"he proceeded to tell me about a “plan” he had come up with to ensure he would be accepted by a good graduate school. He told me that two of his four grandparents were descended from Sephardic Jews who’d fled Spain in the 1500s. This, he said, made him “technically, part Hispanic”—and thus eligible for preferential admission to graduate-school programs.
I tried to discourage Daniel from putting this plan into action. I told him I thought it was deceptive and dishonest."
But how do they determine ethnicity when it comes to affirmative action?
Just subjective self-identity?
Visually? I.e "measuring skulls and skin colors"?
Ask your peers what they think you are and base it on that?
Need at least N generations of ancestry to some specific place?
N % DNA match common to some specific group of genes?
Setting value judgments about this stuff aside, I'm laughing just thinking about the logistical & administrative nightmare that would result from an admissions department actually trying to verify student-provided race & ethnicity with any degree of rigor. Hiring genealogists to investigate and verify family ancestors. Upgrading department policies, procedures, and facilities to process DNA samples. Providing an appeals process for and handling student protests of the committee's assessment of their race. Schools are already so bad at IT, admin, etc, can you even imagine how much effort they would have to put in to make something like this work.
Well this is a story as old as racism itself. There's never been a clear-cut way to unambiguously decide which "race" everybody is, and segregationist regimes have always struggled with edge cases. E.g. back in the days of Jim Crow it was sometimes possible for a particular "black" person to become legally "white" just by crossing state lines.
Old and never solved. I guess anyone, if they squint enough, is able to find (or plausibly invent) a sixteenth of minority blood in their veins, if it becomes advantageous to do so. Who's going to dna-test employees? The moment affirmative action starts really moving the needle is the instant everyone magically discovers a multiracial heritage in their family. Percentages of diversity go up, everyone is happy and the problem is worse than before.
The one-drop rule wasn't universal; some states had a less stringent definition of who counted as black.
E.g. according to Wikipedia, Florida passed a law in 1865 stipulating that you were black if you had at least one black great-grandparent. So if you were only one-sixteenth black, you'd have been considered black under the one-drop rule, but you weren't black in Florida.
> But how do they determine ethnicity when it comes to affirmative action?
Another question: how do they determine if a candidate is a trans person? Given that only self-identification counts, and it's "wrong" to only suggest that a trans person should be identified by looks, registered gender, sexual preferences or even self-chosen pronouns, anybody could declare themselves a trans person without changing how they live their life in any way, save checking the "trans" checkbox on their forms. When it comes to positive discrimination or affirmative action in favour of trans people (or probably any LGBT+ person), it's not only impossible, but potentially a PR nightmare, to check who is "eligible", so to speak, and who is not.
I guess many people will do it in the future. Unfortunately, because "minority" will morph into an abstract concept. But introducing further disparities to fight disparity was never going to work anyway, imho.
Tons of professionals ride that train to embarrassing prizes for best Hispanic Lawyer in state X or what have you with no shame whatsoever, down to providing a ridiculous backstory despite having never lived in the region and not speaking Portuguese or Spanish. There are no tests besides the chutzpah of the applicant.
I am wondering about that as well since forever, being French.
We do not have such measures and I was wondering what would happen if I, a white man, "self-idetified" myself as black for the sake of receiving formal positive discrimination, grants, etc.
I'm an Asian. I learned 2 lessons after I came to America.
First, I was taught racism here. I didn't aware any racism in my home country. Here, after I became a victim of reverse racism, I learned how this industry works: holding the barometer needle and pretending the pressure are changing.
Second, for the competitiveness, we can't fool ourselves, and others as well.
If I join a competitive group that I don't deserve because of my quality, I know I don't deserve to be here, hence will feel inferior. I can fool the admission office, but cannot fool myself.
Top science requires top brains. Now I can see US is importing more and more top brains worldwide, because she cannot produce enough here. Immigration country is built on sand. Top brains can easily find other better places to live, if you don't treat them equally, no matter what the so called "original intention" is. That's how free market works.
If the original intention makes you believe it allows you to discriminate, you have successfully rationalized racism for yourself. Intentions are relevant, but it remains what it is. I believe that some people are quite apt at fooling themselves is a problem here too.
There is difficulty of breaking out of a culture and certain cultures do not play well with classical education. Compliant cultures will always excel in a conventional schooling system, which can only approximately determine performance. The lack of individual education leads to very smart people often having trouble in school, the effect mostly lessens in higher education at some point. Additionally there is a positive feedback for behavior not relevant to education and I think that is a large problem. There are countless problems with the way people get educated, how resources are artificially restrained and how the profession of teaching is seen in wider society.
But not enough of a problem to allow for racism at any point.
One thing that I rarely see expressed clearly enough in these discussions is a breakdown of what /value/ someone brings to a group. We're always talking about whether or not you should hire the one best suited for a position, without going into what that actually means.
The obvious part of that is how skilled the applicant is at the task to be performed in that role. This is where the "hire the one best suited for the job" argument comes in, and usually where it stops. At least in the case of a group/organisation that will work together though there is the more hidden value of differing viewpoints. That, in itself, also has value. I think there's a clear argument to be made that the value in hiring, for example, a developer with weaker (though still "good enough") programming skills in many cases could be the better option when that developer is expected to bring additional value in differing viewpoints compared to a developer having stronger programming skills but otherwise fitting the norm in the industry/business. That is, for the weaker programmer, the sum of the contributed values might still be higher than for the stronger programmer.
I think, expressing the problem this way, and being clear about it, makes it easier to reason about. If the aspects taken into consideration were expressed in this way in a job application, I would probably be easier to accept for rejected applicants too, possibly both in the parent comment and in the article.
There is however the question of what, exactly, the motivation is for diverse hiring. I'd argue that in a healthy business, it should be what I outlined above; the team is, overall, expected to perform better with more diverse viewpoints. Although, I'd wager a guess that many times is more about the image of the business than actual performance. While the image is important, and of course will affect profit, it would probably be hard to justify, publicly, such hiring choices on those grounds.
Having diversity and having diversity NOW are tow diff concepts, like lose weight and lose weight NOW. With the diversity NOW mindset, politicians will impose many shortsighted policies, that has much much bigger false positive and negatives. The current policies are harming Asian poors, and benefiting rich minorities, for sure. Are we confident these policies are "effective", and will carry them over say for the next 20 years?
Although interesting, it is easy to miss the important aspects here. At the end of the day, we know there are examples of racism everywhere. It may be novel that it is employed against Caucasians in the US, but that isn't very exciting. Bad luck to the Asians too, worst of both worlds.
The problem here is that if this is systematic - and there is reason to believe it is systematic - then there is a chance that the next generation of elites (I'm thinking high level government bureaucrats, corporate executives and down the line towards more successful supervisors) might end up being measurably less competent than the last. Success at universities is treated as a signal of academic ability. If that signal is corrupt there are going to be some poor choices made. As troops are currently crossing the Russian border, it is worth reflecting that some decisions we do want the best and brightest working on.
Racism (no matter what race is targeted) is wrong and unfair to the individuals affected, but I don't think it will have any real effect on job performance because I don't think the selection processes used correlate well with performance anyway.
Going back to using race and sex as a basis for selection is immoral and unfair, but it was the norm until recently. Many of the old white men at the top of government and corporate leadership now received more help on account of their race and sex than a young black woman is likely to receive today. I'm not saying this to justify racism today, just to say that I don't think we are likely to notice any difference by swapping one privileged class for another.
Far more common than motivated by racism, people elevate others through nepotism. Rules based on ethnicity even enable that to a huge degree. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Of course the people that enable racist admissions will get compensated respectively. Contrary to the current echelons of power, which at least openly favor humanism, you would get racists instead.
> Racism [...] is wrong and unfair to the individuals affected, but [...]
Let's put aside all of the questions of the source's validity and assume this is true.
What the hell should anyone do about it?
You have to remember that you, the individual, have absolutely zero power whatsoever to make any sort of significant change. No matter what, anything you do to fight these types of systems will just make you look like a worse person, while changing nothing. Mapping out the possibilities of outcomes:
- You fight the system, win and become known (not a good thing, because remember you don't have any power to make a societal change!) or lose and not get into the college you want
- You play to the system, and it either doesn't work (same situation you were in before doing any action) or it does work (you get in!).
There is no logical scenario where you should do ANYTHING other than play into the system. So put down that 1% Hispanic.
Additionally: if you play the system and encourage other people to do so, the system becomes inefficient. Imagine 80% of the candidates claiming to be part of racial a minority, and no way to verify that without doing proper DNA-based racial profiling (which no company / university / association wants to do). When everyone is / claims to be a minority, there are no more minorities.
The first time someone points to something that is wrong, unjust etc, they are going to be laughed at, retaliated etc. Maybe the second, third, fourth time too. But they plant the seed, people hear about it and think about it, even if they don’t come out and say/support it openly. This doesn’t mean the first person’s actions are useless, even if nothing happens immediately.
The question then becomes who has the balls to be the first, most likely ruining their own career in the process?
There's a third option, which is to ignore the system. There's no binary choice between fighting or playing the system - you can simply do without it.
A comprehensive CS education is available for free for anyone sufficiently motivated and able to structure a proper curriculum for themselves.
That leaves the credentials and weak social networks that the system provides. Well, you have four years you're no longer wasting in the system to create a portfolio and build your own network. Plenty of time.
A lot of people go to college to build that network... and also, almost every single young person does not go to college for the reason of wanting to learn. They want the piece of paper that allows them to get jobs. You have infinite potential to learn as much as you want, but that means jack to anyone who requires a degree.
And this is why no one listens to scientists. When it comes to actually standing up for something objectively right they fold like author and fall in line with status quo.
Why do climate denial or anti-vax movements exist? Its because academia lost all integrity in the eyes of the public. You can wave all the research you want in front of their eyes but no one will listen as science is just another part of marketing nowadays.
Let it sink in that speaking out the truth is career suicide and institutions publicly portrayed as sources of truth are actively pushing for it to stay that way.
> When it comes to actually standing up for something objectively right they fold like author and fall in line with status quo.
Where do you get that from the article?
The author’s purpose seemed to be to make sure that “Daniel” didn’t fall victim to his own naivety. His advice was based on his own judgement of Daniel’s understanding of the situation.
Standing up for what you believe is right is great - if you understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, how likely you are to succeed, and the what the consequences are if you don’t.
What sucks for people like his student is that they counted as a minority and got shafted by that until they didn’t count as a minority anymore and got shafted by that too. It sucks to be an invisible minority.
Daniel is also a smart kid who can make his way through university without getting a leg up anywhere along the way and come out to be successful afterwards.
Just calling affirmative action racist isn’t helping. Things are a bit more nuanced than that and should be treated as such so that useful conversations can happen instead of two sides just calling each other names. Besides, “affirmative action is racist” doesn’t fallow from “Daniel was shafted by racism” and is attackable based only on that point.
If you want to argue against affirmative action here you could say:
1) The action is taken towards a group that is already privileged (well performing university students) and is superfluous
2) That the action is more likely to build up bad feelings towards the recipients by deserving individuals that get ignored
3) That the recipients of this action can never be as secure in their achievement and will suffer doubt from outside and inside because of it
Argue your point, don’t just assert it. What be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
I think I support your latter point more generally, but I'm not sure I need to further substantiate my comment with evidence, given that the evidence for the shafting is provided in the article.
My comment doesn't provide new information — it's merely a laconic summation of arguments implicit in the article.
In the coming decades, I think a lot more of this will come out... I am not saying it is right or wrong...just my observation... on my university course, women were offered lower entry grades to boost numbers.
A white male friends is worried he will not make MD at a large US bank because he is not the right sex, race or sexual orientation...The established white male MDs are entrenched and it is the up and coming generation which is getting discriminated against.
Will people start to withhold information on race and sex in their applications for fear of being discriminated against? I think so...
When IBM came to my campus for recruiting, their presentation openly said they are going to hire more women than men, even if men had higher GPA and did better in interviews. This was to “increase diversity” of their workforce, they said.
Most of the men at my campus just shrugged and laughed it off. It was just one company (if memory serves right) among the dozens that came to the campus that year. I wonder now if this was happening more, but quietly. Hey, at least IBM was open about it!
This is a very difficult slope. We want to help minorities. But we also want to be fair to others at the same time. In the case of academia, it is much worse situation simply because there is a huge pool of qualified applicants for a very small number of positions.
IBM is probably not somewhere you want to build a long term career in any case.
They're known for ageism[1] amongst other things, which won't affect new graduates but should be seen as a canary in a coal mine.
If they're penalising people solely based on age what are the chances they'll also penalise you for not matching some other non-performance based criteria?
France considered making "blind" resumes mandatory, i.e. the resume would have a top part with name and other PII that would be cut off and kept by HR, the hiring manager would not see them. Of course, this not deal with the problem of discrimination during in-person interviews but it would address the issue of candidates rejected from consideration just because of their name.
Does OP directly say that? Comments like this show exactly the kind of racism white males are coming up against. They're assumed to have privilege and access to ivy league networks.
You directly say with no info except that the OPs friend is white that he probably coasted by most of his life. Seems like you're the one slinging racist stereotypes.
OP was sharing an anecdote of his friend's experience of an unlevel playing field. Your response is to undermine that concern based on race! Ironic, no?
Are you okay? Feels like you are wound tight and this really set you off....your post says more about you than it does about me or my friend tbh...what happened to you!?
Secondly I was making an observation and was not trying to justify any of the views...you misunderstood this and went off on a rant. Honestly I feel like you are prejudice and lack the capability to have a conversation on a topic like this which speaks to you being closed minded.
> what you're afraid of is a change in the status quo. You intuit that changing norms, AA, quotas, etc are a threat because you know it will have a material impact on people "like you"
It's perfectly reasonable to be against a change of the status quo if said change is perceived as unjust, or unfavourable, or simply stupid. Change for the sake of change is not progress.
> is that businesses are responding to market signals (that their customers don't have to do business with companies packed to the gills with white men) and changing their practices to remain competitive.
Coinbase (for example), on the other hand is responding to market signals (that their customers are sick and tired of sanctimonious virtue signalling) and changing their practices to remain competitive (offering a politics-free environments to developers who don't want to attend yet another series of courses on how hiring white people is evil). If more and more companies choose to go that way, I suppose you're going to be ok with that?
You've repeatedly crossed into personal attacks in this thread. Not cool. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of how right they are or feel they are. No more of this, please.
>I get the impression you are a judgemental, negative person
Yes, that is a common reaction to encountering someone who doesn't kiss your ass, which it sounds like you're used to. Go find a safe space, buttercup.
People who say things like they don't, "kiss your ass" and then use dismissive terms like "kiddo" and "buttercup" is very typically cover when they can't admit they're just being crass and self-centered. Any moment now, I fully expect you to inform us that you merely "tell it like it is" or something equally tedious. I've seen this pattern so many times throughout the decades. You should carefully consider the possibility that you are indeed being a jerk (and we're all jerks at least occasionally).
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of how right they are or feel they are. Perhaps you don't feel you owe "buttercups" better, but you owe this community better if you're participating here.
I agree that "Daniel" doesn't sound like the sort of person who could easily "come out as nonbinary" but there are people with more "flamboyant" personalities who would rather relish an excuse for drawing attention to themselves and winding people up in that way. There are a few people like that on every university campus, I think: the sort of people who are not trans or any kind of queer but cross-dress just for a laugh. So the trolly suggestion might work for a few people.
More than that: they would be automatically protected from any inquiry about changes of their physical or behavioural aspects (or lack thereof). How do you "measure" objectively if a person is "non-binary"?
Critics might now argue that the goal of the diversity movement was never to create equal opportunities for everyone but to promote specific groups.
Anyway, the illogic of this movement already starts with the fact that only certain characteristics are seen as a source of discrimination, while others are not. Skin color and gender are known to be factors of discrimination. But what about "beauty," "social origin" or "age"? It is known from studies that attractive people are considered to be more competent or more successful and are promoted more often - less attractive people therefore suffer an unfair disadvantage. Shouldn't this therefore also become part of any effort to stop discrimination?
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, and please don't cross into personal attack. We ban accounts that post that way, regardless of how right they are or feel they are.
Perhaps you don't feel you owe uneducated people better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
Tangentially to the topic of discussion, I have seen analogies of the following phrase so many times by now:
> I’d also formed a hypothesis, based on a certain bluntness and lack of social tact he exhibited, that Daniel might be on the autism/Asperger’s spectrum.
And yet I am not sure what people mean to communicate by bringing in autism and Asperger's into the picture. What is up with questioning people's mental health just to explain bluntness and lack of social tact? Is that an instant self-correction to the negative observation about somebody, to remind yourself to be compassionate just in case?
> What is up with questioning people's mental health just to explain bluntness and lack of social tact?
For one thing, I wouldn't necessarily consider Autism or Aspergers a mental health condition. It's certainly a difference in mental functional, but unlike something like depression it's not so clear cut that it's always a negative thing.
Secondly, I think the quality of an autistic outlook on the world is very different to simply lacking social tact. It also typically includes a disregard for social norms (sometimes because they are not understood, but sometimes also because they are understood but are rejected), and a very strong sense of morality, both of which are relevant here.
> For one thing, I wouldn't necessarily consider Autism or Aspergers a mental health condition.
Are you thinking about high functioning autism? Sure, sometimes it's just "that person has weird behaviours". But on the other side of scale there are people who cannot communicate at a level required for independent daily living.
> But on the other side of scale there are people who cannot communicate at a level required for independent daily living.
There certainly are. But it's pretty clear that isn't what was being talked about in the original article as the person in question was university student who was writing papers and having an extended conversation with the author of the article.
> Sure, sometimes it's just "that person has weird behaviours"
I don't think that's quite the right way to look at it. This is true on a surface level, but I think there is quite a fundamental difference in cognitive processing going on under the surface. And FWIW, a lot of those differences in thinking are shared between those who are better at communicating and those for whom that is a real struggle.
Sure. It wasn't clear from your post if you meant this person's condition specifically or were talking about autism in general, so just wanted to add the context in case people aren't aware.
This discussion ignores the whole topic of subclinical autistic traits (broad autism phenotype, or BAP for short-commonly found in close blood relatives of those diagnosed with ASD, and also among STEM professionals); and also the significantly heightened prevalence of autistic traits among people with other diagnoses (such as ADHD; personality disorders-especially BPD and ASPD; OCD; PTSD; eating disorders; the schizophrenia spectrum)-for some of those people a comorbid diagnosis of ASD may be considered appropriate, for many of them it would not be. In short: many people “seem a bit autistic” without actually “having autism” (in the sense that an ASD diagnosis would be viewed as being clinically appropriate for them).
Ironically, if he were truly diagnosed as being on the spectrum, it could be a plus from a diversity standpoint and might increase his chances of being hired...
Asperger's is classified as a developmental disorder, not a mental health issue.
I believe what's meant to be communicated is that since this would be a lifelong deficiency engaging in common social interactions, that a certain amount of leeway would be appropriate.
IMHO the main reason the spectrum is brought up here is to bring some simpathy for the student. Some people would label him a racist for not supporting the selection process, but saying he's on the spectrum might get him a pass and allow those people to continue reading and see his point.
Otherwise it isn't really relevant. Not much else about him is revealed.
> What is up with questioning people's mental health just to explain bluntness and lack of social tact?
Maybe not "explain" but "describe"? Asperger leads not to just any bluntness, but to very specific, in specific situations.
I saw this reference to Asperger as one of key pieces of a puzzle. He was not just stupid person when he planned to overthrow committee. He was bright enough but not in his social decisions. Moreover the author poses a question "did I do the best when discouraged him". If person have troubles grasping the nuanced picture of a social interactions, then the best strategy for him to trust his advisor more than his own ideas.
If he was not Asperger (and he might be not, he was not diagnosed), then his advisor could left his to his own devices without experiencing a moral dilemma: student should be adult enough to think for himself in such situations, without his advisor making decision and then manipulating his advisee by giving him a biased sample of facts and thoughts.
aspbergers is invoked to excuse the person from any antisocial behavior, while at the same time setting that person apart from regular, and by implication, lesser "neurotypical" humans. Its an ubermensch thing I see from many many tech types.
I don't think the author did the right thing, though I empathise with their position.
As for Daniel, if it were me, I would have resorted to changing my identity (although I'm not sure this would work in practical terms in this given instance). Superficially, this seems petty, but I think at this point it's the only way to effect change in so called progressive societies.
Have you noticed how universities flaunt diversity statistics on their web sites, but getting stats on socioeconomic background is like pulling teeth, if you can get to the data at all?
While this could potentially lead to “fairer” outcomes, it would likely be difficult and/or expensive to implement. Also, Affirmative Action as an official policy would likely be illegal; what is being described here is the more modern and surreptitious form in “positive discrimination”
It's not based on race since we know white women are the primary beneficiaries.
Affirmative action should redesigned to specifically target the founding/native group of black Americans that were systematically disenfranchised, enslaved, and robbed by the dominant society.
What the university needed to do, this dean said, was “make the program look more like America as a whole.”
Given how many Americans as a whole don't go to a university at all, and a huge majority don't go to a "top university" (however you measure that), I think this phrasing from the dean should be nominated for some kind of Orwellian Newspeak of the Year award.
People get “competitive” over scarce resources. I wonder if an alternative way to address systemic issues from things like what’s suspected by OP here is expansion. Colleges could increase their enrollments if their endowments similarly expanded. Further, make lists like those mentioned here bigger-especially easy if the financial costs with the list are negligible (not saying it is).
I realize this may not be feasible. But being a growing society does come with benefits.
I wonder if the author's advice would have changed if the student was seeking transparency instead of "fairness". Would there be administrative resistance to publishing their goals and process? Does the secrecy of the process affect the success of the goals?
The student was upset primarily because the outcome was unexpected.
Regardless of where you land on the racism/reverse racism/affirmative action/culture discussion, it's a sad day for science, academia and truth when simply presenting evidence (rather good evidence in this case, it seems) is frowned upon because it doesn't fit the current societal mood.
back in the day this was called positive discrimination. While I'm not totally against it, merit should still be a factor. That is fair to all involved. You don't want that people think you where just selected because you are a minority since that will become discriminatory very quickly
> "I’ve never been quite clear on how we’re supposed to get over centuries of judging people by their skin color or ethnicity by paying more and more attention to skin color and ethnicity."
This seems like the author fundamentally doesn't understand the difference between equality and equity.
I'll cite the Monopoly example. If you and I are 100 turns in to a game where I have been given $2000 every time I pass GO, and you have been given $2, you can't just give both of us $200 going forward and expect our inequality to be solved. For starters, I probably own all the board.
What's the solution? I don't know. But it's clear from this wording that the author is unwilling to accept relatively small concessions to fix enormous historical oppression.
I think you have to consider that many of us where born in a time where “not seeing color” was touted as “the solution” to racism. And while there are points for “correcting” based on skin color the ting is presented and perused rather badly by many rather well meaning people. AND during a time where skin color is becoming less and less of an indicator for who needs help.
> What's the solution? I don't know. But it's clear from this wording that the author is unwilling to accept relatively small concessions to fix enormous historical oppression.
The confession you want the teacher to just accept is bullshit. Why should anybody accept a relatively huge advantage for some of an ethnic group (while the rest of that group gets nothing) as an acceptable form of restitution? Worse still, the advantage goes to people in that group that are already advantaged!
I honestly see this as a problem, the problem that you need to be important enough in you “group” to get those advantages to get ahead while the rest need to go without. Can you imagine how it feels to be on the wrong side of that line? These types of practices aren’t giving people who need a leg up a leg up. They are pulling more lines where more people landing on the wrong side of.
I know that the type of solution I prefer is many, many small solutions rather than a few big ones. If I land on the right side of some and the wrong side of others I still have something that boosts my self worth and supports me in some small way.
P.S.: The “equality vs equity” argument makes more sense too if you leave skin color out of it. When I think about equity I think about water fountains and entryway that are accessible for people in a wheelchair, not about skin color.
But it's common to focus on those who "own all the board" who are mostly white, and ignore all the poor whites who own little. That's not just a difference of race, it's a difference of finances.
> the author is unwilling to accept relatively small concessions to fix enormous historical oppression
1) why is it "clear"? You where just "suspicious" but now you are certain?
2) it's not obvious these concession are either small (certainly not for "Daniel"), or that they'll fix anything (they might make them worse).
3) lowering standards doesn't actually mean equality - the new grad is qualified on paper, but not as qualified in practise. I've heard arguments that this doesn't matter - fair enough, but it's an argument that assumes how meaningless educational standard are, and I'm not sure that applies across the board - the US still has to compete with the rest of the world.
4) the concession is not official, but apparently covert, which is objectionable in itself - you might agree with AA, but disagree with extra-legal, "off-the-books" AA.
>This seems like the author fundamentally doesn't understand the difference between equality and equity.
My understanding is racial equality is treating people the same regardless of race. Racial equity is using various forms of racial discrimination to generate desired outcomes.
Is there a way to achieve racial equity without using racial discrimination?
I am a white male. I've seen this policy in play and it's not even new - it's been going on for decades. Here's the thing - there are N "good jobs" and the population of N doesn't reflect the population of America - namely, there's too many white males holding those jobs. If you adjust the composition of N to better reflect the population of America then that will necessarily lead to fewer white males having those "good jobs." There's no way of avoiding that. If you decide to go off "merit" - well, there are some people who were born on 2nd base and when they advance to third the claim they hit a triple. Meanwhile there's other people who weren't born anywhere close to the field, had to get the equipment to play, learn the rules of the game, and worked their butts off to hit a double. Which of these two people have shown more "merit"?
I think part of the problem we're having is we're not having the right conversation, what we should be discussing is why are there only N "good jobs." Even better, why are there any "bad jobs"? What does it mean for a job to be bad and why then would we expect, even demand, that people do such jobs? I think we'll have more meaningful and productive conversations focusing on those questions rather than focusing on race.
> If you decide to go off "merit" - well, there are some people who were born on 2nd base and when they advance to third the claim they hit a triple. Meanwhile there's other people who weren't born anywhere close to the field, had to get the equipment to play, learn the rules of the game, and worked their butts off to hit a double. Which of these two people have shown more "merit"?
Only problems
- is "merit" an indicator of knowing to do the job better?
- are you able to evaluate "merit" - specifically whether a person started from second base or not?
> He told me that he was not a racist. He had voted for Democrats in the 2016 election and hated Donald Trump. And as it happens, I had reason to believe this was true. The morning after that election, Daniel had come to visit me in my office, deeply troubled by what a Trump presidency might mean for scientific research and funding.
Unfortunately by voting for democrats you are giving a democratic mandate for this type of racist policy. Stop doing it.
Yep. My sympathy was lost when Daniel said he supported racism in college admissions, just not the part of the career path where he was. He's a victim of policies he supports, well who cares. He should probably learn a lesson but somehow, likely he won't.
All these comments about a story about an undergrad with a chip on his shoulder analyzing data he PULLED OFF OF SOCIAL MEDIA.
I suppose, despite the provenance of the data, that causal inferences taken on this data are valid because (1) he seems to be on the spectrum, (2) did well in physics, and (3) did "various types of statistical analysis".
Affirmative Action is not "reverse racism". Measuring someone's achievements relatively to the external difficulties they faced along the way is not "reverse racism". I don't believe we still have to spell this out.
And going to the specifics of the student "evidence", the deans list is extremely biased for socioeconomic conditions (which are correlated to race or ethnicity), so by using that as the single data source, the student built an admission's list extremely biased towards rich (white) people. I find it incredible that the student couldn't see such glaring bias in his study, and that he would leap to such unfounded conclusions.
Affirmative action is not measuring someone's achievements relatively to the external difficulties they faced. It's treating people differently because of their race. I.e. Racism.
You could give an advantage to people who grew up in poor areas, had poor parents, graduated from poorly preforming schools (or failed to graduate at all), etc. If you wanted to help people who faced more adversity.
Affirmative action discriminates in favour of the children of millionaires who had every opportunity to succeed but happen to be black, and against white and Asian kids who grew up in a trailer park and went to a school that couldn't afford books.
It's what happens when you target statistics without caring about people. People are individuals, not statistical representatives of demographic groups. You can't fix discrimination by discriminating, but you can hide it and that's what affermtive action seeks to do.
> Affirmative Action is not "reverse racism". Measuring someone's achievements relatively to the external difficulties they faced along the way is not "reverse racism". I don't believe we still have to spell this out.
Affirmative action is not "measuring someone's achievements relatively to the external difficulties they faced along the way". It is racial discrimination against whites and asians.
Affirmative action does not measure people by external difficulties they faced. It measures people by their races and seek to benefit some races over others - being fueled by racial resentment.
Does every one of these have to have the "I hate Trump, yet understand the motivations of his followers," claim? I get the article is for "well meaning progressives" who want all these policies, just maybe 20% less, but the author and their intended audience have no clue what motivates people who fundamentally disagree with them. My advice to the author is to endure. Academia is the corrupt bed you nade, now sleep in it
> Should I tell Daniel about the colleague I’d spoken with just a few weeks earlier, who’d told me, with much frustration and a touch of anger in his voice, that he was getting out of academia because he’d concluded that it is now virtually impossible for a white male to get a tenure-track position in his field? This young man had finished his PhD and published a book. He had applied for scores of tenure-track jobs, but had finally concluded he was not likely to get one. “Picking me,” he explained, “won’t do anyone any good. It won’t help the institution show that it is combatting racism, and it won’t allow any of the members of the hiring committee to assuage their white liberal guilt.” Shortly thereafter, this colleague took a non-academic job as a computer programmer.
There are several things that I notice in this paragraph. The first is that the underlying claims deserve to be analysed with the same rigor that Daniel applied in creating his spreadsheet. If, for example, the chances of a Black male getting a tenure-track position are even lower than that of a White male getting one, then however low the absolute values, one could make a coherent argument for affirmative action. Without the data I can't judge the situation any better than just forming a personal opinion.
The claim that it's virtually impossible for a White male to get a tenure-track position is undoubtedly true (for a not completely unreasonable definition of "virtually"), that is by design and has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with academia's business model in extracting maximum surplus from grad students and non-tenured faculty. For example, ACOUP (that some HN readers will be familiar with) talks about how terrible the grad student experience is in the humanities [1], and others have likened academia to a drugs gang [2], which I think was also posted on HN when it came out. Tenured positions are in very short supply by design, and subscribers to ACOUP's newsletter can read the author's regular updates on his attempts to get a tenured position (so far with no luck). Some of these are public in his "Fireside Friday" threads.
Also, the bar for a tenured position (or even tenure-track position) is much higher than "had finished his PhD and published a book". Generally in STEM, being able to obtain grant income and produce a steady stream of not-too-terrible publications are the table stakes.
One of the problems why, as the article mentions, "I’d seen plenty of searches in which members of the hiring committee went out of their way to try to hire persons of color" but many of these searches still fail, is that there might be structural problems in the pipeline before you come to the tenure-track decisions, that means PoC are much less likely to get a PhD in the subject in the first place. If this could be shown with the same rigour as Daniel did to demonstrate affirmative action later on in the pipeline, then there are many other motives than "white liberal guilt" for affirmative action later on.
This article is written in such a way to maximize outrage and the amount of people who will share it, which makes me immediately suspicious. Who is behind quillette.com?
When I first encountered this term, I had the same reaction and it seems like a reasonable response but (like one of the replies you've received) you're assuming your definition of racism.
The definition that's usually used in sociology involves structural power and, perhaps most importantly, white supremacy. Particularly the latter point means that the term racism, in the academic context, always refers to power dynamics that flow out of white supremacy.
There are still valid critiques (such as, arguably, unfalsifiablity) and, personally, I don't think the directionality built into the term help us as much as it hinders the conversation—especially given the divergence from the colloquial meaning of "racism". At the same time, though, systemic power is on the side of (certain) white people and the effects of discrimination are compounded by systemic power differentials. It seems important to bring that aspect of racism into the conversation.
I'm not sure academics redefined it so much as the colloquial usage changed. "Racist" was originally used as an alternative form of "racialist," without a negative connotation, to describe people who believed in the superiority of a particular race. These people were white (supremacist) Americans. Academics still use the word in a similar way.
Not my field (and please correct me if I'm wrong), but I believe there are other terms like "racial discrimination" that didn't come from white supremacist thought, and that can be used in academia to describe mistreatment of white people on the basis of their skin.
The word "racism" strictly refers to prejudice and/or discrimination in any context where systemic power differentials are involved. White supremacy might definitely be a relevant power differential, but there are others that can be just as relevant, such as the very real power held by admissions bureaucracies in academia.
This does mean that, yes, so-called 'reverse' racism in such contexts, particularly when accompanied by systemic prejudice against e.g. whites and asians (such as an implied theory that they have less "character", "well-roundedness" or "diversity" than other groups) is in fact racism.
I lack the argumentative sophistication but I will try to rephrase my argument.
Rewriting the meaning of terms so as they mean the opposite of what is socially/historically expected or contradictory is evil because it undermine discourse. As proposed by Habermas, norms are derived inter-subjectively in processes of argumentation between individuals. In this framework it's an presupposition that participants in communicative exchange are using the same linguistic expressions in the same way. The latter is tautological as any argument that is constructed with an unmeaningful term violates the three laws of logic: P is P; P is not non-P; either P or non-P. The externals social/historic and replaced meaning of the term doesn't matter for this analysis and just that they are contradictory.
TLDR: It's not even unfalsifiable, just plainly meaningless.
Going with your analogy your comment seems more like "It isn't a square, it's a rectangle. 4 corners, two parallel sides, that's always a rectangle".
Maybe explain what is your problem with distinguishing these two behaviors? Are you afraid that a fix would only be applied to a subgroup? Naming patterns makes communication more efficient.
Not OP, but if we accept the common definition of racism as "prejudice or discrimination against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group"
And then now define a new term, "reverse racism" to mean a better/lesser quality of racism based on which racial or ethnic group it originates from, you are being racist in your very definition.
Gee, it's some complicated meta game. I agree, this division is racist. But at the same time, if you are not thinking about the races, just about what's happening, the distinction is not racist, it's just a different pattern of behavior.
To disconnect emotions something like: scientist first not including some outliers in the data set, but after having been scolded for that, adding a few random points here and there so that he's not accused of it again. Both bad, both fabricating data, but we can still talk about them naming them differently.
That said, since racism is in the name of that subgroup, I can see parent comment's point more clearly now, and yes it makes sense, at least given that name.
You left off the last part of the definition: "typically one that is a minority or marginalized." The meaning of "racism" is evolving right now and the relative power of the two parties is becoming a more important component of the definition.
I might be wrong about that, but it's my current understanding.
At the core, "racism" means: discrimination because of race.
This happens very often because that race is also a minority.
So much so that most experience of racism is also the experience of being discriminated for being a minority.
That doesn't make racism against a majority in the wider population less racist. It just doesn't make it racism and not minority discrimination.
The "reverse" of something that isn't strictly a logical statement could mean any number of things: is "reverse racism" positive discrimination? Is it the lack of discrimination because of race? Is it discrimination because of lack of racial identity? is it simply "msicar" (racism spelled backwards)?
What one tries to say is: "Reverse racism" is supposed to mean "racist behavior towards a group of people that make out the majority of the population". That has a word: It's "racism". It unfortunately overlaps with the type of racism that happens on minorities, but there's nothing "reverse" about it. "Reverse" carries some undertone of "retributal", as in being racist back because of racist treatment... there's a whole can of worms of implied meaning here that is not well-intended or seeks to understand why people behave racist. Whereas if you use the term "racism" to describe this behavior, it's actually well-defined.
Certainly, some would like to define it that way. But one doesn’t have to go along with it. The rejected young man isn’t the powerful party in this anecdote. So, you’d have to put this “whites on top” canonical race hierarchy over the actual situation presented, as if whites are supreme categorically. One can also object to Americans’ canonical race hierarchy itself. No, one does not have to go along with this.
At it's peak less than 4% of Rhodesia population was white. Less than 8% of South Africa is white. Was apartheid and other policies morally justified? Because those there at the time certainly felt so (otherwise they wouldn't). This isn't evolution but evil taking form.
That's if you assume the effect of "reverse". I'm quite happy we have a term for "racism, but against the (perceived cultural) norm" or "anti-majority racism" - which is indeed a type of racism. maybe "un-convential" would be a better word?
Sure. But there are different connotations and implications when someone is racist against a white person vs a black person (in America). Go to another country where another race is dominant and the standards and idea of racism change. Having specific adjectives to describe different contextual racism seems useful, as not all racism is equal. Reverse racism is not the best example of a great contextual adjective though, as its meaning wouldn't be obvious to non-Americans. Though it was obvious to you, so it at least did its job. Getting upset about the term itself though is a personal choice that should be examined.
I respectfully disagree and would go far as to say that this attitude is counter productive to advancing beyond race. Any acceptance of racism should be shunned irrespective of which ethnic group is doing it. A persons characteristics should not dictate whether an action is more or less morally right.
You're assuming all discrimination based on race is wrong. Its obviously more nuanced than that, and requires more nuanced language. Unless you think there's a giant stone pad floating in the universe and the 11th commandment on it is 'thall shall not be racist"
Ibram X Kendi's book How to be an Anti-Racist argues that racial discrimination is not only acceptable but morally necessary if it reduces average-level disparities between racial groups.
Well, he doesn't really "argue" it, he just asserts it, and I can't say I'm convinced, but the book is a massive bestseller and these ideas are very influential.
Let me preface this by saying that I don't think Kendi is a deep thinker and I'm not endorsing his ideas, just describing them.
But I don't think we're using the word "discrimination" in the same way as each other. What I mean is this: if (say) black people are underrepresented in academia, Kendi thinks that universities should discriminate in favor of black people to rectify this disparity. And the same logic should apply across all sectors of society - we should actively discriminate everywhere until all races are equally represented in all endeavours. As Kendi puts it, "the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination." It's a simple philosophy... one might even call it simplistic.
Your bad faith question implies there could only be one answer to this question, which I would hope you know is untrue, as the answer clearly relies on the authors/readers ethical system, which are relative. For instance, one could imagine a utilitarian ethical system where you could discriminate against someone's race and cause a good much larger than the 'bad' of discrimination. OTOH, someone could have a reductionist moral system and just think 'racial discrimination = bad'. I know which side of the fence I fall on.
> For instance, one could imagine a utilitarian ethical system where you could discriminate against someone's race and cause a good much larger than the 'bad' of discrimination.
I can't imagine such a scenario. Maybe you could give an example?
It is not that simple. I think of it as plain racism vs acceptable/approved/sanctioned racism. In the first case, you will have the politicians and media all talking about how bad this is. In the second case, the only response you will get from this crowd is a collective "meh."
You should. The media won't, because it now becomes a loaded term. You can make fun of "reverse" racism, but not "sanctioned" racism.
Sometimes I wonder whose side these so-called centrist/neutral or even expressly right-wing publications are on because they often present the weakest argument in favor of an issue that is all but ready for opponents to demolish.
The word is systemic racism. Because it's only "acceptable/approved/sanctioned" within some systemic power hierarchy. (If power differentials were not directly involved, one would rather define it as systemic prejudice and a factor behind systemic discrimination, which despite appearances is in fact a very strong claim as well. Much stronger than claims of 'racism' in an individual sense.)
The article read like it coiuld have been written by Jordan Peterson himself.
"Reverse" racism is because it is describing the fact that straight white men can no longer rely on their sex and race and sexual orientation to help narrow the field of competitors for whatever they want. It's the reverse of racism, in which the field of competition is narrows to those without certain apparent traits or attributes. The reverse of racism, not racism pointed the other direction.
It sounds to me like the student was relying on his grades and intellect, and denied admission into the honors program solely due to his race and gender.
It sounds to me like the student did not get accepted into a highly competitive program and used his racial prejudice to come up with a racist target to blame.
He adopted the null hypothesis that his lack of acceptance to the program was due to random chance alone. The evidence used to reject that null hypothesis consisted of some hand-picked samples from a subpopulation of applicants with whom he had social-networking contacts (and sure, he's got some friends who don't look like him, maybe even some of his best friends), further categorized by him and his collaborator subjectively into racial groups and the proxy metric of being on the dean's list, compiled into some regression numbers of unspecified strength. There are plenty of opportunities for skew and bias an the method of his research. If this study was robust enough, there would be plenty of parties interested enough that it would be a career-making, not career-breaking publication.
The author of the piece simply wanted an anecdata to support his racist views, and if you're thinking "hell yeah, white guys gotta stand together to stop those people" you're exactly the base he's pandering to.
This article was almost identical Peterson's recent publicly published letter of resignation from his tenure position at the University of Toronto in which he declaimed that none of his white male students could get jobs in academia.
If you wish to discuss the ideas and merit behind them it would be beneficial to go to the original source, and Peterson has primacy of publication here.
Unfortunately, that doesn't lead to the desired outcome of equality of opportunity with regards race in the US because of the significance of initial conditions as regards outcomes in the US.
Policies that ignore race increase the odds that black Americans who are born poor will die poor, and the proportion who are born poor is huge relative to other races because of the US history of slavery followed by overt discrimination.
(Worth noting: it may be possible to achieve the same goals by affirmative action around poverty, not race... But would Daniel have been satisfied were he told he was too rich for the honors program?)
> But woukd Daniel have been satisfied were he told he was too rich for the honors program?
No, Daniel would be happy if he was judged on his individual merit.
Honest question, what if we swing the pendulum too far with fixing the past. Do we then need to be racist again in the other direction in the future to fix that?
It's a ridiculous idea to try and tweak society at this level, and the only correct fix is unequivocally enforcing equal opportunity at the level of the individual.
> and the only correct fix is unequivocally enforcing equal opportunity at the level of the individual.
We lack the power to do that. You can't control who somebody's parents are, and we observe that birth status has huge statistical significance in opportunities available to an individual.
Well... Some countries have tried experiments with making everybody wards of the state, but the observed outcomes were not desirable.
It's hard to decide how "rich" a student is. They probably don't have much money in their own name. They may have rich parents who regularly give them money. They may have rich parents who don't want anything to do with them. They might be expecting to inherit $10 million quite soon from an elderly aunt. Or the elderly aunt might have left all her money to the local cat shelter. Even the tax authorities, with all their legal powers, can't easily answer those questions. A university certainly can't.
That having been said, it's a difficulty universities are already familiar with because they have to evaluate students in this fashion to determine who gets needs-based scholarships.
(Anecdotally, during my university years I lost one of my needs-based scholarships because my parents' income spiked. Of course, that income was from one of them getting a severance package upon termination...)
Race policies in colleges have nothing to do with Black or Hispanic poverty, to any reasonable approximation. The people who are affected, one way or the other, are squarely middle-class.
This may be expected given policies of the previous several decades seeking out minority students and the correlation in the US between minority membership and poverty (though there's certainly correlation / causation concerns with an assumption like that).
Discriminating against a race for generations and then ignoring race in policies is NOT equal opportunity. Both the rules and the starting conditions have to be equal if the goal is equal opportunity.
What is India's approach to this challenge? Do they have something analogous to US affirmative action in universities to encourage historically lower-caste Indians to pursue higher education, or do they approach the issue another way?
How would you define opportunity vs outcome in this case? I feel like “admission to an honors program” could be viewed as either, depending on what you’re measuring. For a university with demographic goals, honors program demographic profile is an outcome I guess, but for the students I’d say it’s more of an opportunity.
You can change the culture of a child by forcibly separating them from their parents, putting them in a boarding school, beating them when they try to speak their mother tongue with other children, and so on, methods that have been successfully applied in Australia and Canada, I believe. Changing the culture of an adult is more difficult, though they may have tried similar methods rather more recently in ... you know where.
You can to a certain extent change your "race" simply by changing your dress, hairstyle and name, provided your physical appearance is roughtly consistent with several "races", which is not an unusual situation in many of the societies in which "race" is a thing.
How about just looking at 2 generations. If parents of a child work extra hard, work even weekends to send their child to extra classes, the child therefore has extra classes and spends more time studying, the parents don't spend all their money and are thrifty, don't move into the largest possible house but save to pay off their mortgage.
And they create a better life for their children...
Do you still think everyone should have equal opportunities and that child doesn't deserve anything better than someone who's parents didn't give a shit and wasted their lives?
Well - to the child, it's obviously unfair if the parents didn't care. But to the parents who worked hard, it's equally unfair to blame the child and say they don't deserve a better life.
This whole equity movement seems to always look at the child's perspective (surprise, in this age of childlike narcisim!) and never at the parents perspective, who wants to create a better life for future generations.
But it's actually almost equally unfair to someone in both cases. Except in the parents case if you make it completely worthless to try and improve your child's life, you are taking away a large chunk of motivation for almost all people.
> Except in the parents case if you make it completely worthless to try and improve your child's life, you are taking away a large chunk of motivation for almost all people.
Ever heard of slippery slopes? You just hit the bottom of the ravine.
It's not "completely worthless" to try to improve your child's life and plenty of people have managed to live good lives without going to the absolute best college. Many haven't even finished college. You sound like you'd be very bitter if your kids fail at school, which is not a great place to be in.
Plus, what does this say about the other people who are discriminated against daily? You just don't like it that now you have to give the "college talk" to your kids just like fathers of girls have always had to give the "some men are predators" talk to their daughters and African-Americans have had to give the "suicide by cop" talk to their kids.
I think you've missed my point. I am just saying that creating a better world for your children is very motivating to a lot of people. Both rich and poor. And if you do that your children will have an advantage over others, just like if statistically you stay together in your marriage your children will have an advantage.
Does that mean in the name of equality we should level the playing field for children advantaged by their parents? How will that affect society if you try and nullify the hard work of every parent?
And you're talking about personal responsibility and I was talking about group dynamics.
Yes, it sucks for individuals.
But as long as you have entire swathes of people discriminated against, personal responsibility is not enough. You need general principles, laws, policies.
And yes, laws and policies can be blunt instruments and some people get hurt. Yet we still use them because on aggregate they help us.
And no, I don't believe that people will be less motivated to take care of their kids even if they're at a disadvantage. If anything, I'd just make these shadowy ideas in the article actual written policies. "Yes, we only accept new students in proportion to population quotas". People will adapt.
No, because you can turn that into actually fair (if unpleasant) policies.
For example the proportional representation. Just always have it always be proportional, no matter how the distribution changes. That's fair (again, probably unpleasant for some groups).
Ok, but I wouldn't count population size as a cultural property. Not sure I'd count technology (weapons) either - it's maybe a long-term cultural property.
And these historical example apply to modern America less because of various laws that level the playing field. I' mean cultural differences between modern groups.
The thing is, the biggest thing, money, was never redistributed.
The initial land was taken over by Europeans, by force, then the Westward expansion was also by force and the land was given to Europeans.
After WW2 there were huge investments into infrastructure and housing and those were given to... Europeans.
Kind of hard to catch up with people who have everything. You need to be exceptional and large groups of people aren't really exceptional. Most people just stay where they are (geographically and socially).
Can you clarify what you mean by this. Racial Europeans? Does that include the mass immigration of Irish? Or are you talking about the British and other colonial powers?
> Kind of hard to catch up with people who have everything
What people? Europeans? There are plenty of poor whites, and plenty wealthy immigrants who "started with nothing".
Also, it appears the context of this post is wrt to someone who might be Asian - how did those non-European immigrants end up on the wrong side of this? Seems that that group managed to catch up, and are now being penalised for it.
Based on the article he is Jewish. Had you read it you would have known. Your rant about Asians is useless and out of place
> It's sad that he's upset that life isn't fair. I am sure everyone on earth could tell him that.
Discrimination, be it "reverse" or not is opposed to so many human and intellectual values that it's understandable he is upset. Would you have said the same thing about Rosa Park's stand?
> It's a tough pickle. He is where he is due to racism. Both as someone who beat everyone in life by being the right color and then having people trying to equalize him because of his color.
> He got upset that he wasn't put on the pedestal as usual.
You don't have proof that he is where he is due to racism, but assuming the is the author is telling the truth we do have proof he was discriminated against because of his colour.
Let's assume that you have group A, in a position of power, wealth, education, connections, etc.
There is also group B, which has none of that.
Let's assume that naturally group A doesn't want to give that up. If you don't agree, you don't know enough about human nature and I'd really like to see studies that back up your opinion.
Let's assume that most people are ordinary and statistically most people don't break through to a higher position.
Why would you presume that individuals share blame or benefit with their groups? If one member of a group acts poorly, is it fair to penalize another member of that group? If one member of a group is privileged, is it fair to penalize a non-privileged member of that group to "even out" the groups?
You didn’t answer his questions though? Why is it fair to penalize someone for the color of their skin? I thought the whole point is to make things better for people?
People are not the groups they belong to. Looking at it as "carrot vs. stick" already reveals you're thinking about this the wrong way.
You're right, discrimination happens and it's not codified. So the solution is to start codifying discrimination? That kind of thing is either wrong or it isn't. The ends don't justify the means.
This a community for startup founders. Each of them cultivates a personal myth that they're successful because they were smart and worked hard. They don't like to admit that the system is rigged in their favour.
And are group A/B distinguished by race, or other factors?
There are plenty poor whites, many struggling in red states / rust belt, that don't have power, wealth, education, connections etc. Would it be reasonable to group them with other whites who do have those connections to offset that to justify positive discrimination on a racial black/white basis?
Well, frankly the best way to do it would be, you guessed it, socioeconomic status, primarily wealth and income.
Same thing, proportional representation, but based on social classes.
However, how do you do that and how do you prevent it from being gamed? Are universities allowed to ask for paychecks going 10 years back? Asset lists? ZIP codes for where the family lived in the last 10 years? Proof that you've been on the dole?
I feel if you are looking for a grant / scholarship, asking for a bunch of information (like a bank would if you applied for a mortgage) isn't unreasonable.
The US already keeps tabs on socioeconomic status in the form of the IRS and tax laws, so any hidden income/assets would have to answer to that first.
But how do they determine ethnicity when it comes to affirmative action?
Just subjective self-identity?
Visually? I.e "measuring skulls and skin colors"?
Ask your peers what they think you are and base it on that?
Need at least N generations of ancestry to some specific place?
N % DNA match common to some specific group of genes?