecutive admissions cycles at Harvard University in Massachusetts, compared with a roughly 6% overall admit rate for nonlegacy students.”
That’s an insane advantage, with no merit, just because your parents or grandparents attended. But in some place, as little as two generations ago, minorities would have been denied educations at some of these schools.
Your mindset is a common one - “Racism ended awhile ago, so everything to fight it now is just reverse racism.” But how long does it take for black Americans, that were denied fundamental rights throughout the 20th century, to bootstrap themselves up to the genealogical education and wealth that white Americans have had access to since the inception of this nation? Do you really think something like that can be solved in 30-40 years?
Calling Affirmative Action racist tells me that you don’t know much about it, clearly thinking it’s a box black people’s names are pulled out of before a white application is assessed, where the only thing that matters is their skin color. That is racist. It rests on the logic that those people couldn’t have attended the school unless given a pass, because they aren’t smart enough. But instead, race is simply one metric, amongst many, that universities consider. It is not the end all be all of anyone’s admission.
No, legacy admissions are not inherently racist, but that doesn’t mean they don’t perpetuate an imbalance of wealth and education between races.
“This is no longer true, and hasn’t been true in decades.”
Tell me you haven’t googled college education statistics by race without telling me you haven’t googled it. Go ahead, look it up and come back, I know exactly what you’ll find. That per capita, college educated white Americans VASTLY outnumber college educated black Americans.
But by your logic, those black Americans just don’t want to be educated, right? Racism and it’s long impact doesn’t have anything to do with it, they’re just lazy or don’t find value in higher education. Because racism has been beaten, right?
According to the supreme court, race no longer needs to be a protected class in America, except in certain narrow conditions. That doesn't mean that economic status suddenly becomes one. Furthermore, there is a long history and tradition in America of discriminating against people based on how much money they have. Finally, discrimination based on economic status is a deeply held religious belief by calvinist christians, and it would be a violation of their first amendment protections to deny them their ability to express it.
I'm curious where you get the basis for this statement, because there is not and never has been a Supreme Court ruling that would back up such a statement.
My guess would be laws around native Americans.
I was extrapolating from Roberts' opinion in Shelby County where he says that laws to prevent racism were necessary in 1965, but aren't needed anymore. My whole post was hyperbolic. I was venting frustrating at the bad-faith arguments put forth by the court in recent years.
Although you do raise an interesting point. The court chose not to exercise its authority to enforce a colorblind government in Haalen (the recent indian adoption case).
It's important to note the Indian adoption case was decided on political grounds rather than racial. The supreme court upheld that Tribes, as political groups, have a unique right to descendents of their tribe.
The decision isn't perfect because Native American governments don't necessarily have the best interests of every child in mind. Many are deeply homophobic for historical reasons, but a queer teenager is obligated to stay in the tribe.
First thing I look for on articles is a date. I gather this must be recent? I’m a tad daft, but couldn’t find it in the article.
Not in the article but last page of the complaint says July 3, 2023.
Thanks!
Looking directly at the complaint, they cite sources from 2023 so must be relatively recent.