I find it curious that there is any case here. There is no law/regulation etc., or even good sense, that college admissions MUST ONLY, be based on test scores; which is what asians want. Most educators of late seem to feel that is a bad idea for many reasons.
30
Here we have racist Brett in full throat: urging an allegedly color blind standard. This of course has never been the law in the United States. In plessy white people endorsed segregation, with one dissent in favor of colorblind. Since white people have discriminated against blacks wholesale, it is invidious nonsense to advocate only retail solutions. John Robert knows as much as he busily shreds equal protection for blacks in voting and elsewhere. very telling that Brett quotes Roberts, who just recently praised kavenaugh by quoting his partisan conservative media only piece in the WSJ (following a fox only interview). These measures deserve the contempt they garner. BTW, you of course overlook the fact that no shame is felt by the white legatee admissions, or the unending stream of whites who gain admission by virtue of the poor economic and educational opportunities available to many blacks. I'm glad the ivy league had the bravery to stand up to people like you and Roberts and refuse to allow your ilk to define either what a good education is or who will be admitted to receive it. Which brings us to the last point. Your whole argument is just a rehash of an old Yiddish joke: the food is so bad and the portions are too small. You detest the learning at our best schools, but you insist you have the right to dictate who gets it. You are a bad joke.
8
Not enough super rich Asian alumni throwing money at the school?
I know there's one Hong Kong based crony capitalist tossing heaps of money Harvard's way but, alas, he's just one guy.
9
Next we'll probably be asked to feel sorry for the nameless white guy whose spot on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers' roster was taken by Jackie Robinson.
12
Stephens like other white elitists was born rounding third base and claims he hit a home run thru hard work. Let’s be real clear — writing a column and talking on television do not qualify as “hard work” in any case. And why is it always about poor disadvantaged Brett and his privileged victimhood? Get over yourself.
18
if affirmative action means getting something you don't deserve based on who you are, white people win that contest by a mile. yet no one complains about the affirmative action that all white people, specially white men get. given the incredible incompetence of our president and his underlings one has to ask... how did such incompetent people get so far? why is affirmative action only ok when white men benefit?
13
Today’s Bret Stephens column proves at least one thing: we Liberals have no monopoly on far-fetched claims of victimhood. His claim of being “stung” by his semi-official “House Conservative” status on the NYT Op-Ed page is frankly absurd. In what arena would a search for diversity be MORE appropriate than on the Op-Ed page of America’s leading newspaper? Is Paul Krugman stung by being seen as filling the “economist” slot on the Op-Ed pages? Does Nicholas Kristof feel disparaged by being seen as the “bleeding heart liberal” columnist? I doubt it. I suspect they understand that presenting a diversity of opinions is the very essence of a properly constructed Op-Ed page.
I believe the true motives behind those (White) people promoting and financing this complex lawsuit—on behalf of supposedly disadvantaged Asian-Americans are another back door attempt at suppressing the slight advantage AA gives to Black students. I speak from personal experience: in 1960, I was an unofficial “affirmative action” admission to Harvard College. As someone named Smith (although non-identifiably Jewish) who was clearly “Caucasian,” I only learned of the preference I had received well into my freshman year, when a Dean explained to a group of my classmates that Harvard “has to admit SOME students who will be comfortable being in the bottom third of their Class”—as someone has to be there. I had high—but less than impeccable—grades and test scores but I knew then why I had been admitted.
12
Nothing in this article refutes the accusation that the author is an affirmative action hire.
10
Hey Bret Stephens do you care at all about legacy admission which is clearly affirmative action for white wealthy undeserving students. Does not seem to bother you at all.
16
Bret, only a white male could write this with a straight face. Or a crooked tongue. Seriously.
13
The Times's contemporaneous article on Harvard's admissions process indicates how foolishly simplistic Stephen's analysis is.
7
Minority students living in poor communities with drugs, crime, brutal policing giving minority students arrest and criminal records because of "stop and frisk" and zero tolerance policies living in apartments with lead paint and whose parents may have significant parenting problems have it SOOOOO EASY getting into Harvard.
The minority schools are SOOOOOO good. They have Title 1 funding and free breakfasts and lunch programs. Their schools typically have Olympic size swimming pools, advanced physics and astronomy programs and lap tops for all.
Minority students get to pick their parents and ethnicity. When they graduate they get the good jobs that the social networks they acquire in schools help them to get or their parents friends get them jobs in investment banking, research labs and so forth.
Minority students have it SO easy.
They have what the ACLU calls the School to Harvard Pipeline. Oooops. I meant the School to Prison Pipeline.
So why can't our nation recognize the opposite of merit based criteria where you live in a good community, go to good schools,have good parents and advanced programs?
The Asian Americans are profoundly ignorant of how American society works. We have "anti merti" too.
No one bought them to America on a slave ship, put them in a segregated school and neighborhood and maybe had the KKK pay regular visits and maybe lynch a grandparent.
No one met them with snarling police dogs.
Vietnam Veteran and Retired Army Officer.
18
The curse of white pafriarchy.
4
"Of all the names I’ve been called in life, including the usual anti-Semitic slurs, none has more sting than “affirmative action hire.”
I got that a lot on social media after I joined The Times. The meaning was clear: I was a quota-filler who had taken the place of somebody more deserving. Whatever I had accomplished, through talent or hard work, wasn’t enough. I was just fulfilling a misbegotten mandate for ideological diversity — and doing even that poorly, since, like every other columnist here, I’m also a Trump opponent." What an obfuscatory attempt to deflect. You are criticized for your right views and support of a corrupt political party. No one cares about your heritage or background.
13
Using racism to justify affirmative action.... means to an end said the super villain.
glad to see frighteningly scary NYT print a reasonable article for once....but why the sudden change of heart NYT?
14
Give me a break. There has always been affirmative action for the good positions, and the quota has been 100% white guys. Places like Harvard give the rest of us a chance. Edward Blum does not have the interests of Asians at heart.
10
Clarence Thomas is the most pernicious example of affirmative action. He was chosen because of he was the only conservative black man the GOP could find. Of course Thomas would bristle at this. His conservative philosophy did not prevent him from using the race card (this is a high class lynching) during his confirmation hearings. Double standards always.
11
Having seen the bright children of Jewish Cuban friends (who, incidentally, are ardent Trump supporters) easily get into Stanford and Yale in part because they were classified as Latinos (and indeed they are perfectly bilingual), I am aware of the hypocrisy of affirmative action. However, one should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Social policies, even the best ones, can be effected only with blunt tools, but this does not mean they are not generally useful.
14
It appears the government gave Harvard a great weapon to systematically further their racial hatred of Asians.
6
I couldn’t agree more with Stephens’ succinctly written column - any form of racial preference is a stain on the benificiary as well as on the organization.
This also goes for preferences on gender, sexual orientation, religion and, most of all, toeing some form of ideological line supporting one form of group think over another. The last is the most odious domaine of American liberals.
As to Stephens’ tongue-in-cheek concern over his own affirmative action hire by the NYT’s, no need to worry. Like how the Pope needs to be Catholic, opinion columnist are hired for their opinions, dumb as they may be. Why, just look at Krugman and Blow!
12
What criteria to you suggest Harvard use to winnow 43,000 applicants to 2,000? Only grades and test scores? Really?
Why does your analysis of this lawsuit render you incapable of nuance? At times like these you really are just a token conservative, exposed as a hack by your paper's own in depth reporting
13
Affirmative action is a way for underqualified grifters to manipulate liberals into giving them positions they don't deserve. Burn it down, and salt the remains.
9
Shouldn't Bret be posting this on Fox News?!
4
“Legacy” admissions are the worst form of affirmative action.
16
I hate to burst your bubble, Bret. But, agitation over trolls on NYT comment boards, hurling accusations at you that you are an "ideological hire," does not make you a modern day Rosa Brooks. Is that what this column is about? I am having trouble understanding this column from the esteemed Pulitzer Prize winner. How did you make this about you?
5
Only a white male could write this with a straight face.
Seriously.
3
golly, bret. get some life....give it a go!!
2
Nice.
One can always tell an article about affirmative action is going to be completely uninspired, unenlightening & trite when a very privileged, very successful white man starts talking about his ego.
Kinda sounds like the prosperous whiny white guy coalition that includes Trump, many GOP politicians & most recently Bret’s buddy Kavanaugh.
It’s not about you, loser.
Save your affirmative action complaints for all the super-deserving white kids that get a hand-up to Harvard- those in the donor class, the legacy class & the children of faculty class.
Kushner, anyone? No Einstein there, obviously, but apparently daddy donor helped pave the way.
Trump, the genius Junior class transfer to UPenn! JOKE!!!!!
Please. The world would be much better off with less advantaged and lower “performing” kids of any race than these & their kind.
3
If the shoe fits ...
1
Who cares about Harvard? The only Affirmative Action ever there was for dumb rich kids.
3
BRET’S THOUGHT PROCESS:
Hmm... I really don’t like affirmative action, but I can’t just come out and say that because then they’ll be like, “White male privilege!” ...I know! I‘ll call them hypocrites! But how...? Well, libs got all triggered when we said Obama is the first affirmative action president... what if I flip the script so that *they’re* the ones accusing *me* of benefiting from affirmative action? Genius! Oh, except I couldn’t care less what some effete NYT reader thinks about me. Whatever, I’ll just lie like I did about how all men would rather be accused of murder than sexual assault. Maybe something like, “They know the insult’s insidious psychological power to wound.” PERFECT. I’m so clever. Another game, Brett, match.
[FWIW I’m also against AA but Bret is too full of it not to be called out.]
4
you're right there probably was someone more deserving than you to be a times columnist. Did Breitbart not having any openings for you?
4
cont....
It seems that Mr. Stephens, like many others on the right (and a few faux liberals on he left) seems to have no problem when the aforementioned groups benefit from affirmative action, yet to seem to have a problem with or in
some cases, outright demonize the policy when Black people (and that is exactly who he was referring to when he spoke giving special treatment to based on race) are beneficiaries of the policy. Assuming that all people of color who have succeeded in life because of affirmative action suffer from feelings of guilt or some other sort of psychological inadequacy. Please Mr. Stephens, get off your high horse, leave the true work of psychology to those actually trained in the field to diagnose such issues and just admit to the fact that you have problems with people of color who you obviously deem as academically inferior whether self consciously or not.
Mr. Stephens, simply because you may suffer from feelings of insecurity when attacked by racists or anti-Semites (and I have no doubt that you are attacked routinely by such intellectual mental midgets) and harbor feelings self-doubt about yourself does not mean that every person of color is that insecure about themselves or their abilities. Such assumptions represent the worst form of stereotyping and patronizing. I am sure that the many, many Whites who benefit from affirmative action do not harbor feelings of being lesser than, fraudulent or guilty about doing so. Do you Mr. Stephens?
2
What quota were you filling? White male? "Conservative"?
2
The idea that you are an “affirmative action hire” is complete nonsense.
Whatever mugwump said that is a moron.
You are smart and articulate.
I am an extreme lefty, but I read your column assiduously because you generate new insights for me. I have also watched you on television and your ability to speak extemporaneously about the issues of the day is extraordinary.
Sometimes your facility with the language surprises even you as when Nicole Wallace had to a stop you and hit rewind when you said something so incredibly prescient that you didn't even notice it.
It's bad Latin but true nevertheless -- illegitimi non carborundum.
4
Is Stephen's really serious that anyone would think that hiring an individual of Jewish decent at the New York Times was primarily to fill a diversity quota? That seems to be quite a stretch.
3
Questions for the group:
Is wrting a column for the New York Times more prestigious than writing a column for the Wall Street Journal?
If so, was this true before Robert Murdock's News Corporation acquired the WSJ?
White people hate affirmative action, no matter what excuses they make it's about racism. They're so threatened by maybe...possibly...losing their status as top dogs.
3
Only a white male could write this with a straight face. And a forked tongue. Seriously.
1
You think you're and affirmative action hire at the New York Times? I don't believe it. And to use such a straw as an underlying premise of tise op-ed piece is shameful. The readers deserve more.
4
I have been a fan of your writing and I almost never agree with you but respect your arguments that are presented with logic and reason they sometimes gives me pause to reconsider my position. So I could barely read your entire column today due to the way you framed your argument.
“Of all the names I’ve been called in life, including the usual anti-Semitic slurs, none has more sting than “affirmative action hire.””
“To be told that you are an affirmative action hire shakes the ground under your feet."
Really Brett do you expect your readers to believe that being called that from anonymous comments, and “ always people on the left” is worse to your fragile ego than being called an anti –semtic slur by..anyone? That these unnamed lefties, who I suspect you have little regard for their intellectual abilities (not because of their being lefties, because of the level of their comments) would shake your strong ego? I have watched you in live debate, and on TV one thing comes across clearly, your faith in your own formidable intellect. You know full well that those questioning your hire, is NOT due to your abilities but anger that The Times hired a conservative.
The issue you attempt to discuss is one that is important for both liberals and conservatives to deal with. Do us all ( and yourself ) a service and argue the issue (which do so well) and avoid the feigning of emotional damage, never thought of you as a ‘snowflake’!
Now I will finish reading your column…
3
Great column wherein a privileged white conservative cries crocodile tears for the people of color who matriculate to the Ivy League. Do you suffer from impostor syndrome, Brett? How awful! Are you followed around stores as you shop? Didn’t think so. Have a seat and stay in your lane.
6
It is cringey to read a privileged man's lament about being a token conservative hire at the NYT.
3
Harvard is racist.
And they pretended Elizabeth Warren was an Indian so they could look more inclusive without recruiting a REAL Indian.
6
Boo boo Brett. You still got to go to university of Chicago and London school of economic. You were really victimized by affirmative action
5
What color skin do you have? Ok then get in this line. Oh you're Asian? I'm sorry we aren't letting in any more smart Asians. This is crazy. This is racism.
5
This is such a pathetic argument. White males have benefited since the dawn of history at the expense of others. And now you feel bad. Suck it up. Try to walk a mile in another man's shoes. Just try to feel what it is like to be the black person, brown person, average joe/jane from small town USA, woman, gay person or native American Indian who will never even consider such a school as Harvard or a job at the NYTimes for a whole host of reasons I cannot even list here. Women somehow find the empathy. I wish you could too.
2
There is a lot of drivel here. So an Asian-American student with a higher SAT is superior to a Hispanic, Black or Anglo student? The goal of American Universities is to have a qualified diverse student body. How they get there is their business. Harvard's admission of Asian students well exceeds the percentage of Asian American students. Should test scores be the sol,e criteria. But what about rich Asian students who take tutorials to boost their scores? Then why not only have Jewish students represent Anglos since they probably have higher test scores. This entire suit is a smoke screen to attack affirmative action programs and have dumb, rich white boys once again admitted to our best universities. Hey Mr Kavanaugh.Mr Kushner
6
I've always found the "they must feel bad for benefiting from affirmative action" or the "I think less of them because of affirmative action" arguments curious and informative. It always seems to be targeted toward certain beneficiaries. White women never seem to be the targets. Moreover white men, beneficiaries of de facto affirmative action for several centuries, don't seem to be thought less of and they certainly don't seem to have any regrets. Hell, no group holds itself in higher esteem white men. For both groups, affirmative action seems to have worked out very well. So I can only wonder why it should be such a problem for certain other groups.
4
This is another William Buckley argument, perfect logic, wrong premise. The premise is that Affirmative Actions excludes rather than admits. In his attempts to upgrade his feelings, the writer degrades everyone else of merit. It is a typical Republican/Conservative/Evangelical ploy.
Affirmative Action was created in order to provide access to those who might not even be considered for admission. Moreover, a school like Harvard admits about 5% of those who apply, so it is an attempt to include at least a few of everyone instead of mostly a few. For Chinese students, the sin is that because there are a lot of qualified Chinese applicants, there should be a lot of Chinese admissions, attempts at diversity be damned. Of course the most pernicious argument is to zero in on the characteristics at which a lot of Chinese and other applicants excel, such as grades, and degrade the other characteristics that might be considered, not the least of which might be that there have already been enough of that type of applicant admitted. Of course, to make an attempt at balance is immediately, in the current and similar arguments, branded as bias. In many other arguments by those making these arguments, using bias to exclude is applauded, never mind that that is exactly what they are asking Harvard to do. They are asking Harvard, like the politics of the R/C/E, to dumb down and only consider the criteria that will insure an imbalance that favors them. Political Correctness run amok.
2
Bret, while I respect much of what you write, you are just plain wrong here. Your being hired as a conservative writer at the NYT is no no way comparable to an African American, Latino, or woman being hired in places where they have never been represented at all or are represented in staggeringly low numbers. You appear to know the problems with this, but you pose no better solutions. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Quoting Roberts’ know-nothing quote is absurd: Neither you nor he have any better answer than affirmative action. I, as a female (white) professional have often been an affirmative action hire - and I’m damned glad. Otherwise, I would never had had the jobs I’ve had. I’ve also been blatantly turned away as a woman for being a woman. “Just don’t do it” doesn’t now alleviate discrimiantion. Only laws can do that, and affirmative action is the best answer, albeit it not perfect, we’ve come up with. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You are just wrong here - and you speak as a white male above all else. That disqualifies your opinion.
2
Well Mr. Stephens, you are an acknowledged classical conservative and reflect the very convenient current view of conservatives that discrimination on the basis of race is always wrong so we must stop forever discriminating on the basis of race and that makes affirmative action wrong. Well sir, on an abstract level I’d agree with you but there’s a wee problem here. Your oh so conservative friends, especially those from the south and mid-west, viciously discriminated against black, all non-white, populations for centuries. To say they were disadvantaged is to understate the problem so strongly it becomes almost meaningless. White folks oppressed blacks in particular, but also Asian and Hispanic populations, to such an extent physically, educationally, socially, economically and morally that there needs to be redress and your saying stop discriminating is farcical. Oh well, yes those poor sad folks were placed at a huge disadvantage at least until the 1970s and they would say it continues today if a bit more subtly. But what can you do. We’re not going to even try and do anything about that. Sucks to be them but what can you do? That is not acceptable on any level. This is not a theoretical concept as Mr. Roberts would have it - oh we live in a post-racial society now - but rather a practical and ethical issues that demands redress at the peril of the soul of the society.
2
Well, Bret, if your employment at the Times is indeed the result of "filling an ideological quota", then I would say that the Times did a damn good job.
We need to hear your opinion. Sometimes we'll disagree, sometimes (OMG!) we'll agree.
But keep writing.
3
I've never observed any significant difference between students with straight "A"s and 800 SAT scores and those with a few blemishes on their high school record who scored 750 on their SATs. Some are very bright, creative, original. Some aren't. Once you've acknowleged that standardized tests are not entirely predictive of academic or lifetime achievement, it's very easy to embrace an Admissions Policy that puts a premium on diversity. Toes get stepped on. Too bad. Nobody gives a damn whether their Doctor was top of his or her class at Harvard. What they care about is having a competent Doctor, or Teacher, in their neighborhood. And the way to assure that talent is distributed across the country is to recruit talent from those neighborhoods. A Chinese kid from NYC isn't going down to Alabama to practice medicine. But a black kid from Alabama might. And vice versa. No doubt Affirmative Action has left some with nagging doubts about their "worthiness". Too bad. The point isn't to make people "feel good" about themselves but to increase the odds their education and training is put to use in places it's needed.
7
Yet our original sin is still racial discrimination
50
"Perhaps the deepest damage affirmative action does is to those it embraces, not those it rejects. It isn’t a pleasant thing to live with the sense that your achievements aren’t quite real— and that everyone secretly knows it. It’s corrosive to live in the clutch of someone else’s lie."
Putting aside the fact that Mr. Stephens fails to mention the agenda of the anti-affirmative zealot who is behind the case against Harvard and UNC, this is one of the most patronizing and racist pieces I have ever read in the NYT.
So this is what Mr. Stephens would say to a black student who graduated at the very top of her class in one of the country's top high schools, scored 1600 on the SATs, took all AP classes junior and senior year, and was an accomplished musician admitted to an ivy league school? That same student went on to get 2 graduate degrees from ivy league schools and pursued a distinguished career in the sciences.
There were and are many other students of color like her who were accepted into Harvard and other ivy league schools based on merit. Any many exceeded the accomplishments of their white and Asian classmates.
No, Mr. Stephens, the truth is our achievements are quite real and we do not live in the "...clutch of someone else's lies."
Assuming that black students in ivy league schools get a pass on academic qualifications and are merely beneficiaries of affirmative action is a bias that is perpetuated in the minds of racists. Shame on you.
2
When that “rejection letter” goes out, its not addressed to “Dear Asian!” It’s addressed to an INDIVIDUAL who may have worked his/her whole life to get into Harvard. That INDIVIDUAL may be eminently qualified, but, alas, was assigned to some arbitrary group that suffers outright discriminated.
No two people on this earth are the same. Even identical twins often grow up to be vastly different individuals!! You cannot throw individuals into a proverbial meat grinder, chop them up, and have them come out the other end as homogeneous “chopmeat”, otherwise known as “a group!” It’s doesn’t work that way. Therein lies the fallacy of “groups!”
Admission applications should be identified ONLY by number. No names, gender, race, religion or anything else should be on it. Interviews should be done with the candidate behind a screen.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right” the old adage reads. And you can’t right past discrimination by using the wrong of discrimination now!
3
Really, Bret? You consider yourself, a privileged white male who has achieved considerable professional success, to be the equivalent of an "affirmative action" recipient, one of the marginalized, historically wronged and systematically oppressed people in American society? Cry me a river. I thought you had hit rock bottom when you thanked Trump for being a bully, but this takes the cake.
3
Mr Stephens, perhaps your colleagues are respectful, but are just pulling your chain, saying you're an affirmative action hire so that you'll know what it feels like to be so labelled when you have worked so hard - despite your ideological handicaps :) - to get where you are today.
2
If race based affirmative action is here to stay, Asian applicants should just start identifying as some other race. Why not? Pull an Elizabeth Warren and get a DNA test to find that bit of genetic material that allows you to claim some other identity, and Harvard won’t be able to dispute it.
7
"Of all the names I’ve been called in life, including the usual anti-Semitic slurs, none has more sting than “affirmative action hire.”"
It's very often bad practice to use yourself as evidence in an argument because it's nearly impossible to see your own situation and your own characteristics clearly and without bias. You see yourself as a competent, clear thinker who's been set upon by ill-willed crowds motivated by anti-semitism and ideological bias.
A different, and perfectly reasonable, explanation is that your critics don't see you as a competent, clear thinker.
2
I am a graduate of Harvard and father of a smart Asian daughter. Will her personality please Harvard ?
4
Justice Roberts is correct. Affirmative action is a Band-Aid for white liberals who do not want to soil their hands with real racial justice.
4
Bret, you only forgot one minor detail. Affirmative Action was originally developed to assist Black Americans systematically discriminated by 400 years of Affirmative Action for Privileged White Males. Until Privileged White Males such as yourself, Bret, come to grips with the stain on the American Character that Slavery and Jim Crow has left, Amerikkka will never reach it's full promise. The old "Get over it, pull yourself up by your bootstraps." is richly ironic coming from Richie Riches like tRump who inherited millions tax free and never worked an honest day in his life.
4
I used to spend a month each year in my course on applied ethics at Rutgers going over arguments pro and con regarding affirmative action. If I had received this essay as a paper I think I would have given it a polite B-. The problem is that he doesn't address any of the arguments for affirmative action that exist today as they did then. 1) In trying to enforce a system that would prohibit discrimination how do you determine that you are not discriminating if you don't consider numbers in some way? If Ole Miss were to say that it doesn't exclude African Americans but not one was admitted last year due to substandard essays how do we prove that this is discrimination without some numerical baseline? 2) If my father stole your fathers antique Jaguar sports car, would I have a right to recover it? The fact is that certain groups of persons labor under undeserved burdens due to the violations of their families property rights in the past. Affirmative action may be an imperfect technique for redressing this imbalance but it may be the only way. 3) Stephens dwells on the diversity aspect, Universities rightfully argue that a diverse student body is educationally valuable for all students. I am appalled at the slander of Asian students, some of whom I may have taught in Taiwan, by Harvard. But the fact is that if the schools is all white and Asian dialogue will be impoverished.
Always start out strong, preferably with an intellectually dishonest argument. Some unnamed person on Twitter made fun of Bret, therefore liberals are hypocrites?
1
Bret everyone has his critics, yes even Bret Stephens. If you interview your colleagues who frequently write an opinion column for the NYT I am sure that they can all tell of slurs and criticisms on social media and various unsubstantiated accusations. Brooks probably gets his share for being Jewish and conservative, Gail Collins just got done recalling how trump called her a "pig" and a "liar". The NYT has generally strived to provide a platform for a range of political views by intelligent competent journalists, no doubt that is why you were hired. As to affirmative action, being the brightest and hard working are not the only criteria for admission, their is character, creativity and a sense of wanting to contribute to society not just make a six figure salary. Maybe student applications should be made by a numbering system and the application devoid of all ethnic, racial and religious background. Interviews could be conducted anonymously much like the TV show "The Voice". Or maybe just maybe those who are responsible for school admissions can act like adults and set aside their petty stereotypes and biases.
1
Bret, I cheer, for the Times and MSNBC for having you as a contributor. There is an underlying integrity in all of your perspectives similar to that I once heard stated by Ted Olson - all rights of our Constitution apply fundamentally to the individual. Anything that is not built upon that principal has a pernicious flaw.
It is good that your voice is out here among us who prefer to toil in the vineyards of liberalism. Lest liberalism be corrupted by its own narcissism. Thank you sincerely.
4
Yes, affirmative action in all its forms is wrong. I just wish more attention were paid to the affirmative action for legacies, faculty children, and the children of the wealthy and famous. Do we worry that they are haunted by a sense of inferiority? Somehow we never worry about their egos. Perhaps if we turned more public attention to their lack of qualifications we could do the same damage to their egos.
The problem with affirmative action is that it should be based on financial needs not race. Taking wealthy “minority’s” does not achieve the idea of balancing our society and increasing opportunities.
7
This is ridiculous. For decades....continuing today, the ivy leagues let in legacy candidates, very often totally without regard to their actual qualifications. Many universities with major sports teams let in athletes they hope will enhance their sports teams, also often without regard to their academic qualifications. I was admitted to the U of Md law school in 1970 -- when women made up only about 10% of the class, and I am a white woman and was then a Maryland resident, but maybe I was an "affirmative action" admission. Unless all of the colleges and universities place all possible "acceptable" candidates into a lottery and select their students that way, someone or some group of admissions folks are going to have to make decisions about who gets in, because they can't admit everyone qualified. Mr. Stephens may find that being an affirmative action admittee is a curse, but I doubt legacy admittees Jared Kushner or George W Bush felt the same way.
Let's start with a few basics. Is Harvard entitled to do whatever they want as a private entity? Sure - if they change their tax status and start being taxed on their massive endowment and huge, valuable campus. If they want to enjoy a privileged tax status, then they must serve all citizens equally.
What's the settled law on the use of race in college admissions? Colleges are allowed to consider race - race conscious admissions - but are not allowed to have de facto racial quotas or to use race to explicitly discriminate against any group of applicants. Harvard's year-to-year admissions when broken down by race are eerily similar, suggesting a secret quota system. Harvard also consistently rates Asians lower on "personality" than any other racial group, suggesting the explicit use of race to discriminate.
It should be pretty cut and dry here that Harvard is administering a de facto quota system and using incredibly specious and vague criteria like "personality" as the justification for maintaining there quotas. This is simply illegal and unfair. End of story.
But what about legacy admissions? Yeah, those are bad too. Let's end them as well. Lastly, let's clear up the idea that Harvard is somehow helping poor and disadvantaged students with affirmative action. Just 4.5% of Harvard's admitted student body comes from the bottom 20% of America in terms of income. This isn't about rectifying the suffering of downtrodden minorities. It's a simple preference for extra melanin.
4
Why do you ignore affirmative action based on wealth? Does that do “derp damage” to the recipients , too? My experience is that it helps them but they are embarrassed enough to try to hide it.
Just as those who are rejected because of affirmative action will be "just fine" as the author suggests, the author presumably favored by affirmative action will be "just fine" in his admirable position with the New York Times. The author's crocodile tears aside, the fact remains that affirmative action has clearly proved a great benefit to our society as a whole -- nothwithstanding John Roberts, the author and other supporters of the Trumpian (non)ethics that the author purports to oppose. As the Greeks rightfully urged, know thyself, Mr. Stephens.
1
With a fixed pie, seats that are set aside for African-Americans have to be taken away from someone else. Partly that's Asian-Americans. But it's also working class whites. The children of bus drivers and waitresses, who don't have the pretty attributes that raise applicants to the top of the pile, are the applicants who are most likely to be shoved off the table to make room for a black quota. Ever wonder why Donald Trump is president? Look no further than what we're talking about right now. White people are not stupid. They know what's going on.
6
The only way to get rid of "Affirmative Action" is to get rid of racial prejudice in our society. Considering the many years of systemic racism - so normal that it's shocking - which prevents minorities from full participation in ways most white people never even see, I find it difficult to see how we can erase that pernicious influence from our culture in a moment which white supremacy has practically been mainstreamed.
In fact, the person behind this suit isn't doing this for the benefit of Asian-Americans. He's doing it because he's a bigot who wants to reduce the availability of elite higher education to Blacks and Latinos in particular. It seems to me that getting rid of legacy and donor preferences would accomplish making more slots available for accomplished kids of all races (and genders - more women seek admission to college each year than men do, but most places strive to have as close to a 50-50 ratio as they can muster). When you have 43,000 applicants for 2000 slots, and most of those applicants meet admissions criteria, the vast majority are headed for disappointment regardless of race.
1
Here's my "modest proposal": have the cost of race-based affirmative action fall only on white people. Drastically cut back on the number of white students admitted to Harvard and make room for Asians and other minorities. After all, Asians had nothing to do with slavery and Jim Crow, so why are Asians paying the heftiest price in college admissions? The fact is that it's harder for Asians to get into college than it is for even white people.
4
For most of it's history, harvard excluded blacks, jews and women. Then they passed this thing called the civil rights act, and now it's illegal to do that anymore. It's not that complicated.
2
The beginning of this column is stunningly flabbergasting.
Lately, conservatives writing these op-eds seem to be aping Trump in his audacity of poking at the raw wounds of Blasey Ford. Look what I can do!
Nobody would think that I would dare to say:
As a white male from a wealthy family who has won a Pulitzer and then hired to one of the most prominent positions in journalism, I have something to grouse about.
I had too much privilege!!!
It makes me so mad!!!
1
But first, let us repeal human nature.
Affirmative action made sense for the first five or ten years.
It was a necessary effort to force equal treatment as a lesson to its racist opponents---White Citizens Councils, genteel intellectuals, big mouth politicians---that there was nothing they could do to prevent job equality. It was crude and largely symbolic: so were the bayonets in Little Rock 1957 and Selma 1968.
Forty years ago it became a sinecure factory. One met incompetents on all sides. I found few kids from the depths, who were saved and elevated to the cultural level from which poverty had ripped them.
Fifty years ago, I fought (that means riots, teargas, and clubs) for equality in employment, i.e. for affirmative action.
Forty years ago, my Pinko soul grieved as I admitted, "this just isn't working."
Now, I am looking forward to having the whole fraudulent outrage thrown in the gutter.
2
Does white, well educated, previously published, wealthy, conservative Bret Stephens really not understand why he's been referred to as the "affirmative action hire" at the NYT?
I can't believe that the Asian students in this case are letting themselves be used like this. A ruling against Harvard may admit more Asian students to Harvard, but it's primary purpose is to reject students of color and poor students from other universities. Bret's a smart guy, after all he landed a job at the NYT. Surely he understands this.
Affirmative Action is designed to lift kids up, not diminish those fortunate enough to have resources. That's it's been used as a racial slur is the fault of racists who use it that way, including those who try to co-opt it's sting to try to protect their kind.
2
Race blind should include legacy. That's where the privilege of birth and race trump merit. Else, this is simply using African Americans and Latinos as a shield against the Asian-Americans.
Where’s the evidence that affirmative action admissions feel that they are burdened by a stigma that they’re unworthy? Where’s the evidence that they’re necessarily mediocre? Perhaps they feel like finally they get a break, that their accomplishments in the context of the legacy of racism are finally getting recognized for the hard earned achievements that they are? Brett Stephens is typical of many conservatives who get aggrieved at what they perceive as even a slight injustice to them, mostly advantaged whites. They cavalierly dismiss the profound unfairness that most African Americans face in nearly all aspects of life in our society, but scream bloody murder whenever they feel whites are being treated unfairly. And let’s be honest, this is about whites as much, if not more, than the treatment Asian Americans. Such whiny little so and sos. And Brett, you were called an affirmative action hire to be ironic. It’s a joke. Of course you’re not mediocre. Right?
1
Bret totally nails it. Minor quibble: he should have worked the phrase "zero-sum game" into the piece instead of "fixed pie" (less common).
But he is also guilty of a little stereotyping himself, and that is his contention that "those 'busy and bright' kids who aren’t going to Harvard will be fine. Most will still get into great schools and have good careers."
Wait, why? Oh right, because they are clever and hard-working.
What does that then say about the "included minorities," you know, the ones who, under race-neutral admission, wouldn't have gotten into Harvard? Presumably they were not underachievers, plucked from the bottom rungs of academia. Didn't they exhibit those same qualities? Why wouldn't they also be "fine"?
One has to look at the WHOLE academic pie, not just Harvard. Those b/b kids who got into Harvard would have then left open slots at the other "great schools" Bret mentions, slots that would then be filled by the "other minorities" they displaced.
In other words, given Bret's premise, EVERYONE would end up "fine." No?
A persuasive argument but it leaves me with the unmistakable understanding that you would rather not be working for the New York Times. At the end of the article, you speak for yourself as you speak more generally of the effect discrimination has on those who benefit from it. Since you conclude that such discrimination needs to end, then the obvious conclusion is that you should resign. Then, you could find work elsewhere and regain your self-esteem.
1
Bret riding off into the sunset on another conservative hobby horse. The accompanying article this morning states that Harvard receives 40K applicants competing for 2K spots. Given that, how could any process not be shown to produce at least some capricious and arbitrary results? Considering the high percentage of Asian-Americans who make up Harvard's selectees, it seems absurd to suggest any kind of racial prejudice.
1
Nothing you say proves that you are the best person for the job or that you were not hired for balance. (Max Boot, for example, is much more astute.) As a white male you benefit from white privilege that you apparently don't realize. You focus on outcomes and not on opportunities, which are highly skewed against blacks, Latinx, and Native Americans. I wish the NYT didn't suffer from false equivalence and think they need any right-wing columnists to balance such brilliant thinkers as Paul Krugman, Michelle Goldberg, Charles Blow, David Leonhardt, and others, who essentially grasp the horror of what is going on in American today. Will you give up your job so the NYT can hire an Asian American columnist, of whom I don't think there are any? And no, the naive John Roberts, who trashed McCain/Feingold and the Voting Rights Act, is not the person to quote. Why not instead Justice Blackmun in the Bakke case, who notes: "And in the admissions field, as I have indicated, educational institutions have always used geography, athletic ability, anticipated financial largess, alumni pressure, and other factors of that kind"; he concludes: "I suspect that it would be impossible to arrange an affirmative-action program in a racially neutral way and have it successful. To ask that this be so is to demand the impossible. In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently."
1
Another of Stephens' manifestly un-researched columns. The main 'affirmative action' that Harvard unfairly grants to applicants applies to 'legacy' students, children of well-paying white alumni and 'students of special interest to the Dean,' typically students whose connections to wealth allow them to buy their way in. But rather than criticize the egregiously unfair privileging of wealthy white applicants, Stephens pretends that standardized admissions tests do something other than reproduce privilege. What makes this especially disingenuous is that those with knowledge of a history of tests such as the SAT are aware that the tests were originally designed to preserve white dominance and continue to function to reproduce racial inequality.
If a columnist wants to attack affirmative action, shouldn't they be required to have a minimal command of standard books written about it?
The Shape of the River Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions
https://press.princeton.edu/titles/6374.html
The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing
http://www.nea.org/home/73288.htm
History of the SAT Is Mired in Racism and Elitism
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-history-of-the-sat-is-mired-in-racis...
1
"Harvard Admissions Office consistently rated Asian-Americans lower on personality traits such as “likability” and “kindness,” even when they hadn’t met with them in person"
Read that over and over again people.
Those characteristics can not be be judged and scored by someone who has never actually met the applicant. Obvious.
Most importantly though, is that it totally reeks of bias and allow prejudices to be expressed and counted.
4
Parents, tell your kids to check the Hispanic or Black box on their college application to help them get into their school of choice. This is what it has come to. Reverse racism.
1
Why isn't "legacy hire" a slur the way this author implies "affirmative action hire" is? Because most legacies are white. And we don't talk about it. The fact that one third of admissions are legacy at elite Ivy League institutions seems not make it into the conversation about this story of minorities duking it out amongst themselves. Perhaps Asians and African Americans and Hispanics ALL would increase their percentages if THERE WERE LEGACY BLIND policies.
1
After the disclosure of alleged attempted rape, rape, etc. against Kavanaugh, Bret Stephens came out in favor of Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court and praised Trump for sticking with Kavanaugh. Even after Trump trashed Dr. Ford.
I lot of readers of the NYT would find that hard to take.
The very few who are regular columnists for the NYT are extremely privileged, they get an awful lot of ink.
Sometimes it is hard to understand why.
3
"It’s corrosive to live in the clutch of someone else’s lie." This applies not just to the possible psychological effects of Affirmative Action. Enabled and unchallenged by the spineless GOP, our President's incessant lying is corroding our democracy and damaging our national soul. That so many of our fellow citizens believe the lies or find them acceptable means to justify their desired ends is both horrifying and terrifying, not to mention nauseating and disgusting. No matter what Mueller reports, including even evidence of treason, will get the Senate to convict. A Dem takeover of the House may tap the brakes in the form of investigations. To paraphrase Bishop John Shelby Spong: "The only question at times of vast social change is how many people will die?" Indeed.
What unmitigated, formulaic, conservative claptrap.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” - John Roberts and Bret Stephens.
It is utterly baffling that anyone of even modest powers of discernment could argue that one "discrimination on the basis of race" is tantamount to another "discrimination on the basis of race."
Really, Bret? Denying a couple of white or Asian kids admission to one of the many colleges they may choose from is equivalent to the dark history and persistent effects of racism? Just a couple of examples of discrimination you can't distinguish, eh? Talk about a lack of discrimination!
2
By now, Bret Stephens, you should know your own worth, no matter what the liberals think. Your work now, like any other hire, should speak for itself and that it does very well.
The curse of affirmative action is a blessing to many who would otherwise be swept aside. Who hasn't been given a leg up at some point or another. It's what we make of it that counts. The rest is wounded vanity.
"It isn’t a pleasant thing to live with the sense that your achievements aren’t quite real— and that everyone secretly knows it."
True, though I doubt many 100-I.Q. white kids who went to Andover and Yale because they were rich and the last three generations of their family went to those schools put down the golf clubs long enough to think about that.
The shear dissemblance and bad faith in which this editorial was written is staggering. The author is not an "affirmative action" hire because the NYT wanted to bring ideological diversity to its op-ed staff. That is a wholly different type of phenomenon from Harvard's admission policies, which attempt to be holistic and address racial and economic inequalities. Furthermore, the editorial picks and chooses parts of the suit and offers them as "evidence," ignoring the economic and class elements of the plaintiffs and their role in admissions decisions. Worst of all, it misrepresents the aim of universities, which is to address systemic and long-standing inequalities in access to primary and secondary education and build a diverse student body, in all senses of the word.
2
The French have a more honest word for affirmative action:
Discrimination positive
A honest discussion needs to start with honest terms
2
Much worse: The curse of conformative action.
The fundamental premise is wrong. The writer assumes that there is a fair measurement of ability which is being bypassed through affirmative action. But affirmative action was introduced at a time when even the brightest black person could not win an admission at the higher teaching institutions. The purpose of affirmative action was not mediocrity, but justice, and, in the process, less mediocrity. Less mediocrity because it would allow the brightest blacks to replace the weakest whites.
2
Right about the time I graduated from college and began my professional career, affirmative action purportedly became a factor.
I say purportedly, because as a Latino I never saw the slightest benefit affirmative action was supposed to give me.
I was successful, despite being Mexican, not because of it.
The white male affirmative action program is the only on that matters.
It ensures the perpetuation of white male dominance is just about every profession.
Even journalism, a supposed bastion of liberalism, is to this day whiter and more male than the overall American population.
3
No mention of who is behind this lawsuit Mr. Stephens? No mention of who benefits most if Harvard is found to be at fault?
How disingenuous of you.
5
Bret, I just looked up your own privileged background. You have no idea what you’re talking about, and this column is sheer nonsense. I’m from a poor white Appalachian (female) background, first and only child in my family to go to college and beyond (1960s-70s). So much of my own advancements I owe to Affirmative Action. You, on the other hand, were born with a class silver spoon in your mouth. It makes me so angry to compare your own background with mine and to read your words against Affirmative Action. To quote from the Game of Thrones, “You know nothing, Bret Stephens.” Rereading your column today just makes me so angry - your words will be the end of aspirations for thousands of people like me. You are damaging all of us. I am so angry with you right now, I could just scream. You just ended the aspirations and lives of so many people, so callously and so arrogantly. Words cannot express my anger at this column. You know absolutely nothing, and you lost all the respect I ever had for you today.
2
No mention of the actual problem in elite admissions - legacy - in this article? Are you kidding me?!
There are far more legacy kids at Harvard than under-represented minorities. Why not remove the legacy “burden” by not giving the already-advantaged a leg up? It’s just doublespeak racism to say we should get rid of affirmative action so beneficiaries don’t doubt themselves but not be worried about the same with (mostly white) legacy admits. Come on.
3
What percentage of Harvard College students are Jewish?
Start with the claim that 25% of Harvard College students are Jewish. That number comes from the Hillel Foundation, the Jewish student organization.
2% of population!
No question = Racism!
1
OMG Mr. Stephens, you now win the award outright for the most absurd opening of any column by the Times's rightest trio of opinion writers, which also includes Mr. Brooks and Mr. Douthat.
You, a white man of wealth and the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics, are actually comparing your aggrieved feelings about being hired at the supposedly lefty Times to those of affirmative action African-American kids at Harvard?
Wow. That's beyond rich.
Also, please understand why Harvard feels it necessary to have its admissions officers meet to discuss Black enrollment. African-Americans have a few unique hurdles to overcome, don't you think?
How about 250 years of enslavement, followed by another 100 years of lynching and disenfranchisement, followed by the last 50 of massive incarceration of its young males.
Oh, and you can also get shot dead just sitting in your apartment or asked for identification papers by a white neighbor in the lobby of your building when coming home from work.
Mark Twain paid for one of the first Black graduates of Yale law school. This is what he wrote, "We have ground the manhood out of them and the shame is ours, not theirs, and we should pay for it."
Having a committee meet now and then to look at how Harvard is doing with the African-American community isn't such a bad thing given all this. Would you not agree?
I think most Asian-Americans would even if they don't like Harvard's current policy.
3
So Bret you are saying you would like to change the color of your skin to something other than white? Because your answer to this question is no, should help you understand the need for affirmative action. The day your answer becomes yes would be a fine day indeed.
1
Stephens seems to feel slighted by accusation of being an “affirmative action hire” at NY Times. I can't see how this accusation impugns his intelligence or outstanding ability as a columnist. At worst it signals to some NY Times readers not to take him as seriously as the left leaning columnists they are used to. These readers would have probably ignored or discounted Stephens columns even without this accusation. Full disclosure: I am an ardent follower of some left leaning columnists, but I appreciate reading Stephens' insights that represent the other side.
Isn't the real problem that Harvard and other Ivy's matter too much? The real diversity we need in the upper echelons of politics, business, education and yes journalism at places like the New York Times would come from opening up the network that runs from Ivy League schools to top positions. Then Harvard's admission policies wouldn't be so important.
2
My wife and daughter are Asian American. In fact my wife is an immigrant and a refugee. Her family escaped Pol Pot’s Cambodia when she was a small child. Our daughter applied to an elite college, not Harvard, but one of the top Universities in the country, as her first choice. Her grades significantly exceeded the median of admitted students. She had straight “A”s except one “B+” in one semester of AP Chemistry. Her SAT scores were slightly above the median for admitted students. She took multiple AP courses and excelled at all of the AP tests. She has a Black Belt in karate, and she held leadership roles at school and performed many hours of community service. I knew that as an Asian female she would be in the most discriminated group in the country, but still when she was not admitted I was shocked. I have no doubt but that if she had been of any other race or ethnicity, even White, she would have been admitted. She is attending Brigham Young, a university that does not discriminate against Asians, and she has a scholarship. I am glad that she will have nothing to do with the racism and identity politics that have so infused most of the elite colleges in this country. But make no mistake about it, dressing up your bigotry in Orwellian terms like diversity and inclusion—while systematically denigrating the personality traits of Asians—does not excuse your racism.
133
I trust Harvard admissions to choose the incoming student body that is best for the institution that is Harvard.
I trust the government to set the standards that choose the incoming student body to public institutions of higher education for the same reason.
2
Legacy admissions are not what they used to be fifty or more years ago. They were beginning to be limited even by my time in the mid-1970s. Once women were allowed to matriculate as well as more minorities, lower income students, and then more and more international students, the gates narrowed considerably into Harvard and like schools. The main factor, though, which is usually ignored, is that while class size has barely changed the US and world populations have grown enormously. Special cases, like top athletes, wealthy donor kids (the only true legacies now) and others with exceptional talents still are admitted, as they should be because these qualities are objectively verifiable and bring credit (or $$)to the school. Race, on its own, to the contrary, is simply some general accidental attribute that has no particular objective merit. Yet it is still possible and even desirable to have diverse backgrounds in a school class without resort to Affirmative Action. Plenty of objectively qualified applicants exist in all identity groups nowadays using the traditional criteria of academic achievement. Someone, of course, ultimately has to do the choosing, and it should be the schools on their own, without discriminating on the basis of some outdated notions of race.
2
In 1963, I tried applying to Harvard Medical School, but immediately realized from the type of questions on the application form that the Admissions Office clearly preferred my father to be a Harvard graduate, although our family had just arrived from Hungary fifteen years earlier.
It was the same story at every medical school: Is your father one of our graduates? So I went to France, where the admissions system was, and is, completely different, that is, completely democratic: Admit everyone who applies, and then weed them out as they go along, so the medical schools start with 500 students in the first year and end up with 100 at the end of four years. Test scores are everything.
But Americans cry "so much waste!" Yes, true democracy is wasteful, but it's also fairer. I NEVER heard the phrase "affirmative action" in France in spite of the presence of a large North African and Vietnamese population there.
8
Affirmative action or 'positive discrimination' had a valid purpose at it's creation, and I think it has done at least some good in lifting small numbers of minorities into the heights of academia. But discrimination on the basis of race is racist. Why African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans qualify for AA but Asian-Americans do not is a mystery to me. We're cherry picking favored races for the purpose of university admissions.
As a person who was negatively impacted by this, it feels unfair. I attended an impoverished high school in rural fly-over country with no AP classes. Half my school was black. I was not. I was valedictorian, a three-sport athlete, got a 1570 on my SAT and a 35 on my ACT. I had perfect scores on my SAT II subject tests, excellent teacher recommendations, taught Sunday school, was a National Merit Scholar, a Coca Cola Scholar, and I qualified for the US Mathematical Olympiad. I did everything I possibly could, and was still rejected or wait-listed at all the Ivies.
That same year, a friend and neighbor got into all of those schools with worse grades, no extracurricular activities to speak of and 200 points less on his SATs. We were both poor, so I don't begrudge him those acceptances. In truth, I was never competing against him for admission to any of those schools. I had to compete against legacies and rich white kids, and I lost. It's why I support AA based on economic status and not race. Otherwise, there is no place for me.
159
As a biracial woman from the British Commonwealth who is a surgeon/professor, I also receive more than my share of "you are only here because of affirmative action" comments. With that being said, if I hadn't been qualified (very high undergraduate school grades and Medical College Admission Test scores) in addition to very high grades in medical school, I would be the surgeon/physician I am today without hard work. I studied very hard (and achieved) as an undergraduate, graduate, medical school student and in residency. Since my parents came to this country for educational achievements and opportunity, I followed their example and work very hard to do my best. Unfortunately, that isn't enough because of my hard work, excellent training, and education aren't enough. In the eyes of a majority of people in this country, a woman who isn't Asian or white can't possibly be qualified to practice in a profession. My answer to this has always been, "Put me up against anyone and test me because I will always do my best academically and professionally." Intelligence, scholastic achievement, and hard work are not foreign to those of us that have more melanin in our skin tones. Yes, affirmative action causes many to doubt my abilities but that's their loss. A cure for cancer or the next great invention might come from those who have struggled or who might have humble origins. Achievement is not a zero-sum game.
7
So long as the elite educational institutions admit mediocre intellects who are scions of wealthy families (someone's son-in-law comes to mind), why shouldn't the admissions process also be utilized to advance other forms of social good, provided that it's not frivolously undertaken?
6
I'm not saying Harvard's policies are correct, but where were the so-called conservatives a few generations ago when blacks and Jews were excluded. It seems that the so-called conservatives became upset about selective admissions only when whites were excluded.
I've always wondered why select schools like Harvard didn't use a lottery system. Students would get points for certain achievements, such as grades, test scores, volunteering, athletics, etc., and those that achieved a minimum number of points would go into a lottery to be selected at random. Such a lottery would enable students with average grades who excelled in other areas to get into top schools. Everyone has seen top students who didn't do well on the outside and average students who did.
4
Unlike Bret Stephens I’m not going to pretend that the admissions standards of an elite university are reflective of affirmative actions necessity overall. The problem I have with affirmative action proponents is their unwillingness to discuss how class and wealth based discrimination undermines the argument in favor of its continuation. The conservatives argue from a position based on white privilege, wealth and social class, the meritocracy liberals argue from a position based on identity equality, wealth and social class. Neither openly address the unaddressed issue of economic and social class discrimination regardless of identity. Income inequality is just as comfortable for many meritocracy liberals as it is for the white identity conservatives. People born on third base aren’t hitting triples regardless of their politics & holding down poor and working class Americans seems to be the only bipartisan project left.
5
And why the Times doesn't have EVEN ONE columnist who is a Trump supporter? Are you afraid to debate such a person?
1
Africans were enslaved in America and denied their humanity as persons. Africans were separate and unequal in America.
As a physically identifiable minority the malign white supremacist socioeconomic political educational demographic historical American myth was meant legally and morally justify both slavery and Jim Crow. Other than being white no European in American history can prove that they were superior and more qualified than any black African person.
Babe Ruth was a great white baseball player who played great white baseball for a great white team in a great white league. But he never played in the Major League. Outside of entertainment, sports, government aka military and politics blacks are still a seperate and unequal American caste. Two black astronauts died on the Shuttle accidents.
Put a black African face on any white American and try to imagine their status. The notion that affirmative action or quotas are stigmas that only applies to presumably inferior blacks. Color aka race is a reality beyond faith, ethnicity, national origin, socioeconomics, politics and education.
2
I could not complete the article. It saddened me that the Times actually publish it. It is racist and demeans the achievements of Afro-Americans who benefited from the school's effort, and continue to do exceptionally well after graduation. I imagine what would have become of these talented people if they were not given a chance by Harvard. No wonder, no one has tracked their achievements after graduation, because the results would alarm all those who are against the program. Affirmative action if implemented correctly, benefits all of America. Harvard knows that. That is the reason for the continuation of the program and policy. Keep up doing the good work, Harvard University.
3
Discriminating based on race is racism. Period. The way to stop racial discrimination is is to stop racially discriminating. To claim otherwise is disingenuous, if not just silly.
4
Reading comments, I don’t understand the fuss about legacy admissions at private universities. A few decades back a prominent Texas politician was reported to have said “You’ve got to let the big dogs eat.” I mentioned that to a friend, also college educated and raised working class, whose opinion I value, and he said “Yes! That way the rest of us can go about our business.”
So I don’t see the point in worrying about whether the wealthy and powerful can affect public policy, afford excellent health care, or see to it that their children receive an elite education.
Getting so greedy in affecting public policy that the wealthy and powerful stress the social compact is another matter. Preferences based on race, gender, or class when it comes to admission to public universities is also another matter. So is employment discrimination, or deciding who holds a responsible position in government or in a publicly held corporation, or deciding who can use public accommodations.
I know these questions can get tricky. Maybe elite private universities accept enough public money that it should be possible to sue them about these matters. But I’m more concerned about whether you have to be well-connected to get into an elite program at a public university or a job as an analyst at a Federal Reserve Bank.
One solution would be to invest in public universities because part of the problem here is scarcity. The Ivy League schools were always exclusive, but a degree from one has now become a ticket to fortune and influence, admittance to a world of lifelong privilege. If public universities in every state were almost uniformly excellent it would make admission to a handful of top schools less cut throat. In addition, it would help if major law firms, corporations, public entities like the State Department and foundations would make a greater effort to hire graduates of state schools. There will be a lot less elbowing on the landings when there are more than just a few stair cases.
2
People who decry affirmative action on grounds that it isn't based on merit, themselves cannot provide an adequate definition of the term. As a white male, I have no problem giving minorities a leg up if they need it. The real question, however, is who qualifies for minority status? Until that inquiry is resolved in a satisfactory manner, undeserving beneficiaries of affirmative action will exist.
3
As a poor working class white husband and wife trying desperately to help
my our kids get college degrees, I’m happy you’re willing to sacrifice your kids on the alter of affirmative action for wealthier minorities.
We’re not.
4
Of course affirmative action could be a problem, could bring frustration, but ask yourself the following question: How many students were denied admission because they were Black, Jew, Asiatic and Woman or came from poor family?
Also what is very interesting is the fact that we never heard complaint about those forms of affirmative action: legacy for son of millionnaire and rich people, student who got through not because of their academic record but their athletic abilities, students who get through because their rich fathers or mother made a big donation to the college or university.
4
If a private institution chooses according to any preference that could exclude a group of people isn't the best response the creation of an institution that includes that group?
In response to race-related treatment, we now have the historically black colleges and universities.
I am not aware of any Asian colleges and universities - why not?
1
Affirmative action has been working for white people (usually men) in this country for hundreds of years. We just never use that name because it is an integral part of U.S. society. Why don’t we ever question how many of them are undeserved occupiers of their place in society? How many presidents or CEOs or priests or judges or academics were taking the place that should have gone to a smarter women or person of color? The GI Bill lifted millions of families into he working class. It was administered as white affirmative action and was largely denied to men of color. Or take decades of government subsidized housing loans that actively excluded black people. It simply makes no sense to talk about current “affirmative action” while ignoring the avalanche of unfair help and opportunity that has been historically given the other way.
126
There is a program of affirmative action which mainly benefits well off or rich white citizens. It is legacy preference admissions and, to my knowledge, it is an accepted practice at virtually every "elite" college in America.
The way it works is simple: if your father or mother graduated from there, you get extra weight headed to your application. You are, effectively, at the front of the line. An unknown, modestly poor application from rural Oklahoma with great grades, high SATs and glowing recommendations? Maybe you should try your state university, son.
There are very few angry protest marches about this practice (none). It doesn't come up at election time as an example of inherent unfairness in access to the crown jewels of prestige and presumed superiority that are gained by Ivy League graduates. In fact, it is barely mentioned at all. Surely parents tell their kids, "If nothing else, you can go to Penn...or Brown...or Yale...or Harvard."
This practice means that a certain, unknown number of seats are allocated in advance. 5%? 10%? All of this is vaguely modeled on the British system of rigid class structure in which those who have, get and those who don't have, don't get.
For decades, Harvard and others discriminated against Jews and blacks and have paid no price for, in that process, skewing American society, business and politics toward their choices. We live in a society where democracy is aspirational, not yet fully realized.
5
The affirmative action is one of the craziest ideas ever.
It is the official admission that we are unjust and unfair society discriminating against own population. It implies that we are a two-tier society, with the preferential treatment of one group and the discrimination for the others, and that we are ashamed of own actions so provide the victims with a minor pain relieve treatment.
You should either structurally fix the problems or stop acting as if we care about it.
The permanent solution has nothing to do with the affirmative action but with the fair taxation system similar to the one in the western Europe where the wealthiest people are progressively taxed to fund the protective social network and services.
Without such a step everything else is just a window-dressing attitude.
The real tragedy isn’t that we don’t have such a safety network in place but exactly the opposite. We are borrowing against the America’s future to maximize and inflate the profits of the wealthiest individuals.
We are destroying the country’s foundation for the sake of our greed.
1
I would suggest a pool. Every potential applicant should have to pass a skills test proving they are capable of handling the work at Harvard. Whether that should be the ACT, SAT or some other entrance exam approved by the professors who actually work with these students is a matter of choice. Each applicant should have a minimum GPA — 3.9, 4.0, whatever. Each applicant should submit letters of recommendation from people who know them saying they are of good character or involved in activities or interesting, etc. and they should be briefly reviewed before adding said student to the pool. Not every applicant should have to be an effervescent extrovert who will be the life of the party to get into this pool. Interviews and carefully crafted essays should be done away with. Diversity should also include all personality types. The pool should include students from different economic backgrounds, different areas of the country and of course all races. Once the vetted applicants are accepted, the freshmen class should be chosen by lottery.
Mr. Stephens you are missing the larger cultural context. Many recent Asian immigrants come from countries whose university admission criteria consists of test scores only. Take a long hard look at China, Sri Lanka, India, and other Asian countries. What distinguishes America is that we expect a well-rounded candidate and someone who will embrace a liberal arts education. We expect students to take a variety of classes and electives in their first several years in order to expand their horizons and to think more deeply about their lifelong contribution to American society. This is not what is expected in many other countries. So, yes. Many Asian families push their children to get test scores or if they are at the right high school, to fill out the roster of activities that score points for college admission. But this is not the same thing as embracing a well-rounded education, pursuing one's passions, developing emotional maturity, ethical wherewithal and so on and so forth. Do some research on the difference between various countries and their educational visions. This will help you better hone your arguments.
3
Obviously many will not get accepted or be offered employment at an elite school or employer. Are there universally agreed upon qualifications for applicants? I'm thinking there are not. How does one take into account the advantages that privilege and wealth allow for many of the current qualifications for entry into these schools/jobs? Just using congress as an anecdote -- are those old white men are more qualified because they have experience (I sure disagree - how many had half the qualifications of the current first time candidates?).
For the author working at NY Times, for the students at Harvard, I feel quite certain they can find examples of fellow students/employees that do not seem like great fits (as a teacher - i certainly see this at schools). In other words not everyone employed/accepted turns out as expected. I also feel like the ones who are likely to be sure successes who get rejected will do just fine elsewhere (Boston Globe, Wash Post, another paper..).
As a teacher I feel like we serve our kids better when we have a faculty and staff composed of a hard working conscientious mix of genders, ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds. I can't help but think the same is true for the student body.
It has not been my experience that only certain races, genders, socioeconomic backgrounds can learn Latin (a topic that likely few have encountered before).
2
Why in the world did you manage to turn this discussion about affirmative action into a discussion of your being hired by the times? You were hired because of your skills and viewpoints as a conservative writer. I assume that it was a competitive process. This has nothing do with affirmative action. I'm tired of reading about the victimization of Republican conservatives by liberals because of their conservatism. I applaud the Times for representing different point of view, it's called intellectual honesty, not affirmative action.
140
For 15 years I taught honors classes in an overwhelmingly white school district. Despite the whiteness of the district, my classes typically had 50% Asian students. Administrators, also overwhelmingly white, had no qualms about labeling these Asian students as academic drones who lacked personality and creativity. I would point out their musical and artistic accomplishments, their creative skills in solving "math olympiad" problems, etc. It didn't matter. Sight unseen, to administrators, Asian students were overly-competitive and lacked personality. The Asian students dominance in the honors classes was seen by administrators as proof of the weakness of the honors program. My take on the administration's view: Black and Hispanic students don't study enough. Asian students study too much. But white students . . . they study just right.
132
When my wife had surgery a few years ago, we met the anesthesiologist minutes before she went in. He was a very nice, black man. The first thing I thought was, I wonder if he got into medical school based on his race and not merit? I wonder if my wifes life is in the hands of someone who may not be as good as another physician who didn’t get in to medical school based on their race? I hate that I thought that, but I did. Of course, he may have gotten in on merit but how was I supposed to know?
13
It is very rich for Bret Stephens to wail about his sufferings under the affirmative action label. Stephens, the son of a business executive and therefore a child of the upper middle class in New York City, has had an educational arc that epitomizes the advantages affirmative action was initially designed to compensate for. Current tuition for the Middlesex boarding school that Stephens attended is $61,850. I am sure the price was similarly high when Stephens, who graduated in 1991, attended the school. Not many of those who affirmative action was designed to help could ever dream of affording such an exclusive preparatory education--the sort of education that (along with the other benefits of an upper class upbringing) paves the way for the successes Stephens has had. The affirmative action Stephens has benefited from began a long time before he was hired by the New York Times. But he takes that sort of affirmative action as his due. He would never write a column expressing outrage about that. Born on third base, Stephens is upset is upset about allowing a promising prospect to step into the batter's box and take a swing.
6
I'm in academe, and it's clear that without affirmative action, highly qualified candidates would not get a fair shake. Why? Because they are the wrong gender, the wrong race, the wrong heritage compared to the elite. Affirmative action allows stronger candidates to be hired (I'm most with faculty hired) because the search committee cannot default as easily to the weaker candidate supported by a power monger at their institution or another school. Without affirmative action quality will go down as will as diversity.
7
In his next brilliant Column, Bret will be arguing for the abolition of the Make a Wish Foundation because it unfairly only offers compassion to a select group of kids and leaves out many thousands of other wonderful children who have also experienced trauma in their lives. More broadly, any program that is only an imperfect response to injustice or misfortune will be argued to be a curse and must be shed from society. Of course Bret will never write a column in which he advocates for any program that perfectly and costlessly remedies any injustice (no such program exists) and so by default we’ll be left as a society doing nothing. Bret won’t even feel bad about this because he will tell himself that “free markets” will be the only help any person needs.
Take a look at Antonin Scalia's Harvard Law graduating class. White guys with a couple exception. It was ever thus until the 1960s. Did merit suddenly land on women and people of color on January 1, 1965? Of course not. And the truth of 300 years stares us in the face: affirmative action was white. And those born to these affirmative action beneficiaries carry that economic and social capital to this day.
I can't speak to affirmative action in college admissions, but I've been party to it in hiring. I had a visiting position in a school with a student population that was 70% Latino. The permanent position was a diversity hire filled by a Latino. Right and just as far as I'm concerned.
I did just fine. Got a full time job by the end of the summer. I knew it would work out. You know why? Because I'm white.
2
Perhaps a degree from Harvard doesn't deserve the merit and acclaim it once received. There are so many excellent
universities in the US. Young people should take their brilliant minds to other schools and let Harvard wallow in its perceived greatness and exclusivity.
According to research in sociologicalscience.com, only 18% of all colleges and universities in the US consider race at all and only 124 of those institutions are considered highly selective so that is 6% of the total. This policy is not affecting an particularly large number of students since most don't even apply to those highly selective schools. Why then is it so hated by whites? Those highly selective schools were exclusionary at their founding and continue to be so now to a large extent.
1
First, it seems to me that your own personal experience regarding your "admission" to the The New York Times staff is not equivalent to selective colleges' admissions process. You were not "admitted" to the New York Times with lower grades and test scores" (writing skills). I'm sure there are some other liberal-view writers who are equally, or more talented, than you whom The Times could have hired. And I'm guessing, that now there, you are happy to be writing at a newspaper of the New York Times' level and you are providing a necessary element of "diversity on campus" (conservative view at a more liberal paper).
Are you saying that all, or the majority, of the students admitted to Harvard and the like under affirmative action feel less than and feel like frauds? Have they been incapable of rising to the academic challenge once there? Perhaps these students don't have as high GPAs and test scores coming in, but many have also had less access to the life-long benefits that contribute to other students' earning those high GPAs and test scores.
What I find the most troubling about all these pieces, including yours, on the unfairness of the college admissions process (and I agree that it's unfair on so many levels), is the absence of suggestions on how to ameliorate it, rather than simply more commentary on how it's unfair and broken.
4
I’m sorry but I think a student body that consisted of 43% of ANY one cultural or ethnic group would diminish the social learning opportunities available on more diverse campuses. Predominantly white campuses often degenerate into enclaves of egregious self-respect and insularity. Take it from someone who has been there.
3
@Kinsale Are you saying the African American Colleges don't have a valuable educational status?
Affirmative action makes no sense unless it is based on social class and income. Is an Asian student really deserving of special consideration if that student comes from a wealthy household? Do they get preferential treatment over a black or a while student from a low-income household? Or does a black student from a wealthy household get preferential treatment over a poor white or Asian applicant? Like it or not, AA just leads to quotas. It has to go.
8
Perhaps there is a more subtle point in this controversy. The toxicity of affirmative action is not primarily in giving an advantage to a class of applicants that the institution wishes to favor, be it non-whites, legacies, or athletes. It would be less objectionable ethically, if not legally, if Harvard were simply to add a certain number of points to every black application.
Rather, the truly objectionable aspect of the system is the intentional disadvantaging of particular applicants just because of their race. One may try to disguise this under a veneer of spurious "personality" scores, but that is just dissembling. It is clearly a policy of discriminating against people on the basis of race, a first cousin to "Jim Crow". Just think of the outstanding applicant who has been rejected because of her skin color and tell us what you would say to that person if you were being honest.
5
a number of years ago, I was working
in a lower level job on a part time basis.
I noticed that one of the supervisors,
a young African American woman,
had left a report on a desk near mine.
I glanced at it for a few seconds and
was appalled at the misspelling and
the sentence structure. I literally
could not decipher more than a few
words. whether I was right in doing it
or not, I took it to the computer and
fixed the spelling and the sentences.
when I was finished, it was a completely
coherent report. however, when she
returned from her lunch, she picked
the report up and was furious. had I
touched anything, she asked? I told
her that I had not changed a word ,only
the sentence structure and spelling.
she walked away. later, her supervisor, the head of the section,said if I ever did anything like that again, I would be fired.three days,
out of the blue, I was let go.I have
often wondered whether I was right
in doing what I did, but her reaction
surprises me as well,even years after.
I guess the bosses thought it was easier
to fire a low level nobody than to risk
a law suit.I have never liked affirmative
action because it is as damaging to those
who are qualified as it is humiliating to
those who are clearly not.there is an
argument to be made that I was wrong
and I get it,but the point I think, is that a completely unprepared person was given a relatively important position based only on her race and a more qualified person was s rejected.
5
I'm curious about an alternative explanation that Mr. Stephens does not mention. It's not just a question of who suffers - it's also who benefits.
If Asian Americans are being unfairly excluded, that suggests the possibility that others are being unfairly included. Is it necessary to spell out who those people are?
We have affirmative action because we know what the alternative is: systematic exclusion of people on the basis of race and religion. Is Affirmative Action a perfect solution? No. Is it better than the alternative? Yes. Does it go far enough?
What Mr. Stephens fails to note is that a degree from Harvard isn't just a degree - it's a gateway into the highest circles of power in this country. Harvard is just one of a handful of academic institutions that are over-represented by whose alumni end up running the country. So, is it really something those graduates should accept, those who go to other schools, who don't have the 'stigma' of affirmative action, knowing what doors have been closed to them?
Mr. Stpehens does not like the feeling of being discriminated against as an alleged affirmative action hire. I would repeat what Trump supporters famously say about feelings, except the Times would not print it. Mr. Stephens is showing classic signs of someone of privilege experiencing fear of loss of status. Playing the victim card here is shameless.
But that's where conservatism is these days.
The fundamental fallacies of your analysis is that colleges can sidestep the problem of homogeneity by using metrics that have nothing to do with individual experience and that the college, as reflected in its student body, has no interest in diversity as an educational tool. Brett, I hope you read these comments. It seems your readers have a better grasp on the issue than you have.
Serious scholarly studies cast doubt on the pollyannaish opinion of Ruth Bader Ginsburg that diversity, unqualifiedly, is a positive for a campus community.
Noteworthy is the following article, "Hard Truths About Race on Campus," presenting findings of prominent scholars which argue against the effectiveness of many affirmative action programs:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hard-truths-about-race-on-campus-1462544543
The article says that..."as practiced in most of the top American universities, affirmative action also involves using different admissions standards for applicants of different races, which automatically creates differences in academic readiness and achievement." This leads to reinforcing stereotypical perspectives, self-segregation among different groups, and resentments by those who feel aggrieved by insensitivities to group differences.
Seeking diversity to “get to understand each other--to reveal where others are coming from” can, perversely, reinforce stereotypical perspectives.
Seeking diversity should switch from a goal of “getting to know about group differences” to exposing people to individuals from different groups that would counter stereotyping. The powerful principal is that exposure to even a single exemplar from a different group can counteract one’s stereotypical views in favor of evaluating people from different groups as individuals.
Seeking exemplars from different groups should be the goal, not by-the-numbers group diversity.
2
Something a high school admissions counselor who had worked at a prestigious university said about filling an incoming class: start with legacies because they are very thin skinned, then kids of large potential donors who are not legacies, look for the "odd ball kids", that is the oboist, volleyball player or kid who already published an article on advanced biology, add distribution requirements so the schools are not dominated by only the East or West Coast, and then poorer kids who hold great promise. Then fill your class with Asians and Jews because that's who will be left. A twofer was a poor Chinese kid. Guess not much has changed in the last 15 years. And, for the most part this wasn't in response to affirmative action, it was how a university filled a class.
1
This whole lawsuit makes no sense to me. Harvard and other elite colleges receive 100x the number of applications compared to class size. If the simply ranked all applicants too to bottom and took the top they would have, like the stats point out, a class of 40 % Asian. The rest probably white.
College is about more than just taking classes and getting good grades. It’s about living together and learning and teaching one another outside of he classroom. To do that effectively it’s important to have a diverse class of people from different backgrounds.
Otherwise - just put all your classes online and let those that can afford to take them take them.
1
According to Harvard:
'Discrimination based on RACE, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin, age, ancestry, veteran status, disability, military service, or any other legally protected basis is contrary to the principles and policies of Harvard University.'
What a bald - faced lie.
1
The central theme of the civil rights era was that discrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, and repugnant. No matter how it is dressed up, affirmative action is pure discrimination on the basis of race.
6
This old game of blaming affirmative action for stigma is wrong. So what? Is it better to be admitted with the possibility of stigma, or not to be admitted? Stephens needs to explain how he would fix the social inequalities that lead to this solution. Without that alternative solution, his criticism callous.
3
I'm not sure the problem with Asian quotas lies only with Asian Americans. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of Asian Asians apply to US ivy-league schools every year. Invariably they come from very rich, privileged circumstances, and Columbia, Harvard, the rest, don't have to worry about fussing around with subsidies or scholarships for them: they, in fact, are a dependable and extravagant source of revenue for any institute. I have known such foreign students, many who graduate with advanced degrees that take many years and in the end still cannot speak coherent English, though all the classes they attend and successfully pass are given in English. It's no mystery how this is achieved. The foreign students memorize the entire content of a course, then simply match up the test questions with the material memorized. This is done simply at a level of decoding, with very little comprehension of the the content of what is written or spoken.
I would like to know if the acceptance of so many foreign Asian students affects the acceptance of Asian American students. I do not know the answer to this, but I suspect it does. It would help to clarify if there is a quota for foreign students, Asian or otherwise. That is: Do Asian American Students have to compete with foreign Asians for admission?
Asians simply memorize without understanding while other races truly learn the material? Amazing that so many comments are saying things like this. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised given the nature of NY Times readership.
2
When we talk about white privilege, we miss the most important aspect of it. White privilege means people will assume that you gained your admission to college or the job you possess based on merit, and not based on a racial preference.
Even well accomplished and well qualified minorities face this issue. A while back a black MD noted that his black patients felt they were discriminated against by being assigned to the "black" doctor who they assumed was less qualified that the white doctors.
Mr. Stephens has written another thought-provoking article that brings up a related issue.
Years ago, girls and young women were seen to be "behind in school," in large part because of social views in those times that held girls back. We--quite rightly--got to work to catch these girls and young women up.
Now, boys drop out of school more than girls, are kicked out more, go to jail more, commit suicide 4 Times as often, are forced to take Ritalin more, and go on to get only about 40% of degrees.
Don't they boys and young men deserve the same kind of help to catch up? Could it be true that today's social views disparage and dismiss boys, hurting their chances in a world where feminist writer Hanna Rosin (The End of Men) sees these statistics not as problems to be solved, but as victories for females?
2
Do what I do I’m my hiring decisions and don’t hire people from the Ivy League. I want hungry young people who went to state schools.
As with all ideals and actions, they are only as good as the people running them. If someone wants to game a plan or system they can and will. That doesn't mean the ideal was poor or the action bad, it just means that the people in charge perverted and twisted said plan to suit their desires.
Take capitalism and socialism or any other ism, they are only as good as the people, politicians running them. If they want them to be inclusive and beneficial to everyone they can be. If they want them to be exclusive and nothing but a power/money funnel, that is what they will be.
That doesn't mean they should or shouldn't be implemented.
We/they need true servants, representatives to implement them as idealized.
"The goal of achieving a desired racial composition on campus depends on Wizard of Oz-like schemes of dissembling and doublethink. The core problem with every noble lie is that it can only be concealed by an additional lie, then another. Whatever else it is, it’s the opposite of Veritas."
Not bad.
there is no logical consistency in this column. if diversity is achieved by weighing factors that favor one group differently than another, then no*individual* is ever specifically an affirmative action admittee. so where's the stigma, where's the curse?
is your theory more that people will treat all Harvard graduates as if they might be there illegitimately, the way I will treat every SCOTUS do until Merritt Garland is on the bench and either Gorsuch or blackout man is off it?
1
I keep looking, but no matter how hard I try, I am unable to find the words legacy, endowment or gift anywhere in this opinion piece.
3
I was admitted to Tufts Medical School in the 1970s. There were approximately 15 black students also admitted to my class. They separately sat for “remedial classes” to keep up with the rest of us. Some of them came from Harvard. Affirmative action x2?. Don’t know if they were given gentleman passing grades. We were pass fail in those days. Any legacy, high profile applicant eg Jared Kirshner (B student in high school)recruited athlete also know they wouldn’t be at Harvard if not for their vaulted status.
The Gentleman C lives on.
3
Affirmative action is designed to help alleviate the burdens of slavery and racism. It is impossible to effectuate such social engineering without adversely affecting someone's feelings. I will sacrifice my feelings any day in order to get a leg up in a system that was not designed to help people who look like me. If legacy admission students and graduates don't feel bad about their good fortune then why should I?
Mr. Stephens should focus on the wrong that is being corrected. This is an attempt at solving a problem. Unless Stephens and others like him can come up with a better solution affirmative action is the best that we have. Too bad, Asian Americans are allowing the wily racists to use them to stall a system that gives many, who were denied a higher education, an opportunity to get one.
4
Bret, if you’re going to be an opinion columnist, please be more honest about your beliefs. Instead of asking questions of your readers (which you’ve already answered in your own mind), why don’t you just say you are against affirmative action? Does that sound a little too harsh, too unfeeling?
Do you think that African-American students, in general, have had the same opportunities to achieve academic success as other applicants? The purpose of affirmative action, which you either ignore or don’t understand, is to look at factors other than grades. Your column implies that we should embrace a scholastic meritocracy. What that would do is ensure that the imbalance in education, earning power, and social status for minorities continues to grow.
Do you understand the concept of affirmative action?
1
Oh the curse of being denied education and advancement based on skin color. That for decades upon decades. To now say to those refusing admittance you must accept people you would not allow in even if it means you must reject someone not as qualified is affirmative action.
You must reject someone because you cannot keep a cohort from equal education as you want. To tell those doing the decision that a person traditionally denied admittance is to have the same education as someone of the majority is affirmative action.
Affirmative action is based on ensuring those who are discriminated against be allowed equal standing.
What about the history of "discrimination" in FAVOR of one racial group? What about the history of discrimination of ethnic groups? After all, Hispanics are largely classified as "white", yet our history of discrimination is comparable to African Americans, which includes lynching. It would help a great deal if we'd stop using the "minorities" term, as it is code language used in official policymaking.
The purpose of Affirmative Action was to end millennia of affirmative action for white males.
Affirmative Action is not about lowering standards, it's about equalizing them.
1
The "affirmative action" that Asian-Americans actually could complain about in their lawsuit against Harvard is the policy of Harvard to insure that every class has a majority of white males. Yes, white males are the only favored group at Harvard regardless of "merit."
And, before the Civil Rights and Women's Rights Movements and legislation of the 1960's, many schools, including Harvard, had an affirmative action policy to benefit only white males -- virtually all women and men of color couldn't get through the door.
There is only one goal of the anti-affirmative-action movement and it is not to impose some "merit" ideal. Its purpose is to restore the status quo ante of white male privilege. Stop pretending otherwise.
1
It is certainly true that affirmative action is quite imperfect. It can be used to engage in scandalous manipulations. But face it; without affirmative action the professions would still be 95% male and 95% white. It has been strikingly effective and it has done what it was supposed to do. It is one of the most stunningly effective and successful social policies ever effected. So it isn't perfect. What is?
2
How soon we forget. Instead of “affirmative action” try “reparations”
I’m quite certain discriminated groups can live with a little cognitive dissonance to get a seat at the table. Or a job, home, ability to vote. The list goes on.
The notions of merit and the meritocracy would make me laugh if they did not make me sick. Colleges and universities do not exist to reward “merit.” They exist to pursue truth and knowledge. Predicting who is most likely to take up that cause and who is most likely to succeed at it is a Sisyphean task. People who have the privilege of attending college or university have the responsibility to take their best crack at it. Hopefully, students will spend their energy pursuing a meaningful path in the world and give little thought to whether the general ignorant public sees them as worthy. Boo boo for Brett Stephens if he imagines that anyone cares how he feels about how he got the extraordinary opportunity he has to influence others. He should be trying his best with every essay to merit his spot not worrying whether nonthinkers insult him by calling him a token. Most of us have debts to pay to Lady Luck. Let’s get on with the business of paying them.
2
These legacy institutions preserve privilege and white male class culture based on inherited wealth. As long a whole communities did not have the opportunity to create a legacy fortune from which to dangle donations, those communities are uniformly disadvantaged for admissions. That should be corrected for. But why accept the paradigm? What is the inherent value of Harvard other than the name Harvard on a resume, betokening you as a striver for credentials, having made it past the institution's screening? As long as Donald Trump can boast of being an ivy league scholar, there is no inherent academic or intellectual value, merely image.
1
Here is the nub of the issue as I see it. Those supporting the lawsuit believe that some of the machinations of the admissions committee are a subterfuge for an invidious discrimination that denies seats to Asians who - but for their ethnicity - would have been admitted. Those that oppose this lawsuit say that even if it is true that Asians who are otherwise more qualified academically than some of those admitted, the higher goal is to have a diverse student body, all of whom are still more than capable of doing the work.
In the end, it is not so much that the admissions committee is discriminating against Asians but that t is discriminating in favor of this more diverse student body. I am not sure that this is much of a salve to those rejected Asian students but it is distinguishable from the old antisemitic discrimination which favored the rich and powerful and not, as Harvard now does, favor the poorer and less powerful.
I am glad that the NYT has hired Mr. Stephens because he produces well-written columns that make me think. I don't always agree with him, but he often gives me a different point of view on an issue, and I am grateful for that.
2
I don't hear much from the people that got in via the Legacy Admission, which in its way is another form of Affirmative Action.
Ironic, that it was a Republican President, Richard Milhous Nixon, that put Affirmative Action (with the Philadelphia Plan in 1970) into the national consciousness in the first place.
2
Oh please Bret,
As an Asian I can say w/out a doubt tha the right wing ideologues are using t my fellow Asian Americans as tools to advance their radical agenda to give help to those who need it.
Why don’t you write a column about legacies donor kids, faculty staff kids ds before going on about students from backgrounds where they may not have equal opportunities?
As the parent of a student who was repeatedly passed over in favor of a. The grandchild of a faculty member/superstar academic who had worked at not one but 4 or 5 top universities, b. A legacy. Both of whom had much lower scores and grades than my child, both of whom did not make even the top twenty percent of the grade, it sickens me to think that these efforts are being to attack the poorest/least fortunate and most disadvantaged in favor of the Jared Kushners of the world. And no, this is NOT sour grapes. My child ended up getting into the school of their choice - one where neither of these students had “connections.”
Point us, we learned early in the college process that the deck is almost always stacked in favor of the wealthy and the well connected. Makes us want to throw up.so next time, please devote equal time and effort to a column on how the George bushes and Jared kushners of the world .
1
There seems to be a useful role for a football analogy. NFL teams do not select the 32 best college players in the first round, they select the players that they expect to perform best at the next level.
How "optimized" a 15 or 16 year old is has a lot to do with where they grew up, their families and their teachers. It may also have to do with how much they dedicate themselves to appearing to be the perfect college applicant - some might call it "gaming the system".
Are such behaviors sincere and telling of how they will act when no one is watching over them? That seems far from a guarantee. Can human admissions officers tell the difference? Maybe they can much of the time, but they might lose the chance to exercise such oversight if the university will get sued every time that they do.
A "#1 college" (there is really no such thing) can guarantee it gets the few best overall students by accepting the top applicants from each of a very wide range of backgrounds. Accepting a wildly disproportionate number of students from a similar background does not guarantee this to the same degree, and introduces significant risk that the college enrolls many students who were great at applying to college but not so great at contributing while at college. So, even from a purely selfish point of view, the college has a strong interest in "hedging its bets" with diversification, and government should allow it to do so.
Except the NFL doesn’t use race when making it’s decisions
It would seem that Harvard is employing some sort of distorted racism, rather than affirmative action.
That said, I wish that Penn had used the “kindness” and “likeability” standards back in the 60s.
There seems to be a useful role for a football analogy. NFL teams do not select the 32 best college players in the first round, they select the players that they expect to perform best at the next level.
How "optimized" a 15 or 16 year old is has a lot to do with where they grew up, their families, their peers and their teachers. It may also have to do with how much they dedicate themselves to appearing to be the perfect college applicant - some might call it "gaming the system".
Are such behaviors sincere and telling of how they will act when no one is watching over them? That seems far from certain. Can human admissions officers tell the difference? Maybe they can much of the time, but they might lose the chance to exercise such oversight if the university will get sued every time that they do.
A "#1 college" (there is really no such thing) can almost guarantee it gets the few best overall students by accepting the top applicants from each of a very wide range of backgrounds. Accepting a wildly disproportionate number of students from a similar background does not guarantee this to the same degree, and introduces significant risk that the college enrolls many students who were great at applying to college but not so great at contributing while at college. So, even from a "purely selfish" point of view, the college has a strong interest in "hedging its bets" with diversification, and government should allow it to do so.
Harvard and other elite colleges and universities could open more places for deserving, hardworking minority students by eliminating legacy preferences.
@Maggie Mae Why do you think Harvard has such a huge endowment? Get real.
1
Am I missing something here? Affirmative action is intended to give disadvantaged minority students a leg up. Harvard, rather, appears to be discriminating against a qualified minority group outright. It seems to me that Harvard wins an insidious messaging game when people pose what they’re doing as just affirmative action gone wrong.
As a "white" immigrant from a country classified as Caucasian, although I am the first kid in my family to go to college, although both my parents didn't even reach 3d grade.
I was denied promotions repeatedly for a more "disadvantaged" employee. The people that are complaining now about unfair treatment didn't say a word when they were the advantaged.
The shoe is on the other foot.
2
So sorry Mr. Stephens has had his feelings hurt by being considered an affirmative action hire. Perhaps he would like to believe that his climate change-denying and pro-Iraq War positions speak to his genius.His privileged background has made him immune to the struggles of those who have not been given every advantage. But he should remember that had his Jewish grandfather not changed the family name to "Stephens" his life might have been a very different one.
First of all forget the Harvard hype, My daughter graduated from there and her experience of the place, where she got easy A's throughout her tenure, was that it was not even as challenging as the public high-school she attended and that most of her classmates were mediocre intellects at best. I think Asian students should boycott Harvard on principle and instead look at places like Amherst or Bowdoin or Duke or the better state schools. They will get a better education and the satisfaction of thumbing their noses at one of the most over-hyped institutions in America.
1
Affirmative action is less important for Ivy League schools than for state universities in red states. If you think the need for such measures has passed, look at what Republicans are currently doing to deny minority voting rights. Affirmative action is like chemo therapy. The cure is hard to take, but the disease is much worse.
1
Affirmative action Vs discrimination reminds one of the Vietnam War -
"We had to destroy the village in order to save it"
And that was war we lost.
I'm paying $15 a month to read today's paper on line.
I can't see the recipe in today's paper even though its in the printed paper.
Why not?
I don't want to pay $5.99 a month to sometimes read a Times recipe. I do not think it is right to ask me to pay to read a recipe on line on the same day it is printed when I am already paying to read the same day's paper on line.
1
There seems to be a useful role for a football analogy. NFL teams do not select the 32 best college players in the first round, they select the players that they expect to perform best at the next level.
How "optimized" a 15 or 16 year old is has a lot to do with where they grew up, their families and their teachers. It may also have to do with how much they dedicate themselves to appearing to be the perfect college applicant - some might call it "gaming the system".
Are such behaviors sincere and telling of how they will act when no one is watching over them? That seems far from a guarantee. Can human admissions officers tell the difference? Maybe they can much of the time, but they might lose the chance to exercise such oversight if the university will get sued every time that they do.
A "#1 college" (there is really no such thing) can guarantee it gets the few best overall students by accepting the top applicants from each of a very wide range of backgrounds. Accepting a wildly disproportionate number of students from a similar background does not guarantee this to the same degree, and introduces significant risk that the college enrolls many students who were great at applying to college but not so great at contributing while at college. So, even from a "purely selfish" point of view, the college has a strong interest in "hedging its bets" with diversification, and government should allow it to do so.
1
"Nor is this a matter of second-tier white students duking it out for the last available slots against standout minorities. " You are correct in a perverse way. These "second-tier" white students are getting SAT scores that are equal or higher than the "Standout minorities". It is even worse for another minority, Asians.
The old excuse was that the standard test were biased against minorities. This was shown to be a lie when Asians constantly scored higher than the White majority.
Now the PC phrase is "Underrepresented minority". I suppose Asians are now an "Overrepresented" minority"
If we demand Affirmative action in public supported education, why not in public supported sports? All sporting venues that are publicly supported should be required to have teams that are at least 50% woman and "Underrepresented minority". If it is not reasonable for one institution, why not the other?
3
Perhaps Mr. Stephens was chosen for his mediocrity. After all, why hire a top tier conservative with a more powerful point of view when you can get a weaker version who is less compelling and more favorable to the a moderate audience. He calls unqualified individuals whose qualifications were comparable to other highly qualified applicants. He refers to individuals at the highest level of admissions as mediocrity. Mr. Stephens makes a poor argument against affirmative action. A less degrading and more informed conservative opinion would be beneficial to all.
I find the discrimination against Asians/Asian Americans to be disgusting.
Legacy admissions are the real problem. The fact is Harvard acts like a private club for the benefit of its members. It should pay taxes on a portion of its donations and endowment income. Absent that, Harvard is partially a federally subsidized club for the wealthy.
2
Every policy can be criticized by someone but that doesn't mean it isn't promoting a worthy higher goal. I'm a graduate of Yale who was admitted years ago when Yale made the decision to pivot from largely admitting graduates of prep schools to largely admitting graduates of public schools. I came from a small Midwestern town and never would have had the opportunity to attend Yale 'but for' the decision it made to increase its diversity. For many years, I conducted alumni interviews of applicants to Yale and observed that everyone who applied was certainly capable of succeeding there. But the university obviously had to make decisions about whom to accept and making those decisions based upon creating a diverse atmosphere seems legitimate to me. Of course, the key is to accept only qualified applicants and not displace a qualified applicant with an unqualified one. As for your addition to the NYT, I'm all in favor of the Times diversifying its community of editorial writers. I would have objected had you been Sean Hannity or some other hack. The Times is better for your addition. It would have been weakened by adding just another liberal voice to the chorus. Is your objection to diversity? I wonder how you would be reacting if the Times had told you it had no interest in hiring you because you're a conservative columnist? I'm sure you would take the other position - diversity is good.
I did a study gathering data on job applicants for technology companies in the San Francisco Bay area. But I found something I was not looking for. Asian graduates of top schools were usually followed by a precipitous regression to the mean after graduation. They went to a much lower ranked graduate school or a middling job at a merely decent company. Having lived much of my life in China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, the missing link to explain this puzzle was obvious. Without tiger Asian parents breathing down their neck, Asian performed only a little above the mean.
1
Blum and his allies are funded by dark money like Scaife Bradley Olin. They don't like universities stressing fact and evidence. Diversity is just one leg of attack. Taxing endowments, stopping immigration of scholars and doctors, enabling for-profit Trump "universities" etc. Like right-wing columnists at the Times, these forces of regression want universities to tenure creationists, anti-abortionists, supply-siders, and climate deniers.
3
How did the whole complicated, ferociously competitive process of college admissions begin? Malcolm Gladwell, writing in the October 10, 2005, issue of “The New Yorker,” says that when he applied to college in Canada, “The whole process probably took ten minutes” (“Getting In”). The situation changed when “A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school. … Finally Lowell—and his counterparts at Yale and Princeton—realized that if a definition of merit based on academic prowess was leading to the wrong kind of student the solution was to change the definition of merit.”
2
There is another way to look at Harvard's admission policies: They are as fair as is possible given the extreme number of students who apply, many of whom are obviously qualified.
In addition, the suit was brought by a rich white guy who on;y interest is to stir a pot and bring the least savory portions of the admissions process to the top so all could look upon them and gag at what appears to be awful, awful ingredients below the surface.
I'd be a lot more impressed with the seriousness of the suit if it didn't emit the same stench as Amanda Fisher's battle against the University of Texas.
The unintended consequence of the decades of affirmative action and other well meaning but logically flawed mechanisms is the election of Donald Trump.
The children of blue collar workers, who could no longer count on a parent sheparding their application through HR have manifested their anger by electing a angry old man, spouting bald-faced lies that equal those of the liberal elite.
1
There is one statistic I’m curious about that isn’t in the public discussion; what percentage of Harvard applicants are Asian American to begin with? Harvard applicants are somewhat self selecting, but parental pressure is pretty strong in the Asian American community.
Guess what, Bret Stephens. Affirmative action students must perform academically just as all students who are admitted to Harvard. Nobody is just given a degree for being admitted. Do you really think that Neil deGrasse Tyson, a Harvard grad, spends time wondering if he merited admission? And a former Harvard president, the late Derek Bok, along with a former president of Princeton, have written a book, “The Shape of the River,” charting the long term success of Affirmative Action, so the claim cannot be made that Tyson’s success was singular. When deciding on whom to admit, should a black student who seems to have the talent for greater service to the nation be admitted or someone who scored 50 points more on the SAT. By the way the SAT is not found to be a predictor of college grades.
With what, 40,000 applicants for 1,800 spots there is going to be a lot of students rejected. It's not all about GPA/SATs. There's a formula that Harvard has and nothing will change it.
If anything this court case may leave a not so positive after affect or impression upon the admissions officers. You can not force or libel your way in there. Next up, Yale.
Most affirmative action admissions to Harvard are of blatantly unqualified members of the hereditary ruling class, who just happen to be white. They are referred to, apparently with a straight face, as 'legacies'.
A short, simple law would open the doors of Harvard to far more qualified applicants than would gain admission if this lawsuit succeeds:
"No schools that give preference in admission to relatives of alumni shall be eligible to receive federal funds".
Dan Kravitz
1
1) Bret Stephens has nothing to apologize for given that Thomas Friedman is still on the staff (re MBS and Iraq, how many terrible predictions is a columnist allowed).
2) It is a little precious to say that those who are benefited by affirmative action are hurt the most. Why do they fight so hard to keep it?
3) While tons of print has been spilled worrying about what the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh will mean for abortion rights, what the appointment will really do is kill affirmative action. Harvard is in a no win situation: if it wins at the lower level, the case will be appealed and it will lose at the Supreme Court.
1
Bret Stephens’ is a terrific columnist and I hope he is with NYT for many years to come. For a future column on this subject, I hope he tell us what he thinks would be fair. Any strictly meritocratic system you devise will net far more applicants than Harvard could ever admit, so how should Harvard choose among the X number of students that all meet a particular academic rank? Why can’t a private institution add a criteria that reflects an ethnic group’s and gender’s proportion in the population as a whole? I mean, no one is telling the NYT it can’t have a set-aside for a conservative columnist.
However the slicing gets done, there are limits to every kind of student universities accept. “All work and no play makes Jack, or Jill, a dull boy, or girl.” No liberal arts school wants all one kind of student, from perfect SAT taker to athlete, so caps will and should remain.
If Harvard wants to be thought of as America's top university then its student body will have to reflect U.S. demographics: 5% Asian, 13% African-American, 18% Hispanic (White & Non-White), 62% Non-Hispanic White. But, if Harvard wants to be something else, that is fine, too.
Stephens forgets another yet another harm, the institution itself i.e. Harvard's reputation will turn into a bigoted institution which cannot admit the proper candidates. For example, Princeton was tarred when a friend of mine turned down admission (in favor or MIT less bigoted) when the admissions officer revealed "he was the show Jew from Philadelphia". Harvard has its "reputation" to worry about too.
Did I read that right? That a Jewish man - in NYC, no less - might be an AA hire? Why? Are Jews underrepresented or something?
The good intentions of AA, which I used to support when it was new, have turned into a nest of snakes, philosophically and economically.
I do not claim to have the right answer. Both sides have good reasons.
Elizabeth Warren was listed as a “Native American” professor at the University of Pennsylvania and described as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color." If Harvard is willing to be absurd enough to consider Elizabeth Warren a "woman of color", then Asians should simply start ordering DNA tests of their own to find that bit of DNA that isn't Asian and identify as that race on college applications. See how ridiculous this obsession with race can get?
5
When Brett Kavanaugh raged that he "got into Yale with no help from anyone," he and his politician and pundit champions conveniently forgot that his grandfather's status as a Yalie assisted Kavanaugh’s admission to Yale’s undergrad and law schools via the Ivy League colleges' "Legacy Admissions" policy.
Intra-Ivy League studies indicate that admitted African-American students’ grades, scores, and extra-curricular profiles are routinely superior to those of white “Legacy Admissions," per my own time at the MA Ivy up I-95 from Yale.
Yet the same inattentional blindness (https://tinyurl.com/yaudx5je) that made many folks take now-Justice Kavanaugh's "no help from anyone" claim at face-value informs those who revile Affirmative Action as the engine of “unfairness” in college admissions.
The cynic in me can't blame Asian Americans for attacking Affirmative Action -- and highlighting African-American admissions within it -- in their efforts to force redress of Harvard's problematic cap on Asian-American admissions and the truly pernicious theories of alleged "personality" and extra-curriular shortcomings that inform it.
After all, African-American students are an easy target whose "unqualified" nature is assumed. Continued inattentional blindness to "Legacy Admissions" (and the white men who are its chief beneficiaries) enlists their assistance while arousing none of their ire -- as we'll doubtless see when Yale Legacy Brett Kavanaugh renders his SCOTUS ruling on this case.
Stephens, of course you are an affirmative action hire. The vast majority of Times readers don't think much of your opinions, including this one. But we are also of the view that you are a qualified writer with an opinion that needs to be heard, that you are a minority voice without which there would be less or none. We acknowledge that your presence does indeed take someone else's place and that we are uncomfortable with that fact; we need the discomfort and the "unfairness" to have your views represented. Affirmative action hires bias outcomes that we are set upon achieving because diversity is another important feature of a healthy society. Like Clarence Thomas, you just can figure this out, can you?
3
"They knew that “affirmative action,” whatever its benefits as a form of social engineering, was a synonym for mediocrity."
Sadly, that's usually my first thought when I see a minority in a higher position or at an elite school before I correct myself that perhaps he/she is highly qualified. I'd never know. It is very unfortunate. Affirmative action is a double edged sword.
3
Harvard is a private institution,aren’t they free to establish any enrollment criteria they choose?
Ed
3
Do private bakeries get to decide to whom they sell cakes?
2
@William Edward Sanford Not if they take government money which is from taxes paid by you and me. They have a huge endowment. Stop taking my hard earned money and they can take any student they want.
1
Affirmative action is simply a practical program aimed at getting the nation closer to fulfilling the constitutional 'words on paper' promise of the 14th amendment: that everyone has the constitutional right to equal protection under the laws. The amendment originally applied only to the voting and due process rights of former male slaves and Jim Crow laws soon stymied that intent. It took the (now gutted) Voting Rights Act to redress their decades long effects on black voting. The 19th amendment and Title IX redressed sex discrimination in voting and education and have been very effective though likely more for white than black women. That Mr. Stephens harbors self doubt about the real reason he was hired by the NYT simply shows him to be like most human beings, capable of self reflection. But equating his personal experience with that of those less privileged by dint of birth to justify eliminating Affirmative Action gets no sympathy from this leftie.
3
Bret, you need to listen to the entire 2017 podcast "Seeing White" from Scene on Radio podcast and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. And then revisit this topic. The baked-in discrimination and racism in our institutions and many of our founding (and current) documents and laws goes back hundreds of years. Justice John Roberts' comment assumes we're starting fresh -- what a bunch of baloney. The Voting Rights and Civil Rights act are just over 50 years old, and since their passage, the GOP (mostly) has done everything in its power to undermine their protections and suppress minorities, especially African-Americans.
It "stings" you to be considered an "affirmative action" hire? Please, spare me. So easy for us with white skin to assert such ridiculousness.
3
It is confusing as to why Mr. Stephens would ever be regarded as an affirmative action hire. Must be missing something on this point. However, what Mr. Stephens is yet another quite privileged white male, born lucky, educated well, smart, with all those advantages, who now complains about the "unfairness" of Affirmative Action.
So here is the truth from someone 30 years older, who upon completion of a Masters degree in the early 1970s could not even get an interview because I was a female-bring on Affirmative Action!! Without it, women and people of all sorts of color, would still be stuck in low paying, second rate jobs, being told what to do by the white, male, less intelligent and qualified power structure.
As to the colleges, they strive for diversity. But if that is what they really sought, they would do away with legacy admissions. Period. One Ivy I know of tells their alumuns if they want their children to attend they must apply Early Decision to be guaranteed admission! Harvard, accepts money from Kushner's daddy and he gets in. Those are the issues to be fought about.
The never ending fight about affirmative action is just another example of white men claiming victim hood when they are finding they must now compete for their place in the world like everyone else and are no longer able to just skate by on their mediocre brains and looks. Grow up men and stop your complaining. Go to school. Learn your craft. Treat all people with respect. Stop your complaining.
1
Let's hope this case drives a well-measured stake through the heart of affirmative action. What began with reasonable aims, liberal guilt, and some laudable intentions has been a grotesque embarrassment for longer than half its life. May the Supreme Court put it out of its misery.
3
The white people behind the lawsuits want to exclude all poor people and people of color from Ivy League Colleges.
THE TRUTH is that Asian Americans can afford to send their children to advanced classes and advanced remedial programs like Sylvan, Kumon, Huntingdon, Mathnasium and others. If they as a family don't have the money, they can borrow from a willing "grandmother" or "grandfather" in their community. This gets them in.
On the other hand, black people, hispanic people and poor white people cannot do that. Banks won't lend to them for that purpose and if they don't have the cash for remedial training of their children, their kids simply don't get the training. They don't get in.
HOW TO I KNOW THIS?? Because I am black and had the wherewithal to send my daughter to Sylvan Learning Center (cost me over $8K) for her to be tutored in math, reading and the SAT. We had the MONEY and resources, but the majority of people we know DID NOT.
Eventually, the goal of conservatives is to "freeze" minorities that they don't like out of advanced university degrees, to put them in their place. When the university becomes "top heavy" with Asians, whites will then complain that THEY are being discriminated against. THAT IS THE GOAL. Then all minorities will be completely frozen out. They are EXPLOITING Asian_Americans and using them as shills. Plain and simple.
When will people EVERYWHERE get smart?!? All people of color are being used.
Bezos will soon have the means to buy up an entire state, crowd all the (formerly free roam) plebs into concentration centers (sometimes called cities) where they will be housed like chickens in cages--the only free space being abandoned parking lots of shuttered local industry. All legal, all based on merit. The plebs can barely afford rent, much less a million dollar tutor to game the admission systems of these oligarchical fortresses in the land of the free. Democracy is the ruthless monopoly-busting instrument of former serfs. Defang it, and plutocrats will soon have dictatorial powers without the need of the security apparatus to safeguard it. Affirmative action is a very crude check of the dictatorial elite. Left to itself the ghetto will lose hope and become a root of all evil. The handicapped person at the grocery store is not there on merit--but we're all glad he's there. It's the opposite of Bezos syndrome, which will soon have all of us in the ghetto. Affirmative action is monopoly-busting by other means.
2
Unintended consequences. This is the bane of ill-conceived "social justice", which means what seems fair to you. Fairness has no place in government, just like religion or morality. If that sounds outrageous to you, you probably haven't thought it through. You probably also doing know three difference between freedom and liberty. Not surprising; when was the last time our Democratic politicians expounded on liberty?
1
No matter how you slice the affirmative action pie it’s wrong. No one should be advanced because of the cosmos placing. One should make it on their merits. Maybe it’s time to change the way the application is used. No names no races no genders. Use numbers as ID only. You can’t discriminate against what you can’t identify.
1
So you get a few hostile emails and you conclude something about the entirety of discrimination and affirmative action? Sorry, but anecdotes are not data. It's your opinion, but stop pretending that it is based on anything but personal feelings.
3
‘It’s corrosive to live in the clutch of someone else’s lie’ Bret Stevens writes. It is however the spur to excel even further. That is the blessing of affirmative action.
OK, this is all logical and sane with one exception. How, on balance, do you think you deserve a medal for announcing an anti-Trump bias. It just makes no sense. He is crude and arrogant but effective and generally decisive, and brutally real. Affirmative action is a policy with mixed attributes. Why can you see thru the fog to the greater good of eliminating affirmative action, but are completely blind to the greater good of an unappealing but effective president.
As a Harvard graduate, I am glad that Harvard's feet are being held to the fire here. The reality is that we have had affirmative action discriminating against Whites for years (and that's supposedly OK), but now that we find it discriminating against Asians (that's not OK). Thank God for the Asians! Hard-working, smart, generally just better skilled than the white folk! I hope that they can smash down this type of affirmative action and it can be replaced with economically based metrics. The real problem isn't race. It's class. Poor people have a much tougher go of it, whatever their race, than rich people. Race is an invidious distinction.
2
If the admission test base mostly on grade and score only, the Ivy League colleges will have 45-50% Asian American students (with mostly Chinese, Korean, Indian and Pakistanis American). Would many White students and parents accept that fact?
3
Affirmative action is, what they call in the old country, on a sticky wicket. You can defend it for the reparation needs towards African-Americans, while protesting it for the discriminatory actions it perpetuates against Asian-Americans. But what is not on a sticky wicket is the academic duplicity of legacy admissions – why are these still a thing?
3
@Jack Nargundkar They are still a thing because the need for money will always be a thing, and the quid pro quo is always the unspoken expectation of a legacy/donor kid's admission.
Agreed. I was a white Male when I got into MIT. That's the worst thing you can be, but I was just that good. My race couldnt prevent me from getting in because I was just so much more qualified. When you are an Eagle Scout, varsity soccer player, public forum debate champion, two high school diplomas including IB, and have a 4.1 GPA being white cant really hold you back.
My roommate my first year was a full blooded native American affirmative action hire. He had no real extracurriculars, had less than a 4.0 GPA, and didnt really have anything going for him besides being a full blooded Navajo. Evidently being Navajo made up for the fact that he was completely unqualified to get into MIT.
He spent the first semester playing World of Warcraft and failing all his classes. He dropped out after his second semester.
2
What’s the term for when a guy goes through six bankruptcies and still gets to have a penthouse apartment, several golf course resorts and buildings with his name on them? Is that “merit”? I’m a white dude whose privilege probably wouldn’t get me more than two bankruptcies before I’d be sleeping under an overpass, but I’m not a fool, Mr. Stephens. I know the score. Affirmative action exists because men like Donald Trump always have existed.
“Perhaps the deepest damage affirmative action does is to those it embraces, not those it rejects. It isn’t a pleasant thing to live with the sense that your achievements aren’t quite real— and that everyone secretly knows it. It’s corrosive to live in the clutch of someone else’s lie.”
So Mr Stephens, having been accused of being an affirmative action hire, would prefer not to have been hired at the Times?
Really?
If it’s that corrosive you could fix it in a second, Mr Stephens.
At Harvard legacy admits and athlete admits, not 'affirmative action,' are by far the reason that Harvard turns away applications from students like the plaintiffs in the law suit.
20% of the student body at Harvard are athletes. While they are not academically unqualified, they would not have been admitted unless they are good at water polo, baseball, field hockey, etc. In other words, they got in because they are good at sports. Source on '20%': https://www.gocrimson.com/information/recruiting/index
Legacy admits rates are five times higher than non-legacy admit rates. Like the student athletes, the legacy admits are not academically unqualified. But they got in because they are legacies. Source on 'five times higher': https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/6/20/admissions-docs-legacy/
But hey, why let facts get in the way of blaming 'affirmative action' (which is just code for supposedly 'unqualified' black and Latino admittees)?
After more than a couple of centuries of negative action affirmative action came along to try to put some equality and justice into the makeup of our institutions. It's birth was much like armed troops pushing past the George Wallace-like bigots and cowards who stood in the way of integration.
Racists never quit fighting and now they've brought us Donald Trump. May he be their last hurrah.
2
I enjoyed and agree with this excellent column.
Mr. Stephens: You have both my sympathy and admiration for your professional life in the liberal echo chamber that is the New York Times. I hope you can continue to thrive, and write first rate columns for the paper.
One paragraph in your present column caught my eye: “What distinguishes the Harvard suit from past legal challenges to affirmative action is that it shows that the people the policy harms aren’t privileged and unsympathetic white kids. The injured are other minorities.”
I find it interesting that when the Times first reported the rumblings of the suit now underway, the paper described it, inaccurately, it would seem, as an action concerning affirmative action against whites, rather than what it is, a suit regarding affirmative action’s ill effects on Asian applicants.
This is the first paragraph from the Times’ original reporting:
“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.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/trump-affirmative-action-...
1
That statement by the Times is accurate, however, as the man behind this suit is the Mighty White Whiner, Edward Bloom, who is now simply using Asian Americans at Harvard to attack Affirmative Action for the umpteenth time.
Like Mr. Stephens, I strongly object to affirmative action as it is practiced in American academia today.
Affirmative action presently consists of implicit quotas based on race, gender, and ethnicity. This is, to my mind, illegal discrimination.
I, and most others I think, support giving preferences based on economic circumstances. Those who grow up in poverty clearly do not have the same advantages as those in the middle (and upper) classes, and clearly deserve preferences in admission and financial aid.
But that's not what affirmative action is usually about.
3
Affirmative action policy has well-known beneficiaries and has well-known 'victims'. The intent is to pull up the historically neglected social classes and, while doing so, it pushes aside others because of numerical constraints of various kinds - such as the number of seats to be filled in colleges or jobs etc. In a continuously expanding economy such numbers grow and more beneficiaries benefit and fewer 'victims' feel harmed. Over the decades that this policy has been in place, the U.S. economy has grown significantly, and most agree that the socioeconomic effects of this policy have been on target. In the early stages 'victims' voices were rather silent but with time these voices have gained pitch.
So what is going on? In a wide ranging discussion soon after WWII, not seen before, on civil rights and about social and economic equality, affirmative action became politically possible and came to be accepted by most as a progressive policy quite suitable to the image of the US as an emerging world leader. That excitement has been fading as the political voices that accepted, albeit grudgingly, the equality in principle but not in practice, gathered. As the policy turned from theoretical to practical, certain 'victims'' groups organized politically against it much in the way as supporters for it in the beginning. All of our society never accepted the underlying principle of this policy and some have tried to find clever ways to subvert it, as in this Harvard case.
1
What disadvantages a student more is not race, but poverty. If you want to achieve the goals that affirmative action originally intended, balance your class by income. Give kids of all incomes a chance -- regardless of race. Not just those of trust funds and those with the right race.
4
"for giving a needed leg up to the systemically disadvantaged — had no trouble understanding the other dimension of the policy — an unfair preference for the unqualified."
This is wrong and you probably know it. Affirmative action is not "giving a leg up," it's meant to open opportunities for deserving people who are a part of groups that have been systemically denied those opportunities because of bigotry.
72
I believe that affirmative action is at the root cause of the angry white male voter who elected trump. While well intentioned originally, it has created more racism by promoting descrimination based on race. This will always be the elephant in the room until we move past this as a society.
73
@roy
Boston's finest James" Whitey " Bulger managed to make it out without a Harvard education.
And so did Bobby Brown.
Color is not race. Barack Obama is half-white by biological nature and all white by cultural nurture.
Jackie Robinson is the primate in the room. Look what the colored did to baseball, basketball and football.
1
@roy The angry white males who elected Trump were never in the running to attend Ivy League schools.
With our hardened tribal identities it is no surprise where Stephens comes down on this issue. He, as is so often the case with bright, talented, moral partisans, is addressing the wrong issue. Because of the societal costs it exacts. Because of the corrosive influence it exerts on our governing institutions. Because of the manifest an-American unfairness of it, the question we should be asking is not what to do about affirmative action but, rather, what to do about racism, which is still the sine qua non of poverty and unequal opportunity. There is no greater predictor of future poverty than existing poverty. Affirmative action, whatever it's short-comings, at least tries to address that.
1
Apparently "affirmative action" is just dandy for the inherited/stolen wealth Robber Barons but not for average people.
The idea of a Harvard or Yale degree of any kind - and other "entitlement for the rich" higher education institutions - have lost their lustre for me. I know people who have top degrees from Stanford and other supposed higher education facilities who are working at McDonald's on the service line.
Truly, it's not what you know but who you know in these money pits. No wonder OUR United States is in just disarray.
Most of the wealthy have no concept of running anything but their own insatiable greed.
1
There is one big flaw in the argument: Harvard remains exclusive because it excludes so many applicants. The reason people object to rejection by Harvard is precisely the reason they want to go there. They want the advantage that attaches to Harvard (Yale, Stanford, etc.)
Affirmative action is not a synonym for mediocrity. Rather it is a statistical representation of the available applicants. If Harvard, or any other institution, is to be representative of the educated in America, it must reach out to a broad spectrum of applicants. As long as the goal is not unbalanced to begin with, the decision should remain with the institution.
If Harvard messes up, maybe Cal or Penn State will get some love.
Lots of readers note that legacy admissions, like racial preferences, are not based on merit, and so should also be eliminated if we are going to eliminate race preferences.
Agreed. After all, not every white applicant to top universities has a parent who went there. Some of us are the first in our families even to attend college. Yet the elite, tenured, academic left sees only racial, gender, and ethnic groups, and not the individual person, who is expressly protected by civil rights laws like Title VI, under which this case is brought. Persons like me are thus invisible and don't matter to them.
So here's a question. As a teacher, can I also decide, like Harvard, which races and ethnicities I favor and disfavor and then grade accordingly? If not, why not? After all, Harvard and I are both bound by the civil rights laws.
As with Roe, the only real question is whether the Roberts/Alito/Thomas/Gorsuch/Kavanaugh Supreme Court will take affirmative action down slowly or all at once.
Either way, good riddance.
For my part, even if Harvard is allowed to continue discriminating against some applicants based on their race, I shall always grade my students based on their individual merits. A person's race does not determine his virtue or character or how hard he has worked. Under the civil rights laws, thus, it is properly no basis for differential treatment by centers of power, public or private.
5
Why have affirmative action at all? What is desirable is diversity.
Institutions of higher learning could announce that they will accept into the next freshman class a fixed number of various types of people ( Asian, Latino, Caucasian, Middle Eastern,
African American etc. and then, yes, rural from under achieving schools). It will be known in advance how many of each group will be admitted and so no one will have to feel he or she was admitted to the detriment of one more qualified. That is just the school’s policy, the way it is. And the reason behind it: that best of states: diversity.
1
My family is from China and I was born in Boston. My father received a Ph.D. from Harvard in the 1930's. All his three sons were rejected by Harvard in the 1950's and 1960's. "Legacy" did not seemed to apply either to Chinese or to graduate students. Instead we went to MIT, Princeton and Yale. We did fine.
4
As long as our society will treat different racial groups of people differently than others, as long as we empower some people by the groups they are part of, we will never be a color blind or merit driven society. Every individual, regardless of race, religion or even wealth have crosses that they must bear. Once we start breaking it down by groupings, we ignore the individual and perpetuate the segmentation of our society. Individuals who work harder, apply themselves more than others, deserve to go further in life. As they used to tell us in elementary school, success is the reward of hard work. I have no problem with helping INDIVIDUALS, regardless of race, religion or nationality who, by no choice of their own, have fallen on hard times, but sorting it all out by empowering some groups and not others is not, ultimately, the way to a better or more equal society.
6
Stephens refers to 'doublethink' but I believe more apt in this context would be 'groupthink.' Well-meaning Liberal progressives convince each other, and themselves, that they're doing the right thing and, along they way, ironically render the potential for a collaborative process to transcend embedded personal bias moot. As for the wisdom and efficacy of Affirmative Action, I was passed over the first time I applied to law school, and more than one peer from each side of the political divide later wondered aloud how I felt about it. My answer then and now is that if an academically less-qualified candidate got one of the 100 seats in part because of their racial or ethnic identity, that outcome would, on both personal and societal levels, amount to a sacrifice entirely consistent with the nature of change that must occur to align America with its promise to its citizens and invitation to the tired, the poor, the huddled masses.
2
@J Young
Perhaps you're telling yourself that because you didn't have a choice. I'd be interested to know your answer if you had been given the option ahead of time, to enter that class or voluntarily step aside.
1
Good discussion here. I am curious if Legacy or Gift related admissions are as important today as they once were and how prevalent they are compared to admissions decision based upon race or socioeconomic factors. With a rising population and available slots at prestigious universities fixed, competition for admission is surely growing. This of course suggests we need to continue to build strong public schools with enough slots to serve the demand for college from deserving students of all backgrounds. Having said that, I also understand Stressed Teacher's comments in that the most deserving students may actually be the ones who overcome the most to be in a position to be considered. If their application were weighted more for grit, determination and capacity (i.e. applied potential), maybe they would not need any additional weighting based upon race or other special criteria. So I am advocating building diversified college classes by elevating the truly most-deserving. To do that we may need to invest more in the evaluation process to uncover the more capable applicants. Now a different question would be, if Harvard elected to not participate in the federal student loan program, what obligation would it have to build their classes in any other way than how they want as a private institution. For me personally, the admissions decision is key for sure, but for middle-class to upper middle-class families, the cost of Harvard is a very real barrier of a different kind.
As a college student, I thought, yes-minorities should be given special preferences because of the many years of disenfranchisement we have experienced (and still experience). Now, I'm not so sure.
Though I am a 40-something black woman, I have not been the beneficiary of AA, at least not on paper, that I am aware of. When I attended college 25 years ago, my parents and I paid for my room and board, books, etc., and my tuition was paid in full from a grant that required me to teach at least 3 years in a disadvantaged school.
My sons and daughters have social and economic advantages that some of their peers do not. My husband and I both have advanced degrees. We own two homes (one is a rental property). We are not wealthy by any means, but we can afford "extras."
Since I am a teacher, I know how to "game" the public school system in my children's favor. They are all enrolled in special programs that serve their abilities. I am of the mind now that even though my children are black, they do not deserve AA over poor white students who don't have access to the resources we do.
I guess what I'm saying is that I would prefer that AA be primarily based on (lack of) family income. Because let's be honest: wealth and legacy has benefited many an undeserving white student.
However, in college admissions and the work world, people have been accepted or denied--based solely on their race--in ways that can't be proven. We cannot know what is in another's heart.
17
I agree ... it seems that many of the disparities stem from economic status now. That said, that issue still disproportionately affects minority populations in many parts of the country.
4
Just by changing a few words, this editorial could be renamed, "The Curse of Legacy Action." I can't wait for Mr. Stephens to write that editorial.
Stephens misses at least a couple of important points. While some whites see affirmative action as letting unqualified people in, minorities often see it as their only chance to get in. For some qualified minorities, affirmative action is the only chance they have to get into organizations and jobs from which they have been previously excluded.
The other problem is that when some people complain about affirmative action, they generally only address how it helps people at the bottom. They have no problem with affirmative action for the wealthy, such as legacies.
The penultimate paragraph could be rewritten:
Will that be equally true of those who, thanks to legacy action, did get in? I wonder. Perhaps the deepest damage legacy action does is to those it embraces, not those it rejects. It isn’t a pleasant thing to live with the sense that your achievements aren’t quite real— and that everyone secretly knows it. It’s corrosive to live in the clutch of someone else’s lie.
If we ban affirmative action, then we also need to ban legacies.
3
@Joe Sparks
Apples and oranges.To be denied admission based race is a violation of your constitutional rights. To be denied admission based on not being a legacy is unfortunate but not a legal issue.
Don't talk to me about ending affirmative action until all preferences for legacy admissions are banned. Then decide whether a student body that is diverse in many respects--including race, social class, intellectual point of view--is a worthy goal. If it is (I think it is), figure out how to get there.
1
I tend to believe affirmative action based on race alone has done more harm than good, primarily because conservatives like Mr. Steven's misrepresent it to generate fear. Making an effort to include unrepresented cultures obviously limits the overrepresented but engineers a great social good in the process. Nonetheless it should do so in a manner that ignores race. Race is is an illogical construct and decisions based exclusively on it are of dubious value. Less illogical but nonetheless limiting our admissions on the basis of GPA or SAT scores.
3
I read in another newspaper that, while Harvard's case presents files of some Asian/minority students who were admitted, Harvard is not releasing the files of Asian students who were not admitted.
If this is the case, Harvard seems to be admitting it has something to cover up. Surely there is a way for Harvard's brilliant leaders and administrators to redact the information on these non-admitted students, or perhaps even for the students to permit their information to be released in redacted form. Or perhaps Harvard does not wish to provide the information because it knows the information would undermine its case.
In selecting which students to admit all elite colleges, not just the Ivies, practice a form of discrimination; the mere act of selection some students over others indicates that there are criteria governing who is admitted and who is not. Any choice is a form of discrimination, i.e., preferring one candidate over another.
I think it will be hard for Harvard to justify rejecting so many Asian students based on arbitrary and ill-defined criteria such as humor, grit, likability, kindness, etc. Having an Asian lead attorney and presenting a few examples of Asian students who were admitted will not make up for the fact that Harvard appears to have discriminated specifically against Asian students.
Of course we will have to see how the judge rules, and on what grounds. Whoever wins this case, it is almost certain to be appealed.
5
Affirmative Action is a complex policy that often taints its beneficiaries more than the people it excludes. On balance, however, it does more good than harm. Over my 30 years in the working world I have seen affirmative action raise awareness among members of hiring committees that qualified candidates come in all shapes and sizes. Sure, some of the hires weren't up to the task, but the same could be said for some white male hires with outstanding academic credentials.
2
Standardized tests require specific test-taking skills which can be optimized with coaching and practice. Certain subgroups prioritize SAT coaching and take part in extensive practice sessions, often devoting nights and weekends to it. Wealthy students are one such subgroup, often hiring private coaches. Asians also devote considerable time and effort to study and practice for these tests per many of their parents and students.
As teachers, this is worrisome, because excessive hours spent on this kind of narrow study subtract from waking hours that could be spent in more enriching and creative academic pursuits. It is especially crushing when the kid gives up everything else to prepare, gets the perfect score and still doesn’t get into his/her dream school.
There is validity in SAT results, in that students who do well on them succeed in college at higher rates than students who don’t. But those students in the middle, with very good scores but not in the very top group, also are highly successful.
A test-taking savant may not be a top candidate if he/she has immature social skills, research skills, organizational skills, creativity, writing skills, communication skills, originality and independent thinking. Who decides a college’s non-test admission requirememts? How are they quantified? And in assessing them, shouldn’t it be done in a race-blind manner? As for “personality” - that seems impossible to rate in any meaningful way just by a single interview.
Brett Stephens' arguments against affirmative action are not valid. He seems to be unaware of the idea of multiple intelligences and that not all intelligence can be measured by an academic record or test scores. My own children are proof of that. The one with the lowest test scores has been the most successful both in high school and in college. Her career after college has been fully as successful has that of her siblings. I'm not an advocate of strict affirmative action but am an advocate of ensuring that students are exposed to diverse races and cultures. There needs to be some way to make sure that happens, maybe by a loose form of affirmative action. I also agree that getting into Harvard or any other Ivy League college is not essential to a student's successful life. I don't think Stephens needs to fear that his was only an affirmative action hire. I enjoy hearing his viewpoints even when I don't agree with them.
2
I've worked throughout my career with very smart, well-educated people from the Ivy League schools. Having that degree and those connections help a lot but at the end of the day the most successful people were not the ones necessarily from Harvard or Yale but those with the strongest work ethic and motivation. I'd bet on the motivated person long before the Harvard grad. I see this over and over again.
1
Bret, here is another way to look at Affirmative Action.
In order for our society to achieve a real meritocracy of sorts, then wouldn't you first have to create the kind of broad based educational opportunity that, regardless of economic strata, is of the highest quality for all children and not just those who happen to live in a certain zip code?
Bret, even if you eliminate "race" as a form of criteria, you are still left with all the inherent discriminatory practices of a lack of a quality education for all because you had the misfortune of being born into poverty and worse, by extension, a far worse school district that is severely underfunded because it has a far lower tax base per student.
This does not mean that a child from a much poorer zip code cannot get into Harvard. After, there are children that are born with certain gifts, but, we also tend to define our variation of exceptionalism just through that one child, while leaving the rest to a fate that they did not choose for themselves.
Bret, until we eliminate unequal educational opportunity throughout all economic levels, then you cannot have your real meritocracy.
Until then, at least Affirmative Action tries to address at least part of that inadequacy.
2
Please stop. You and I both know that the schools in this country remain both separate and unequal. There is no level playing field. However, there are excellent students who deserve...yes, deserve and have earned an opportunity for an excellent education. If, all schools in all communities give the same level of educational opportunities I would challenge these persons to remove their child from their current school, and enroll them in one where many persist in saying these educational opportunites also abound.
5
I profoundly disagree with Mr. Stephens on this particular issue. Affirmative action was a product of substandard education for a large portion of African American citizens. It allowed the likes of Clarence Thomas the privilege to attend law school and be elected to the federal judiciary and then nominated to the supreme court. The unequal educational opportunities in public school as to income is paramount. Affirmative action has allowed those who are gifted and smart to have access to a prestige education who otherwise would be overlooked.
4
If we stopped discriminating on the basis of race in every area of society, I would be in favor of Mr. Stephens' wish. Unfortunately, an end to affirmative action does not address racial profiling by the police, by banks, by realtors, and other inequities that have been part of the fabric of this country for over two hundred years. We have a long way to go before I believe affirmative action does more harm than good.
4
It’s a bit laughable to even call what Harvard (or Stanford, or Yale, etc.) are doing in admissions, affirmative action. As private institutions, they are trying to select the best mix of candidates from amongst 5 to 10 times that number of eminently academically qualified applicants. It’s ironic that you choose to pick on the racial mix, while not taking aim at the more egregious aspects of their selection process that focus on wealth and legacy.
6
I'd like to know how Harvard's admission criteria and processes compare to those of other colleges and universities. Suits challenging affirmative action -- at least the ones that make the news -- are usually directed at elite institutions. So how much do those institutions reflect the criteria applied at universities more generally? Do the Harvards set the standards for all? Does anyone care how AA policies impact admissions at less-exalted institutions? Or do we only care about affirmative action when it affects students at the highest-profile private and public universities?
1
As Gore Vidal once noted, discussing "standards" with Americans is like holding a crucifix up to Dracula. Were we to follow Bret Stephens' honorable observation, that only the best students, Asian or otherwise, should end up attending the best colleges and universities, almost the entire American ruling class would rise up against it. Admission to elite schools in the US have so long been governed by a wink and a nod and, in an emergency, an open checkbook, that it is almost impossible to imagine it otherwise. How will student X, who can't add a column of figures, get into Yale as his parents, grandparents, and so on did: why we'll build a new wing for the university library! Let me know when that changes.
4
Every post on here about "legacy admissions" is a complete distraction from the issue at hand, Affirmative Action. While legacy admissions is performed at a few private, elite colleges, Affirmative Action is undertaken in a varying array of public colleges, professional sector jobs, government employment, etc.
Legacy admission is a niche issue affecting very few people, and bringing it up in this debate is a cop out to avoid confronting the widespread practice at hand, Affirmative Action.
7
Wrong. "Legacy" admission is widespread in scores and scores of private colleges and universities. Ditto for "legacy" hiring in the public and private sector, in agencies and corporations large and small. Want that raise or promotion? All you have to do us hire the boss's niece or nephew!
There is an important pivot in Mr. Stephens's argument, when he turns from information sharing to boost African-American enrollment in the Ivy League to two conclusions: that "a method for inclusion is an equally powerful method of exclusion" and that "the injured are other minorities." The facts about Harvard's admission results, though, are more complicated: raising Asian-American admissions from 23% to 43% of the class as the lawsuit suggests would not be met by eliminating affirmative action for the 15% of the admitted class that is African-American and would barely be possible if one also eliminated affirmative action for the 12% of the class that is Latino. (Even these numbers overstate the problem as many in both groups were probably admitted with almost no consideration for race.) At some point, full "merit" admission of talented Asian-Americans and other minorities may require reducing the admission of "white" applicants. I think that there is a tension here between "merit" and "diversity"/demographic representation that needs a more searching argument. The issue here - at least outside the reach of most constitutional lawyers - is probably not race, but rather how we define and value different cultures. The challenge for colleges - and for the Justice Department and the President it reflects - is to create a wide array of cultures, using ethnic background as a rough measure of particular cultures, without larger ethnic groups feeling crowded out.
For once, I agree with Supreme Court Justice Thomas that so-called "affirmative action" is an unconstitutional excuse to favor underachieving applicants to schools and businesses. We did the same thing in the law firm of which I was a partner. It never worked. At the same time, there's a legitimate question whether discrimination in favor of "legacy" and other candidates selected on the basis of what their forebears did -- in the form of gifts or business opportunities -- is justified. That isn't "invidious" discrimination, but it's inconsistent with the tax-exempt status of institutions that do it.
3
First, the students benefiting from affirmative action are not mediocre. You are talking about an elite school with many more qualified applicants than open spots, and you make it sound as if the students accepted under the program were otherwise on track for community college.
Second, the goal of affirmative action is not to create some optimal level of diversity on campus, whatever that might be, but rather to attempt to correct for the systemic racism that has prevented nonwhites from entering positions of power where they can contribute to the goal you seek, which is to stop discriminating based on race. If we want to keep the state out of it, we need representation in power in private institutions.
And finally, I beg you to reconsider your comparison of your position as a conservative writer at the Times to minority students seeking equal access to education.
7
"Affirmative Action" at elite colleges mirrors the unholy alliance between the ruling elite (Tech, Wall Street, Media are admitted based on legacy status, donor status and "networking") and upperclass African Americans and charlatans such as Elizabeth Warren (who self identified as a native American woman of color).
The goal is to exclude non-favored ethnic and cultural groups to maintain the hegemony of the East and West coast privileged classes over the unfavored groups.
2
Or, the people who complain of affirmative action hires dont understand affirmative action and use it as a cipher for the very bigotry AfAc works to dissemble. Grades and test scores offer only a glimpse into a student. If I want a class or an office full of creative, intellectually hungry, flexible, driven, dynamic thinkers, Im surely not hiring (or admitting) all the top test scores. This is why the use of the SAT and AP is on the wane - they dont tell you much more than that the student is good at jumping through hoops (one version of drive, whose import is offset by what else we know of test scores). If you have been a teacher you know the difference. Which gets back to the basis for the personality evaluations made without meeting the student: as Harvard's president said, these are also made using recommendations from teachers and counselors. And perhaps these are also based on the 'voice' and message in the application essay. To argue against holistic admission, to say that the highest scores are admitted, is to advocate the anti-meritocratic privileging of money. This isn't a meritocracy when paying to get ahead is rewarded - including people of all incomes who scrape to pay for test prep, or athletes recruited to play for a school team that makes the school money, or donor's kids, etc - over all of the human qualities above that anyone can have, from any background. Let's nurture those by looking at the breadth of what a candidate offers. That is how you got hired.
4
What astounds me is the benefit athletes receive at Ivy League (and similar schools - ie Stamford, NU, Duke, etc). I have personally seen far too many students with notably lower grades and scores who come from elite schools and wealthy areas admitted simply on athletics.
Isn't the focus academics? Why isn't it good enough to take the best students and let the sports fall where they may? Plenty of less talented, but more aptly fitted students would step up and play sports. The focus on sports in misguided.
7
It's no surprise that Stephens doesn't assess the "fairness" of legacy-based affirmative action in admissions. It's minorities that are "injured" by affirmative action, but he doesn't mention any possible damage from legacy-action. If it's really "injury" is what he is concerned about, why not lament legacies? We know why not.
At least he acknowledged that :"The world of college admissions is a fixed pie." Though he fails to mention that it is "fixed" mostly in favor of wealthy scions, who, it turns out, must be accommodated but without question.
"It’s corrosive to live in the clutch of someone else’s lie." Also corrosive is to live in the clutch of unquestioned privilege assigned solely by net worth.
1
A favored class that no one talks about is males. Without some consideration for gender balance, college populations would be majority female. Would men want that “corrosive” advantage to go away? Somehow I doubt it. And we all might want the benefit of having a college population that reflects society’s distribution of gender (or other factors).
2
@Marianne
"college populations would be majority female."
Would be?
They Are majority female. Further, only about 40% for college degrees go to males. If that number were reversed, it would be on every front page, in every talk show's line-up. it would be seen--quite appropriately--as an issue to be solved.
6
The flaw in the lawsuit’s argument, and by extension Mr. Stephens’s, are the assumptions that (1) there is an objective standard for academic potential and (2) that academic potential is the sole criterion for admission. Neither of these assumptions is correct.
Admission to an “elite” university is not a reward for past performance - it a reflection of future potential. Evaluating past performance is difficult enough because of differing grading standards and the well-publicized problems with standardized tests. Projecting performance is much more difficult - no easier in academics than it is in any other part of life. Past performance is certainly a factor but it is not the only determinant.
Harvard and other universities are quite clear than academic potential is not the only criterion for admission. For generations, Harvard has been open about the fact that it seeks to create a well-rounded student body that includes athletes, musicians, artists, etc. It believes, correctly in my opinion, that a significant educational value in exposing students to a wide variety of excellence and experience - non-academic as well as academic.
Any Ivy admissions officer will tell you that 80% or more of its applicant are academically qualified. Selecting the 5-10% of that will be admitted means that 70% or more academically-qualified will be denied.
8
I was a white, blue collar kid from Saginaw, first generation college student, who had the good fortune of being admitted to Harvard and graduating from there, even though I never felt I deserved to have that good fortune. I arrived on campus with wisdom and ignorance and love and friendship and misjudgments that needed correcting that resulted from my upbringing, and the parochial school I attended that didn't teach math or science properly or at all. My ACT score reflected that. I read a lot and I wrote a lot. My ACT score reflected that too. I'm so very grateful I got to spend four years there, and that experience has made me a life long learner and a deeply joyful person. I remember my boyfriend in college telling me and his roommate that his daddy said he paid our tuition. (His roommate and I both had work study jobs and got financial aid so we could afford to attend. My boyfriend paid full tuition based on his parents' income). I told him, "Well if that's the case sit down, because I need to make sure your dad gets his money's worth." I explained how meeting me, learning about where I come from, some of the limitations and the privileges I grew up with, all this made me who I am, and who I am in turn enriches his own education, and informs his own ability to live and be in this great big beautiful world. Did I deserve to get into Harvard? I still don't think I did. Like many things in life, it was a blessing. And I'm still so very grateful.
8
Before we go to "merit" based admissions, somebody needs to define merit for me. Is it measured by SAT/ACT score? If so nearly half of Harvard's applicants score in the top 2% on these tests. How about GPA? Again nearly half of Harvard's applicants have GPA's above 4.0. Plus the ACT/SAT scores are only weakly correlated to 1st semester freshmen year grades and not much else, so why are they even considered? So, once again a simple questions what's "merit"?
8
Those are excellent questions, and they’re exactly the questions we should be asking. Since Harvard, like virtually all colleges in America, is heavily subsidized, we should demand that it use fair admission policies. Using race, religion, gender, etc is as repugnant as it would be when making hiring decisions. I would argue that using donations, family connections, and athletic abilities is equally repugnant. So let’s move beyond all that and talk about merit.
1
Mr. Stephens, your readers might be interested to know that three of the lawyers representing the Asian-American plaintiffs clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, an opponent of affirmative action. The undergraduate composition of Harvard College is now 22 per-cent Asian-American. If the Admissions people relied on only grades to admit students, that number would rise to 43 per cent.
There are other criteria that Harvard employs: Whether a student has musical ability, acting and theatrical talent, athletic ability, and yes, personality. Harvard, like most other colleges, does not want too many nerds and introverts. Such quiet people don't go into politics or become business leaders, where it is important to adjust easily to other people. Isaac Newton was the greatest mind in western history, but you wouldn't want a class of such solitary, schizoid thinkers.
The Admissions staff at Harvard are experienced, intelligent people. Although every person has unconscious biases, Harvard no longer uses racial or religious tests. It selects a balanced group of students, many who go on to have distinguished careers in science, the arts, teaching, business, and government.
6
@Diogenes: Are you implying that academically gifted Asians are more prone to be "solitary, schizoid thinkers" and "nerds and introversts" than academically gifted non-Asians? Affirmative action is a less than ideal cure, and it would be preferable to prevent the sickness in the first place: Appropriate funding for chronically underfunded and mediocre public education in predominantly minority public schools from K-12, reinforcing the low social status of minorities. But as long as there's no political will to invest in prevention, we'll need the cure. The relatively few Black and Hispanic students who conquered the obstacle of mediocre schools and lack of an academically oriented environment, and excelled academically at the level of admissability to an elite college, certainly deserve a leg up in the admissions process. They have shown motivation, grit and perseverance under challenging circumstances that are generally much less challenging for their white and Asian counterparts. But admissions policies should consider the actual personal histories of their applicants of course. Not all minority students are underprivileged and not all white and Asian students come from privileged backgrounds.
If you read the news story about evidence and testimony at the trial you find that the situation is more complicated. The children of the rich (especially those who have or might make substantial donation get a"tip"). Good athletes get a "tip." Students from rural areas get a "tip." Student counselors evaluations have a substantial impact. Prospective students expected majors have an influence, e.g. "humanists" get a "tip." This is a very complicated subject and there is nothing to be gained by simplifying it.
1
The debate about AA arises from two issues:
- confusion about what it precisely means.
- confusion about how it should be implemented.
I've taught at 10 colleges, and I've also won a case of reverse discrimination against me, so I've seen these confusions in play.
The original intention of the term "affirmative action" was to compel employers to take "affirmative action" to strictly adhere to nondiscrimination in hiring practices. (We'll lump college admissions into that category.)
However, over time that "definition" expanded in different directions, including "ensure diversity" and/or "give underrepresented/underprivileged categories a leg up" and/or "make up for the legacy of discrimination."
At one college where I taught, the faculty were instructed: "We have an aggressive AA policy. You're not allowed to ask aplicants their race, but you can infer that from their name, an accent, their professional memberships, etc." Whoa; that's NOT the intention of AA!
I won my reverse-discrimination case against a college where the Dean pronounced: "The Dept needs more women, therefore I want you to only interview women." Again, that's a corruption of how AA is supposed to work.
If we're going to keep having AA, then the most "reasonable" way that I've seen it applied is: Ignore race/gender in all rounds of the process until the end. Then, if two candidates have equal qualifications, give preference to the underrepresented class.
Then we can debate if we still need it.
6
A great deal of thoughtful commentary but few ideas for remedies or improvement. I'd love to see these people try to decide "who gets in". The number of applicants vs. open slots is daunting. If there is active discrimination, it should be crushed immediately. Many decades ago, my mother was in the admissions loop at Harvard's graduate school and she would come home and at dinner tell harrowing tales of trying to decide. It's a tough game even for the best meaning of them.
Harvard accepts 5% of its applicants. Probably a number of the 95% not rated quite good enough would do well at Harvard and afterwards, the afterwards part being important because the success of the alumni is principal source of Harvard's storied reputation. Maintaining the illusion that the admissions board Harvard has an objective algorithm that they're fudging to grant access to certain minorities ignores the reality that there is a certain interchangeability between all these talented young people. Maybe they should have a merit based lo
ttery.
2
In a Capitalist economy when demand goes up, supply goes up, but not at Ivy League schools or Medical schools. That's the problem, the elites want to stay elite. I say Ivy colleges and medical schools should grow to admit as many students as possible while maintaining reasonably high standards. Imagine any other public concern with such an elitist attitude? "Sorry sir we are only going to sell 2300 Chevy this year to maintain our elite status." Nuts! Increase the supply to meet the demand and watch society benefit from more doctors who have to charge less for example. Imagine that. You may call me a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
3
In a Capitalist economy when demand goes up, supply goes up, but not at Ivy League schools or Medical schools. That's the problem, the elites want to stay elite. I say Ivy colleges and medical schools should grow to admit as many students as possible while maintaining reasonably high standards. Imagine any other public concern with such an elitist attitude? "Sorry sir we are only going to sell 2300 Chevys this year to maintain our elite status." Nuts! Increase the supply to meet the demand and watch society benefit from more doctors who have to charge less for example. Imagine that. You may call me a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
3
Mr. Stephens you need to read book, The Shape of River, which, in great detail provides data supporting the concept of Affirmative Action. Admittedly, no matter how you formulate an affirmative action policy, it will be messy---but, as the authors of the book point out, upon graduation, those who are admitted under an affirmative action policy, return their expertise and monies to communities most in need of these services. What the data also shows is there is no significant statistical difference between the test scores of those admitted under affirmative action policies and those admitted under regular admission standards. Now having said that, I would draw a line with the other less mentioned affirmative action program---that of legacies and those students whose parents will offer a generous contribution to whatever building project is being planned. It is unfair to me, that a George Bush or Jared Kushner are even considered for admission to an Ivy League school.
6
As a mid-50's 1/2 Chinese 1st generation American where both sides of the family came from very challenging WWII backgrounds. We faced the normal biases of the 60's and 70's one would expect and through hard work, the immigrant held beliefs that no barriers are insurmountable and luck, our family has thrived. But when my four children sought entry to colleges, my (Jewish) wife and I knew that any reference their Chinese heritage would be a significant negative. It has been know for a generation that the most selective schools trade in racial prejudice against Asians. In more recent years my 30 year old son must routinely meet with Deans/Associate Deans of admissions for top 50 ranked schools for his job. His 1/4 Chinese heritage allows him to "pass" and it is shocking the frequent discussion that is held. "We have enough Chinese" "We have too many Asians". He has never heard - "We have too many whites or too many Blacks" Harvard's original pretext for eliminating merit based admissions in the early 20th century was to cap Jews. They succeeded for 30 years. It's now Asians. Today it's Asians. Tomorrow religion may be be the new affirmative action. Too many Jews, too many Christians, or too many fill in the blank. Unlike many parts of society, Universities are a zero sum game - a club with fixed numbers. We should aspire for a society that is based on merit.
7
Possibly the best, most sensible opinion piece I've read in the NYT this year. And frankly, a bit of a surprise to see this point of view represented here(do I need to explain why?). But a welcome one surely. Thank you New York Times!
10
Affirmative action is important in providing equal opportunity. It is at its best when it gives a hand to those overcoming challenging socioeconomic conditions. It is perplexing when sons and daughters of well off professionals, going to the best public/private schools take advantage of it.
3
If my memory serves me correctly, affirmative action was supposed to be a temporary system. If all students went to well funded and well run schools students would get an equal chance to do well academically. Unfortunately parental income would be harder to equalize and family dynamics and income would all impact academic achievement for many kids. For many children academic achievement would be negatively impacted by complicated family dynamics and poverty. How do College’s take that into consideration when it comes to admissions. What does it mean to be academically well prepared, where does merit fit in especially for kids who are hungry and cold at night. As a society we haven’t found a way to give kids an equal chance to succeed. What complicates things further is that equal opportunity and equal access doesn’t guarantee equal outcome. Not everyone is smart enough for college, regardless of race ,nor are all students interested in an academic experience. How do we create an economy that values those students so they have access to good jobs without pushing themselves into 4 year colleges where they often drop out without a degree but with loans to repay. College degrees have lost much meaning when studies show many students learn little, and grade inflation makes academic achievement hard to measure.
Education costs us millions yet we still struggle to do it fairly and honestly.
1
Bret Stephens naively accepts the existence of "meritocracy," and even more naively thinks that it can be measured fairly and objectively by GPAs and SAT scores. Surely Stephens knows that "meritocracy" was coined by British sociologist Michael Young, who warned against the foolishness of thinking that we could choose the next generation of the elite on the basis of--let's face it--how well teenage kids perform during their first two years of high school. The idea of allocating society's resources and staking so much of its future on grades and test scores is not merely unfair, but utterly misguided.
5
All the evidence cited is not evidence until it's shown. At this point they are are just accusations by a politically motivated right wing group. The trial is in progress so we'll see. And we all know the games such groups can play with statistics.
What we do know is that what's really happening at Harvard is that legacies are the biggest factor, and they overwhelmingly favor whites. I would take these right wing groups more seriously when address the legacy issue. In fact, I suspect that their statistics don't include legacies.
2
Other reports have shown that legacy kids have a 30% chance of admission—800% higher than non-legacies. Is that a “right-wing” talking point too? Why are you defending an arbitrary black box admissions system that unfairly privileges certain racial and class groups?
The piece assumes that any tilting of the playing field favors less qualified applicants over more qualified ones. No, affirmative action is predicated on finding equally qualified applicants from historically underrepresented groups and removing the systemic barriers to their success. "Mediocrity" more fairly describes a culture whose leaders have mostly come from the establishment demographic (yes: mine). The asterisk belongs on the resumes of its mediocre members who have always won out over their otherwise-peers who suffered discrimination. The playing field has always been tilted; it needs leveling out.
Does affirmative action ever allow someone less qualified a chance? Of course. But the gains far outweigh the few real examples of this.
5
@Pete
Thanks for getting it. I laugh when people call Barack Obama an affirmative action student at Harvard as if that made him automatically sub-par. I'm sure he was an attractive candidate in the 'diversity' sense, but anyone who believes he was not qualified is, well, a moron. And, I don't like to speak for other people, but somehow I can't imagine that Mr. Obama worries a lot about whether people were "humoring" him. Mr. Stephens should work on his feelings of self-worth a little bit.
I often tell the story about how an HR guy at my first engineering job told me I didn't "fit the image" of the "old and venerable" company I was interviewing with and so I wouldn't be receiving an offer. I'm a woman. He told me this ten minutes after the chief engineer took one look at my resume and made me offer on the spot.
That was the sort of barrier affirmative action was supposed to break down. Has the whole issue gotten a little weird and muddled? Maybe, but that's no reason to give up.
2
It is so noble of you to describe yourself as mediocre! But speak for yourself. I happen to disagree that carefully curating particular racial ratios among students fights “mediocrity.” In fact, such an emphasis on racial “balancing” (quotas) is what creates mediocrity.
Thou doth protest too much Sir.
The quote from Supreme Roberts was the rationalization for eviscerating the voting rights act.
7
Affirmative action is pernicious for many reasons. First, it strongly suggests that entire groups of people are simply unable to compete without a special dispensation. Isn't that the very essence of racism? Second, the special dispensation is based upon some observable trait or claimed status, whether or not that makes any sense to the decision at hand. For example, someone with a Hispanic surname whose parents are in the 1% gets a boost to his college application despite enjoying numerous advantages over someone in a lower SES but from a non-favored group. Third, members of a favored class have their accomplishments devalued because outside observers are left to wonder how much of the educational attainment or career success is a result of affirmative action versus individual merit. For example, did Clarence Thomas or Colin Powell achieve their success is spite of their race or because of it?
110
I agree with Earl W. of New Bern. In addition, I second a blind admission process of full name, citizenship and ethnicity. It is then likely that diverse, qualified and driven individuals will be admitted.
5
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/19/most-white-americans-wi... W. No, it's not racism. It attempts to mitigate the institutionalized racism that still exists in education. I assume you are also against legacy admissions at highly selective schools?
@Earl W.
affirmative action is not pernicious. it is the remedy to bias. and its goal is only to match the utilization with the availability. nothing wrong with using data to eliminate prejudice.
Mr. Stephens admiringly quotes Justice Roberts: "“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race".
Yes, the same Justice Roberts who wrote the majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder. which invalidated parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. The net result of which is ... the discrimination based on race against minority and poor voters (Voter IDs, closing down polling places in minority neighborhoods, specious editing of registration rolls, etc).
4
Affirmative Action was a good idea initially. At this point, however, the stigma attached -- the question mark of whether a person was hired or admitted due to something other than their qualifications and abilities -- probably outweighs the benefit. And how long should it last before qualifications become the only criteria?
Particularly if ultimately some who benefit from AA under perform as students or employees. Not all obviously, but if a disproportional number of a given group do, that validates the question mark.
As far as elite schools such as a Harvard, they have more than enough qualified applicants to fill each class. If the number of available seats is 2000, and they have 40k applicants -- why not take the top 6k or so and randomly select? Or make it 10k -- as long as they are all qualified. Ultimately, if you combine the Ivies, the great other private schools as well as the top public U's every qualified person should be able to get into an outstanding school. And all of the top schools have leaders in their respective fields -- Harvard and the Ivies don't have the market cornered. And seriously, as long as the curriculum is not watered down (at top schools it is unlikely) then does it matter who teaches the course? Full professors often either dodge teaching undergrads, or they may be great thinkers, but maybe not great teachers.
3
I got into medical school because the univeristy had to fill a minority quota and could not find enough qualified Hispanics. I do not have a Latin surname nor do I speak Spanish and my skin is as white as snow, but I appreciate the opportunity they gave me none the less and I graduated near the top of my class.
AA should be a form of privilege for minority students, just like wealth and lineage are privileges for white students, but not a form of discrimination wielded against other well qualified applicants. A school should be encouraged to fill minority quotas, but don’t penalize other cultural groups because they don’t fit the underrepresented quota definition.
4
I just want people to consider the following:
1.) Many white people were never involved in discrimination.
2.) Many white people have never benefited from discrimination.
3.) Many white families emigrated (legally) to the US after slavery was abolished. They lived in areas that did not have Jim Crow.
4.) Many white families sacrificed a father, a brother, a son in the Civil War- killed to bring freedom to all citizens.
When we support policies that treat all white people the same we are supporting a racist policy. You cannot right a wrong by committing the same wrong against a different person.
We should provide every student an excellent primary education and have entry into elite institutions based solely on merit.
If we give every kid a good starting point things will correct themselves over time- unless anyone seriously considers certain races as incapable of competing on a level playing field. But only a fascist racist would believe that.
7
@WillT26
I remember a sports talk host getting angry about white athletes being smart or hard working and black athletes being talented or athletic.
Can’t the white athlete be talented?
Can’t the black athlete be smart and scrappy?
We have a long way to go to give everyone a fair start (universal preschool and child health care would sure help) . . . But this is where we must end up . . . I teach and I know that skin color has no affect on which kids can be successful!!
@WillT26 I hate to be the one to break it to you, but yes, all white people benefit from discrimination.
For the forty years or so from Reconstruction to World War One, admission to Harvard, and most other prestigious schools, was modeled after the selection of Mandarins in China. Harvard produced an outline stating what a young man should know before going to college. Boys would be given a number as an ID. They would all take a lengthy written test at the same time across the USA administered by local Harvard alumni that would be sent to Cambridge to be graded. The graders would only know the ID number. Young men who scored highest were admitted.
Harvard and Yale, but NOT Princeton, ended up having some Black, Chinese, and Asian Indian students before 1900 because each had scored well on the admission tests -- anonymously.
Harvard's President Lowell thought too many Jews were being admitted. On the train north to Boston from NYC in 1921, he said Harvard was in danger of becoming "CCNY North" should have quotas. He did not know he had been speaking with the only member of the Board who was half Jewish. The trustee talked to NYC papers and it became a cause celebre in the liberal press.
Most USA papers were NOT liberal. President Lowell was PRAISED all across the USA for coming up with a solution to keep Jews OUT. Inside of a year, quotas were put in place in nearly all the prestigious colleges, law schools, and medical schools across the USA modeled after President Lowell's system at Harvard.
4
Mr. Stephens is about to learn that if he speaks simple truths that have been violated by twisted logic that 'equailty' means treating people according to the race or gender, as people rather than demographics to be included like a petting zoo, that he will be branded a white (here, Asian?) supremacist and Trump supporter.
3
This was a brave article by Bret Stephens. He demonstrates here the quality most lacking in education today, in newspapers such as the NYTimes and in public at large: Courage, plain courage. I do not say "intellectual courage" because qualifying courage just lets plenty of cowards off the hook, as if they can be courageous in other fashion than being intellectually courageous.
It's obvious Harvard is a cowardly institution. Education in America doesn't breed courageous people. It constantly shortchanges the most brilliant, daring and adventurous minds. Of course left wing affirmative action rubbish breeds mediocrity, shortchanges the most powerful minds. Of course it's absurd that after Millenniums of human history and people trying to grapple with the concept of justice a bunch of snotty left wingers are going to come along and obviously get it right in a matter of decades. Of course it's ridiculous that fake news on social media is just of the right wing variety and being spewed by domestic and foreign agents and that a society cannot be brought down equally harmfully by a bunch of domestic and foreign left wing rubbish.
I congratulate Bret Stephens here because although he might be a person of only one idea (and he is not), at least he is founded securely on a measure of courage which outweighs all the great and various ideas of cowards. Anyone well read, with a decent library as backup, can see in an instant that much of American life is affirmative action rubbish.
4
First, I can’t feel that sorry for you, Mr. Stephens, that you’ve been called an “affirmative action hire” at the Times by some rude individual. The point is, you’ve got a job at the Times. There are always those who will try to take down anyone who has achieved significant success with a tacky insult. This is the Trump era after all. But more to the point, you CHOOSE to be a conservative, and your success has been in part due to that choice. Affirmative action is intended to help those who have faced obstacles that were NOT their choice (often a poorer education due to inferior schools, lack of financial resources, and the other challenges that face many people of color in America.)
I taught high school for nearly 40 years. I think it right that many factors can be considered for a college applicant. The vast majority of Harvard applicants are completely intellectually qualified to study there, and if not admitted for whatever reason, will be just fine.
I hope you are not suggesting that eligibility for admission be based on “academic performance” (i.e. grades and test scores) only. As we all know, Einstein was a mediocre student. The sum of a human being is far more than “academic performance” as a teenager.
8
Let US consider affirmative action for white men. Many schools want gender equality and admit white men over better qualified women. Where is that law suit?
6
Affirmative action was not about mandated selection or Harrison Bergeron ankle weights, but about fair treatment.
Harvard excluding Asians because they're hard-working, intelligent, and determined is not much different from the day Jews were excluded by Harvard for same.
The problem when cultural Marxism becomes the academic datum, which is ironic given how the New York City media works over Asians--a weakness working so hard to attain academic goals, i.e., some mindless adolescent partying might be in order.
8
The affirmative action we need is massive intervention in a highly unequal K-12 public school system.
12
Excellent, unlike today's NYT coverage of this case,
"Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court," (By Anemona Hartocollis) which annoyed me, in part, on a point that you got right "If you’re going to say yes to Jack, you’ll have to say no to Jill. The world of college admissions is a fixed pie." In contrast, Hartocollis writes "A lack of deep pockets won’t hinder a hopeful and might even help one’s chances." One can’t have it both ways in a zero-sum game. Logically, if deep pockets helps even one student, then this preference had a detrimental effect on every student without deep pockets.
I was irked by something else in Hartocollis' coverage: “Mr. Fitzsimmons said this week that one factor that could explain why Asian-American applicants get lower personal ratings may be....many guidance counselors are simply unable to get to know students in depth, and could very well introduce stereotypes....“If a school counselor is spending eight minutes per year with a student, it’s so much easier for those biases to play in, because you don’t know that individual very well,” Mr. Sklarow said.
Harvard can’t both rely on, and then turn around and blame high school counselors if it knows their recommendations are potentially biased and shallow. Harvard must take responsibility for giving these recommendations credibility and weight.
2
Mr. Stephens, here's what you get wrong about your own hiring. You were not "less deserving," or talented, or whatever, you were hired because it was important to the newspaper to have your viewpoint included. It was important to the readership to provide a diversity of viewpoints.
3
Let's wait until the math adds up. One side (the plaintiffs) say that their statistical analysis proves that "Asian-Americans" applicants (quite different subgoupi lumped into one category) have been disadvantaged. The other side (defendants) say that the statistics have been tortured until they prove a false narrative. First, wait until all data is presented. Anything else, however toothsome (look at those emails about donor's offspring!) is melodrama and distraction.
Also, right-wing conservatives who are arguing for so-called "objective standards" (test scores plus grades plus notching up extracurricular activities = you deserve to be admitted) - that is a also a fantasy-land mindset. Exactly who is so mean that they don't realize that tests and grades can be coached up by paying tutors, or reflect economic and social advantages, or that disadvantaged children don't have this leg up, and could be smarter but without acing the SAT?
So tired of the shouting.
4
I volunteer teaching literacy to inmates. Most have horrible histories of childhood. Poverty. Addicted and prostitute parents, physical, emotional, sexual abuse, expulsion from junior high or early high school, functional illiteracy. Sex trade. Co-opted into gangs at 12 or 16, by distant male relatives. Child homelessness and food insecurity. Most are minorities.
They are every bit as smart as me, as empathetic, intuitive, moral. Just more hopeless, and with good reason. They live in prison.
Children buried in neighborhoods where nobody walks safely or freely, children sleeping under the steps of corners of those neighborhoods, unsure if they should hide or be seen, afraid of the light, so distant from opportunity.
Stephens, who make the choice, to use the valuable real estate of this column, to air his woes, is perfect evidence of a fundamentally obvious truth: there are no diversity hires here. What a silly conceit to cast himself as a character in a story about affirmative action.
To be ignorant of your immense luck in life, is to be ignorant of the misfortune and the suffering of others, it truly is.
24
As a teacher, I know that grades and SAT scores are not the most important part of a student's resume. To focus only on grades is ridiculous. A more wholistic approach to evaluating candidates is known to be preferable. This lawsuit focuses only on a student's eligibility based on academic scores which can be very deceiving. If we want to get rid of admissions categories, let us start with legacy, sports and wealth. Do the students admitted because of these categories feel any less worthy of their spots because they were obtained by these means? Of course not. Let us be clear, affirmative action is one of the only admissions of institutional racism by this county and need for reparations to those affected. Affirmative Action is also a tool of national reconciliation. To focus on a single aspect of the admissions process signals a return to national amnesia which does not benefit students, universities or our society.
150
@Stressed Teacher.
As a teacher SAT scores are not important at all. You have to teach to make kids the best they can be.
As a nation you need the best and the brightest (SAT scores very important here-you can't affect these scores much by coaching or teaching) to defend the country against invasion by developing the best technologies.
I hope you understand that people like Einstein and Tesla are not just good test takers but the reason why others have not invaded the USA. If you throw these folks under the bus you might not have a job, food to eat or safe harbor.
Make no mistake about it, the income inequalities you see right now is a reflection of a weakening advantage we have from years of neglecting our geniuses.
There should be plenty of schooling available for all to support our diverse population of citizens but the best and brightest need the highest resources we can give them. Whether at Harvard or elsewhere
1
@Stressed Teacher
Oh boy, your reading of the "lawsuit" has some deficiencies.
First and foremost is the lawsuit is on the behalf of Asian-Americans; one might be aware of "institutional racism" concerning the Asians, and/or Asian-Americans in our history. From the exclusion of Asian immigrants, and up until now (Harvard's new racism against Asians-Americans; just too dang many, and they a'int friendly enough, etc.).
As a "teacher" one must be aware of the details of the lawsuit, it has been in the news. It is not about "just grades and SAT scores", it is about internal memos inside the Harvard Admissions Department; and how it appears quotas are Harvards answer.
Affirmative action might just be a new racism through 'new speak'. Orwell was prescient, no?
I do agree "legacy" admissions, along with "sports" admissions (and others) should require further 'holistic' measures. Harvard allows these 'special individuals' for a simple reason- donations, etc. (read money).
I believe economic circumstances could replace "race", it is against the law to discriminate on the basis of race. Correct me if I am wrong, please.
2
How does discriminating against Asians, a traditionally discriminated against minority group in this country and seems to be the only minority racial group that is okay to be minimized, stereotyped, and ridiculed, bring about this rehabilitation of historical wrongs? I am seriously confused. Please explain.
2
What a spurious and disingenuous argument. Those from disadvantaged backgrounds also deserve to attend Harvard. It's called diversity and it is really the best part of the US.
1
The quality of public schools differs greatly based on the zip code you live in. Most Black and Latino students live in neighborhoods with subpar public schools. Affirmative action allows the best and brightest of these minority students to enter college. 23% of Harvard students are Asians. This far exceeds the percentage of Asians in the populace. Conservative whites are using Asians in order to cut back the number of black and Latino students at elite universities.
125
@Haddad - if we are going to start arguing that the percentages of ethnic groups represent exactly the percentages in the general "populace," we may as well return to the Jewish quota. Jews are about 1% of the population of the country at large, yet have managed to get into Harvard at somewhat higher rates since Harvard decided to lift its completely anti-semitic practices some time ago. Asians should be admitted for qualifications. End of story.
1
@Haddad Untrue. If you check the data on Harvard's class of 2001, fifteen percent are Black -- a higher % than in our total population.
3
@Haddad In NYC, Asians are actually the poorest socioeconomic group, but still consistently make the largest percentage of the students in the Specialized High Schools. Across the country, Asians have the greatest divide between wealthy and poor. In other woods, the idea that all Asians grow up in tony neighborhoods and coast into elite schools is nonsense.
Furthermore, the idea that affirmative action somehow boosts poor minorities is nonsense - which is why universities like Harvard have repeatedly rejected moving to a race-blind but socio-economic conscious admissions standards. Their own models show that the number of black and latino students admitted would drop precipitously. These policies are helping already privileged students who can't compete academically with other Harvard applicants but who just happen to have some extra melanin.
1
Who cares about fact - let alone the data on which it is based...
Credible narrative is so much simpler to live and act by - and campaign and crusade on...
These days, credibility is the crowdthink...
Long before 140 or 280 characters framed the most authoritative - not authoritarian - human narrative, there was a limit 10X more terse...
What could fit on a bumper sticker...
"Act affirmatively to end affirmative action"
A third as long as a classic tweet - but 3X too many syllables for a bumper sticker...
"End AA yesterday"
Getting closer - see what a focus group thinks...
1
It is not as if Harvard has a reputation to protect. We all know that Harvard was racist, and was strongly antisemitic in its admissions policies for many years. The brilliant Jewish economist Paul Samuelson was quite clear and open about Harvard's antisemitism when he was a graduate student there. He was quite open that he had to take a job setting up the Economics Department at MIT because of antisemitism at Harvard.
As brilliant as Samuelson was, Harvard was not interested in hiring him because he was Jewish.
Shame on Harvard.
Now there is credible evidence that Harvard's racism is still very much alive and well. Now Harvard's racism apparently is excluding Asians because antisemitism is not quite as acceptable as it once was, in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
2
"...that what is supposed to be a powerful method for inclusion is an equally powerful method of exclusion."
This theory only holds water if one considers the entire universe of acceptable universities to consist of Harvard. When viewed from a larger perspective, affirmative action (and the increasing number of students attending US colleges from around the world) means that academically strong students must broaden their outlook (even beyond the Ivies!) - and we already see this in acceptance rates dipping lower and SATs/GPA numbers increasing dramatically in many wonderful institutions across the country.
1
Mr. Stephens' column today is perfectly understood by those who can reason with logic.
He will be completely misunderstood by those of us who try to reason with emotion.
Ask yourself what affirmative action affirms. The correct answer is what Justice Roberts wrote and is reprinted below.
The liberal half of us need to copy this fine piece and post it on their Fridge for a daily rereading until they get it. Sadly, they never will.
6
So Brett Stephens, a White, Jewish male, believes he understands the sting that people of color*may* face over affirmative action? I have never heard of "affirmative action hiring" for White conservatives. That's not what affirmative action means. I think here's out of line in trying to represent someone else's experience in service to an anti-equity conservative argument.
3
I’m pretty skeptical about the benefits of affirmative action to society as a whole. But to say it has to hurt those it helps is nonsense. Legacies get a bigger boost in admissions than favored racial minorities. But you never hear about the terrible burden of being a Harvard alum who got in because mommy or daddy went there.
206
@berkeleyhunt. As a Harvard student, I greatly appreciated those legacy admissions. They filled up the bottom 10% of the class, thus reducing the anxiety of the rest of us at exam time.
3
Mr. Stephens;
Your column, just as many comments, and the entire history of affirmative action, never defines AA. That opens the landscape for any form of privilege or preference, thus every argument meritorious. No decisions because deciding at all means winners and losers.
My public service is in a career that is a traditional social change agent (through demands for ethnic -based, and now including gender-based hiring/promotion). The pool of race and ethnicity is measured regularly to see if the results reflect the predicted demographics. Yes, these are quotas - but they were merely implied, not explicit, so that the bureaucracy can preserve pseudo-neutrality while wanting us to hide loading the dice.
Ultimately we learned better (from a wise and talented Equal Employment Opportunity manager):
1, Hiring and promotions are like a funnel.
2. Affirmative Action is getting as many qualified candidates as possible into the top of the funnel.
3. The selection process takes place in the funnel in the "most race and gender neutral process we can create", which is almost always evaluation of actually performing and/or simulating the job.
The best performers exit the funnel first, to be hired or promoted in order.
Unfortunately, debaters of AA presume we're all talking about the same thing. It's no surprise there is not progress.
To end discrimination is to end thousands of subtle practices that is discrinatory. For exampl when reporting a story by any media outlet print or otherwise, describing individuals by their race or color, that is discriminatory. Affirmative action hiring in some firms is quite crude and a numbers game which serves no worker. Also, some firms tilt so much in the favor Affirmative Action laws, because they fear repercussions of law suits. Ambulance chasers hover about the bigger corporations. Merit, capabilitiy, experience, education and determination as well as being personable within interview settings is the only way I ever hired and it had worked fine resulting in a racial and gender diversified staff - we had a sucessful decades long run together. Not everyone had all of the qualities above but everyone had enough of most of the traits.
Bret Stephens, I agree that in 21st Century America, there is no longer any place for what is called "race-based" affirmative action.
Harvard law professors reveal in their columns in the Times and I think in the New Yorker as well that they have 18th century views on the concept of "race" as do those who speak for Harvard Admissions.
All these Harvards appear to believe the US Census Bureau's archaic system of classifying us Americans and even go so far as to believe that based on a tiny sample of "Asians" they know how Asians behave. One Harvard law professor writes of the students and applicants as ASIANS even though many of those she is referring to must have been born in the USA.
I have not seen in any columns bearing on the Harvard case a statement by anyone from Harvard just what criteria are used to determine a person'¨s "race". Perhaps Harvard practices what has been all too common practice in American medical research. If a person says she belongs to race x, the researcher uses that as a key research variable. Not acceptable.
As a Swedish citizen in addition to US, I prefer the Swedish system. Tuition-free admission to college, university, medical school based on academic record. Admission to medical school directly from high school (gymnasium). That opens the door for diversity.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
I don't know if the beginning of Mr. Stephens column quite hits the mark, given that it is unlikely that someone in a position to write for the Times, either fairly or unfairly, is suffering. But, I understand Mr. Stephen's overall point. The reality is that affirmative action in college admissions should not be destroyed. While the Harvard case is horrible, it should not be a call to kill affirmative action. It is not about affirmative action, but a Harvard admissions office that had too many applications and used stereotypes to syphon through them. In reality, affirmative action is a policy that is meant to help the victims of institutional and historical racism. Yes, it should be done on a case by case basis. No, affirmative action should not be destroyed by the Supreme Court.
1
While i grant that calling someone an affirmative action hire is a gross insult, Stephens' devoting three paragraphs to himself as victim is a dubious choice of precious space. The lawsuit raises difficult questions not only about what is legally permitted, but what is a social good, and what leeway private universities should have in these decisions. That Asian-Americans are winnowed out based on dubious measures of personality or likeability violates my most basic notions of fairness. But, without meaning to sound glib, so does much of American life. That elite universities must choose among applicants of European, African or Asian lineage and varying economic status is an arithmetic fact. I don't envy them.
2
"Still, I can’t help but think that critics of the plaintiffs are right in at least one respect: Those “busy and bright” kids who aren’t going to Harvard will be fine. Most will still get into great schools and have good careers. They might rage against an institution that turned them away unfairly. Yet deep down they’ll have the satisfaction of knowing their own worth."
You really think this is limited to Harvard, Yale and maybe Princeton? I wouldn't be so sure; "Average" Asian students are not going to have it easy getting in to more mid-tier schools when they're competing with other Asians with better qualifications who are swimming in the same applicant pool because of the de facto quotas at higher ranked institutions.
Asian Harvard applicants who realistically could have gotten in will be fine because they'll get into the next few quality tiers down of institution, but I strongly suspect there's a knock on effect all the way down and this won't be limited to a few elite institutions.
1
Respectfully...really, respectfully, I suggest that you miss the primary point. The folks from the left are not being hypocritical when they express resentment at a conservative who gets a position through a affirmative action policy. The contempt is rooted in the disdain that a conservative has for affirmative action, yet enjoys the opportunity to take advantage of it when it provides an opportunity.
1
Mr. Stephens is correct. This insidious affirmative action doesn’t pit privileged white kids against traditionally underprivileged minorities, but rather both the beneficiaries and those who lost are traditionally (and still) discriminated against minorities. Make no mistake that many of the Asian kids that many in this country find acceptable to exclude solely based on racial stereotypes are from low income, minority communities, and likely the first in their families to attend college. And for what greater purpose does this discrimination fulfill besides further endorsing the continued racist myth that Asian kids are robotic like human beings, and black and latino kids cannot compete academically or intellectually, if the game wasn’t slightly fixed by the (probably) gaggle of stoic white men behind the scenes —of course, the ultimate guardians and wisdom behind our societies most wise policies.
1
Affirmative action is a cheap solution to an expensive problem. Poor African Americans, who go to the worst primary and secondary school in the country because of the way we fund education, have a harder time competing for academic scholarships so we just let them in to prestigious schools because of their skin color where they learn that judging people by the color of their skin is wrong.
We need a Federal mandate to ban the funding of schools with property taxes and we need to spend the same amount of money, actual more because the need is greater, in poor areas as we do in rich and middle-class ones. A little innovative educating would help too. Then there wouldn’t be a need for affirmative action.
If we just spent the money to eliminate poverty in this country, then many of our racial problems would disappear or be greatly reduced but conservatives offer no solutions and liberals insist we conquer the racism in men’s souls before we help the poor. It is so much easier to rant about racism and past injustice or the unfairness of racial preferences than to convince people they need to reach into their pockets, pay more in taxes and trust the government to solve the problem of economic inequality. We would need a politics where people talk to each other instead of demonizing each other for that.
1
Bret Stevens what is your point. Is it good or bad. Besides if Harvard only admitted the best there would be no room for the legacy kids, which is the whole point of Harvard. The bright kids want to mingle with the rich kids, so they can get good jobs and connections with the rich kids parents companies.
1
No, there's nothing like a rich kid telling everyone else to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
I prefer the insight of Colin Powell, who said that the institution builds the individual. No one is Harvard material coming in, but they're all Harvard material coming out.
A reliance on John Robert's advice regarding discrimination (the way to end discrimination is to just stop discriminating) reminds me of Nancy Reagan's advice on drug use and the religious right's advice on sex (just say no). We all know how well those worked out (they didn't).
Although I have to admit I've detected a certain amount of sheepishness among the beneficiaries of affirmative action over the years about how they got to where they were, I've yet to see any sheepishness among the powerful in our country about why women and minorities were not able to crack the glass bubble in the past.
When I entered the work force in 1970 there were virtually no women or minorities to be found there. We might have taken the easy way out then to partially correct this gross unfairness with affirmative action, but at least we made substantial progress. We have yet to fully come to grips with the centuries of discrimination against women and minorities, so I'm thankful for the progress affirmative action has generated. It's provided me with the distinct pleasure of working with many women and minorities and, yes Bret, even reading conservative commentary in my favorite news source. But until you have a better solution to discrimination than just saying "no", your whining about affirmative action carries little weight.
The very first comment posted ironically perpetuates the very stereotypes Asian students face in the Ivy League admissions process. "In a few years if they are forced to judge admissions solely on SAT scores We'll get a lot of highly educated, un-innovative thinkers, scientist, etc. , like Japan and China." Asian admission candidates, Japanese, Chinese or whatever include highly innovative and creative kids. Their individual achievements speak to that and this is the whole point. Take these young people as individuals; not indistinguishable race representives being moved around on some hidden board of "social justice" chess. The term "Asian" in itself is a ridiculously broad almost useless classification that smothers vastly different relevant life experiences. In the same way a 'black' student raised by a finacially struggling single mother in Chicago has led a much different life than a 'black' student raised in a two parent home mother - doctor, father- investment banker first generation Caribbean immigrants whose families have been part of the elite of their Caribbean "old country" for generations. These are the type of differences we need to pay attention to. But the use of the blanket "Asian" category I think lessens the sting of engaging in the race based discrimination against these kids that the current shameful process necessitates. Admission officers in the back rooms race gaming the system use the term "Asian" to avoid having to look into their faces.
1
"Those 'busy and bright' kids who aren’t going to Harvard will be fine. Most will still get into great schools and have good careers."
Statistically speaking, that statement dramatically understates the impact on any single student. As the Princeton study found, in order to have the same odds of acceptance at the leading private and public universities, Asian-American applicants must have, all other things the same, SAT scores that are 140 points higher than the equivalent white applicant. If, for instance, two equivalent applicants, one Asian-American and one white, apply to ten leading schools, it is not unlikely, given the odds, that the white applicant would be accepted at most of those schools and the Asian-American applicant would be accepted at none of them.
(Of course, this advantage does not hold for the small number of leading universities that do not discriminate against Asian-Americans, e.g., Berkely, University of Washington, Cal Tech. "All other things the same" means that we are comparing top suburban high school white quarterback chess-master valedictorian "Les Miserables" leads with top suburban high school Asian-American quarterback chess-master valedictorian "Les Miserables" leads. The statistics and the lawsuit have nothing to do with the tired old racial stereotypes associated with Asian-Americans. Were Asian-American applicants to receive the seats that they deserve on the merits, those seats would mostly come from rich white applicants.)
2
Every column by Brett I read brings me closer to full anaphylactic shock and reverse peristaltic action.
Not even one degree of separation from Trump. Same folk cause and effect yarns. Same strawmen opponents. Same holier than thou master of universe conceits. Same refusal to ever be accountable. Same hubris.
No Ivy League school admits only the best and the brightest. They tried it, and the suicide rate shot up. This was because everyone used to get straight A's in high school and now they were average students, relative to all the other former straight A students, so they got C's and became depressed.
So they changed the admissions standards. They didn't want only straight A students. They decided to look at other qualities, including race and gender.
If your measuring system always produces white males, then that measuring system is clearly skewed in some way. In statistics it is called "overfitting." (I'm looking at you, Republicans and Supreme Court)
Same with media. If all your columnists are liberal, the criteria by which you measure new candidates is overfitted.
Yes, it would be great if all human beings were free from all hint of bias, but that is not possible. It is deeply rooted in our psyches. We can't see our own minds, we can't see the stick we use to measure the world, but we can see the outcome, the results. Those results can be analyzed and patterns of bias can be observed.
Affirmative action is one way to counter bias. Maybe there are better criteria, but doing nothing will result in bias. It's human nature.
1
Mr. Stephens,
I'll make you a deal, I'll try to accept your merit-based world if you try to accept the fact that opportunity depends heavily on socioeconomic status, race, and gender. Maybe you could start with your next column.
3
This Harvard law suit is not about Affirmative Action. It is about discrimination against Asian students in America. It is also about using the name of Affirmative Action to favor other not-so-outstanding students. If the law suit is successful, the Affirmative Action will not be changed but the discrimination will be obviously reduced. It took Jewish students a great deal to achieve what it is today. It will take Asian students more to reach equal status as any other.
3
A disproportionate number of Asians want to attend Harvard. Their admission would give Harvard a student body with more traditional and objective qualifications but less diversity.
Mr. Stephens says that the minorities recruited are tainted and so they are the real victims. I was at Harvard when affirmative action was common. The minorities who were admitted generally came from underprivileged backgrounds. I believe most of them felt that it was tougher for them to get in because many of them came from poor, single parent households in dangerous neighborhoods with inferior schools.
Because their backgrounds worked against them, I believe that most felt that a boost was not a mark of shame.
1
"There have been millions and millions and millions of Chinese-Americans but zero American-Chinese" says Harvard grad and Chinese author Eric Liu. Not 1. Of the few Americans granted Chinese citizenship, 100 percent were already Chinese! Both parents were not only born in the PRC but also the 'right' Chinese (Han). Why do Americans grant a right to those who would never grant it to them? Have Amercans gone soft in the head? Would China give a seat to a nonChinese American if even 1 of the tens of millions of Chinese applicants wanted that seat? Never. Under Obama we expected CHANGE and had HOPE. What America has instead seen is the largest transfer of wealth since 1492, as Chinese used the WTO to scam away US jobs, corporations, IP with grotesquely unfair trade practices. The windfall of that transfer has been to the ever-expanding Chinese military. China is following much of the playbook of Japan in the 1930s, but now we pay for Chinese worldwide imperialism. What about RECIPROCITY? Can we have that?
6
I have no clue about whether or not Affirmative Action is actually working as intended. Mr. Stephens should site the facts rather than the dogma. What is the evidence to show that it is no longer needed? I would be most impressed to see the data.
Mr. Stephens makes a personal argument, and we all know he was hired to present an alternative view. The fact that he is white and not black or brown seems to speak volumes.
Is there some doubt that Harvard acted in a way to obstruct the entry of Asian students? I would think so, in fact, much. For all we know, Harvard should be totally Asian, and affirmative action is merely used to maintain white supremacy. Let's look at the actual facts. I am not interested in Mr. Stephens self held beliefs.
1
What do great about Harvard? Yes, it frequently appears at the top of those list. You know, the one whose objective is to sell magazines to wealthy alumni. But I happen to know there are at least thousands of happy, successful people who couldn't even locate Cambridge on a map. (And no, you Harvard grads reading this,!I'm not bitter because I didn't get in.)
I wonder if the people suing Harvard realize they're confining their tiger cub stereotype with their Harvard or bust attitude.
1
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” John Roberts once wrote"
Stephens notes, " The world of college admissions is a fixed pie." In noting thus he implies that many deserving and qualified white men, who might otherwise have been admitted, will not be admitted. But he, like John Roberts, has no problem when women, African Americans, Jews, Asian Americans, Mexicans, and "others" were systematically excluded so much so that many undeserving white men were admitted to prestigious schools and given lucrative jobs.
It is entirely possible that Stephens' or Roberts' grandparents climbed up the ladder, not on the rungs but on the backs of the disadvantaged. They may not have been the most qualified, but they had the right shade of skin.
1
To Sam Finn and others who claim that race should have absolutely no role in Harvard - or any college's - admissions, please see the Forbes article below (Forbes should be an acceptable mildly conservative viewpoint for protesters):
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/09/16/job-discrimination-a...
When racism stops being a factor in hiring, home sales, policing, politics and too many other areas of life here - then we can disassemble affirmative action.
2
I seldom agree with Stephens and think he wants to have his cake and eat it too, given his agenda and anti-Trump stances.
However, he has been a great hire for the Times, and I am glad to be able to read his views.
If the Times said it wants three conservative slots in OpEd to keep that area covered - I think it's a great way. Clear, manageable. Diversity of thought is crucial for the Times to maintain its stature as an intellectual journalistic enterprise. To go from there and get Brooks, Stephens and Douthat - What's not to like?
With a clear and manageable design, these great hires could be made. There is a clear thought process for higher education to manage admissions as well.
So what is the answer? Should schools simply set certain academic score standards and then place all candidates who meet that standard into a blind lottery? That might be “fair” but I’m certain it would go over like the proverbial lead balloon with alumni and those in the development office charged with keeping the endowment coffers full.
Affirmative action only opens the door for those who would not have the chance otherwise. No one would feel less proud from this opportunity if they are confident in their abilities. I don't feel any less proud in receiving government help in paying my health insurance premiums. As for the Asian students complaints, they will succeed wherever they graduate from with their eligible abilities. The college has a right to create the diverse student body they want. Lastly, any Republican who pats themselves on the back for being anti Trump doesn't endear themselves to liberals. Any half wit would be appalled by who is currently president.
.
.
In 1968 I entered Queens College, CUNY, an excellent public institution. Admission then was based 100 percent on merit. The application was maybe two or three pages long. It asked for grades, SAT scores, and other factual information. You weren’t asked to write an essay on how you had changed the world or your leadership skills, etc. We have lost our way along the way. Merit is just one criteria among many. We are the lesser for it.
And I thought the Times hired you, Mr. Stephens, because you were a good, thoughtful writer.
2
'He's the new David Brooks', wrote a friend, when receiving an essay by Bret Stephens. No, he's not, I replied staunchly, but what he has to say is of interest, and most likely he is going to go far.
Harvard's reputation may be a bit jostled after the nomination of Bret Kavanaugh but it will survive and it sounds as if this college has a quota somewhat similar to how many Swedes are granted citizenship to take up residence in the US of A.
When my sibling wants to have an exchange over a taxing matter, or a quiet evening with his spouse, it takes place at The Harvard Club, the H-C. A friend joined us recently and exclaimed 'You are The Elite', which never fails to conjure up an expensive boutique on Madison Avenue, failing in elegance and slightly sterile. She doesn't sport a pair of whiskers like mine, added my relation, with a twinkle in his eye.
How many of us have been asked in an international humanitarian agency to prepare the documents for the acquisition of a Green Card? The latter is granted on merit and professional years of hard experience by the U.S. Government in D.C. It does not hinge on to the manner born, or one's appearance.
The term Affirmative Action sounds reminiscent of a short story by Jean Thompson in 'Soldiers of Spiritos'. The cause of a wry smile for Bret Stephens, and should I try this curse on a hard working American man of Irish origin, a staunch Republican, we might just drive off the road; two less contrary votes for the Midterms.
Mr. Stephens says that "They knew that “affirmative action,” whatever its benefits as a form of social engineering, was a synonym for mediocrity."
Well, I didn't know that. And Mr. Stephens advances no evidence that it's true.
2
Affirmative Action is a program designed to minorities upwards from the poverty they work to escape from. If society were true then we wouldn't need the program. As a child from the 60's I can say it sure seems to be working, not perfectly but in as much we still suffer from a racist culture certainly still necessary. The problem with Republicans is they are always critical of imperfect solutions (Obamacare, EPA, Education, etc) but they never provide a better path, they only want to tear down the programs Democrats devise to make society better. Next time find a better way before telling me our programs are failing.
2
One of the unpursued questions regarding this Harvard imbroglio about who is allowed admission to this school of elitists is certainly not a fight to get the best education in the US, there are hundreds of top flight schools that can provide that, but then only a handful that are similarly elitist, such as Yale. Nevertheless, why this life or death struggle to get into Harvard?
Frankly, the answer to that question is to enable Harvard graduates applying for positions to implicitly claim superiority over all other graduates of estimable schools based solely on attendance at Harvard, save for that handful of other elitists schools, and there lies a core problem.
The justices of the Supreme Court all attended either Harvard or Yale, the recent two even went to the same prep school which makes this SC the most elitist and homogeneous in the history of the Court. These are the people who will be applying their insular life experience to the critical social issues of citizens whose lives are only known to them by hearsay.
1
i'm reminded of a debate in the U.S. Senate back in the '70's when a nomination of a "Judge Carswell" was being considered for a seat on the Supreme Court. One U.S. Senator (i think from Iowa,) in response to a colleague's comment that Carswell's record was nothing more than "mediocre," replied that, "Us mediocre folks need to be represented, too."
1
Dear Mr. Stephens,
I still don't know if you support or do not support Affirmative Action!
To be blunt we've had Affirmative Action since 1965, 50+ years ago, and quite frankly how many times does a minority get a bite of the apple?
They get one in undergraduate school, then again in graduate school, then again if they go to the Michigan Law School, or any other professional school, then again when they apply for a position at a law firm or other job.
When is enough enough, after all we've elected a black president, two if you count former President Bill Clinton.
2
Come on. I can't speak to Harvard but affirmative action, like most things in this country, has probably been abused at times. But the intent is not to give unfair advantage to unqualified individuals as you seem to suggest. It's to give a fair chance to those who would be unfairly treated due to racial, social or cultural differences relative to us old white men. The power elite - old white men almost entirely - even apply this prejudicial approach to women in this, the twenty-first century! Mr. Stephens is on target if the target is his foot.
1
Affirmative action goals are noble, but half baked. In any profession, every person that would fit the affirmative action quota will carry for life the shadow or downright stigma of "you know you got there but who knows if you are that talented" and the guilt of having displaced someone else. What a double whammy. The noble goal of affirmative action, correcting past or current injustices, is also condescending: some people need help. That condescension can be interpreted as a sophisticated form of discrimination: I have power to give you an advantage. The arrogance of it all. So many loose ends.
Life is hard, and there is no perfect systems. But some are ridiculously imperfect. There can be no shadowy system to qualify candidates, and the better good is no excuse to run over individuals.
The heart of classical liberal thinking is the value of the individual, an individual that is the unit of greater communities. Some principles cannot be conditional. And affirmative action, while undoubtedly conceived with the best intentions, nests too many conditionals.
3
I agree.
Why base affirmative action on race when you could base it on historic family income?
My reading of the Constitution says that discrimination based on race is not legal.
In the long run, all will be better off once race based affirmative action is discontinued.
4
@WL
At the time the Constitution was written, we had slavery in this country. Please send me your edition of the Constitution. I'd really enjoy reading it.
1
There’s a lot more to college than grades. Let’s say that Harvard let’s the university become 43%Asian. Will that turn off other students from going to Harvard due to the balance? Will Asians contribute to the University in the same way other students of ALL RACES AND ETHNICITY do as far as sports, drama, and “clubs”. If Harvard is correct and these students have the best grades but little else, does that make them truly the best candidate?
I think Harvard’s point may be that any kid can get the best grades if all they do is study but kids who get almost as good grades and also play soccer, lacrosse, participate in theater, music or art. But kids all over the country are spreading themselves like peanut butter to get all the clubs, sports, and great grades to put on their applications. In that instance, I’d take the well rounded kid any day over the better grades.
Hard work and grit pays off ...except when the quotos kick in and say no, wrong color, ethnic group or what ever the latest fad. American is more and more a land of mixed races, genertic testing already demonstrates this. Integration has occurred. Mixed race kids and adults are everywhere now.
When george Shults and Nixon were trying to find ways to integrate some of the trade unions where all the apprentices were family members, it was truly hard to get minorities into those trades without quotos and help.
We are not there anymore. Time to get back to other than racial and ethnic profiling to get diversity...most of my grand children are already diverse. Enough said. Time for change.
2
Anyone who does hiring should be watching this case closely, because if the plaintiffs win, then it may become very hard to hire for "fit" - and fit is a crucial element of building a successful workplace.
In my experience as someone who does a lot of hiring and mentoring in my field, Ivy graduates are usually the worst (slow to understand tasks with a terrible work ethic that brings down the whole unit). I don't want to find myself in a situation where I have to hire one simply because they have the "best" degree and think they deserve whatever job they want because they went to Harvard. I want to be able to consider what service jobs they've had, if they took time off from work or school to take care of family, how they will complement and add dimension to business discussions, whether they're a jerk.
But my argument is essentially the same as Harvard's: we need to be able to consider the whole person. If Harvard has had to develop a rubric to codify their criteria across several admissions officers for 40,000 applicants, that makes sense. If race is one of those factors, fine. This private school should be able to admit whomever they want. And if it bothers you, then you can stop viewing Harvard degrees as valuable. I have!
1
No one who is confident in their abilities would feel put off by the suggestion their achievement is illigitiment because of affirmative action. I don't feel any less proud because I get financial help in paying my health insurance bill. As for the Asian students complaints, the college has a right to create the diverse student body makeup they desire. Those students with the eligible abilities will succeed wherever they graduate from and those from affirmative action help must prove themselves following graduation. Affirmative action only gives them the chance they wouldn't have and helps even the playing field. Lastly, any Republican who pats themselves on the back for being anti Trump doesn't endear themselves to liberals. Any half wit would know the individual that holds the presidency should not be there.
So many of these posts are comparing "white, upper class, preppy" students who "went to private schools" and "had every advantage in the world" to poor black kids.
As a white kid who went to an urban high school, had no legacy to boost him to college etc., this is frustrating. Kids like me aren't even in the discussion. Middle class whites don't matter to liberals.
9
If we can accept the words of graduates of Harvard (and some other "elite" institutions) the true value of a "Harvard education" is not the education but the prestige it implies. Wow, you went to Harvard? You must be really smart.
Because we have as part of our national creed that all are created equal as citizens (if not by intellects or talents) everyone in this country who is smart and ambitious wants to set themselves apart, quickly. There is no readily available, widely known means at age 17 1/2 than getting into the school where the most presidents have attended, probably the most CEOs and others who have totems of accomplishment. Graduating from Harvard implies you will do well at anything; doors are opened.
By being able to pick and choose so carefully, Harvard is able to assemble a race track full of quick minds, allowing the ambitious to rub brains together. As one friend of mine who was a visiting professor once told me, "You feel smarter just being there."
Harvard is part of the big game of getting to the top in America. Others elsewhere are just as smart, many have more insight and creativity and Harvard can't give you talent. But it can give you highly portable prestige, a moveable feast.
Harvard exists for the benefit of Harvard, those who teach, administer and otherwise drink from its trough. They discriminated blatantly in the past against Jews and blacks and they don't really care about their negative social impact, as long as the party rolls on.
2
This case, like most trials, will turn on the facts, not on grand theories about the law. Here, if it can be proven that Harvard used a different standard to measure the personality of Asian applicants than it did for white applicants, then Harvard will lose. That would be outright racial discrimination, whatever the motivations Harvard might have had for doing so.
The article states, “It isn’t a pleasant thing to live with the sense that your achievements aren’t quite real.” Yet, the entire world is essentially affirmative action for white men. It’s unstated but nevertheless true. For example, studies repeatedly show that men are hired more often than women even when both have equal qualifications. Under these circumstances, aren’t the achievements of all of men “not quite real”?
1
Calling Stephens an affirmative action hire is a joke: he is a conservative working for a liberal leaning paper. Coming from the WSJ, which used to have one affirmative action hire (one liberal leaning columnist among a plethora of conservatives), Stephens should recognize that the right (the WSJ) practices the same ideological affirmative action. Speaking of the WSJ, in his new book Max Boot indicates that the WSJ hired him long ago as an economics expert even though he knew nothing of economics. No, that's not quite accurate: the WSJ hired him as an economics expert because he knew nothing of economics, a common practice at the WSJ. That's a form of affirmative action: hiring a know-nothing to be passed off as an expert.
Isn’t it true that “two wrongs don’t make a right? “ If so, how is current discrimination a correct response to past discrimination?
3
How can the author be so ignorant about the difference between affirmative action and diversity? He is a diversity hire, which means that he was hired not to benefit him but to benefit the organization (and, presumably, readers). Affirmative action is when you hire/admit someone to help them. Diversity admissions are legal; affirmative action admissions are not.
3
@Ernie Cohen Oh come on. Diversity is corporate speak for affirmative action. It is the myth that somehow more diverse work teams outperform less diverse ones.
However, it is true that a media outlet should offer a diverse spectrum of opinion -- not to benefit their employees but to provide readers who want it a broader perspective. Presumably that will attract more readers.
1
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” As we know, the trick here is that "discriminating" carries a dual meaning; not only "differential treatment" but "perceiving a distinction" as well. In Roberts's utopia, we wouldn't even keep official track of students' race. Students of any racial or ethnic background could be freely discriminated against with no recourse or means of proving discrimination.
But if you really think about it, how would they even suffer the perceived offence of racial discrimination unless they themselves were keeping racial score? Asians zip, blacks infinity! Roberts is on to something -- the victims are the real racists! Better to turn the clock back to the time where minorities had no means of interfering with the natural hierarchy. A return to those good old boys' days would in the end benefit both Asians and blacks because they would be freed of the white man's burden of always wondering, deep down inside, if one's achievements were real, and if one could have made it into such places as Wharton Business School without daddy's bribe.
(Yes, I'm being satirical.)
"It's corrosive to live in the clutch of someone else's lie." Indeed. Mr. Stephens, the people you're referring to, who would slander you with the 'hire' epithet, are Max Scheler's 'ressentiment' types. There are many Times readers who fit this characterization. Your propositions will never override the suppositions of such folks - that's the nature of belief. I will be the judge of your work, and I say you are one of the most brilliant public intellectuals writing today. Cheers.
If only Bret were as upset about legacy admissions. Certainly, they have precious little to do with actual "merit". Well beyond the merit of wealth, but you know what I mean.
1
Mr Winkes, your words are brilliant - they are the premise of an op-ed on their own:
"If we truly care about racism, we ought to say instead that only when racism in all its nefarious forms disappears from all other aspects of our society should we abandon affirmative action, because only then will it not be needed."
For those who pretend that racism dies not exist, this article will be helpful to you:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/09/16/job-discrimination-a...
2
You know what really stings?
Taking away people's right to vote.
Justice Roberts gutted the Voting Rights Act - leading to monstrous voter suppression in red states across the country.
Ed Blum is behind the Harvard case as he was behind the case that gutted Voting Rights (Shelby v. Holder).
Hundreds of thousands of people are being removed from voter lists, polling places are being closed, ID laws are being enacted - all with the clear intent and effect of reducing the voting rights of black citizens.
It's not that there aren't some valid points in your argument. It's always about what one chooses to get exorcised about. It's about exactly how much you're willing to set aside to have a discussion about "fairness." You, Blum and Roberts are comfortable putting everything aside.
When you isolate a single decision to make it "fair" and by doing so, ignore the rampant discrimination and inequities that not only exist today but are on a very dangerous trajectory, you do not make our society more just. You simply preserve a status quo that is unacceptable.
1
The true curse, Mr Stephens, is affirmative action by universities in the hiring of faculty. The long-range damage that is and will be done to education in this country lies precisely there. Write us a column about that.
4
It's within the realm of possibilities that Harvard's conclusions about these Asian applicants had merit. It is similarly possible that Harvard's admissions office has been operating like an ivory-towered Studio 54 velvet rope, in which their goal isn't just to pick the best and brightest, but to create some kind of idealized mix of students, composed of "textureless grinds" as well as the scions of wealthy and powerful families.
However, if we are going to use the reasoning that any kind of racial disparities MUST be the result of racism, white supremacy, bigotry, fear, and hate, as is often done when measuring outcomes in healthcare, or education, or household wealth, or the criminal justice system, then we must also conclude that Harvard is irrefutably bigoted against Asians.
Perhaps the best outcome of this case might be that Harvard wins the lawsuit, but on the grounds that a finding of differential outcomes based on race and ethnicity does not automatically mean that the reason is racism, bigotry, xenophobia or white supremacy.
Probably Harvard is doing the best that it can.
Harvard is Lake Wobegon - every child IS above average.
1
80/20 Vision
Stephens is right that Affirmative Action, taken at straight face value, is the very definition of racism.
But it falls into the 80/20 conundrum, a type of disease of the mind afflicting most of us around our most contentious issues. Like #metoo, labor unions, regulatory bodies, the ACA, identity politics, abortion, and so many others, Affirmative Action suffers from 80/20.
Risking absurd oversimplification, these are issues that are say 80% solid—but with maybe 20% stinky aspects. The problem is, if you can't talk about the 20%, your opponents are ONLY going to talk about the 20%.
In the case of Trump and his most ardent supporters, it's more like 5%-10%. Apparently the merest whiff of truth is enough to pass that smell test.
Stephens' recent column on Democratic missteps is a good example: they're seemingly held to a higher standard—even by someone willing to speak out loudly against all Trumpism.
But liberals keep failing and failing to acknowledge the 20%, and they keep getting killed for it. It's weak, dishonest and appalling—on both sides. Plenty of good, important issues are getting purposefully overshadowed by minority interests. Double points for irony on that one.
1
There is an assumption that once we rid ourselves of all these 'inferior' students, white [male] students will get the slots they deserve. The biggest beneficiaries of 'affirmative action' are actually white, males and the children of wealthy alum. It's amazing how many students whose parents are very wealthy and children of celebrities are high performing students. If Harvard stopped preferential admission for these individuals, they would free up about 50% of their slots. Asians are discriminated against but it demonstrates how blinkered the system is to interpret a nondiscrimination policy for Asians to mean greater affirmative action for whites.
I don't like the idea of affirmative action for the reasons you present. However, when the Urban League sends out carefully matched pairs of black and white couples to answer apartment-for-rent ads, the acceptances favor whites by about 30%--about the same percent the same paper is given a higher grade when (supposedly) written by a man rather than a woman. So, Mr. Stephens, if you are an affirmative action hire, you probably are a better writer than the person who otherwise would have been hired.
'..and doing even that poorly, since, like every other columnist here, I’m also a Trump opponent.'
You're too hard on yourself, Mr Stephens; I understand that it's hard to find anything worth praising in Trump, but you clearly try dashed hard.
Only a couple of weeks ago you were gushing about Trump's behaviour in the Kavanaugh case. So it's clear that your heart's in the right place - that is, with Trump.
1
I remember a documentary I watched, in which a registrar for USC said that she tried very hard to sponsored Jewish students for admission when she could identify them from their applications. I was surprised. She seemed to think that her favored group, Jewish students, suffered from social prejudice and adverse economic circumstances and needed he active help in gaining admission. USC is a private school, in Los Angeles. I was so shocked I sent her a letter to tell her that I thought her actions were un-American.
I haven't read anything that would indicate Better Stevens was an affirmative action hire. It might be worth doing a statistical study to see if the percentage of such accusations changes by any characteristics of the candidates. In our electronic era this kind of study would be relatively easy using new, cloud based systems.
My goodness, I didn't know that Bret Stephens was disadvantaged.
1
Affirmative actions helps level the playing field and create a more diverse student body. Just because you get in because of affirmative action doesn’t mean you will succeed at these institutions. These top Ivy League schools do not dumb down their curriculum for these “less than” qualified students. However, those who get in due to wealth, they have the means to pay for tutors, and already have the connections to help them succeed. And...no one mentions there are two tiers of Asian groups. The Asian groups that are involved in this lawsuit are most likely the “top tier” Asians that fall into the higher socioeconomic category. I bet you there are no Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Filipinos, or even Koreans represented here that are arguing against how affirmative action is being used against Asian Americans.
1
Affirmative action gets you in the door. You still have to succeed once you are there. And being successful, I should think, would erase any doubt about whether or not you deserve to be there. Whether it’s getting good grades or writing thoughtful columns that people with differing views want to read (such as yours).
We are all going to be replaced by robots, so what is the point?
1
“An unfair preference for the unqualified. They knew that ‘affirmative action’ ... was a synonym for mediocrity.”
Prior to affirmative action, there was an unfair preference for white men. That is one “synonym for mediocrity” that did not provoke the ire of white men who now oppose affirmative action.
Mediocrity does not trouble the mediocres who criticize affirmative action, any more than slaveowners opposed the Emancipation Proclimation because of constitutional principles. They simply don’t want to be treated equally, and won’t support any policy that would treat them as equals.
One thing is clear observing Trump, Kavanaugh, Bannon and many others of our monied elite. Donor and legacy admissions need to be done away with. How can a merit based process for an institution with a broad educational role let in these under qualified people.
The problem Harvard and other exceptional schools are facing is that if they allow the correct # of Asian students in, continue to accept the white kids that are “entitled” to be there, there will be very few spots for the white people that have earned acceptance.
1
"It isn’t a pleasant thing to live with the sense that your achievements aren’t quite real— and that everyone secretly knows it." It's not pleasant, but it's not unusual. It might even be a good thing. It's what normal people think. A touch of humility never hurts. The people who are not a little bit insecure are scary Ivy-League, type-A, confident megalomaniacal creeps:
Harvard: Bill O'Reilly, Ted Cruz, Jared Kushner, Grover Norquist, David Vitter, Steve Banon.
Yale: Dick Cheney, Clarence Thomas, Kobach.
These people believe in a meritocracy. That's the myth of the Ivies.
It is amazing to me that these places are held in high esteem when their graduating classes fill the halls of power with pure, unadulterated, self-confident, self-righteous war criminals.
It was Jimmy Carter, I believe, who once got into hot water for opining that "life's not fair." The notion that college admissions or hiring / firing decisions or political contests or anything else ought to be decided purely on the basis of merit is pollyanna. Real life is not a meritocracy. And if you doubt that, ask any over-weight or unattractive or disabled or older American if THEY doubt it -- because discrimination on the basis of irrational, subjective measures having nothing to do with demonstrated ability is a fact of everyday life. It's just that most of those characteristics are not legally protected. (Age is, but no one really believes it.)
Most of the "affirmative action" at Ivy League schools is for legacies, the children of the rich or well connected or those whose parents simply purchase them an admission slot (eg Jared Kushner). They are predominantly white. In "The Shape of the River" by Bowen and Bok, former Presidents of Princeton and Harvard, they point out that being black was equivalent of about a 90 point gain on SAT scores, being a legacy gave one the equivalent of a 300 point gain. If one were to get rid of affirmative action one should do it for everyone including the rich and well connected.
The problem with affirmative action is not that it promotes inferiority, but that it perpetuates racial and ethnic discrimination. Another victim is created each time it is applied, but justified by ideological reasoning, we are expected to ignore the hurt and resentment of these new victims. Affirmative action will end when we, as a society, recognize it for what it is.
2
Mr. Stephens, you realize the Asian-Americans are being kept out for an "affirmative action" for white people right? Not one African-American or Latino student got in because a qualified Asian-American student was kept out. So, lets have real affirmative action. And watch the white student population in Harvard drop to the right fraction while African-American, Latino & Asian-American student population increases.
What happens at Harvard just does not make all that big a difference in the world. UC Berkeley admits 16 - 17,000 students per year, from 85,000 applicants. 52% of the students are women. 39% of them are Asian. Berkeley does not discriminate based on race or gender. There are no legacy admissions.
For whatever reason, women no longer need affirmative action to level the college playing field. It is not fair to admit an highly qualified Black student, who comes from wealth, in place of a poor Asian student of equal qualification, just because the first student is Black.
Taking away a spot from a poor immigrant Vietnamese student to give that spot to the child of wealthy Black parents is wrong. Why don't we just give preference to students who have economic struggles? We've tried to balance race and gender long enough. It's worked out well for women and for Asians. Everybody else needs to figure out what they are doing correctly, rather than blaming some other group.
It's time to move on. Let's give preference to kids who were raised in poverty, and no one else.
1
It’s weird that going to Harvard is so valuable, despite not having room for so many smart kids.
Maybe we need more accurate methods of evaluating people that don’t rely on association with a college brand.
The quest for a totally objective admissions process is a chimera
Bottom line is universities cannot ignore their donors contribute to their alma mater based in large part on the university experience they remember
If Harvard and other elite universities go all in on eliminating diversity as a factor in the admissions process the composition of the student body that results might cause those donors to conclude after their first visit back to campus that such a university is one with which they no longer identify
1
@Dan
That's fine about donors. But Harvard also rakes in $500MM a year from tax payer dollars(federal grants etc.). Can't have it both ways.
3
@Cosby Bakke says you can
I remember when Conservatives used to argue that private institutions had the right to choose who they let in. This was very popular with the country clubs crowd. They also have a similar point of view for baking wedding cakes. Which is a very popular position with evangelicals. Here they seem willing to force Harvard into accepting an admissions policy imposed by outsiders. My conclusion is that there is no conservative philosophy anymore. It’s all just about creating dissent and playing to the largest crowd.
5
The problem with the Roberts quote is that it's cynical and insulting. Following similar logic, the way to cut the murder rate is to stop killing people; the way to end sexual assault is to stop raping people; the way to end drug abuse is to stop abusing drugs, the way to stop traffic fatalities is to drive safely. Good to know. Now what?
Affirmative action is an admittedly imperfect solution to an unlevel playing field. But in a country where voter exclusion is the apparent official policy of the ruling political party, it's unlikely we're going to see anything more effective any time soon.
4
We have a totally merit based system here in Quebec and every year it is the same story our women outperform us 70% to 30%. In medicine law and the other high prestige vocations.
Every year it is the same story 70% of new med school admissions are female and 70% of new medical grads are female year after year and now for a decade.
Black, brown , Chinese , Indian , White, English speaking, French speaking, Christian, Atheist, Jew or Muslim.
It makes one long for the good old days when we were the most conservative society North of Mexico when if you were male and your father was a doctor or a lawyer and even if you didn't have an active neuron between your ears you would be a doctor , or lawyer or heaven forbid an accountant.
Maybe the conservatives like Stephens know something and we should have kept them barefoot and pregnant.
1
What about the favoritism our society shows privileged whites? Is that a terrible cross to bare, living life knowing that you got to be President, because your daddy did?
It only is if, as a society, people recognize that our society is terribly rigged. Maybe Mr. Stephens can spend the time to write about that, rather than make the offensive assumption that Affirnative Action is tilting an otherwise fair system.
5
The central theme of the civil rights era was that discrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, and repugnant. No matter how it is dressed up, affirmative action is just tortuously rationalized discrimination on the basis of race.
The whole argument is pretty pointless. Most students who go to college go to community colleges. Bolster those and help kids graduate into four year universities. That will really change society for the better. Stephens’s argument is written by the elite and for the elite all of whom will be more than fine.
1
Ah yes, Mr. Stephens would not object to the continuation of the oldest form of affirmative action in higher education, which is based on class and wealth That form of affirmative action is now known as legacy admissions. It is perfectly legal and an excellent metaphor for the second Gilded Age.
468
I read the article twice. Where does Mr. Stephens defend legacy admissions?
5
@Bill
The difference is one is mandated by the government and the other is not...huge difference.
1
I think that by all measures former President George W. Bush was not really up to Yale admission standards but miraculously was accepted. Perhaps running into buildings and class rooms with your family name helped a little. Do you think that Mr. Bush was stung by the slur "legacy admission"?
249
@BN Winnick "I think that by all measures former President George W. Bush..."
All very true -- but you avoided addressing the topic of this piece!
1
@BN Winnick
"Do you think that Mr. Bush was stung by the slur "legacy admission"?"
He probably was - just like Stephens, but he got over it, somehow, as has Stephens. I don't know if that undercuts Stephens's point or not.
Re: AA: I always leaned towards its better to get the chance and overcome the "sting" than not to get the chance in the first place. But don't tell a white kid with a hard scrabbled life that he's got "privilege". If that kid's bounced then something's wrong.
@BN Winnick, Not sure what standards Yale used to admit George W. Maybe they overemphasized IQ. The Army tested all men's IQs back in the day, and George W. was in the 95th percentile. John Kerry, arguably a wiser man and certainly a better speaker, was in the 91st percentile.
Something is missing in considerations of this story. It's been a long time since I was in college admissions, but the goal is not simply to admit the best academically qualified.
A college wants not just ethnic diversity, but other kinds of diversity. A college does not want all its students from New York or California. If you're the only candidate applying from Mississippi or Alaska, you are likely to be admitted because of geographic diversity.
Similarly, a student who has overcome harsh circumstances has an advantage because of her experience. A student who is the first in his family to attend college has an advantage over applicants whose family is college educated.
Students learn from each other just as much as they do in classes. How well would that work if all the students were super-qualified, but lacked social class, experiential and geographical diversity?
12
Bret, while you bring up some valid points about the lawsuit you don't mention the entire spectrum of special selection criteria that elite private schools like Harvard use. For example, if your family donates enough money to the school your kids get automatic acceptance. FYI, that is how our esteemed 43rd President, George W. Bush, got into Yale. Or, if you are a fully tenured professor your kids get automatic preference plus all tuition is waived. Or, one of my favorites is from a state supported school, the University of Michigan. Twelve spots in each year's law school class are reserved for students from Michigan's upper peninsula.
My point is selection criteria in elite schools have always been skewed by wealth and politics. What the Asian are now claiming is that beside the aforementioned items they now have to deal with non quantifiable criteria such as likability. They have a legitimate point. But Harvard counters by saying they have a right to choose who gets admitted.
In the end Harvard will lose this case but find other ways to control who is accepted. A slightly higher percentage of Asians will be admitted but ultimately the only winners will be the lawyers.
6
They go through life with an asterisk by their name. Everyone knows it, no one dares say it - one more example of the suppression of free speech in America.
3
@Len319 "...one more example of the suppression of free speech in America."
Free speech?! You will benefit by reading up on the First Amendment.
Brett, you ignore the fact that the admissions process in inherently unfair, that test scores and grades are only one of many indicators, and that a diverse student body is a component of the education being offered. Another fallacy is to posit that there is an effective process that eliminates racial, ethnic and religious profiling other than remediation. One of the fundamental truths exposed by a multicultural world is that all institutions as well as individuals must confront their own prejudicial thinking through careful self-analysis resulting in progressive actions designed to reset the systemic imbalances that create opportunity for some at the expense of others. The high-achieving students from established and successful social groups who are passed over, have a much greater opportunity to overcome that obstacle than those who lack that deep cultural support.
3
As an objector to many of your columns, my problem with your column is not whether you were hired to fill a quota. I undestand and endorse the need for different views. The problem with your column is that you don't help your reader understand the American right as it is now, i.e. Trumpism. You hold the view of the American right as it was in the days of Nelson Rockefeller. They are historic pieces, not comments on the age. And there is no point in reading Rockefeller-style views to understand a democratic system much better represented today by the Democrats than the Republicans. Your party, from the stuffing of the judiciary with their zealots, to your President's love for dictators, has not been a player in the democratic system since 2016, and before, once it became the vehicle for racial hatred towards Obama.
114
@GG2018
This is an important point. I tend to agree with classical liberalism. But the principles are so unrelated to anything that republicans stand for today, that I can vote for a democrat with my eyes closed. I disagree with many of the democrats positions, but we cannot even compare. Unfortunately, there is no space for classical liberalism anymore. It is a quiescent state, with the occasional column written here and there.
@GG2018
Exactly. If we are to be served Republicanisms from the NYT shouldn't we be served better? With Stephens and Douthart we get columns with such poor logic that responses are in the hundreds and those responses are from ordinary Times readers rather than professionals. I have been reading the NYT for over 60 years and would like to see better columns from both the left and right but especially the right. Most of the time it's more amusing than serious to read Stephens and Douthart.
Why don't people who are concerned about the "psychological damage " inflicted on affirmative action admittees be also concerned about the psychological damage done to many minority and poor economically [white and black and Asian] students condemned to under performing public K-12 schools.
14
Affirmative action opens admissions to students that offer non upper middle class backgrounds. I taught in Maine town after spending 6 years at a private boarding school. The students would claim that they did not have the same advantages as those rich kids I had previously taught. I agreed. They were advantaged because they really understood the struggle to get by financially and socially more acutely. The beneficiaries of Affirmative Action include the institutions, the other students and faculty members. To base admissions on a SAT score or previous privilege is far worse.
2
Yes, the Supreme Court has put limits on racial quotas. But this does not mean having explicit diversity goals is bad. It means the Surpreme Court has intervened in college and firm decision making in a way they have not done on other selection mechanisms. What if the Supreme Court set the SAT admission score for getting into Harvard or the GPA and college major for being hired by Microsoft? The problem is in the law, not the practice.
When we live in a society in which racial, economic, and educational disparities are eliminated, or nearly so, we can then consider adopting a supposedly level playing field for college admissions. Surely Bret Stephens knows from his own life and his children's that not all children have the same educational opportunities in America. More fortunate children typically attend better schools, and have additional "enrichment" opportunities as well. If Mr. Stephens is willing to abandon some of his conservative views and advocate spending more of society's resources to ensure that every kid in the U.S. has a decent neighborhood, good schools, and adequate healthcare, I will in turn support his call for a college admissions system that discounts race and economic inequality. Otherwise, Stephens'scall to end affirmative action is not a demand for fairness, but a demand to continue bestowing advantages on the children of well-to-do parents. Stephens considers himself a proponent of equality, but his views would more accurately be termed Social Darwinism.
23
@Chris Rasmussen Let's go even farther. I will agree with Stevens only when he writes that legacies should receive no preference nor should children of donors....see one Mr.Kushner. And athletes and artists and and math genius not so good in other areas.
Stevens and his ilk here should call their position for what it is....more room for the privileged.
10
@Chris Rasmussen
Chris,
Equal opportunity does not equate to equal outcomes.
If one looks at those "equal outcome" experiments that have preceded "affirmative action", say the Russian Soviet's proletariat government, they were progressives.
One's search for utopia is a fool's errand: Americans are equal under the law (Constitution), we are individuals and not all the same. Nor should we be, that is what one calls diversity.
1
College campuses seem lacking in diversity only because we recognize so few demographic groups,The simplest way to achieve diversity on college campuses would be to recognize the ethnicity of of all students instead of lumping the majority into the catch all “non-Hispanic white” category. Instead of having just African American, Hispanic, Native Americans, Asian American, Pacific Islander and non-Hispanic white students, campuses would also have German American, Irish American, Italian American, Anglo American, French American, Dutch American, Polish American, Saudi American, Lebanese American, Jewish American, and Scotch Irish American students, etc. Students now considered minority students would be among the largest demographic on most campuses. Some students would be more diverse than others. For example, a student might list his or her ethnicity as Anglo-Italian-Dutch-Manx. Universities could reach unprecedented levels of diversity simply by adding a ethnicity checklist to its admission forms. Everyone agrees diversity enhances the learning experience, so what not take advantage of the tremendous boost in diversity an expanded ethnicity checklist would provide.
5
@William Case By not wrapping your comment in HTML5's semantically meaningful "sarcasm" tags, many will miss your point.
(Or are you pulling a "Sokol"?!)
As I understand it, affirmative action is the practice of favoring members of some disadvantaged group that has been historically discriminated against, i.e., an attempt to make up for past sins. It would appear that such a plan would simply shift the discrimination, this time against non-members of the original disadvantaged group.
7
Maybe there would be more slots available for everyone deserving if these elite schools got rid of their legacy admissions policies. There is something to be said for a diverse college population, but just because mommy or daddy went to the school, especially one so competitive to get into, shouldn't be one of them.
11
"The world of college admissions is a fixed pie." As opposed to what? The world of K-12 education - where some go to NYC private schools costing $70,000 a year, some go first rate suburban schools supported by property taxes, and some go to crumbling inner city schools with no heat in the winter?
15
Affirmative Action may not be perfect but it is a good factor to have. It should not be a mandate but it should not be overturn either.
The Asian student group, back by the conservative groups, suing Harvard is being used by the latter. If push comes to shove, the Ivies could revert to pay for play. They are private institutions, they are do legacy admission if they want. Then everyone got shut out. Reserving slots for rural, low income and atypical students are a great mechanism to even the odds and add vibrancy to the institution and campus alike.
Otherwise, well heed parents just need to send their offsprings to those college prep drilling schools. It has nothing to do with the human spirit, the human conditions and the innate intelligence of people. If you think the heartless MBA type dominating the industries now is bad, wait until you just allow the SAT, the GRE, the LSAT high scorers in. Performance is not equal to intelligence, let alone emotional intelligence and societal compassion
8
Mr Stephens, as usual, is on target. Space didn't allow him to list all the problems with affirmative action. Let me add one.
Moving to a new town, we look for a dentist and doctor, maybe a lawyer. We don't know anyone to ask for a recommendation. Do we use affirmative action to choose a black or Hispanic? Or does affirmative action make us doubt the capability of professionals simply for their ethnicity?
I can see where affirmative action may have been needed decades ago. No longer, though.
Just as we shouldn't discriminate AGAINST individuals because of their race, neither we should discriminate FOR them because of their race either.
19
This case serves as a perfect back door approach for those seeking to deny admission to minority students at schools wishing to diversify their enrollments. By arguing that applicants of one minority group are rejected, even though they would otherwise qualify, these conservatives can argue against all affirmative action programs.
3rd District Federal Appellate Court Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., who I had the honor of studying under, was the first to point out to me that legacy students are the best example of affirmative action admissions.
The Price of Admission by Daniel Golden demonstrates the advantages given to the offspring of alumni and financial benefactors (Democrats as well as Republicans by the way) in obtaining admission to elite schools.
Either through legacy, or, if you are not an alum, large financial contributions, it is likely that some of the opponents of affirmative action get their own offspring admitted to schools like Harvard. How many of these students will feel "tarnished" as an affirmative action acceptance?
Would they be willing to give up their "reserved" space to one of these more deserving applicants?
Mr. Stephens is right about one thing. Most of the students with glowing credentials will land on their feet. Unfortunately, the way the argument is framed by affirmative action opponents, they are more likely to blame someone admitted from a poor background rather than a legacy or donor admission for their rejection by their first choice.
8
One might imagine the college admissions process as a means to provide the best training to the people most likely to take advantage of this training--so that we produce the best people.
Another is that college is a charity, offering the college credential that means more money later in life. Who should get the credentials and money? No fair if one group gets less than the other!
Affirmative action forces the second view on colleges. Colleges wind up having to accept unqualified people and--though this is not an issue at Harvard, it is at a great many colleges--must offer remedial classes, co-curriculars, and additional tutoring.
Thus, colleges must spend additional money to hire professionals to make sure that unqualified people can survive at their colleges (even as grade inflation makes the college degree less valuable). And of course, these students are not, then, learning to become self-starters you'd want to hire; they instead become ever more reliant on other people's help for intellectual tasks.
2
Harvard's admission policy is not affirmative action but a quota system to limit the number of Asian Americans admitted to Harvard.
The real question no one asks about affirmative action is this.
Why are there only a limited number of positions in "good" universities or "good" public schools in NYC or good high paying jobs.
When there are positions for all the need for rationing [which is what affirmative action is] disappears.
Why do we tolerate in NYC condemning a large number of public school students to under performing public schools.
Where are there only a few schools like Stuyvesant, Science etc.
Do people who run and control the funding of public K-12 schools [but of course do not send their children to the public schools] want their children have to compete with OTHER peoples' children for college admissions and later high paying jobs.
2
From someone teaching at top College: many readers and columnists seem to take for granted that high SAT scores equal academic prowess and are a sign for future academic/professional success. Far from it! SAT scores are only a small measure; they demonstrate that the particular student can be taught to the test. Often times, the top students by this measure do not fare better, in my classroom, than their peers who benefited from being admitted thanks to other aspects of their applications.
26
@Wallou
You are 100% correct. I have been working for over 25 years in higher ed. Frequently I am tasked with looking at retention/performance issues. There almost zero correlation between high standardized test scores and academic performance. It's also not unusual for parents to spend thousands of dollars on test prep courses that are nothing more than test gaming courses. Additionally I see students volunteering cases of students basically creating a resume for college as opposed to actually trying to become educated. It is a significant problem in higher ed.
8
@Wallou
So, if the SAT is only a "small measure" of "future academic/professional success",
then what are the other measures?
Is race one of them?
If not, it should not be considered, should it?
And if race is a "demonstrated" measure,
which race is demonstrated to be more successful?
8
@Wallou
You probably suffer from a small sample size - your assertion is not backed up by actual results - the COMBINATION of High School GPA and SAT scores are highly correlated with college GPA and explains a significant portion of college performance.
Which is what common sense would tell us - smart kids in HS are still smart kids in college
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858416670601
I share Bret’s doubts about Affirmative Action, but for a reason that hasn’t been mentioned: Who has determined that college admissions is the great equalizer of society’s ills?
Why not primary school? Why not high school? Why not housing? Why not jobs?
As you can see, using college admissions just opens up every other area of society to social engineering.
Yes, it serves a noble cause, but it’s a nefarious process. Another way should be found, perhaps free tutoring for disadvantaged students, beginning in primary school so that they’re ready to compete when the time comes for college.
13
Stephens, like many commentators, focuses on advantages given to racial minorities in admissions, and the possibility that they will not feel worthy. Yet the reality of admissions policies, confirmed by the revelations in the Harvard case, is that advantages are frequently given to family of wealthy donors (even potential donors) and alumni and to athletes. In my many years in academia, I've never heard anyone worry about their likelihood of not feeling worthy of being in an elite school to which they would not otherwise have been admitted. And while other people may tell students and faculty of color, even the most superbly qualified among them, that they don't belong, when does this happen to the children of rich people? When are they ever stopped by campus police challenging their right to be there? Racism on campus persists in many big and little ways and requires a great deal of effort on many fronts.
12
If we worked to help those students socioeconomically disadvantaged from early childhood, not waiting until they are young adults, some of what is termed affirmative action might not be necessary. Other commenters have already focused on this embedded problem. A socioeconomic approach would also get to the issue of race, since people of color (blacks, Latinos) are among our most disadvantaged groups.
While I might agree with Mr. Stephens on some points, if all we do is bless students based on current "meritocratic" criteria, we will just perpetuate and intensify problems. There is no simple way out of this, no matter Justice Roberts' focused and brief comment. There are quite a few excellent schools for those more privileged students to attend, should they not get their first or second choice.
5
Excellent column. Let's take this one step further and make college entrance entirely merit-based and eliminate advantages based on legacy placement or large financial contributions to the college's alumni groups.
30
@John League. Who gets to define 'MERIT' ? Test scores are only one, markedly imperfect measure of 'merit'.
7
@John League
The large financial contributions are what allows Harvard to be de facto, one of the LOWEST COST Universities for middle class kids to attend.
Check
https://collegecost.ed.gov/
The money that subsidizes their education has to come from somewhere
Harvard takes it from the rich and gives it to the poor
What's wrong with it ?
4
@John League A friend of mine worked in Admissions at an Ivy school for years and she once told me that with the huge number of applicants for the small number of places available, they could have a class made up of all valedictorians if they wanted to, or all 800's on the SAT's. They have a wide range of factors they consider, and they do have a goal - to create a class that has lots of different factors present, while always keeping academics as a high priority. In fact, she said, the main task is looking for some reason to deny an applicant. Too much of this factor or not enough of that factor, and they can toss the application aside. The great majority would be capable of doing well if admitted, so just saying it should be solely merit would be antithetical to the purpose. They would miss out on other things they want.
And at the end of the process each year they are all exhausted.
2
Bret Stephens writes “Still, I can’t help but think that critics of the plaintiffs are right in at least one respect: Those ‘busy and bright‘ kids who aren’t going to Harvard will be fine. Most will still get into great schools and have good careers. They might rage against an institution that turned them away unfairly. Yet deep down they’ll have the satisfaction of knowing their own worth.” This, of course, would also apply to applicants who would not be accepted by Harvard if racial and ethnic preferences were not granted. They also would get into great schools and have good careers.
7
@William Case
I think you are making the case for affirmative action; the whole point is that a whole lot of past and certainly some current prejudice keeps well qualified applicants from attending.
4
@RickK
As the article points out, Harvard's affirmative action policy prevents well-qualified Asian students from attending.
Bret Stephens article completely fails to acknowledge the inherent and systemic bias in education (all forms and parts of it) against poor students and students of color. By completely ignoring the reality of our current society and all its institutions, he ignores the depth of the accomplishements of those students who affirmative action affords entree to a defunct system of higher education. In other words, one needs to ask what the variance is between a student who gains admission to an Ivy based on affirmative action, and what that same student accomplished despite all the odds against them. I found it equally interesting that while Bret targets students whom affirmative action benefits, he doesn't mention anything about legacy students, students whose parents typical intergenerational privilege provides them opportunities that affirmative action does not. What percentage of students admitted to schools like Harvard are there because of legacy vs. affirmative action? If you are going to write a pablum critique of affirmative action, while ignoring the reality of what so many of those students accomplished just to even apply to Harvard, then at least be insightful and honest about it. I like Bret Stephens' work, but this article demonstrates his own attachment to privilege and a lack of veracity about the issues of Harvard's and other Ivys admissions policies that favor those with privilege while throwing crumbs at those without.
17
@Doctormomtz
I am sure if legacy admission was eliminated you would still advocate fro extension of affirmative action and against Asian Americans. look, I have taught at a top university for 30 years. Asian American Students are bright. very bright. Period. And they have work ethics. Sorry to say, most minority students are neither. But they have great personalities.
2
Stephens’ article is spot on, and a strong example of speaking Truth to Power to the typical, liberal NYT reader. Affirmative action in America is both a blessing and a curse. Stephens is has the integrity to acknowledge that.
Bret,
I haven't agreed with all of your opinions in the past, but this is probably the single best piece that I've ever read about affirmative action. Extremely lucid and well written
17
@nhAffirmative action is an effort to redress four hundred years of racial discrimination. To do away with it is tantamount to reverting to the status quo ante. Like in New Hampshire, for example. One must start somewhere, and others' suggestions are good ones.
2
Very true. But also, to be consistent, don't needs-based-student loans discriminate ( in that students who get them occupy seats that would otherwise be available to students who could afford those seats without loans)?
1
There's so much more to this story that begs explanation. It is not nativist to ask how many of the plaintiffs are not native-born (and by non native-born, I mean, came to this country on student visas for college). Inevitably, the top 1% (or the top 0.1%), while undoubtedly excellent, from a nation of 1.6 billion will outnumber the excellent students who have grown up in this country. We also need to get over this idea that there are a select few who are so much more remarkably intelligence than another select few who, for whatever reasons (legacy, quotas, bad luck), did not make the cut. Our population has grown so much larger in the past few decades, but the number of seats at the top universities has not increased proportionally. There have been many, many outstanding applicants of all backgrounds who are not admitted to Harvard. Their qualifications, their talents, their intellgience do not evaporate when they don't get into one particular school. In Harvard as anywhere else (on the job, in politics), everyone benefits when the people involved represent the larger population. It is a false narrative that the choice in college admissions is between an exceptional applicant and a mediocre one. They're all darn good. Let's not kid ourselves: the difference between someone who makes a 1600 on an SAT and someone who makes a 1550 is truly inconsequential. People who think otherwise just ain't all that bright.
17
@Jennifer
Imagine what Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson could have made out of themselves had they gone to Harvard like Isoroku Yamamoto?
Having attended the institution in question, and being a white person who was first in the family to attend university (in the days that you had to hide such things), I have come to conclusion that crudely using race as a preference creates too much resentment. The measure in my view should be what has the student done with what they were given, and, of course, as a preliminary can they do the work here. A child raised in poverty by a single mom working three jobs in the South Side of Chicago, or the lower Rio Grande valley, or coal-mining West Virginia is 10x more bonus points to get in than a child with two parents of any race growing up in Darien, Short Hills, Bel Air, etc. If we want to be fair about it, having parents who went to the school should actually be a negative, with points subtracted.
Related to the current lawsuit, I would say that the role of parents/culture and the opportunities (and push) they provide cannot be ignored. The vast majority of children get into these schools primarily because of the efforts of the parents, not the students themselves. (I know we are supposed to pretend otherwise.) Most of the students are just "yes" men and women who follow on the path set by mommie and daddy. And that is what we reward, sadly.
34
@expat london
"The vast majority of children get into these schools primarily because of the efforts of the parents, not the students themselves. ... Most of the students are just "yes" men and women who follow on the path set by mommie and daddy."
You'll show us some data to back that up, won't you?
@expat london
Yes but being black separate and unequal in America creates a uniquely unified socioeconomic class and ethnic national origin caste that destroys and diminishes and educational attainment compared to ant white person.
Did you notice that Barack Obama was half-white by biological nature and all white by cultural nurture? Malia Obama is and will always be a black female in America.
The selective admissions process for top-tier U.S. universities is a study in gaming and showmanship. The single best way to gain admission to Harvard is not grades or SAT scores, but to be a recruited athlete. The second best way is to be a legacy, followed thirdly by being a VIP (son or daughter of a statesman, corporate CEO, big university donor, foreign dignitary, etc.). Once those spots are taken in the first-year class, fewer than half of the advertised slots are available to anyone else like pure academic students, musicians, artists, etc. Recruiting minority athletes buffs the statistics well.
To beat the game, move to an empty state, as all of the top-tier schools brag about geographic diversity. Some years, Ivy acceptance at 1 of 8 schools is 100% from Wyoming, North Dakota, and Alaska.
Finally, top-tier schools are really dying to find minority students that can handle the workload. They search high and low, and compete to recruit them. There just aren't enough in the U.S. that meet the standard, hence the lower SAT bar (250 points lower!) for some minorities. So the minority statistics are misleading, because many are rich international students instead of the economically-disadvantaged ones that we are worrying about. Should a student be in the "minority" if their parents make over a million dollars per year?
If the schools want to change for the better, they should place more weight on economic selectivity. They have endowments to support this initiative.
55
@James
So, get rid of race as a "factor".
And also get rid of "legacy" as a factor.
And athletics as a factor.
And geography as a factor.
And then let the chips fall where they may.
1
@James
Nonsense.
HBCU's produce a disproportionate amount of black STEM and postgraduate students.
Malia Obama is blacker than Ivanka Trump will ever be. And her father was the first and only one of his color aka race out of 45 to occupy the White House.
A white high school graduate has more economic job opportunity than a black college graduate.Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh did not finish college. Color aka race created a unique black socioeconomic caste class.
Another thoughtful article opening the minds of American citizens who put human needs and our society's values ahead of politics. Brett Stephens, once again, opened my (liberal) mind to viewpoint I hadn't been exposed. Thank you, Brett, and please continue to write your wonderful Opinion columns for the NYT.
17
Nearly 43,000 kids applied to Harvard and just 1950 got in. I have no doubt that there are at least 5 deserving people for every slot the have available. So what is “merit” in this case? Maybe the only fair way to do it is to define “acceptable” then hold a lottery. But that will leave out a lot of legacies.
28
@JasFleet It might not be a bad idea. Who can say for sure that the selected will be better than unselected kids in the future achievements.
@JasFleet
The lottery idea occurred to me, too. Perhaps the best of the best on the SAT for a small percentage, then every other qualified person goes in the lottery pool.
As much as I hate Texas, I think they have it right about state college admissions. The top 7% of any schools class are assured a place in the UT or A&M schools. It used to be 10%, but there were not enough places. This does not ensure financial aid, just an opening.
A lottery of sorts. I recently heard the wonderful black chief of police here in Round Rock opine that his daughter didn't get into UT, must be some racism going on. She was in the top 8%, what's to not understand?
Affirmative action encompasses a broad swathe of measures and actions to provide equal opportunities to people who have been treated unfairly. Reasonable accommodations, for example, allow someone who is visually impaired to take tests in a non-written format. It isn't that all affirmative actions or wise and good or unwise and bad. They need to be evaluated on their individual merits. Doing away with all affirmative action in education is counter productive generally and unfair to those who can benefit from being given an equal opportunity to succeed after being constrained by socio-economic disadvantages.
Why is it that you almost never hear about people who benefit from nepotism or legacy complaining about a lack of self-esteem for having been given an unfair advantage, while those who receive an accommodation for their disadvantage perceive themselves as somehow less worthy? Perhaps the pain from affirmative action, where it actually occurs, has more to do with how others treat you then what accommodated accomplishments are really worth. Perhaps it is another form of invidious discrimination.
10
@John Weston Parry, sportpathologies.com
Affirmative action for those from families of low income or wealth is one thing.
That is not the same as affirmative action for race.
Sure, on the average, whites have more wealth and income than blacks.
But some whites come from families that are poor.
And some blacks come from families that are wealthy.
So, use family wealth and income -- not race -- as a "factor" for affirmative action.
1
Written like a privileged white male, Mr. Stephens. Your analysis strips this case of its context, ignoring the Project on Fair Representation's larger legal strategy, which is aimed squarely at doing away with affirmative action for all underserved populations.
This strategy is a well-documented fact of public record. Even Daniel Golden, the Pulitzer Prize winning researcher whose statistical work is used by the plaintiffs in this case, has come forward to condemn the lawsuit on these grounds.
You can't acknowledge this context because it would make the dog-whistle meaning of your assertions about "mediocrity" in your column too clear.
Racists always want to assert that racism doesn't exist, or that if it does, it affects all races equally. This is the racist logic inherent in Justice Roberts' quote.
Since your argument can't acknowledge the political context of the suit or its racial logic, it reverts to a squishy focus on an individual being denied their privilege.
Read the Court's majority holding in Fisher v. University of Texas: The mandate of affirmative action is not about individual privilege, but about creating a diverse educational experience for students. As Mr. Golden has said, such educational diversity is really the target of this and the other suits in the Project on Fair Representation's overall legal strategy.
18
@DBT
OED: Racism - The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race.
That means - as usual that Justice Roberts is right and that Harvard's policies are racist. The idea that you inherit certain special rights and privileges because of the color of your skin cuts in both directions.
1
I live in Canada. If this article was written in Canada I would agree 100%. Why? Because all Canadian kids have access to good public schools and hence have a decent shot at getting good grades in high school. In the US, so many poor kids go to terrible schools and hence have little chance of competing with richer kids without a little help from the government.
12
@Bob Boettche Asian students are the poorest minorities in New York and yet they manage to get into the elite high schools and colleges.
1
If conservatives succeed in eliminating any racial preference in college admissions, next they will surely fight to do away with legacy admissions, athletic scholarships, and gender preferences, right? Academic merit-based and nothing else, right? Only then can we achieve conservatives' supposed ideal of a fair society where students are admitted only on the basis of academic merit. And then it won't be long until the hard-working Asian young men, and women of all colors will win most of the slots at competitive colleges. (For many years, young women have been enrolling and graduating in greater numbers than young men - and many young men are only being admitted now due to a gender preference. That is, a higher percentage of male applicants are automatically accepted than females, just for the sake of balance.)
If we don't allow universities methods of shaping a student body to mirror our society, eventually average nice white sons won't be able to get get into anything but mediocre schools. Then how would conservatives feel about admission criteria?
26
If I have two equally qualified candidates for a position, perhaps in identical ways or perhaps in subtly different ways, or perhaps in very different ways, how do I choose between them? As Mr. Stephens notes, if you say yes to Jack you have to say no to Jill, so how does he propose to choose between Jack and Jill if they are both equally qualified for the position?
Is it "discrimination" for me to say "I will hire the one who brings my overall workplace/school diversity more inline with some wider community demographic?"
Those who complain about affirmative action always suggest that it is used to discriminate against someone, whereas (almost all of) those who are for it suggest that it be used to break ties between equally qualified candidates.
They could, hypothetically, both be right. My money on the tie breaking model, and I believe that those who argue it is used to discriminate are either intentionally obfuscating what it going on, or just willfully ignorant.
5
@Paul Davis
"... those who are for it suggest that it be used to break ties between equally qualified candidates."
I could accept affirmative action as a tie-breaker on top of objective, non-race-based, criteria (which need not be purely academic, but do need to be race-blind) for deciding who is "qualified". But that's not what's happening here: "... the Harvard Admissions Office consistently rated Asian-Americans lower on personality traits ... even when they hadn’t met with them in person. By contrast, alumni interviewers, who did meet the applicants, often rated them highly on personality."
I don't get the impression that there's any tie-breaking going on.
1
@Paul Davis-"Is it "discrimination for me to say "I will hire the one who brings my overall workplace/school diversity more inline with some wider community demographic?"" What if this is North Dakota and the employer would rather hire a white individual than an African American to reflect the 'wider community demographic.'
To believe the racial makeup of an organization should reflect some ideal is in itself racist, because it ignores the person as an individual and groups them into ethnic categories.
1
As we have seen in congress, a lack of diversity of background and thought leads to intellectual tyranny.
Anyhow, I suspect this move is duplicitous, similar to "we had to destroy the village in order to save it"
4
Affirmative action, and the work ethic in general highlight what I call a bivariate reality. On the one hand, you have to work hard to accomplish something that is difficult. On the other hand, should we all be working harder? After all, if someone outworks you, should they get the house and the job that you don't get? Does not working harder consign you to a second-class life? And to complete the circle, if that is so, then we do we all need to work harder and harder and harder ad infinitum? Who is going to settle for a second-class life in a society where the Devil takes the hindmost?
But what should we all be doing? What needs doing so badly that we all must work harder?
There's a balance somewhere, but where is it?
Which finally gets me Harvard's alleged admissions policy. Do the Asians do better because they are smarter, or because they work harder?
-- If they truly are smarter, then there is a compelling argument for differences in capability between the races.
-- If it's cultural and they just work harder because of how they are raised, then the rest of us need to work even harder to avoid getting left behind. That will compel them to work harder still, until we work ourselves to death, mostly doing things that don't need to get done.
Are you feeling a bit of cognitive dissonance yet?
5
When affirmative action means that a minority group has to perform better than the majority, that is clear discrimination. If Harvard offers some additional advantage to other minorities but does not penalize Asians compared to Whites, that may still be understandable, but what it is doing right now is simply to keep the numbers of Asians down.
5
When the Supremes pulled the teeth of the Voting Rights Act, the majority's logic was that the deliberate suppression of voting rights for minorities was pretty much a thing of the past in our Post-Racial society.
Wonder if that conservative majority has paid any attention to what has happened since, as state after state has deliberately sought to limit voting access to specific vulnerable groups likely to vote the wrong way. Likely not.
It strikes me the attack on affirmative action college admissions--the Harvard case is only the latest-- is based is based on the same false assumption. No matter how much the Right pretends otherwise, while the clothing racism might wear has changed over the years, it is still very much with us, in our schools, our communities, and at work, and again it takes a special brand of willful blindness to ignore it.
Robert's truism about the way to stop racial discrimination that you are so pleased to quote is a nice sounding circularity--and no more than that. Of course, he's right, in the same simple-minded manner as saying the way to stop robbing banks is to stop robbing banks and suggesting the power of that argument is so great in itself that we no longer need laws against bank robbery.
If we truly care about racism, we ought to say instead that only when racism in all its nefarious forms disappears from all other aspects of our society should we abandon affirmative action, because only then will it not be needed.
34
Well it's kind of ridiculous for Bret to assume ideological diversity wasn't a basic consideration to him being hired. It's equally foolish to assume that ideological differences between him and the other columnists are all that pronounced. In some sense it is a bogus diversity. I am sure Michelle Goldberg and Michelle Alexander were recently hired for ideological diversity. Which in fact in their case is a breath of fresh air. And if Bret, Ross Douthart and David Brooks are the price of them being hired it is well worth it. I certainly wouldn't want the trio not to be there. It's just not a great high that they are.
5
Bret Stephens begins and ends this column on the wrong foot, stepping on his own argument. First, he understandably laments being slurred as an "affirmative action hire" at the Times. But, of course, the Times is only trying to offer a politically and intellectually diverse op-ed page. Similarly, Harvard and other universities want a diverse student body, one that includes scientists, musicians, athletes, international students, et al. Stephens concludes by invoking Chief Justice John Roberts's simple-minded statement about ending racial discrimination by just waving a magic wand, willfully playing dumb, and pretending that race, racial discrimination, and outright racism just plain do not exist. Stephens would do well to ponder Justice Harry Blacmun's seemingly self-contradictory, yet ultimately more perceptive remark: "In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently." Bret Stephens seems to believe that our entire system of higher education and, indeed, our entire society ought to be governed strictly according to GPA and SAT scores--truly a dystopian scenario. As long as the students admitted to Harvard and other universities are well-qualified academically for admission, those universities are entitled to consider a range of criteria in assembling a class that is geographically, economically, intellectually, and, yes, racially diverse.
9
@Chris Rasmussen
What is “race?” What is “black?” What is “white?” What is “woman of color?” Is the latter a porcelain skin blue eyed blond with a spanish last name, which I have observed directly? The concept of race and decisions based on this false construct, rather than socioeconomic factors, are a loser and tearing us apart.
2
Not to get into the details, but I was a victim of affirmative action as a white person, when I was young, and arguably when I was older. Plus I know lots of other white people, who have been disadvantaged by affirmative action. Stephens is exactly right that it does not affect your self-worth. Whether it affects your financial worth is another matter. But the main point is that it's just ugly, and really if you want to think about what the cultural Left has done to America in the decades since the 60's, along with their Libertarian Fifth Column, is that they have made things ugly. The arts. Television. The way people dress. Tattoos. The culture of pornography. Hey, music. The sorrow of the fractured family and now these insane synthetic constructs that involve the sale and purchase of babies. America is a diminished country because of these changes. Some of it shows up in socio-economic statistics. Clearly. But much is aesthetic, and that's hard to measure. But impossible to ignore.
5
@Cobble Hill
Not to get into details but I am disadvantaged by people who can’t think straight.
2
@Cobble Hill Given the quality of your arguments here, I am left wondering if you were a white victim of affirmative action or if you just think you were.
1
A mix of all kinds of students helps to relieve the stress that can be overwhelming in college - because people had so many different talents, almost everyone could be better than someone else at something, and worse at other things - it took competition out of the mix most of the time.
The violin maestro laughed about her abysmal math skills; the math whiz freaked her Chinese-born parents out by concentrating in psychology and French (and is now a ridiculously successful photographer); the football player was not as neurotic as the rest of us, and always had a smile and a helping hand; I cheered up my Korean roommate by taking her out after her parents would call to grill her about dating - while she introduced me to the Koreans of Harvard Radcliffe volleyball group when I wasn't good enough to play for Harvard, and befriending wealthy students helped me not be intimidated by money later on in my career - and their full fare tuition helped defray cost for the nearly 70 percent of Harvard student body on financial aid.
I used to say it was comfortable at Harvard because nobody fit in. We all stood out in our own way, and we all had many daily doses of what we didn't know to help keep us challenged, keep our heads on straight, and prepare us for the real world.
This case is proving that Harvard curates a mix of students in every class. For me, and so many others, that curated student body was what made it the healthiest, most enjoyable place for us to go to school.
22
@common sense advocate
The relevant question is not whether you or other persons admitted to Harvard have good experiences there.
The relevant question is whether those who are not admitted are unfairly denied admission based on race -- even in part based on race -- even in small part. Race should simply not be a "factor" at all -- not even in small part.
7
As long as racism permeates our society, affirmative action is an imperfect, but required remedy:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/09/16/job-discrimination-a...
1
@sam finn I think you have no idea what goes into choosing a college entering class. If what state you come from matters, if what sport or instrument you play matters, if whether or not your parents went there matters--why is race virtually the only thing that shouldn't matter, at all, even as one of many factors?
To all those saying that affirmative action is a necessary evil: I disagree.
Affirmative action is a failed policy. It just takes a few minority students and moves them up a tier. Kids by and large don't get to that level anyway unless they have support at home behind them, so this policy is not at all addressing the problem of kids growing up in grinding poverty without any structure in their lives. And at some point it breaks down because there just aren't enough qualified minorities, so while Harvard is only 45% white, schools a tier or two down are usually still 65% white even with affirmative action.
Affirmative action is a lazy policy. It costs nothing to implement; you just start randomly accepting certain kids (and in industry adults) into positions they aren't qualified for because of their color. It allows a university like Harvard to pretend that it's doing something and allows its leaders to feel sanctimonius, when it's far, far from affecting real change on poor families in the cycle of poverty.
13
You could have proved us wrong Mr. Stephens.
But this article only confirms Times readers' original concern that Mr. Stephens opinions would not be based on clear thinking and logic, but on twisting ideas, like diversity of people with diversity of thinking, to trump up right wing talking points.
12
Affirmative action is on its way out. Most Americans are against it & vote to ban it when given a chance. If you want to see Affirmative action's future come to California. For decades Asian Americans here complained that they were being short changed in UC college admissions. They not only argued that race-conscious policies were unfair but proved convincingly that they were victims. In 1996 voters amended the state constitution by voting for Prop 209, to prohibit state institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, in public education. By law admission to UC colleges now had to be race neutral. Post Prop-209, Asian students benefited tremendously. They are almost 50% of student body at UC-Berkeley California schools. This an almost 25% increase. Clearly in an open admissions process where affirmative action does not enter into enrollment decisions & where legacy and donor issues are discouraged, Asian-American students compete very well. In the subsequent years, the Asian community has fiercely opposed all measures that seek to return affirmative action to California. California's present is America's future. They are bringing the fight against affirmative action to the Supreme Court. This time around, there is a wealthier, more organized, & vocal group of Asians who are on board — and are very willing to play their part in ending affirmative action forever. Supporting this flawed policy isn't an option for them & soon the rest of the US.
11
First and foremost: get rid of legacy.
End it.
That's where the real mediocrity lies. And it is a dangerous mediocrity, creating an unsustainable oligarchy that the rest of us have to support, ultimately through corporate welfare.
End the legacies. Let them go somewhere - anywhere - they'll be fine with their silver spoons.
19
@KS Legacy is not an automatic admit; many are rejected. A legacy whose parent is a donor may be another matter.
A lot on the left justify affirmative action on utilitarian grounds -- that it's beneficial social engineering -- without adequately considering the moral defect and personal wrongdoing affirmative action represents.
Affirmative action is fundamentally, unequivocally and intentionally discrimination based on race.
Contrasting positive discrimination vs. negative discrimination is sophistry. Especially in the zero-sum admissions game.
When Roberts cited the need "to stop discriminating on the basis of race", he was advancing a pretty simple proposition: that it's wrong because every person is entitled to equal treatment regardless of the circumstances of their birth.
That it's wrong even when done in the name of liberal social engineering projects.
But Bret is putting forth perhaps a more straightforward rebuttal to the liberal utilitarian argument: that in fact it causes more harm than good by rendering qualified minority candidates tainted by the "affirmative action hire" epithet.
This isn't even to mention the amazing fact that 41%of Ivy League black students are from African immigrant families. So the great affirmative action social engineering project -- purported to be necessary to redress for the past wrongs of slavery and racism suffered by some of America's oldest families and to introduce true diversity into the ranks of the admitted class -- well turns out to be a pretext for meeting some racial quotas.
19
@Mmm. I find this utopian argument odd given that the standard conservative position is utilitarian.
2
Mr. Stephens seems to understand affirmative action as something like a zero-sum game. but it's not like "you are supported, while you are rejected" as Stephens wrote. affirmative action is aimed at abolishing the very thing like this. it tries to prevent the structural discrimination from translating into another kind of hate speeches, or fake news.
2
Of course affirmative action is a "noble lie". Do you think the problem affirmative action addressed has been resolved? How else do you change centuries of privilege and discrimination unless through access to education?
As we know, it's more than grades that predict a successful life and not everyone should go to Harvard...even if you are the smartest person in the room.
Don't forget the 'noble' part and come up with a better plan.
10
@Rob
Use family wealth and income -- not race - as a factor.
1
@Rob
You seem to embrace Plato's noble lie - most folks if they read The Republic would be horrified by the concept of a noble lie.
1
Thank you for this honest column.
“Holistic Review” has been established in this case as the code for racial discrimination it has always been in college admissions. The Harvard case will result in the abolishment of race as a preference factor of any sort either at this trial court level, the court of appeals or, ultimately at the Supreme Court.
It is about time, in my view, that the institutionalization of racial discrimination be eliminated, I have always felt as the author suggests that the cloud of ‘worthiness’ than follows the admission of any individual who is a member group known to be favored by discriminatory policies stains the admitted more than the rejected.
Moreover, without racial reference, thoughtful consideration of applicants’ application from grades, test scores through essays should be more than enough for admissions considerations. That said, ultimately, many wonderful applicants will fall short, hopefully on merit only; and, those accepted, will be recognized for theirs.
3
150 years after the end of slavery, black children are still twice as likely to be raised in poverty as white children. Even black children raised in middle class homes are much more likely to end up in poverty than middle class white children.
The causes are multiple, but the source is 200 years of slavery followed by 150 years of the neglect and abuse of systemic racism.
Or it could be the result of genetic inferiority of the descendants of slaves (even while more recent immigrants form Africa fare much better). That theory is the only excuse
for not addressing this problem, so I fear it is at least subconsciously held by those not willing to invest in real solutions.
America has never admitted to or treated the pathology of the slavery that literally built our nation, from the actual building to the source of revenue through cotton and tobacco.
Affirmative action was devised as a low budget treatment for this pathology. This column is a partial explanation of why it has failed.
Offering scholarships to the most "worthy" minority students is much cheaper than repairing public schools in poor communities, and providing other services that could intervene when disadvantaged children are young enough to benefit the most.
It is not acceptable to discuss the failures of affirmative action without including a much lengthier one about what strategies and investments are required to lift slavery's descendants to equal economic footing.
26
@alan haigh
The Asian students usually come from poor families as well, so this argument fails on the economic front. In New York, for instance, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant High Schools are selective public magnet schools that are jammed with Asian students from modest backgrounds. Other non-magnet schools usually have the top 5-10% of each graduating class dominated by Asian students. The Asians truly have stereotypical family support and pressure to do well academically. This pattern should be copied by those who always cry victimhood, instead of criticized for what it is - 24/7/365 hard academic work. The Asians do not have time for excuses.
5
@James No, it enforces my argument if you read it more carefully. The pathology of slavery is not simply about poverty, it is about cultural issues that are symptoms of slavery and Jim Crow as well as repeated stories in movies stereotyping black Americans in a way that brands them. The brand is held in the minds of both the oppressed and the oppressors.
Also, there are very the statistically verifiable economic biases that have historically created barriers for blacks to get loans for homes and pay more for loans received.
And the much greater likelihood of blacks to get jail time for crimes that would get whites probation, etc. . . If your great grandfather was denied a loan for a home, or thrown into jail, it creates a legacy of poverty. If its your father, the damage is even greater.
This is a chain of persecution from which only the descendants of slaves have received the full bill of liabilities.
Or perhaps you believe they are genetically inferior. It's either culture or genes.
@James "This pattern should be copied by those who always cry victimhood."
I'm sorry, but the white privileged don't get off so easily.
Asians have not been branded by 200 years of slavery and a century of Jim Crow. They have not been stereotyped as criminals since before the creation of Hollywood and then convicted as criminals and sent to jail for crimes a white or Asian would more likely get probation for.
When a black mother or father is sent to prison they are unable to provide for their families. U.S. incarceration rates, 6 times the global average, disproportionately punishes blacks in convictions and sentences for same crimes.
Asians have not been denied home loans when demonstrating the same economic standing as whites who receive them.
I could go on and on, what I note here is statistically verifiable, but I doubt I can change your perspective- it's much more convenient to deny any responsibility for these travesties- a responsibility every American shares, black, brown, white or yellow.
I never aspired to go to Harvard or any other elite institution. I wanted desperately to go to college (actually, just to be allowed to finish HS, as the leaving age was 16). Thanks to NMSC (1956-1960), NSF (1960-1963) and a new doctoral program in Colorado (1963-1964), I was able to complete 8 years of post HS education debt free. (My family provided a grand total of $25 to this.) For your further information, I am white and female. I also came from a rural area with a highly substandard HS in 'STEM.' (Try a physics instructor telling us that Newton's laws of motion were too 'old' to be of any relevance.) I became a faculty member in physics in 1964, and later in mechanical engineering at medium ranked private university. (I'm now Professor Emerita.) Note the dates. For my entire career as a faculty member, I was 'accused' of having any position because of affirmative action. (I 'made' full professor before my university submitted an affirmative action plan.) One item of which I am proudest is the number of engineering students of all races, sexes, etc. who absolutely insisted on having me as their academic advisor, in spite of having other faculty who would seem to be more congenial. My advising was sometimes harsh, but always honest. It was always aimed at getting the student through to the degree that best fitted what was desired for a future career. Apparently I came across as blind to social differences and this was much appreciated by all of them.
8
As a white "victim" of affirmative action, can I disagree? When I left graduate school my entire cohort of graduates were unable to find the teaching jobs we wanted except for the women and the two black men. This was 1976.
Decades later and in a well paid job outside my field, I still lament the turn of fate that changed my plans. But I also know we need to do something to integrate and it must be intentional. We see in places like Belgium and France the end result of not trying. An underclass that is unmoored from the rest of society.
And yes, we still have an underclass too, but we also see minorities integrating well.
That does not mean that what worked at one time should remain unchanged. But to pretend that there is simply no reason to try is, I believe, the wrong conclusion.
Everyone who can get close to an Ivy League admission will do fine elsewhere. And maybe even enjoy their college years.
Oh, and while I was not a "minority" I was hardly privileged. My mother was a widow who worked nights in a nursing home. She too got to see all her children prosper and even enjoy grandchildren. Life was ok in the end.
9
The problem that Mr, Stephens, and almost all opponents of affirmative action face is that they assume that we know what “merit” in admissions or hiring really means, but we do not. Academic success in high school is on measure of merit, but not the whole story. And college is not purely an academic institution, it is also a social one. And (sadly to me) often an athletic one. Also, few opponents of affirmative action really want admissions based only academic achievement. They do not argue for elimination of legacy admissions or the end of athletic scholarships. They concentrate their fire on consideration of race, ethnicity or national origin—programs aimed at broadening the range of students admitted or workers hired. Opponents of affirmative action want mainly to preserve the past.
9
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” John Roberts once wrote.
This statement is actually not a truism because Roberts doesn’t make clear if he is referring to groups or individuals. Does he really mean that the way to stop discrimination against a group (e.g., slaves and descendants of slaves) is to not favor any individual? Without integration and some sort of affirmative action to favor certain individuals it would have taken centuries for slaves and their descendants to recover from the lingering effects of slavery, if ever.
Roberts statement actually muddies the water.
3
Enough already with affirmative action because of slavery. My Italian ancestors, poor and illiterate peasants, might not have been slaves but were treated as such in the US of the early 1900s. totally agree that to end racial preferences, we have to end racial preferences. Very simple.
3
@Rose Mazzetti
Thank you for your comment, but Italians were never forcibly taken from their homeland, forcibly separated from their families, forcibly held and treated as property with virtually no rights. The effects are profoundly different, and require profoundly different remedies.
@Tim-Out of curiosity, do you support affirmative action for Hispanics? Because, as it currently stands, affirmative action benefits them as well. They certainly did not suffer from the American government/ enterprise system being "forcibly taken from their homeland, forcibly separated from their families, forcibly held and treated as property with virtually no rights."
2
A big problem with affirmative action is the reduction of standards necessary to accommodate students who aren't as qualified as their peers. I'm reminded of the Harvard student who recently earned an "A" with a senior thesis of rap music. And it's counterproductive to push aside the best society has to offer in the embrace of symbolism.
7
@Grunt
One could say the same thing about athletes, legacies, and children of donors.
@Grunt
Rap has had an astonishing global reach (besides being a multi-billion dollar industry). I wonder why that is? Why rap and not country music? Why has it been more influential than even rock music?
I don't know the answers, but it seems to me like an interesting and important topic that would tell us a lot about the world in the 21st century.
2
@Grunt Are you saying, in the year Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize in music, that it's impossible to write an outstanding thesis about rap music? (Have you read the thesis?)
2
Admissions at Harvard is not a fixed pie. If Harvard wanted to, they could literally have a 2nd Harvard with all the qualified students they turn away. Just make a campus, hire the teachers, accept the students: boom, Harvard doubles its size of business. Tell me which part of that equation is not doable.
The only reason they don't is that the Ivy league literally values the rarity as much as the attainment. Research shows that the education is not really that much better than at other Title I schools, and the real advantage is the name-brand's knock-on effects and a network of beneficiaries with the same edge. The larger that group is, the harder it is to control their network and the less valuable purchasing access to that network becomes as its easier to connect to naturally. Heck, facebook is only the winning social media platform literally because of the desire to connect with Harvard's social network.
I'm personally really surprised at how badly Harvard has defended itself in this lawsuit, but I generally agree with Stephens that the result is probably because of mental backflips to fit affirmative action into their institutional goals. Maybe its time to seriously think about ways to regulate social influence peddling and selling exclusivity. And honestly, that would scare the heck out of Harvard 1000x more than this lawsuit.
8
Racial quotas -- aka race-based "affirmative action" aka racial "diversity" "goals" -- are morally rotten right to the core.
They assign rights -- and burdens -- based on supposed membership in supposed racial groups -- as opposed to individual merit.
Use of race on a group basis cannot be morally justified based on "societal" racism. That is collective guilt, and has always been morally wrong. The individuals who benefit from the use of race based quotas did not necessarily suffer from "societal" racism that many members of the group did suffer, and the individuals who are burdened by it did not necessarily practice or impose it.
Yes, "merit" is not always easy to measure, and sometimes the measurement is skewed by racial bias -- conscious and unconscious -- on the part of those devising and implementing the measurement. But that does not mean that the effort to devise and implement race-neutral methods and practices to measure "merit" should not be continuously made -- and continuously improved or altered in light of continuous re-examination.
Actually, "race" itself is not easy to measure, as been recently displayed by the Elizabeth Warren imbroglio. Yes, perhaps DNA itself can be used, but assigning race by DNA -- even if scientifically "validated" -- indeed, especially if done in a manner which is scientifically "validated" -- is by no means a simple concept with simple answers -- certainly not simple enough to be implemented by the law or by judges.
10
1) It is impossible to choose Harvard students entirely by Grades and Tests. Even if Harvard only selected those with straight As and perfect test scores they would have many times more students than places available. So other factors which are less quantifiable will always have to be used.
2) If person A has twelve opportunities and person B has 3, a more just society is created if we take some opportunities away from A and give them to B. One of the great blindnesses of privilege is to believe that it is possible to "make it on your own". Those who claim they have done this have relied on what their parents gave them, rather than what the government gave them.
9
@Teed Rockwell
Just like in Venezuela! No one is allowed to make it on their own, because the government decides who gets each piece of chicken or toilet paper. Taking away things or rights from "A" always works until A does not have any more to give.
Let's take the example of Dominican baseball players, some of whom will play in the World Series next week after having grown up shoeless and penniless. Did they "make it on their own", or were shoes taken from someone else? I tend to think along author Malcolm Gladwell's lines that endless practice and dedication (the 10,000 hours theory) has something to do with it, not some bureaucratic policies that keep victimhood in vogue for generations. What most people do not understand is the amount of work needed to achieve goals when one is not born to "privilege". Trust me on this, I was born to a teenage mother and have 4 Ivy League diplomas.
'“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race ..."'
Perhaps Chief Justice Roberts did not mean to imply that disparate impacts would no longer occur. Still, that seems to be the simplistic meaning that Stephens has drawn from Roberts's statement.
2
@Sequel 'disparate impacts' are likewise treating people according to the race or gender, not as people but rather as demographics, just as perverted a doctrine unless it is part of some intentional plan. Think more non-black shorter men should be admitted to the NBA because black and tall men are over-represented compared to the general population? It's ridiculous.
1
@GSBoy You think disparate impact requires conscious discriminatory intent? Now that's ridiculous.
The affirmative action self-pity gambit only works if you completely identify with ego needs of the recipient. That is, if you consider other needs, the morality becomes less stark. Harvard may be seeking to create a diverse and balanced student body and make admissions on that basis. It may recognize that entry test score disparities are often indicative of quality differentials in secondary education and make compensatory adjustments for that factor. The notion that these decisions can be reduced to the effects of a single factor is simplistic.
As for Stephens and the Times, he is one of three nominally conservative regular columnists and probably the least interesting of the bunch. David Brooks, while he sometimes gets lost in the weeds, is wide-ranging in the ideas he is willing to consider; even when off-base he is usually provocative. Ross Douthat is informative on the institutional travails of the Catholic Church from the perspective of a believer who wants to see the problems solved without wreaking undue havoc on the fabric of tradition -- conservatism in its original form.
Stephens is more conventional and less adventurous than either Brooks or Douthat and could be regarded as an affirmative action hire on the grounds he brings little new or exciting to the table. In his egotistical pique he seems to be channeling Clarence Thomas, an uninspiring model. Perhaps affirmative action should be limited to candidates who show some capacity for humility and gratitude.
13
First, this case was brought by a man whose goal has nothing to do with supporting Asian applicants. It has everything to do with reducing opportunities for other applicants of color, as have his other efforts. So let’s not view his efforts as anything other than exploitative of Asians.
Second, let’s not be be deluded than Harvard or any other university or college selects students based only on academics. They consider a wide array of abilities, traits and accomplishments - and yes, connections and donations - as do their competitors. And they have social objectives, some internal to their institutions and some external, to our society.
And that is really the point of this lawsuit, isn’t it? The social objectives of the sponsor of this lawsuit include limiting the place in our society of students of color, many of whom face enormous challenges in getting decent educations. His goal is making sure that they have as little opportunity as possible to overcome those challenges, so if they start out down, they stay down.
But if we want to admit students based only on some measure of academic accomplishment, then let’s really do that. Let’s admit significantly more women than men, because when academic success is the measure of high school students, women stand out, especially if you’re trying to find humanists, as Harvard apparently is.
33
@Mike Iker. Coming from California your argument makes no sense. As you know in 1996 California voters amended the state constitution, to prohibit state governmental institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, in the areas of public employment, public contracting, & public education. Since the passage of Prop 209, minority students at California schools have posted higher graduation rates, African American graduation rates at Berkeley increased by 6.5%, & rose even more dramatically, from 26% to 52%, at UC San Diego. Prop 209 restored & reconfirmed the historic intention of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The basic and simple premise of Prop 209 is that every individual has a right, & that right is not to be discriminated against, or granted a preference, based on their race or gender. Since the number of available positions are limited, discriminating against or giving unearned preference to a person based solely, or even partially on race or gender deprives qualified applicants of all races an equal opportunity to succeed. It also pits one group against another & perpetuates social tension. Prop 209 has been the subject of many lawsuits but has withstood legal scrutiny. In 2006, a similar amendment was passed in Michigan. In 2014 SCOTUS ruled 6-2 that the Michigan Initiative was constitutional. This public policy is no longer defensible. Most Americans are against it & vote to ban it when given a chance. Harvard's policy can't be justified. They will lose this case.
20
@Mike Iker.
Yes, they can consider a wide "array of abilities, traits and accomplishments" -- other than pure "academics".
But race is not an "ability" or an "accomplishment".
If race as a "trait" can be considered, then why is not favorable consideration to a "trait" as a "white" allowed?
2
As Harvard is a private school, their admissions should be their business and nobody else’s.
As to any school selecting a student body from applicants. Many value a diverse student body by many different measurements. Geographic diversity may make it a little easier for a rancher’s kid from Wyoming to get in, but it is probably a good thing for all students. Same for various ethnic, faith, economic and other background criteria. Part of the college experience is not about grades, but about working with, along side, competing against and sometimes debating people who think different or have a different experience from your own.
As to striving to get into Harvard, the track record of Harvard (and other Ivy League school) grads in our government is not that special. Trump went to Penn, Dubya went to Yale and Harvard, Ted Cruz went to Harvard, Obama (not that effective a President, to be honest) went to Columbia. Most of the Conservatives trying to repeal the progress of the 20th century on the SCOTUS are Harvard grads. By comparison, Eisenhower went to West Point, Gerald Ford to Michigan, Jimmy Carter to the Naval Academy, Reagan to Eureka College, LBJ to Southwest Texas State Teachers College, Nixon to Whittier College and Harry Truman never graduated college.
There are plenty of fine schools not named Harvard and not in the Ivy League.
16
@David Gregory
So, a "private" school ought to be able to favor whites explicitly. After all, as you claim, supposedly "their admissions should be their business and nobody else's".
2
Asian Americans make up 5.6% of our population. They make up 22.9% of Harvard applicants. Clearly, they apply to Harvard in grossly disproportionate numbers.
There are similar patterns for applicants from the Northeast. Harvard compensates for this by having higher standards for those from Long Island than for those from North Dakota. They seek diversity geographically as well as ethnically. And they seek socioeconomic diversity as well.
Favoring states with few applicants and those who are poor has not been challenged. But admission patterns by ethnicity are now being deemed illegal. Whatever your ideal might be, there is no merit system. If you call for admission by merit, those from North Dakota and the poor cannot be favored. Those who insist on a full merit system presumably favor equal standards across the board. And past discrimination against blacks, women and others are not to be remedied. That hardly seems fair to me.
9
@michjas The flaw in your argument and the policy of affirmative action is this: past discrimination against blacks, women and others can't be remedied to anyone's satisfaction. This policy was never meant to last forever. But that's exactly what it's proponents want and why they're losing. Asian Americans will never accept for the greater good a system of racial preferences that benefits others more than them. They shouldn't have to. Affirmative action is going to be declared unconstitutional. This is isn't a Republican vs Democrat issue anymore. In poll after poll, the overwhelming majority of Americans are against affirmative action and in favor of merit based admission policies for colleges. Affirmative action was a well-intentioned policy that was poorly implemented. It has resulted in de facto quotas. We all know that. Despite being the country’s fastest-growing minority group, & despite applying to college in greater numbers, the percentage of Asians admitted at elite schools has flat lined over the last 20 years. That suggests that Harvard & the other Ivies have a hard-fast, intractable quota limiting the number of Asians that they will accept. That's wrong. There're better ways to improve diversity. Improving the K-12 education in [those] disadvantaged communities would be a good place to start. But truthfully most politicians and surprisingly most Democrats don't have the will, incentive, or guts to do this. Inexcusable but not surprising.
21
@michjas
You want to assign rights and burdens to individuals based supposed membership in supposed groups based on the groups' "proportion" of the overall population. That means group quotas, and they are morally wrong.
5
What of affirmative action for the likes of George W. Bush, who was denied admission by his home state public school the University of Texas but still attended Yale and Harvard? And what of the far more academically qualified but far less connected and no doubt less wealthy students who were bumped from admission at these elite schools as a result? They were discriminated against, but I don't hear anyone trying to correct those types of blatant injustices.
35
Some race-aware college admissions programs have survived judicial scrutiny, because there are good reasons to have diverse student bodies. Not only does diversity improve the educational atmosphere of schools, it improves society as a whole by providing educated citizens to serve our diverse communities. As long as we have de facto segregated cities and regions, we need educated people of all ethnic and racial groups. Harvard used to be free to discriminate in favor of white people, and did so. If Harvard now wants to be more responsible and serve our society as a whole, by promoting diversity, it is all our interests to allow that.
That being said, if relies on stereotypes, rather than true traits of the applicants, that would be wrong. However, your other "evidence" is highly interpreted. I am willing to give Harvard the same benefit of the doubt that you gave Kavanaugh, and he was clearly the beneficiary of discrimination in favor of the wealthy.
4
I worry that when people hear the phrase"affirmative action," they think of a mechanistic, zero-sum policy dictated by the federal government. The reality is much more nuanced. Apart from institutions proven to have engaged in discriminatory practices, affirmative action is not mandate from on high. Instead, schools consider variety among students to be enriching of the educational experience. Thus, they consider factors such as geography, parental income, whether a student is the first in his or her family to attend college, student interests and values, and, in some cases, race--once it's been established that an applicant meets a school's intellectual and academic criteria. Nobody with a 2.5 GPA and a modest SAT score is getting into Harvard, regardless of race. The hypothetically jilted applicant who loses a seat to someone less qualified on grounds of affirmative action is most likely distinguished from that" weaker" student by a .2 GPA advanatage and membership in one more club than his or her upstart nemesis. :-) Even more to the point, that usurper may well have gotten in because she comes from rural Nebraska, which involves an entirely different set of experiences from students who have grown up in urban, coastal enclaves--such as the Bay Area, which, according to a PolarisList report, sends the most students to Ivy League schools every yeae. Diverse perspectives enrich any discussion, so considering race as one factor anong many seems entirely reasonable.
7
I would love to hear how the concept of legacy admissions fits into your overall notion of which students should be turned away fairly. Could you please help me fit that into the explanation of the ideal heuristic elite schools should use for admission?
12
From my own experience at highly selective universities, the vast majority of students (of all racial backgrounds) had opportunities and family support that most Americans don’t. If universities were truly interested in genuine diversity, they could adopt systems that are similar to the UT and UC universities that consider local and personal circumstances.
Affirmative action is a great idea, just not when it’s based on a coarse measure like race.
7
Grievances of right-wing pundits are unrelated to affirmative action. They're not a legal arguments. They're Trumpian misdirection.
Affirmative action of the kind upheld by the Supreme Court in Bakke is compatible with addressing discrimination. The suit wrongly contends that if we ignore race-consciousness discrimination will somehow, magically, disappear. Ending race-conscious affirmative action will not stop discrimination against Asians because the real source of discrimination is Legacy.
Harvard secretly chose to deploy racial balancing in a manner that keeps the number of Asians artificially low relative to those who are less strong on academic measures, specifically those who enjoy the advantage of being Legacy Admissions. Legacy is nothing but an Affirmative Action Plan for the Rich and Well-Connected whose wealthy families give large donations. 30 percent of all Harvard admissions are set aside for Legacies. It's why only 15 percent of all admissions are Black, and only 23 percent are Asian. The negative impact of Legacy Admissions on Asians, most of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants, is the real problem. Legacy destroys all argument about "fairness." On a massive scale Legacy gives preferential treatment to wealthy well-connected applicants, almost exclusively white, over all other groups, including Asians. Wealthy Conservatives pretend that "diversity" is why Asians are disadvantaged in admissions. Privilege bestowed by Legacy is the real problem.
28
@Robert B I’m only more convinced of Mr. Stephens comments.
Instead of arguing about who gets a limited number of admissions to a few exclusive universities, perhaps we should talk about whether it needs to be that way. I know that a university can only admit a limited number of students, but universities are human artifacts that can be replicated. Why are there not enough Harvards for everyone, and what makes a Harvard better than any other university.
We live in a star-struck, Devil take the hindmost society, so to get ahead, people endure a hazing ritual that puts Survivor to shame. People compete and get voted off the island, and only the winners get to go to Harvard. So we argue whether being a member of this group or that gives you an advantage or not, instead of questioning if it has to be this way. Can't we create enough education so that anyone capable of finishing the coursework can get it, instead of relegating the vast majority of seekers to the second and third tiers?
Here I go again, questioning the fundamental basis of the premise instead of weighing the details and coming in on one side or another. The exclusivity of places like Harvard is an artificial construction designed to divide us into stars and also-rans. It doesn't have to be that way.
7
The mystery of Harvard's appeal to the ambitious is simple. A Harvard student is ushered into a social network that will run America's top institutions for years. At university he will make contacts that guarantee wealth and power. These contacts are also talented, charming and ambitious.
7
@mlbex Employers and voters determine the value of Harvard. My own mother was convinced that Obama completed a more rigorous curriculum at Harvard Law School than my Big Ten Law School.
1
@Sufi: Bingo. Let's quit deluding ourselves that it is about the education, which, although rigorous, is not that exclusive. It's about the contacts and the hazing ritual required to obtain them. With that reality front and center, we can have a more honest conversation about admissions and affirmative action.
@Shamrock: No doubt the curriculum is rigorous, but that can be easily replicated, and most likely is, in those big 10 schools you mention and possibly many others. It's about the exclusivity to a much greater degree.
Thanks, both of you. You've lead me to a much greater subtext. Who gets to decide which people get admitted to the inner circles of power, influence, and money, for example from Harvard to the e-suite of large corporations? Traditionally, people in those positions have reserved that right for themselves. The very fact that we're discussing AA for those positions is a challenge to their power and exclusivity. As (if?) we become more civilized, we will develop a better way of deciding who the shot callers are in our society.
1
When my kids were in high school they started receiving postcards and letters with brochures after they took their SATs. Their scores were high enough to receives invites to attend seminars locally. My elder kid didn't even want to waste time or money applying, he went to ucla. My younger scored perfect on math, low 700s ebrw. We did attend a few of these seminars a combo: Harvard, Penn, Georgetown, Stanford and Duke. We were told not to worry about test scores, that the school doesn't rely so heavily on a 4hr test to rate an applicant. We were told the record from high school rated better and extra curricular and leadership too. Made it seem like everyone who attended had a chance. It was a marketing ploy. Your application dollars. At Harvard for $90 x 44k = $4m.
My younger wanted to stay in California so applied to UCs and Stanford. Stanford reject but yes at Berkeley.
I think all Asians should save their money, boycott all Ivy Leagues. For STEM kids if you're smart you'll get a great education and job anywhere.
6
If you overcome substantial obstacles to get ahead, you have achieved more than those with silver spoons. To view your handicap as a stigma makes little sense. I suppose some classmates might view you as the recipient of an unfair boost. But the truth is that you have achieved more than your classmates to get to the same place and have well earned your place in the class.
Here's the thing. My nephew performed brilliantly in high school, reaching the top of his class, all while he led several community outreach programs and charities. The local mayor, county supervisor, and congressman all participated in an event honoring him specifically. Yet when he applied to the big name schools for college, he received mostly rejections. A friend of his with good but not great grades, a member of a minority group, was accepted at the same schools and given full scholarships. We applaud the efforts to extend the possibility of a quality college education to historically underrepresented groups, but the exclusion of highly capable and deserving students because of race alone is the pathway to breeding resentment. Most insulting is the derisive label of "white privilege", as if my nephew had things easy and didn't have to work hard for his achievements, and that his dreams are somehow less important and those of minority students.
Currently, my own son, also an impressive student, is applying to schools. I would like to think he has a fair shot at gaining admission to one of his top choices, but even former admissions officers have cautioned us, "don't bet on it".
81
@Connecticut reader
Yup... this is the reality for many of us. The truth is that there's an elite in this country that's rigging the system. Yes, it's white, but the majority of whites are not in the elite. Democrats are focused on minorities and have ignored the middle class for a long time, lumping "white people" together into a big group of scapegoats.
I wonder how Trump gets all those middle class white votes?
The answer given by liberals is usually to just say "racism", yet another scapegoat that allows them to ignore the failings of the democratic party and keep doing the same stupid stuff that gets a guy like Trump elected.
I say this as a discouraged liberal who wants nothing more than good government with universal health care and affordable college education.
1
No person is excluded because of “race alone.”
Wouldn’t the legacy students, the kids of faculty/staff, the kids of the rich & famous - most of who are white- be better targets for your animus?
You also miss the point. Does any school, especially the Ivies, need yet another almost certainly middle upper class to upper class kid white kid that has the opportunities to be congratulated by politicians?
Please don’t tell me you’re poor- if both your nephew & your son are apparently Ivy material (at least in your minds, then you’re up there).
You know, many kids don’t know about or have the opportunities that many others have, especially today, to play the college game.
Of course, even minority kids are set up as humanitarians, entrepreneurs, etc. by tender ages these days.
Some of them come from more traditionally privileged backgrounds.
Others less so, but still have family members or other contacts that provide them with vital & crucial assistance. They may even provide the actual “start-up” for their ultimate claims to fame. Then, like many white familiars, they not only help kids obtain their start but provide crucial momentum & support. They may take & spread photos, plant ideas, provide encouragement, etc.
Really, we need fewer of these “little perfections” than regular youth of all types.
@Connecticut reader. The best advice I could give you is to encourage your son to apply as a member of a ‘protected’ class.
Since there is currently no objective measure or test for African American/ Native status, your son is exacly what he ‘feels’ himself to be at the moment. He very well may identify as a proud but marginalized Native African female. This is the best way to combat the insanity of the Left.
One thing Harvard and all of the other "highly selective" colleges and universities could do would be to refuse to consider SAT scores from students who take "test preparation" courses. The courses (run by private for profit entities) amount to teaching to the test. They do improve test scores and some candidates take them repeatedly. If one is supposed to be among the brightest, why does one need coaching to the test?
Further, as has been pointed out by others, Harvard could fill each class three times over with students who are completely qualified. So many are turned down who, judging by scores alone, would be admitted.
Finally, anyone who has read Kozol's classic "Savage Inequalities" about the funding of primary and secondary education (inequalities which have changed little since the book was written) might ask why we are suddenly concerned about a program to advantage African Americans at the college when no concern is shown about the continuing housing and therefore school segregation which continues to be rampant in this country. Just look at a census map showing racial breakdowns.
Mr. Roberts views the question of race from the standpoint of a privileged person and he is wrong about, And so is Mr Stevens's view on affirmative action cloaked in belly-aching about the wounds he received wondering whether the Times could have found a non "conservative" columnist who might be better and brighter. Don't worry about it. I still rather read your column than Douthat.
11
@M. Johnson
Standardized tests aren't full of logic puzzles that measure IQ. They're based on knowledge and how you can apply that knowledge in different contexts. Why would studying for a test somehow taint your results? Why would coaching taint your results? Every professional athlete gets coached 24/7 and their accomplishments aren't questioned. Studying for and beating a test proves you are among the brightest. Taking the test without studying is handicapping yourself for no reason (not the brightest thing to do).
These study materials are available in prep books from B&N for relatively cheap (around $15 for an SAT prep book and $6 dollars for practice SAT exams) so they accessible to almost everyone.
14
@M. Johnson - One of the brightest people I knew when I was in high school--back in the dark ages before test prep classes of any kind existed--could not get into any of the Ivies because of his SAT scores. I have no idea why he did so poorly but perhaps coaching could have helped him.
2
The problem of affirmative action is part of a bigger problem in society. Ours is a competitive society and those at the top (naturally) feel they are superior to all the others. The culture of competition creates a stratum of "geniuses" and "super-achievers" who are supposed to go on and make our competitive society even more competitive - and unlivable for the great majority of people who worry more about what they've got to eat than about what is on their transcript. The huge and growing injustice of this society makes the issue of affirmative action trivial and ultimately meaningless.
7
In the 1970's, I was among the top 20 students in my undergraduate Ivy League college senior class. I was also keeping house for my refugee parents, who worked 6d/wk, 10-12h/d. I grew up in a slum and certainly knew the social determinants of health - heat, clean water, freedom from crime.
I applied to medical school. I went to 6 interviews. At EVERY interview, I was asked why I should be given a medical school seat when that meant an unadmitted male applicant would be at risk of being sent to Viet Nam. My reply was that I was applying to medical school, not running for president. I wanted to be judged on the merits of my achievements - grades, research, MCATs.
45 years later, I know very well that NO man had to make an argument that he was better than a female applicant. History will decide whether I was worth the privilege of admission to medical school, which was granted to me. My whole career has been spent with the question mark of whether I was admitted to medical school as an 'affirmative action' cipher.
67
We have no problem with kids being hampered with underfunded, poor schools in El-Hi, but then demand that they compete on equal footing with those who are given every advantage. It’s ludicrous. College athletic teams realize that not only the achievements on the field, but also the circumstances of that achievement should be considered. They will take a kid who runs a 10.5 100 meter dash, but who has horrible equipment, a fast food diet, bad coaching, and a job over the guy who runs a 10.2 but has every advantage. They know that within a year, with proper coaching, equipment and diet the 10.5 will surpass the 10.2 kid, who is already at his best. The same is more often than not true of AA kids who get in to top tier schools. This suit is not about Asian Americans so much as it is about African American and Hispanic kids. The suit doesn’t have a problem with legacy or school donations being figured into the mix, only race.
All students benefit from a diverse student body. If anything, AA should be expanded, not curtailed.
27
@Clayton Strickland
Why don't we use socioeconomic status in admissions instead of using race as a proxy? There are poor disadvantaged children of all races. Wouldn't using SES benefit more of those in need?
5
@Clayton Strickland Then base admissions on income and not race. And abolish legacy admissions -- maybe even athletic admissions -- while you're at it.
1
Do white prep school graduates ever reflect on their privilege and wonder whether they "earned" their place?
Brett Kavanaugh went to an elite prep school (the same as Neil Gorsuch) and on to an Ivy League education, with the apparent benefit of a legacy preference. He worked hard and got good grades. This is many conservatives' definition of "qualified." But there was no question about whether the Kavanaugh family could afford Brett's education or to put food on the table, no barriers to his achievement based on his race or gender, and seemingly no substantial trauma in his upbringing (other, perhaps, than the self-inflicted ones).
By all means, let's have a conversation about what it means to "earn" your place in society, but let's have it in full view of the privileges and self-reinforcing criteria that the ruling class have enjoyed for generations.
97
@Coastal Elite
Kavanaugh did NOT work hard at Yale or Yale law. He was smart, had a good memory, and tested well.
Young men who go to fancy prep schools and very wealthy suburban high schools work hard in 8th grade and in their Junior year, maybe.
My high school term paper earned a B+. Rewritten for a second year class at Baruch, I received an A-.
1
@Coastal Elite: maybe Kavanaugh should not have gotten into Yale....maybe he was a legacy admit (that's not clear, even though his grandfather went there).
But that was 36 years ago. We cannot change THE PAST. We can only deal with the "here and now".
For the record, I think legacy admissions should be illegal.
American society has evolved today with a comfort that the most competitive individual positions of attainment (be it high level sports, performing arts, etc) are blind to race....
We have generally no issues with the racial make up of a basketball team, or a symphony orchestra, with the understanding that these organisations, whether professional or amateur, continuously seek the highest achievers. Irrespective of race.
Similarly, Harvard, Yale, etc, can easily put together a robust and transparent set of admissions criteria absent race and gender...their reluctance to do so is a bit difficult to understand. Maybe the admissions departments truly believe they possess unique skills in creating their utopia?
At its root the (unspoken) concern for many proponents of race based admissions is that too many Asians will spoil the culture of Harvard and other similar institutions.
We’re seeing this view play out in NYC with De Blasio’s proposed change to the admissions process at Stuyvesant...
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@Chin - Orchestras did not become blind to race and gender without effort. For years, all the musicians were white males with only a few exceptions--harpists, for example, were usually women. It wasn't until they started holding auditions with the musician playing behind a screen after having walked to his or her seat over carpet to stifle their footsteps that women began to make up a substantial portion of orchestra members. The situation for minorities is somewhat different. There are a fair number of Asian musicians, not so many black ones, possibly because there are--for a variety of reasons--fewer applicants from that pool.
As for sports, perhaps you should read up on Jackie Robinson and the breaking of the color bar in baseball. It was not a painless process.
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Asians are just a red herring with this case, the intent is to keep African American and Hispanic students out. The suit specifically omits legacy and donations as factors.
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@Chin, Right on!
Harvard’s reputation will be forever diminished because of this trial. Favoring the relatives of wealthy donors over more worthy applicants and discriminating against a minority are simply actions which can’t be logically defended. Also, my gut feeling is that women are probably being discriminated against as well at Harvard because I suspect that there are more highly qualified women applying than highly qualified men but Harvard doesn’t want its student body to be 65% women and 35% men.
And since all of the other “prestige” universities do the exact same things that Harvard does the next few years should be interesting as this all plays out.
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The "insults insidious psychologic power to wound" only has power over you if you let it.
Your writing and opinions strike me as quite powerful and seem to represent the culmination of a great amount of work and accomplishment.
Were you really that stung by those accusations you note? Or is this just a device you are using to make a case against affirmative action?
Because college admissions is indeed complicated. I was accepted to top colleges from public school with parents who graduated HS and had scant financial resources. My kids have parents with doctorates and many financial resources. If you were an admissions officer, how would you compare their SAT scores to mine? Its not an easy question and I don't believe it has an obvious answer.
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Taking away all the arguments, there is one truth to affirmative action that Democrats need to understand. Every professional and educational institution that employs affirmative action has the very real ability to sway for life the political affiliations of those affected by it.
For the vast majority of the people I personally know affected by the wrong side of the coin of affirmative action, it has left a political bent that leans (unfortunately) right. All policy decisions have consequences, but none affect so many people so personally as AA does. Though it may help a minority (not Asian) student more easily be accepted, it by definition withholds admission from another candidate. When these other candidates don’t go in, they automatically, and rightfully so, associate the Democratic Party And liberalism with their rejection.
I am an environmentalist, support worker’s rights, universal healthcare, etc. But, clearly being explained in a post-admission interview to a Medical School that I would have got in had I been a minority had a transformative effect of me.
For all the progressive individuals who support Affirmative Action, beware that by implementing it you are breeding Trump voters.
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Those on the cutting edge of getting into Ivy League schools aren’t Trump voters. And the difference in the kids gaining admission and those not is usually minute. The schools, the students, and the country are all better served by their being a diverse student body. For too long white males have been the sole beneficiaries of AA, the last thirty or so years since the tide has turned has not even come close to closing the gap that white privilege has so deeply ingrained in our society.
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Not sure what “taking away all the arguments” means, but leaving out slavery, Jim Crowe, mass incarceration, and our permitting public education to remain separate and astonishingly unequal, not to mention our systemic structural racism and sexism, really misses the point. The Fortune 500 heartily endorse and employ affirmative action because it results in the best work force. Go figure.
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@Alex By blaming their personal failures solely on affirmative action, I'd say the thinking that produces Trump voters is already present prior to their alleged mistreatment at the hands of those "they automatically, and rightfully so, associate the Democratic Party And liberalism with their rejection." Not matriculating to the college of their choice would appear be the least of their problems.
Affirmative action policy further underscores the ultimately self-serving nature of human groups and the challenge we face of unifying a newly multicultural United Nations of the United States.
Those who benefit from AA will happily accept the advantage it bestows every time. all others will protest legitimately. Such is the paradoxical duality of being human.
But my real point is as a country, I fear we can now see the logical end of our democracy. There are too many conflicting, irreconcilable interests because there are too many mutually antagonistic groups of humans living in one land and still calling it a country. It contravenes the laws of nature that the strong should sacrifice their interests for the weak. AA is nice. So is PC. But in the end, the downsides outweigh the benefits. Which brings us 2018 and the seething divisions that are boiling just below the surface of of our fractious and fracturing society.
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@Tiger shark
"It contravenes the laws of nature that the strong should sacrifice their interests for the weak." Say what? Do parents and society not "sacrifice their interests" with the goal of protecting vulnerable children? And families and society protect vulnerable elders and the disabled? Our moral obligation as human being is to help those less fortunate, to share with those in need. If you don't believe that this commitment to helping those who are "weaker" is part of being human, then you must be a conservative. Because liberals help and care about others, even those they have never met.
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@Tiger shark Then the only way out, the only LEGITIMATE way to compensate for YEARS of discimination and Jim Crow is to PAY RETRIBUTIONS TO BLACKS AND OTHER MINORITIES to compensate them for the work their ancestors did without pay and to give them PAYMENT so that they can afford to put their children in the sorts of schools where they can learn to compete with everyone else on the same playing field.
WE DO NOT have a level playing field now . Black and brown people MUST be given the financial resources to enroll their kids in the SAME private schools and white people can get this kids into. ONLY THEN will everything be fair and only then can AA be properly eliminated.
I think this lawsuit is the beginning of the end of the whole dishonest admission process at elite schools. The next step is to begin to withdraw tax exemption from schools who practice it. That will get their attention quickly.
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People forget that affirmative action was instigated not because minorities and women could not compete, but because white and male dominated institutions simply refused to admit them. I agree that "affirmative action hire/admissions" unfairly smears women and minorities now, especially at elite colleges, which is unfortunate since it is the legacy students--the children of alumni who are mostly wealthy and white--at those institutions who are the real affirmative action beneficiaries, so it is not fair that everyone looks at minorities and women and assumes they got in because of their race or gender. If colleges end affirmative action, they must end legacy admissions as well. It's only fair.
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@Kate Absolutely untrue except in the case of women. Why don’t you look at the other posts here defending AA. You will never see that brilliant black students were denied admission because of race. Hasn’t been true in over half a century. What you’ll see is an argument whether students from a deprived background should get an advantage.
@Kate
Yes but 55% and 59 % of white voters in the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections did not vote for the Editor of the Harvard Law Review aka Barack Hussein Obama.
You know who I think we should pity? All the white men who for years and years and years, benefited from affirmative action, because women, blacks and people from far off countries didn't even have the opportunity to compete.
Think about it. How many of them would have gotten into the schools they did or had the careers they did if the playing field had been level?
Among the Ivy league parents I know, there are many whose children don't get in to those same schools, in part because admissions is much more competitive now. Same thing for doctors' children and medical school. There should certainly be no doubt that, as with Olympic athletes, as the pool of applicants broadens, there is probably a much higher level of skill in those who are admitted than there used to be.
For some reason, though, our affirmative action white male doctors/professors/lawyers/journalists don't seem plagued with self doubt. Nor do the people who got where they are with huge help from their families.
Confident people take the advantages they have received in stride. Warren Buffet has said his sisters were as smart and capable as him. 60 years ago, nobody was telling white men that they were the beneficiaries of favoritism and were therefore probably taking the place of people more qualified than them. And they managed to get the job done.
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@DebbieR-I am white, male, and was born in the late 1980s. Tell me again how “white affirmative action” helped me when I applied to graduate schools in 2012 or college in 2006? Or do you just lump all white males into the same category, not worthy of taking their concerns seriously?
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@Alex
My point was that up until fairly recently in history - white men enjoyed an overtly unfair advantage - when it was expected that women were not going to have careers, when there was clear discrimination against blacks and when the flow of applicants from third world countries hardly existed, and that despite that clear favoritism, they thrived and flourished and considered themselves worthy of their success. And nobody sought to question them about it.
And even later than that, men continued (and even still do to some extent) to benefit from the fact that many people feel most comfortable hiring people who look like them, or act like them, or share similar backgrounds. But they don't sit around wondering if "the only reason they got the job" was because they enjoyed unfair advantages.
If we lived in a perfect meritocracy, where test scores and aptitude were the sole criterion in getting hired, would we have businesses that have been run by the same family for generations? Or political dynasties? In areas where a unique skill set is truly necessary - where true creativity is required - you don't see children often rising to the same level as their parents. For the vast majority of jobs, it is some combination of skill and opportunity that get you ahead. The success of Harvard graduates has as much to do with opportunities as skill set.
@DebbieR
A Harvard Phd.never made W.E.B. DuBois white.
A Harvard Law degree never made Barack Obama white.
What's the difference between an applicant with a 4.0 index and one with a 3.9 index? Yea, I know- a tenth of a point.
Grades alone are far from being a perfect fit for an Ivy League School. One of my degrees was from such an institution.
In my engineering career, (both as an engineer and a manager) I found the correlation to be weak: good grades vs excellent job performance. Book learning vs hands on experience.
My son,(Jewish) is married to an Asian he met in Medical School. She's extraordinary. But, he's met other folks who have the highest grades, but miss a little in EQ. EQ is essential to being a great MD. Tactile skills count, too.
I don't know that we want affirmative action in Medical Residency, but there is room for it in medical school and other academic categories as well. You might recall the phrase, "Form Follows Function."
"Darwinian evolution small variations in form allow some parts of the population to function "better"
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I generally like Bret's columns even if I don't agree with their content. This one stinks: it doesn't mention the group of students that get in on account of their connections, the so-called "legacy" students, who by some metric account for 30% of a given class. And they are overwhelmingly white.
Harvard, Yale, and the rest are not a meritocracy--they are a crucible where top industry executives and government officials are groomed. There is truly no objective way of judging incoming students with varying backgrounds and with substantive differences in opportunities. Some of these colleges, to their credit, have tried to craft classes that are more representative of the country (pace the "legacies").
Very sad to see Asian students pitted against black and Latino classmates. As it is often the case, those groups that have been disenfranchised end up fighting for crumbs.
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I know this isn't a perfect example, but.....
Let's say one student attends a school in which the AVERAGE senior takes 6 AP classes and this student takes 4, while a second student's school ONLY OFFERS 3 AP classes and the student takes all 3. The first student might be better prepared for college, having taken more AP classes, but a school might think the second student is better prepared for success having taken the hardest workload available.
If the first student is a black student from a tony High School and the second student is a white student from an impoverished school district, I don't see why the first student should have an advantage. And I'm not sure that admitting the first student would add to the diversity of the school any more than admitting the second student would.
So where do I come out - purely objective measures of merit are not purely objective measures of likelihood for success. And diversity is an important factor when trying to construct an incoming class, but should be done based on a deeper analysis than just race.
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@Leonard Levine Having been a white student at an Ivy League university I feel that some sort of diversity/affirmative action helped to get me in. You see, I was born and raised in WV. There’s not many kids from WV in Ivy League schools and I absolutely think that helped to get me in. A diversity of opinions is important in small classes that rely on discussion and different perspectives to help everyone learn. If everyone came from an expensive prep school with SAT tutors and parents who could afford to send them to Europe for cultural trips in the summer, then maybe the most qualified on paper would get in, but what kind of education would they really get?
There’s more than just racial factors that help people get into schools - there’s questions of social class and people with unique extra-curricular, etc. I’m not saying the system is perfect, but just admitting the “best” students on paper, especially when picking from the best of the best anyway, I think harms all students.
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@Leonard Levine - You're right, it's not a perfect example. How do you know that the school would admit "a black student from a tony High School" while rejecting "a white student from an impoverished school district"? Seriously, how do you know that? You say that a "deeper analysis than just race" should be used. That assumes that all admissions offices are too stupid to think beyond the numbers.
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Here's a bipartisan idea that the Bernie wing and the GOP can get behind:
Colleges will lose their federal non profit status if they use student loans, instead all grads will pay 8% of their incomes for 8 years back to the schools.
Ends our cruel system of debt servitude for the young and forces colleges to actually WORK to set grads up in good pay jobs. No incentive to spend on administrators, pricey football workout rooms and the demand for victimization studies majors will plummet.
Make colleges get back in the business of promoting personal success and out of the business of business.
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I went to Harvard Business School. Two recollections:
(1) At convocation, with all 800 class members assembled, the dean told us that, from the application pool, they could have constituted a class with high marks on every conceivable measure that included not a single one of us.
(2) Among my classmates, most of us felt we'd been admitted through some mistake, that we were unworthy. This feeling was widespread enough that it was discussed in class by our professors.
So when Bret Stephens says that affirmative action harms its beneficiaries by making them wonder whether they're worthy, he doesn't really know from unworthiness. If the average person feels unworthy--and if Bret himself (as a graduate of a prestigious Concord, MA prep school) feels unworthy--why should only the blacks and browns be asked to step down to avoid such self-perceived stigma?
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@Thomas Downing
I don't know about the business school, but admission to the law school is based more on objective measures than at the college. If your legal abilities are not up to snuff, you'd be in over your head at the law school. Affirmative action for undergraduates does not pose the difficulties that are posed by affirmative action for law students.
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@michjas - What "legal abilities" are young people graduating from college already supposed to have before entering a law school?
@michjas
My law school was only the tenth best in the country when I was there so it may not be like yours but I can assure you that a person may have entered under affirmative action but no one graduated under any preferred status. You might get a preference going in but you fully earned getting out.
The reason why Harvard admissions policies matter - a lot - is because a Harvard degree opens more doors than any non-Ivy degree ever can. It's the reason NYC parents bribe their way into exclusive preschools that feed into Harvard. Harvard is not a merit based institution and many of the students who attend aren't necessarily the best and brightest - they are just smart kids whose rich and powerful parents bought them an elite education. Until corporations and elite government positions stop viewing a Harvard degree as worth more than a degree from outstanding non-Ivy institutions - the cycle of the rest of us vying for the few spaces left at Harvard that a legacy or BFF of a legacy didn't take already will continue. Harvard's entire admissions policy needs to be scrubbed - and better yet - stop treating Harvard grads as if they are "better" than other grads!
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@Dana
Everybody can't be born Harvard bred and bound Kennedy nor Kushner nor Obama nor Roosevelt.
Harvard sits on top of the pyramid only in fields where your career is as much determined by the connections you make at school as your own personal achievements. Law comes to mind as a prime example.
In fields , where achievements are measured quantitative, e.g. physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, a degree from Harvard does not count more than one from many other schools, e.g than CalTech in physics, Carnegie in CS
No amount of connections, or cultural polish will help you to find a closed solution to an homogeneous second order differential equation or write code that runs faster
But if your aim in life is to sit on the Supreme Court, a degree from Harvard or Yale is priceless.
Every current Supreme Court justice attended Harvard or Yale.
Given that are 205 ABA approved law schools in the US, it is statistically improbable that to achieving this position is based on merit alone.
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@Talesofgenji You've got that right; and contrary to physics and chemistry, law is explicitly graded on a bell curve, so once in it's hard to fail. But really, to my mind the problem is that Harvard doesn't want "too many" Asians. How about admitting them, AND having affirmative action for traditionally disadvantaged groups, and eliminating admission for sports prowess or alumni connections?
@Talesofgenji
Harvard is no Howard nor Morehouse nor Hampton nor Spelman nor HBCU.
Harvard is of course engaged in social engineering: it is preparing the next generation of the elite rulers of the US. The Ivies have for some reason been given, or taken, this role: to form the elite. I mean the future rulers in government, of course, but also in the arts, law, medicine, engineering, and the humanities. They have decided that the new elite, as opposed to the old elite, which was unabashedly WASP, should represent the diversity of the population of the nation as a whole, in terms of "race," ethnicity, gender, and so on. I don't see what's so terrible about that. It's either that or a lopsided ruling class that represents only one or two groups, or minorities. Whether the US actually needs or benefits from such a clearly delineated and closed elite--of the sort that we got an inkling of at the Kavanaugh hearings--is another question entirely.
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You have a fatal flaw in your argument about affirmative action. There is no requirement that an educational institution admit the applicants who score the highest on grades or standardized tests. If a lower scoring player of the bassoon is admitted because the college needs a bassoon player, is that affirmative action against violin players? Why should good athletes be admitted with lower academic scores? If an institution decides that the overall educational experience for its students would be better with a more diverse student body, then that should be just as good a justification for giving preference to black students as giving preference to a bassoon player or to a child of lower income parents or to an athlete.
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@Alan Feingold
The major difference is that under the US Constitution, discrimination based on race is subject to heightened scrutiny whereas discrimination based on music talent or athletic prowess is not. Therefore, for a school to justify the preference based on race, the threshold is much higher than for it to justify its needs for a bassoon player over a violinist or a basketball player over a football player or someone who doesn't play any sport.
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So race and gender was used at Harvard for over 325 years, but now that others benefit, it’s bad? Legacies are given a leg up, and for the most part they are all white because the school was all white until recently, but the suit has no problem with that. To a great degree minorities are discriminated against in ELHI. Put into under resourced, under performing schools. We seem to have no problem with that. But when it comes to getting into college, all are supposed to be judged on an equal footing. If anything, race should be more heavily factored into the mix. All of us benefit by having a diverse group of kids graduating from elite schools.
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Alan, I think you’re mixing up the point of the issue. Admitting students using a filter of a specific needed skill set, such as a bassoon or basketball player, is perfectly within the law. But when your filter is for (or in this case, against) a specific race, gender, religion or sexual preference, for example, it is against the law. That’s what this case is about.
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Wait a minute, Brett. The basis for affirmative action is the attempt to even the playing field by taking into account the deleterious effects of historical social atrocities that left certain of us disadvantaged while others of us had their advantages cemented. By its nature, affirmative action relies both on the certainty of that disadvantageous position and a subjective assessment of the effects of being in that position. Even the Harvard estimate of how many Asian Americans would have been accepted if not for affirmative action is based on a set of factors also subjectively arrived at. Finally, no mention of legacy admissions. These are the most inequitable of all, but ai suppose a conservative has no problem with money and social position being determinative factors in anything.
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