Matt Yglesias reports:
For starters, Harvard recruits athletes who are disproportionately white (it’s not just football and basketball — there are fencing and golf teams). Harvard also gives a bonus to the children of alumni, another disproportionately non-Asian group. But then on top of that Harvard seeks to ensure the presence of a diverse class by giving bonus to members of underrepresented racial minorities and underrepresented geographical areas. The much-discussed racial diversity criteria hurt Asian applicants at the expense of black [and] Latino ones, while the never-discussed geographical diversity critera hurt Asian applicants at the expense of white ones. Conservatives have entrenched into law the idea that policies with a “disproportionate impact” on racial minorities don’t constitute an illegal form of discrimination, which may be the wise approach, in which case it may be that Ivy League schools aren’t doing anything illegal to Asian applicants. But it’s clear enough that the structure of their admissions policies has the effect of disadvantaging Asian applicants.
Unfortunately, Yglesias throws “disparate impact” into the mix where is doesn’t quite belong — what the term refers to is when someone uses non-racial criteria that happen to affect different racial groups to different degrees. This applies to geographical criteria, but it certainly doesn’t apply to “diversity,” which is a directly racial criterion that weeds out Asians.
"The much-discussed racial diversity criteria hurt Asian applicants at the expense of black [and] Latino ones, while the never-discussed geographical diversity critera hurt Asian applicants at the expense of white ones."
Someone please explain to Mr. Yglesias that the word he is looking for is benefit, not expense. As written, it sounds as if he is writing about a lose-lose situation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, let's see now (late 1960s era):
I'm white (and male). Both my parents were school dropouts. Although I graduated high school in a nice suburb, we only got there when I was 10 or so, due to that fact that a small insurance policy (on my younger brother, who died in infancy) provided enough for a down payment on a small house. On those days, down payments were real. We got there from the city (one of those cities for which the state would later rule that the funding was unconstitutional). We had moved around before that.
So far, I have elucidated three of the three non-racial criteria that the current Department of Education giave as examples before race might be taken into account for "critical mass." Oddly, I am not "diverse."
I'm not an athlete, being rather small for a white male (comparable to many Asians, I might note). The coach-teachers ignored me, as did the coach-recruiters who came to the school. Due to "geographic diversity" I would be penalized if I applied to an elite college, because the surrounding area (east coast, back then) had a lot of upper middle class and well-to-do. I, obviously, was not among them.
The school had a two-track system, apparently based on what parents did for a living, rather than on placement test scores. I recall a friend telling me that "Jimmie" had scored higher than they had seen before there, and was praised for this on class time. I wasn't in that class. My scores were much higher than Jummie's. Nobody had bothered to look at them. When I brought this to the attention of the Irish woman who ran the place (Jimmie was Irish, you understand) I was criticized on class time. I went on to win two gold medals in Latin, even though I was initially steered away from Latin (it not being a working class thing). Found it hard to get references. Nobody really cared.
I also exceeded Jimmie on SAT scores, and did very well in forensics, as did Jimmie, but we were never partners. At one time the school got a nasty letter about that, wondering why the two of us were not teamed. No effect, of course.
I was steered to a STEM field (considered to be "working class" in that era) even though it's not my best. I went to a local state college before transferring out, due to merit. Never really liked STEM.
As for Jimmie, he went on to an elite private college, and subsequently did very well in law. Perhaps his dad was a lawyer, too (I think so, but am not sure).
Who is Jimmie? His full name is James E. Tyrrell of Patton Boggs law firm, the one that represented NYC in the 9-11 toxic torts case. Who am I? Ask Jimmie. He'll know. Tell him I sent you. He's a nice guy.
Currently, a lot of the Asians who are turned down at elitist colleges are in fact children of paents who both have graduate degrees. They and I don't have much in common.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGive Yglesias a break--Wikipedia was experiencing some server problems that day
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