Justice Dept. to Take On Affirmative Action in College Admissions - Polidicks

[url]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/trump-affirmative-action-universities.html[/url] [QUOTE]WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to redirect resources of the Justice Department’s civil rights division toward investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. The document, an internal announcement to the civil rights division, seeks current lawyers interested in working for a new project on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.” The announcement suggests that the project will be run out of the division’s front office, where the Trump administration’s political appointees work, rather than its Educational Opportunities Section, which is run by career civil servants and normally handles work involving schools and universities. The document does not explicitly identify whom the Justice Department considers at risk of discrimination because of affirmative action admissions policies. But the phrasing it uses, “intentional race-based discrimination,” cuts to the heart of programs designed to bring more minorities to university campuses. Supporters and critics of the project said it was clearly targeting admissions programs that can give members of generally disadvantaged groups, like black and Latino students, an edge over other applicants with comparable or higher test scores. [/QUOTE]

[quote]over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants[/quote] totally not a racist administration. At this point with it having generated like half a dozen supreme court cases, you'd think this would finally be settled.

Reminder that AG Jeff Sessions, head of the Justice Dept., was rejected as a federal judge in [I]1986[/I] for being deemed too racist. He also called the NAACP and ACLU "un-American and communist". I'm sure he has his best intentions at heart.

They already tackled this way back in the fucking Carter years, did they not? It's just Sessions being a flaming racist now.

I think AA is a horrible way of handling minority issues, but seriously? Taking legal action against universities over it? If it's true that they are rejecting qualified applicants solely based on their race, then they're already facing the consequences by having a lower caliber student body. They don't need to be sued over it.

Hoo boy. This'll be a fun controversy.

Note: While Affirmative actions may have had some downsides, Sessions is doing this for racist reasons. The Downside is somehow there is now an Asian Penalty after Affirmative Action.

Well affirmative action is kinda discriminatory against whites since not all whites have the same opportunies nor were born into an well off family. Not only that but the government says I'm white yet im a north african immigrant 🤔. I was told not to choose african american as an "race" before because I would be getting benefits of affirmative action when I was white/lightskin. Although I personally know this is an attempt by sessions to fuck over poor blacks because he is, as you say in my country, a racist piece of shit.

[QUOTE=halofreak472;52530621]I think AA is a horrible way of handling minority issues, but seriously? Taking legal action against universities over it? [B]If it's true that they are rejecting qualified applicants solely based on their race, then they're already facing the consequences by having a lower caliber student body.[/B] They don't need to be sued over it.[/QUOTE] And what would you have us do differently? Your statement dismisses entirely the vast difference in life one can experience based on their race, and how the circumstances can be stacked against them. They may never have had the chance to reach the level of qualification that other students did, purely because they happened to be born with a different skin color. I'm certain the effects aren't huge, but they add up over a lifetime and affirmative action is miles better than whatever libertarian idea you can puke up.

[QUOTE=paindoc;52530795]And what would you have us do differently? Your statement dismisses entirely the vast difference in life one can experience based on their race, and how the circumstances can be stacked against them. They may never have had the chance to reach the level of qualification that other students did, purely because they happened to be born with a different skin color. I'm certain the effects aren't huge, but they add up over a lifetime and affirmative action is miles better than whatever libertarian idea you can puke up.[/QUOTE] I'd make it based off of wealth instead of race. Nothing much would change considering the average incomes of black and hispanic families but it wouldn't be a giant fuck you to similarly disadvantaged white and asian people

[QUOTE=Perrine;52530809]I'd make it based off of wealth instead of race. Nothing much would change considering the average incomes of black and hispanic families but it wouldn't be a giant fuck you to similarly disadvantaged white and asian people[/QUOTE] I agree, but I don't think that's where halofreak would have taken it at all given past conversations I've had with him that are to the effect of "deregulate everything". Affirmative Action is imperfect, but its better than nothing and most unfortunately of all those who have stepped up to critique it haven't done so for the right reasons.

[QUOTE=Sableye;52530556]totally not a racist administration. At this point with it having generated like half a dozen supreme court cases, you'd think this would finally be settled.[/QUOTE] Yea the administration is sketchy, but AA is literally racism. Giving preference to one race over the other, despite having the same credentials, is racism. Theyre tackling the right issue for the wrong reason, sure. But getting rid of AA isn't a bad thing. Its a discriminatory standard. AA exists because certain minority groups dont always get the opportunity in life that whites get. But having AA in place doesn't solve that problem. All it does is gimp a white person with better qualifications. And right now its not like dozens of race exclusive scholarships don't exist. It kinda sucks getting rejected from a school while an individual whose a minoroty with worse grades makes the cut, and also gets a scholarship you dont have access too. If AA were reversed, it would have been done away with decades ago. AA needs to be done away with, but the issues causing minorities to perform worse academically also need to be tackled at the same time

[QUOTE=Cyke Lon bee;52530884]Yea the administration is sketchy, but AA is literally racism. Giving preference to one race over the other, despite having the same credentials, is racism. Theyre tackling the right issue for the wrong reason, sure. But getting rid of AA isn't a bad thing. Its a discriminatory standard.[/QUOTE] AA is intended to be discriminatory - it attempts to rectify societal discrimination by discriminating in the opposite direction. Society gives minorities less opportunity, so in order to fix this, adjust against society by providing greater access to opportunity. It's racist, yes, but it's racist in a way intended to actually even the playing field. In places that have banned AA (like California), [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/24/us/affirmative-action-bans.html"]minority enrollment lowered significantly[/URL], disproportional to population percentage. California still has that issue with the stereotype of disproportionate numbers of asian students. I think it's important to notice the difference between hateful discrimination (I hate X people) and this type of discrimination. AA is discriminatory, but not because the government hates white people, and instead because they want to even the odds for all other people.

[QUOTE=.Isak.;52530915]AA is intended to be discriminatory - it attempts to rectify societal discrimination by discriminating in the opposite direction. Society gives minorities less opportunity, so in order to fix this, adjust against society by providing greater access to opportunity. It's racist, yes, but it's racist in a way intended to actually even the playing field. In places that have banned AA (like California), [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/24/us/affirmative-action-bans.html"]minority enrollment lowered significantly[/URL], disproportional to population percentage. California still has that issue with the stereotype of disproportionate numbers of asian students. I think it's important to notice the difference between hateful discrimination (I hate X people) and this type of discrimination. AA is discriminatory, but not because the government hates white people, and instead because they want to even the odds for all other people.[/QUOTE] What you described is handicapping everyone because some people are born with handicaps. Its blatant retardation. Forcing certain races to do worse does not force other races to do better. Theres a great short story you should read called "Harrison Bergeron". AA being described as "positively descriminatory" doesn't change the fact that its racist. As I described in my earlier post, instead of handicapping white people to make them less successful, why not target the reason why minority groups are less successful?

[QUOTE=Cyke Lon bee;52530941]What you described is handicapping everyone because some people are born with handicaps. Its blatant retardation. Forcing certain races to do worse does not force other races to do better. Theres a great short story you should read called "Harrison Bergeron". AA being described as "positively descriminatory" doesn't change the fact that its racist. As I described in my earlier post, instead of handicapping white people to make them less successful, why not target the reason why minority groups are less successful?[/QUOTE] harrison bergeron was a story about a society that forced everyone to be equally physically and mentally able by handicapping abled people with weights, distracting noise generators, etc. affirmative action is literally nothing like this at all.

I wish instead of wasting time and money on this, they should just fund schools better so the universities can afford to take in white applicants that would be rejected

[QUOTE=paindoc;52530795]And what would you have us do differently? Your statement dismisses entirely the vast difference in life one can experience based on their race, and how the circumstances can be stacked against them. They may never have had the chance to reach the level of qualification that other students did, purely because they happened to be born with a different skin color. I'm certain the effects aren't huge, but they add up over a lifetime and affirmative action is miles better than whatever libertarian idea you can puke up.[/QUOTE] Implement a system that evaluates people on literally any metric other than race. A system that doesn't tell people that, simply because they're a minority, we have to lower our standards for them because they can't compete with the white men on their own. You ideally want as few objective metrics as possible because there is so much room for exceptions, and one based on race is a pretty shitty one. GPA, test scores and such aren't much better, although they're the best existing system for evaluating the academic ability of an applicant. Issues such as race and income level should really be left to personal statements so an applicant can fully explain what they were able to do with the resources provided to them, rather than assuming that lower test scores automatically means their environment was bad, and not all the other things that could cause that. If you want to have one objective rule, wealth would be a simple system to move to that actually controls for differences in background and opportunity sufficiently. It doesn't exclude the possibilities of poor white people or rich black people. Individual universities are free to enact admissions policies as they choose, I just don't like it when one party implements a one-size-fits-all band aid to try to fix an issue.

[QUOTE=Cyke Lon bee;52530941]What you described is handicapping everyone because some people are born with handicaps. Its blatant retardation. Forcing certain races to do worse does not force other races to do better. Theres a great short story you should read called "Harrison Bergeron". AA being described as "positively descriminatory" doesn't change the fact that its racist. As I described in my earlier post, instead of handicapping white people to make them less successful, why not target the reason why minority groups are less successful?[/QUOTE] They were born with handicaps as a direct result of actions by whites. Once everything is even, AA has no purpose, but we're not even close to being there yet.

Mind you, there are alternatives to race-based AA and leaving historical racism and sexism be unchecked. A few states that were forced to remove AA (cali is one iirc) were forced to find other methods to increase underprivileged enrollment and they wound up doing "better" than with AA. Generally these schemes targeted poorer communities better, such as allowing the top X% of every school guaranteed acceptance to any college, removing benefits for being the descendent of an alumni, etc.. I see why AA exists as it was a simple solution that was better than doing nothing, but now that there's better examples of how to do things we don't really need it for admissions anymore. Which is good, because AA is fatally flawed because "Black" "White" "Asian" don't work as categories. African immigrants who come today tend to do great, because they require a good deal of resources to actually get into the US. And for asians, while it is true that Japanese, Chinese, etc. people do great, that's really not true for groups such as SEA refugees.

[QUOTE=.Isak.;52530915]AA is intended to be discriminatory - it attempts to rectify societal discrimination by discriminating in the opposite direction. Society gives minorities less opportunity, so in order to fix this, adjust against society by providing greater access to opportunity.[/quote] ...And providing such opportunities to those privileged enough not to be deeply affected by such societal discrimination. The bullshittery of AA is two-fold; it fucks over those with enough merit to enter had this policy not been in place, and it hides the real problem, does nothing about those who can't manage to get to that level of education in the first place. It just pushes the dirt under the rug by pretending it "rectified" social discrimination since the distribution of minorities is consistent with the population at large, completely ignoring the implications of such distribution being artificially maintained. [Quote]It's racist, yes, but it's racist in a way intended to actually even the playing field. In places that have banned AA (like California), [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/24/us/affirmative-action-bans.html"]minority enrollment lowered significantly[/URL], disproportional to population percentage.[/quote] Gee, I wonder why [I]that[/I] is? Could it be because there's nothing left to hide the fact minorities -which are overly represented among poor populations- struggle with proper access to quality education [I]long[/I] before college? Could it be that this is a symptom of a larger issue -perhaps the utter lack of social mobility in the US- which AA does absolutely nothing to solve? [Quote]I think it's important to notice the difference between hateful discrimination (I hate X people) and this type of discrimination.[/quote] I recall a quote of an infamous poster, who once said misogyny isn't necessarily "grrr I hate women" before being promptly permad. It may be worth it to entertain the thought that this may apply to racism as well. Regardless, intent matters very little when you're fucking over people anyway. Why should racist, discriminatory acts which negatively impact people be absolved and pardoned simply because those who put it in place meant well? [Quote]AA is discriminatory, but not because the government hates white people, and instead [I]because they want to even the odds for all other people.[/I][/QUOTE] ... something AA doesn't actually do. If the government actually wanted to even the odds for "all other people" (fuck poor white people I guess) they would have solved the many issues that plague primary and secondary education for underprivileged people. [editline]2nd August 2017[/editline] Not to mention it doesn't even necessarily help those who are admitted on the basis of race. Being admitted when you don't have the required skills means you're likely to struggle once you're in. Meanwhile Asians are required to perform much better to be admitted, something that's [I] pretty fucking racist [/I] no matter how you put it, and will only lead to them working their asses even more to compensate, leading in turn to colleges increasing their requirements even more to "balance" their distributions.

This is most likely a political manuever in advance of the midterms meant to drive a cultural wedge, just like the trans ban.

This administration really is dead set on believing that white people are the most oppressed in the US, huh?

[QUOTE=_Axel;52531735]post[/QUOTE] I think you make an excellent ponts. While I think that the intensions behind AA I do question if it has tackled the real problems - which is the general awful educational stsndards in the US that are especially affecting hispanic and black students as well as the extreme lack of social mobility. As far as I am aware there aren't programs like AA in large parts of Europe yet it seems that there is much more equality. At the same time however its clear Trump is doing this for one reason only: to distract snd to appease his racist supporters. I think that for the issues in America in regards to race to be truly solved, there needs to be massive wealth redistrubtion, the tackling of the remaining institutional racism and massive inestment in primary and secondary education.

[QUOTE=Trebgarta;52531860]These are measures universities take, not state/federal governments (when we are talking about universities, and not public sector jobs). Unis can't fix a state's K-12 schools. This is what they do to help a bit.[/QUOTE] Putting aside the host of AA bullshit I already mentioned in my previous post that show it doesn't help one bit and actually makes matters worse, [I]universities shouldn't be allowed to enforce that fuckery in the first place[/I]. If companies aren't allowed to discriminate based on race, then [I]why the fuck should universities?[/I] Whether it's a public or a private institution is irrelevant.

[QUOTE=1239the;52531133]harrison bergeron was a story about a society that forced everyone to be equally physically and mentally able by handicapping abled people with weights, distracting noise generators, etc. affirmative action is literally nothing like this at all.[/QUOTE] Its the same premise. AA is putting a handicap on whites because minorities underperforn academically.

[QUOTE=halofreak472;52530621]I think AA is a horrible way of handling minority issues, but seriously? Taking legal action against universities over it? If it's true that they are rejecting qualified applicants solely based on their race, then they're already facing the consequences by having a lower caliber student body. They don't need to be sued over it.[/QUOTE] What? Sorry but if I get rejected just because of my race I don't give a fuck about the caliber of their student body, I'd want a bit of actual justice. If a university turned away black students solely because of race there would absolutely be consequences, why is it okay when it's white people? [editline]2nd August 2017[/editline] It's like saying oil companies that destroy the environment don't need to be taken to court over it because they're already facing the consequences via the bad PR. [editline]2nd August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=paindoc;52530795]And what would you have us do differently? Your statement dismisses entirely the vast difference in life one can experience based on their race, and how the circumstances can be stacked against them. They may never have had the chance to reach the level of qualification that other students did, purely because they happened to be born with a different skin color. I'm certain the effects aren't huge, but they add up over a lifetime and affirmative action is miles better than whatever libertarian idea you can puke up.[/QUOTE] And what do you say to a poor and disadvantaged white student who is turned away in favor of a privileged black student, purely on the assumption that the black student has automatically had a harder life? Or do we just not care about poor white people?

[QUOTE=srobins;52532627]What? Sorry but if I get rejected just because of my race I don't give a fuck about the caliber of their student body, I'd want a bit of actual justice. If a university turned away black students solely because of race there would absolutely be consequences, why is it okay when it's white people? [editline]2nd August 2017[/editline] It's like saying oil companies that destroy the environment don't need to be taken to court over it because they're already facing the consequences via the bad PR. [editline]2nd August 2017[/editline] And what do you say to a poor and disadvantaged white student who is turned away in favor of a privileged black student, purely on the assumption that the black student has automatically had a harder life? Or do we just not care about poor white people?[/QUOTE] I didn't make any mention of specific races in my post. It's a problem both if they reject black or white people based on solely their race. The point is more that if a university wants a body of high achieving students, then if racism leads to them denying good students and accepting bad students, then that's their own problem to sort out because they're diverging from their own mission statement. Institutions will do whatever makes them money, and racial discrimination generally isn't profitable and naturally punishes people who practice it. If a university is interested in racism then its priorities are simply not in producing profitable students.

[QUOTE=Cyke Lon bee;52531916]Its the same premise. AA is putting a handicap on whites because minorities underperforn academically.[/QUOTE] And an even bigger handicap on Asians for over-performing. If I'd were an American, I would have made more chance to go to college or university there by ticking in the 'White' box on the registration paper rather than 'Asian'.

[QUOTE=halofreak472;52532716]I didn't make any mention of specific races in my post. It's a problem both if they reject black or white people based on solely their race. The point is more that if a university wants a body of high achieving students, then if racism leads to them denying good students and accepting bad students, then that's their own problem to sort out because they're diverging from their own mission statement. Institutions will do whatever makes them money, and racial discrimination generally isn't profitable and naturally punishes people who practice it. If a university is interested in racism then its priorities are simply not in producing profitable students.[/QUOTE] I agree that regardless of which race is being disadvantaged, it's totally wrong, I'm just saying I disagree with saying "don't worry about the fact that you got rejected, the university is suffering in the long run". The fact that the university may or may not suffer from their own admission policies doesn't help me when I'm trying to get an education.

Terrible college policy vs racist administration Whoever wins we lose