This feisty blog has occasionally talked about issues of discrimination against minority-group members and women, in science, or in academia, or just more broadly. We have also, one must admit, occasionally taken the Bush administration to task for this or that example of egregious malfeasance. Thus, rigorously fair folks that we are, it’s only right that we also mention those instances when the administration takes time off from its busy schedule of intelligence-doctoring, operative-outing, deficit-growing, and hurricane-ignoring to actively fight the pernicious effects of discrimination.
So, here we go: the Justice Department is going to sue Southern Illinois University for discriminating against white males.
No, you can’t make this stuff up. SIU, like almost every university in the country, is seriously under-represented by minority groups among its graduate students; out of 5,500 graduate students, only about 8 percent are Latino or African-American (compared to over 20 percent of Americans). So they have a few fellowship programs that specifically target women and minorities, and help out a tiny number of people — perhaps 40 per year. The Bush administration, tireless warriors for social justice that they are, will stop at nothing to squelch this manifest anti-white bias:
“The University has engaged in a pattern or practice of intentional discrimination against whites, non-preferred minorities and males,” says a Justice Department letter sent to the university last week and obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The letter demands the university cease the fellowship programs, or the department’s civil rights division will sue SIU by Nov. 18.
I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to discriminate against someone, I would be able to do a much better job than that. You know, like actually having fewer members of the discriminated class at my university than in the surrounding society, rather than significantly more.
Sadly, this is an issue that (even) scientists don’t always think very clearly about. There is a feeling in some circles that perfect fairness consists of taking the tiny part of society’s workings over which you have control, and pretending within that part that there is no such thing as race or gender, everyone should be treated equally. But in the real world, where we are not all born into equal circumstances and presented with equal opportunities, it makes perfect sense to recognize that and account for it when we recruit and train students.
Of course, people will complain that singling out minority-group status forces us to treat people according to some external characteristics rather than as individuals, and amounts to an insidious form of reverse racism, ultimately hurting the people it tries to help. This philosophically appealing position has the downside of being in flagrant contradiction with the evidence. Although it’s true that programs typically aim (small amounts of) resources at people because of minority-group status rather than a detailed understanding of their personal history in overcoming obstacles, the fact is that this clumsy strategy actually works. People gain access to education and training that they otherwise would not, and the result is that the pool of highly-educated and successful people grows more diverse, which helps both the people in those groups and the society as a whole. As crude as it is, the strategy of targeting fellowships at under-represented groups is both cheap and effective.
Deep down, nobody likes affirmative-action type programs. Nobody. We would all much prefer it if universities and other employers could truly ignore the race or gender of applicants and workers, because they were treated completely fairly throughout all of society. But that’s just not reality. And until it is, making a tiny little effort to help out people who have faced systematic bias throughout their lives — even if the efforts are clumsy and imprecise — is the least we can do.
The only concern I’ve ever had about these programs is the way that they conflate race and class. In real terms, you can show that, statistically, it can be as hard to suceed starting out as a rural white person as it is being an urban black person. They are not parallel situations, but there is a real issue there that isn’t being 100% addressed–I know in Missouri, the most poorly funded school districts were the ones in the rural white areas.
bittergradstudent, you’re right on target. “Class” is a word that’s conspicuously absent from most discussions of politics in this country. An affirmative action program based on applicants’ socioeconomic backgrounds rather than race or ethnicity would be both color-blind and fair. In most cases, class background and race/ethnicity cut the same way, but the sons and daughters of the poor and the working class should get an affirmative action hand up whether they’re from the ghetto, the barrio, or the trailer park.
Discrimination against racial minorities has been negligible in the United States for over thirty years. It continues to exist, but it is now exceeded by other forms of discrimination such as that against the short, the fat, the stupid, and the ugly.
One place where racism unfortunately persists is in the minds of well-intentioned politically liberal persons. Many harbor the perhaps unconscious belief that certain races, due to their inherent inferiority, cannot possibly succeed without standards being lowered for them. That such persons never advocate standards being lowered for impoverished Appalachian whites, is evidence that they are hosts to a meme that is factually racist.
When buying and selling are regulated, the first items to be bought and sold are the regulators.
The rub with victimology and rule of the disempowered is that there is always somebody even less qualified, a worse victim, and more screwed up than you are. You wanted a break for being a woman? Okay, but you’re a white woman and just got euchred out of that position by a Chicana two-fer. She finds herself competing against a sexually harassed Black lesbian single mother intravenous drug addict with AIDS doing the Macarena in a wheelchair.
Affirmative Action: jobs given to those who cannot do them.
Bilingualism: communication fostered by format incompatibility.
Compassion: an evolutionarily stupid act committed at others’ expense.
Discrimination: objective evaluation.
Equality: majority
Hate language - empirically validated opinion.
Inequity - keeping score.
Issues - straw men embellished into tar babies.
Justice - extorted outcome.
Liberal - one who believes HIV and AIDS are spread by a lack of funding.
Liberal education - carving one’s initials into the next generation’s flesh.
Rights: protection of confused angry ignorance against achievement.
Al wrote:
“Compassion: an evolutionarily stupid act committed at others’ expense.”
I’m sorry that you view the world this way. I hope you find some comfort and peace.
Elliot
I don’t see why class-based affirmative action has to be mutually exclusive with race-based affirmative action. There’s no reason why both factors (and probably many others) can’t be incorporated as a way of evaluating the hurdles an applicant has had to overcome along the road.
The truly bone-headed way of doing admissions is to merely look at standardized test scores and grades and assume that they are a proxy for merit, as if no other factors could possibly intervene in that measurement.
Unfortunately, doing things the first way takes a lot of time and discernment, while the second way can be done by computer, so schools with big admissions numbers often take the easy way out.
Tim D–
I agree, but the former is never talked about, and the latter is talked about quite often, and rural poverty and non-social mobility is never talked about on TV when the media discusses these issues.
bittergradstudent- Yeah, you’re totally right. Americans hate to talk about class, and poor, rural whites definitely get screwed just as badly as inner-city black kids. It’s a different set of problems, but just as pressing.
I just feel that, despite what Belizean says, racism is not negligible in this country, it is just not as chic as it used to be. If I had more time, I would elaborate, but I gotta run.
Belizean:
In an earlier post on a different subject, I wondered if you and I were living on different planets. Now I’m sure of it.
What evidence to you have to support your contention that “discrimination against racial minorities has been negligible in the United States for over thirty years”?
Just because rural poor isn’t talked about on TV doesn’t mean no one tries to address it in admission… at the two different Ohio universities which I’m familiar, they both consider appallachian an underrepresented minority.
That said, I always find it humorous how quickly the perfect becomes the enemy of the good in these discussions–because some people feel that poor white people may be left out, then we shouldn’t be trying to do anything to help anyone until we can come up with a perfect solution that works for everybody. The current solution is clumsy, yes, but it’s better than not doing anything at all.
Tim D is getting at the core of this–which is there’s a misunderstanding that test scores == ability, and that only test scores should be used by admissions to build a class. Even the notion that students can somehow comprise an ordered set is ridiculous on its face, but there it is…
My opinions about this issue is here.
This lawsuit is particularly timely, given what is currently happening in France. There we can see just how successful the reverse approach has been. If you tell everyone that are equal often enough, it turns out there is no need for either affirmative action programmes or keeping statistics on, say, how many in minority groups are unemployed or in university/government positions. The good nature and tolerance of the majority group results in everyone integrating just fine.
Samantha–
that was never the French appraoch. Contrary to what Fox News advertises about the issue, there has been a long standing history of overt discrimination against the Arab minority, tracing back to colonial times. The Jean Marie Le Pen did not finish second in the last presidential election because the way that the French public embraces multiculturalism.
So… I hardly dare ask, bittergradstudent, but what is FOX news saying? NPR has done an OK job explaining about Algeria etc.
The point I am trying to make is not to knock the French (yes, really) but rather that we have a paradigm where a Western society has tried to become multicultural without using affirmative action. And it has been spectacularly unsuccessful. And this should be a warning to us.
This is retarded. (And I am speaking as a person who came from a country where there is a affirmative action program for the majority!)
The problem is that this lawsuit is going to end up hurting the white majority of SIU more, by denying them a chance to interact with people of other races. I think the thing that is always forgotten is that increasing diversity in any program will benefit the whole.
I know that I’ve benefitted immensely, in my college years, that I got to finally interact with students of other races in my own country Malaysia, after 13 years of grade school education in a purely chinese school (not my choice). The price I paid is that I have to work triple hard to get into my own country’s college because of my skin colour, but that only made me a better person in the end.
I’m sorry, I guess I overreacted to the implications that the riots were the result of a multicultural approach to things, when it is likely that it is quite the opposite–these riots, as far as I can tell, grew out of exclusion and repression, not out of touchy-feely blind acceptance.
Dear Eugene,
the U.S. is not Malaysia. The United States of America is a country that follows its own constitution and other laws, and whether or not a Malaysia-born person feels that he benefitted from a particular policy somewhere in his country is absolutely irrelevant.
All the best
Lubos
Samantha & bittergradstudent: You might want to have a look at this article in NYT today.
(Le Pen did very well, that’s true. That’s why Sarkozy is trying to embrace his voters by showing he’s a tough guy, calling the rioters “scum”. His threat about throwing out the rioting kids from the country has not been so well received though.)
Lubos, I just read your post and you are walking a semantic tightrope. The fact that a minority is given a stipend in no way discriminates against whites. This is financial aid not admission preference. If you accept the Cornell groups “interepretation” of the 14th (which is only an opinion not settled law) you cannot conclude that the whites have been damaged. They simply haven’t recieved the benefit of these grants.
Why the Justice Department is bringing this at this time is puzzling as it appear that the justification is completely political. That would be to shore up the Bush administrations sagging support with white conservatives who are beginnng to question the war, gas prices, the lying, and everything else about this administration that they are finally being called out for. I wonder if GWBs approval ratings were higher if this would even be an issue.
Elliot
bittergraduatestudent et al,
Many affirmative action programs do treat class and race equally. Two examples I am familiar with:
U Michigan which was recently sued by white students for their affirmative action program used a point system in which grades, test scores etc. were assigned points. Underrepresented groups as well as people from low-income households could earn up to twenty additional points. These points could also be awarded to athletes or children of alumni etc.. An additional twenty points could be awarded at the provosts discretion for geographical location, personal essay etc. This takes into account not only those poor whites, but addionally those that are from rural areas.
Before affirmative action was outlawed at the University of California white students from economically disadvanted backgrounds were among the main beneficiaries of the program. Without affirmative action the median family income of white students at UC Berkeley has risen to $100,000/year.
Economic background is in fact a central issue.
Race and class. Yes, class can be a burden. But it appears that race by far overwhelms class — take a look at the SAT statistics:
SAT (wikipedia)
SAT by race, income and parental education
A student from a black family with an income of $70k or more scores lower on the SAT than a student from a white family that makes less that $10k. A black student from a family with a graduate degree barely outperforms a white student from a family without a high school diploma.
I love how affirmative action people throw the term ‘diversity’ around like it means anything else than ‘black and latino’. Its such glaringly obvious rhetoric it boggles the mind smart people buy into it.
If universities were serious about upping diversity counts they would take more foreign students in. I can pretty much guarentee that will be more ‘diverse’ than picking up Joe instead of Frank (where both are american and live in the same neighborhood and one happens to be black the other white).
Moreover ‘diversity’ is so ill defined a concept I have difficulty even finding an appropriate definition applicable to the law. Are we talking about diversity of mind or background? No one seems to talk about that in admissions offices, the reality is they just look at your race and gender (and look for hints of sexual orientation now too since evidently gays are discrimated against) and preferentially focus longer on apps that include those traits, wheras they might normally have tossed it (I know this for a fact as my xgf works in such an office).
Either way losing sight of meritocracies should be frowned upon, especially in science. We don’t want our students to be supbar candidates, only the best and the brightest will do. Having anything other than pure meritocracy does a disservice to the ideal and hence should be rejected ad initio.
Incidentally Sean seems to think there is considerable evidence for AA helping society and our universities. Well please link such ‘causal’ evidence, as far as I can see all the program has advanced us is a correlation with higher drop out rates.
Right! Look how great things are working out in France and they don’t have ANY affirmative action!
Note: I’m British and we think sarcasm is funny.
Incidentally, this seems to be more of a problem in undergraduate life. You can spot the affirmative action babies from a mile away when you teach their classes. In the end the immense majority of them just dont make it, at least in physics but usually college in general.
What kills me is there is always a percentage of those minority students who are super smart, and are probably at risk of being wrongfully labelled when they could probably have gotten in anywhere AA or no AA. It seems to me AA does that subset the biggest disservice of all.
(please don’t feed the troll, everyone!)
Plenty of evidence for the positive impact of affirmative action, if you care to look.
Normally I’m all in favor of ignoring the trolls, but I do have to say that I feel sorry for the students in Haelfix’s classes. Any teacher who thinks they can “spot the affirmative action babies from a mile away,” and is convinced that the immense majority of them just don’t make it (regardless of what the evidence says), isn’t someone I would want to depend on for a grade.
Perhaps one should also look at the source of the problem: Studying at a university in the US costs much more than here in Europe.
I’m not sure exactly how much a student in the US has to pay for studying maths or theoretical physics, but it is a lot more than the 1000 euros tuition fees per year I paid. Even in my case, I have a hard time understanding why following a few lectures and doing a few exams should cost 1000 euros.
The professors who teach are paid by various funding agencies for their research. Teaching takes up about ten percent or less of their time. If you divide ten percent of their income by the number of students they teach and multiply that by the number of courses, you arrive at a few hundred euros per year.
So, transforming a high school graduate to a university graduate should cost no more than a few thousand dollars. If the real costs are charged then students from less privileged backgrounds can afford to study.
Count Iblis…. where do you get your numbers from? the percentages, etc? I find some of them a bit questionable, but I realise I don’t have data to offer in their place. So references, please, if you have some. Or is this based on your own experience (which is ok too, but I’d like to know).
cheers,
-cvj
When making the case for any kind of non-ability based admission system where do the legacy issues stand? At the Ivy leagues a non negligible percentage of the admissions are reserved for donor/ alumni offspring. Isn’t this a bigger contributor than AA to cutting out students who may be more deserving based strictly on academic/athletic/leadership etc., criteria?
Hi Clifford,
I just did a back of the envelope calculation based on my own experience at university as a graduate student. I know a bit about how much time I and the Prof. I was working under spend prepairing for colleges and exams for students (not much).
I don’t see why educating students to graduate level should cost more than a total of 10,000 dollars in tuition fees. Note that I’m not talking about the costs for books annd living costs etc.
Cambridge University charges domestic students £3000 (about $6000) tuition per year (American parents don’t get excited, international students are charged £8,832-£11,571 depending on the subject)…
[see http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/finance/tuition.html
Let's compare this with a similarly high profile state university (since there are very very few private Universities in the UK). UC Berkeley, say. The registration fees there are $3,716.95 per semester.
[http://registrar.berkeley.edu/Registration/feesched.html]
I realize that there is a $1500 difference, but the two fees seem rather comparable to me.
Slightly more informative link which I think is balanced.
http://siop.org/AfirmAct/siopsaartargecon.htm
Dropout rates did increase the second AA went live in the US though (at least in California schools according to the Harvard report), and have persisted to be rather dismal with clear racial disparities.
If you think thats trolling, then fine, but before you dismiss any opinion that differs from your world view, consider this.
What I mentioned above has a name, its called ’slapping a badge of inferiority on a race’, and it is unconstitutional (rightfully so). Many of the judicial battles with AA hinged on this, eg just how much AA was applicable or not.
And yes, I do admit I have a tendancy to grow impatient with incompetent students. Already we have enough Freshman who clearly shouldn’t be in our university (with dysmal math and science skills, people who don’t even know what an exponential is), AA if nothing else just amplified this. I’m sorry, but I just can’t agree with a policy (noble as it might try to make itself out to be) that lowers standards, when already in the US our standards are so low (for highschool students).
Citrine,
Thanks - I was just going to point this out myself. I don’t hear much of a fuss over the admission slots given to offspring of alumni or donors. Does anyone have the stats on whether these students meet the academic requirements and have the best test scores or whether they are admitted because Mommy & Daddy have big bucks?
Samantha, thanks for the links.
Yes and here in Holland there is a similar development. A new masters degree education was introduced and international students are charged similar amounts. Students end up paying for their tutors fat pay checks…
When I was studying I didn’t even follow half of the courses. If I really had to, I could have stayed at home and studied only from the lecture notes or books. Studying theoretical physics requires the student to do a lot of reading and working on problems by themselves. The tutor doesn’t really do that much.
$3,716.95 per semester means that I could teach ten students fulltime and earn $74000 per year. With my knowledge of physics and the full time attention the would get from me, they would learn much more than at UC Berkeley.
Thanks, Count Iblis.
-cvj
Legacy admissions are the single biggest affirmative-action program for college undergraduates. And I’m sure Haelfix can spot them all a mile away.
Joane.
Legacy students are as much a problem (perhaps even worse) than some of the AA students or Scholarship Athletes.
In a perfect world, the idea is that if you have two equal resumes in front of you, only then can you add points for race/gender/athletics/legacy etc. If it worked that way in reality, I don’t think any of us would have a problem with any of these practises.
Actually Sean you would be surprised =)
Come on, just between the two of us, can you admit that you can spot the scholarship athletes in the ‘requirement filler’ 101 courses? Maybe Uchicago is a little different in that regard.
Ok enough stereotyping, even for my blood, im off to do some work..
Hi, just to keep things straight, the fees Samantha quotes are only for in-state residents. If you are coming from out of state or are not a resident of California, the tuition is ~ $8,500. If you include the registration fees and other required fees, you get up to almost $12,000 a year for grad school, similar for undergrads.
Numbers are here:
http://registrar.berkeley.edu/Registration/feesched.html
I applied for Pell Grants when I was doing my undergrad in CA, I believe the only 2 requirements were to be poor, not be claimed as a dependent by your parents, and get decent grades. Those grants were extremely helpful to me, highly recommend them (although I think they’ve been phased out) and wish more such grants were available to people who are disadvantaged in any way.
Thanks Jennifer,
It is a fine point, but I wasn’t trying to be disingenuous (hence why I also included the link to Berkley’s registration fees) I was comparing just the tuition for the subsidized students (i.e. CA state residents vs British citizens). If you compare the non-subsidized students (out of state residents vs non-British citizens) the tutuion is $12,626.95 (Berkeley) vs approx. $17,000 - $23,000 (Cambridge).
To me such tuition fees are outrageous. What do you get in return for paying these tens of thousands of dollars?
Count Iblis:
I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way, but it has to be said that you do get a pretty good education for those tens of thousands of dollars.
(I’m not saying that you can’t get a good education for cheaper, by the way….but it is noteworthy that you largely do get one at this price in these places.)
Cheers,
-cvj
Hi Clifford,
I’m sure that the education one gets at Berkeley is first class. It would be madness if it were anything less than that. But, as you mention, the point is really if it can’t be done for cheaper. I’m sure it can, because I only paid a fraction of the amount students at Berkeley are paying.
What happens to the money the students pay? Is that also used to fund the research of the Profs?
Varies from institution to institution (salaries, facilities, etc)……I can’t say anything in general, since I do not know anything in general.
-cvj
Both the University of Washington and the University of California have clever programs designed to help underrepresented groups without discriminating against anyone. The University of California has the presidential postdoctoral fellowships which used to be set aside for minorities but now are set aside for those who have a strong interest in mentoring members of underrepresented groups. The University of Washington has some preference for hiring faculty who have demonstrated their committment to mentoring members of underrepresented groups. Since someone of any race or gender can mentor this is neither reverse discrimination nor affirmative action. I think we have to think harder about affirmative action, because of the backlash problem, and figure out more clever, non discriminatory ways of increasing access and diversity.
I have worked for a program (Upward Bound/ Math Science Initiative Project) that prepares high school kids from low-income, minority and first-generation families for college. The kids get to spend about 2 months on a college campus, take academic courses and work on small research projects. I really enjoyed working for this program as it was very satisfying to see steps being taken to bring up deserving kids from underprivileged families without having to rely on lowered admission standards to accomodate them. I got my strangest but most treasured “student feedback” during one of these programs - a girl who complained a lot about her stepmom wistfully remarked that she wished her dad would divorce the woman and marry *me*!
Samantha, I missed your link somehow, sorry about that. You’re right, they are comparable.
This may not be the place to do it, but I would like to point out that many of these comments are addressing a problem with which some of us are more familiar. I teach physics at a rural community college which is, unfortunately, not very diversified. The problems that I face, and many others in similar situations, is that across the board we are having less capable and properly prepared students come through our doors. With no entrance requirements and no AA, we in the community college ranks have always had challenges in helping students to find the desire and commitment to pursue significant intellectual pursuits; mathematics and physics as prime examples. In the past, we could motivate these students to dig deeper and try harder by giving them the scores they actually deserve based on their demonstrated understanding of the subject. Now, there is considerable pressure to increase retention and provide more successors. The underlying problem is that our society as a whole is losing its perspective on what it means to legitimately think and it is being manifested in the political and administrative decisions that guide distribution of funds to our institutions of higher education; at least to community colleges. We are more concerned with political correctness and economics than we are with knowledge.
Philip, you asked,
“What evidence to you have to support your contention that “discrimination against racial minorities has been negligible in the United States for over thirty yearsâ€?”
1. It’s long been known that the median income of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean matches that of whites in the United States. The median income of the children of such immigrants exceeds that of whites. [See Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America (New York: Basic Books, 1981), pp. 5, 219-22]. If anti-black discrimination was significant, it would noticeably operate against immigrant blacks.
2. It is obvious that a person would face greater discrimination at any time over the last thirty years were she ugly, fat, short, or stupid than were she merely black. [Say it's 1975. Which would you rather be -- just as you are now except black, or just as you are now except for being 20% shorter (or dumber)?]
3. I have lived in the United States throughout this period. I have probably been and likely continue to be discriminated against on racial grounds. But the discrimination is so slight that I cannot even detect it. In other words, it’s negligible.
On the fees thing: Count Iblis, in the UK (and possibly the rest of Europe, but i don’t know) profs do significantly less teaching than lecturers. as most undergrad teaching is undertaken by lecturers, you can’t really calculate the percentages based on profs if you want an accurate estimate of teaching time for most faculty members. also, in Oxbridge and Durham, the faculty also teach tutorials which are one on one or one on two, and those take up a lot of time too.
on the discrimination thing:
Belizean, medians don’t actual tell one an awful lot. also, anti-black discriminiation is based on skin colour not country of birth, so it’s not clear to me why you think that would affect immigrant blacks more than people who have live in the US all there lives but are black.
the other real difficulty (or at least one of) that ethnic minorities and women face is not so much active discrimination, but simply the unspoken assumptions that people make about women or some racial groups. the assumption that the only woman standing in the math department is the secretary, and not a grad student; or the association between being black and criminality; or whatever.
i’m somewhat surprised that everyone is talking about “racial minorities” as referring only to hispanics and blacks. do you really think that Arabs aren’t discriminated against?
–Q
Quibler,
Yes, that’s true, I was oversimplifying a bit. Still, it is hard to see how one could arrive at such high costs. I managed to master some important subjects (linear algebra, complex analyses, quantum mechanics) while still at high school all by myself using university books.
Reading books and solving problems all by yourself is the most important part of the learning process. Attending lectures is the least important part.
As a simple guy I offer a simple argument.
We have every reason to believe that talent is distributed evenly across race and gender. If, in the outcome, the diversity of society is not represented in the pool of those employed, you are wasting talent.
Or, as one author said, the talent of Elizabeth I of England hints at the amount of talent Elizabethan society wasted by keeping women in subordinate postions.
Affirmative Action is not for the benefit of the individual, it is for the benefit of society. If we want better results we can spend more money and create a better tool, but the programs in place are fairly successful.
On the last point, I’m not too certain. The medical and legal fields seem to have accessed the talents of women pretty well, but it seems likely that in many fields the talents of women and minorities are not being fully accessed.
Quibbler,
“Belizean, medians don’t actual tell one an awful lot.”
Actually, they are the single best way of comparing the distributions of some property between different groups. If you know of a superior comparative measure, I’d love to hear it.
“…anti-black discriminiation is based on skin colour not country of birth, so it’s not clear to me why you think that would affect immigrant blacks more than people who have live in the US all there lives but are black.”
I don’t think it would affect immigrants more. My point is that IF anti-black discrimination is significant, THEN it will affect black immigrants to the same degree as it affects black natives. While the economic progress of native blacks has been retarded, that of immigrant blacks has NOT. So I conclude that anti-black discrimination in the U.S. is negligible.
[If A ==> B, not B ==> not A]
Nice argument, serial catowner!
Elliot, when you say that it is not “admission preference” but rather “financial aid”, you are twisting the words in a way that judges will never be able to. The amount of garbage that you derive by your game with words is exactly equal to the amount of garbage that you inserted.
The fellowship is money paid to a student who has it as a job, and giving this fellowship to someone means to admit the person for the job. Moreover, I don’t believe that you don’t understand this elementary point. You’re just pretending that you don’t understand it.
Lubos,
When you say that judges will be unable to twist words, I will simply refer you to to the SCOTUS decision that put GWB in office in 2000.
Here are the descriptions of the fellowships. I’d like for you to directly point out where giving a fellowship is the equivalent of making the admissions decision. Do the fellowships make it easier for minorities to pay for their education? Absolutely. Does it encourage them to apply? Certainly. Do they make it easier to to get accepted into the programs academically? I don’t see that anywhere in these descriptions. Therefore the logical conclusion is that although there is a benefit to minorities, there is no detriment to white candidates.
FELLOWSHIP: Bridge to the Doctorate
Started: 2004
Award: $30,000 stipend, plus $10,500 for education expenses
Purpose: “For underrepresented minority students to initiate graduate study in science, technology, engineering and math.”
Budget: $985,000
Number of awards since inception: 24 (19 blacks, 5 Latino, 1 Native American)
FELLOWSHIP: Proactive Recruitment and Multicultural Professionals for Tomorrow
Started: 2000
Award: Tuition waiver and $1,200 monthly stipend
Purpose: “To increase the number of minorities receiving advanced degrees in disciplines in which they are underrepresented.”
Budget: $158,000
Awards since inception: 78 (61 blacks, 14 Latinos, 1 Asian, 2 Native Americans)
FELLOWSHIP: Graduate Dean’s
Started: 2000
Award: Tuition waiver, $1,000 monthly stipend
Purpose: “For women and and traditionally underrepresented students who have overcome social, cultural or economic conditions.”
Budget: $67,000
Awards since inception: 27 (16 whites, 7 blacks, 4 Latinos)
Law unlike, unlike science (at least supposedly), is an advocacy process using language as its tools. Using those tools to make a point is the name of the game. There are no underlying truths here. Having actually studied law I know that truth is only an occasional byproduct of the justice system. Not that it shouldn’t be but that is not how the process is structured.
I further repeat my assertion that I believe these suits are politically motivated by an administration that is dangerously and desperately trying to pull themselves out of a quicksand of their own creation.
Elliot
http://www.drizzle.com/~jwalsh/sokal/guestbook/1998january.html
Patricia Schwarz, patricia@theory.caltech.edu, visited on Thursday, January 01, 1998:
Message: I think Sokal’s act was odious. In my field, physics, verbal abuse and intimidation, lack of respect for others, are rife. Sokal’s act smacks of that same attitude. If you disagree you’re an idiot and must be mocked. I am really sick of hearing tenured professors squeal like victims. Meanwhile I spent five years at Caltech hearing “scientific” explanations for why women can’t do math. There was really no science involved, but when a tenured science professor wants to make a political point, he’ll always try to make it seem like all of science and reason is 100% on his side.
[ sounds like what Larry Summers/Harvard did ]
And of course anyone who doesn’t see things his way - why that’s proof that you’re just ignorant. Even if you’re a grad student in physics. That’s what I mean about the general lack of human respect within science. When can we get past this crap? When can members of the scientific elite start coming back to their own humanity, abandon their authoritarian attitudes, and stop portraying science vs. humanity as some monumental crisis of a new Dark Age? I know I’m totally venting here but as a physicist who is culturally aware, I see a lot to vent over from within physics, and the Sokal extravaganza epitomizes it. GROW UP my fellow scientists GROW UP and learn to accept disagreement without resorting to name-calling and childish pranks to control the situation.
[Pasadena, United States]
Jesus Christ, I would never believe that Patricia Schwarz would disagree not only with Lawrence Summers but even with the point of Alan Sokal that the postmodern “scientists” were doing pseudoscience.
Alan Sokal’s hoax was excellent, important, and it has shown that the postmodern empty heads had no clothes. Respect for others must always have some reasons, especially respect that exceeds the average respect that one can have for any human being, and the previous quote by PS almost certainly does not seem to contain anything that one should have a respect for.
Dear Elliot,
George Bush became the US president in 2000 exactly because the judges could not twist the words contained in the US laws. They could not twist the words even though thousands of far left-wing lunatics wanted them to do it.
And it is likely that they won’t be able to twist them in this case either.
Not sure why you exactly copied the evidence of the apparently illegal activity at SIU once again here.
Every decision of the Department of Justice is political - or politically motivated - and it is up to the courts to decide what the law says. Got it?
“There is no underlying truth.” I beg to differ, but even if you don’t like the truth, there are still underlying laws - words - and they are damned clear. Think twice whether there is any truth or justice before you decide to do your first crimes.
Best
Lubos
“We have every reason to believe that talent is distributed evenly across race and gender. If, in the outcome, the diversity of society is not represented in the pool of those employed, you are wasting talent.”
Dear catowner, we have absolutely no reason to think so. On the contrary, we have now hundreds of reasons to be convinced that your statement is incorrect. See, for example, here.
But even if you decided to believe in your problematic hypotheses, it just can’t justify you to violate the existing law. Moreover. Affirmative action is universally guaranteed to lower the expected results, and whoever does not understand why, probably got to the Academia via affirmative action himself or herself.
Lubos,
Apparently you read a different SCOTUS decision placing Bush in office than i did. The reasoning in that case was that GWBs equal protection rights would be violated by a recount. Apparently he had a “right” to be president. Anyway back to the SIU case.
You seem to miss the key point that a fellowship is not affirmative action. It is not a method of discrimination. It is an offer of financial aid. I’m glad you were careful enough to call it “apparently” illegal because I think in the end the justice department will lose this one.
The richness of the constitution is that the words although clear are subject to a variety of interpretation. The 14th amendment prohibits activity that interfere with life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that citizens enjoy equal protection under the law. You have so far failed to specifically point out how these fellowships violate either the 14th amendment or the civil rights act. You can’t just say they are illegal because you don’t like the underlying philosophy you have to make the case. I personally don’t like the war in Iraq. I could try make the case that it is illegal but I think I would have a difficult time prevailing in a court of law.
Where did you get your law degree by the way?
Regards,
Elliot
the point i was making is that people still have prejudices about racial groups and women. there is NO reason to think that women or minorities are innately less capable of doing math or science than middle class white men.
–Q
Repeating some excerpts of what Patricia Schwarz wrote in 1998:
In my field, physics, verbal abuse and intimidation, lack of respect for others, are rife. …If you disagree you’re an idiot and must be mocked. … GROW UP my fellow scientists GROW UP and learn to accept disagreement without resorting to name-calling and childish pranks to control the situation.
Dear Elliot,
I have no idea what decision you have read, but the decision by the Supreme Court that I read explained very clearly that a new recount would violate the 14th amendment of the US constitution that requires the states to protect Bush’s rights as much as they protected the rights of his far left-wing opponent.
This clause would have been violated by the recount, especially because supervisors for the counties could not have been identified and the standards in different counties differed. Meanwhile, the Florida’s congress or what was that exactly confirmed that Bush is their candidate anyway.
There was a genuine interest of far left-wing forces to continue with recounts as long as a fluctuation gives Gore an edge, which reminds me of the stalinist “elections”. At any rate, I am amazed that even in 2005 a person who is demonstrably capable to use the internet browser can be silly enough to cry about the 2000 elections. Have not the 2004 elections sufficiently demonstrated that Bush is a better candidate than the left-wing candidates?
What do you exactly expect from attacking the courts and questioning the laws, even 5 years after your unsuccessful attempted coup?
I will leave to the judges to decide about your bizarre statement that “fellowships are not affirmative action”. To me, it sounds as a complete idiocy. You are free to spread your fog - and your ugly statements that the law can and should be always dilluted and misinterpreted - as long as the judicial system will guarantee that you will be in the prison whenever you make a crime.
All the best
Lubos
Wow, the count did not violate anyone’s rights, but the recount would?
If ‘white’ people start to feel discriminated against, they will soon dislike being called ‘white’. Perhaps we should call them ‘European Americans’?
Dear Lubos,
You are probably right. No point replaying the 2000 election as Bush stole it fair and square. We could discuss Katherine Harris, the deliberate disenfranchisement of black voters through misidentifying them as felons, well documented threats against black voters in Miami, the unfortuate Buchanan incident is WPB, but there is no going back and changing it now. Scalia paid daddy back for his seat and that is that. Which is why I hope the Democratic Senate does everything possible to keep Alito off the court so we can avoid a replay in the future.
As for the SIU case, I don’t think that suggesting that diversity is a good thing and supporting programs that encourage it constitutes an “ugly statement”. You still have not explained why providing financial aid to an underrepresented class is the equivalent of giving that specific class admission slots (affirmative action). And even if it were AA, that does not make it illegal.
Still waiting for your legal credentials. I have a J. D from University of Miami 1978.
Cheers,
Elliot
Lubos said:
Lubos, you posted a Scientific American article about the various differences between male and female brains. The article also makes a clear point: “To date, no one has uncovered any evidence that anatomical disparities might render women incapable of achieving academic distinction in math, physics or engineering…”
So I’m not sure why you used this article to refute serial catowner. Saying that there are differences among the races or genders is not profound. It remains to be seen whether these differences significantly affect overall performance in some field.
You say there’s absolutely no reason to think that talent is evenly distributed across race and gender. I just can’t take you seriously if you are concluding that from e.g. this article.
Lubos also said:
Wow, I never knew that the popular vote/opinion decides who the “better candidate” is. But let’s assume that it does. Now, check out Bush’s latest approval ratings.
couple of points: >”total average nonresident tuition and fees at UC are $19,740 for undergraduates and $19,333 for graduate students per year.” (2003-2004) taken from the University of California fee structure pdf file found on the Regents site. I am not sure which fees and costs Samantha and Jennifer were selecting.
Sean’s point regarding legacy admissions is right on the mark, so much so that Regents and Trustees at various universities are encouraging reviews of the policies to reduce the number of such “automatic” admissions. It is simply bad business to encourage rich students to attend schools like Yale where they only strive to achieve the C- grades necessary to not get thrown out. For the record legacy appointments also occur at the various military academies as well.
Recent studies of schools and districts funded through increased contributions from their associated “foundations” record significantly better achievement scoring. There is a direct correlation to familial wealth within those communities. Poverty, regardless of race/color/gender, is the most significant factor in determining and predicting outcome on varous achievement testing. Affirmative Action in any form, while being strikingly beneficial for some over the last 40 years, cannot begin to address the dramatic increase in the discrepency between the richest and poorest in this country. Funding higher education is becoming increasingly more expensive (here or abroad), student loan dollars are shrinking both as in what is totally available as well as in how much more per student must be used, fewer and fewer families can support fulltime attendance at four year universities and colleges. We need dramatic tuition support, more scholarships, more foundation funding. All of these can be “discriminatory” as they are private, and yet can target increasing the opportunities for poor students of color, race, and gender to attend universities and colleges of their choice.
“Discrimination against racial minorities has been negligible in the United States for over thirty years.”
I refer you to the recent response to Hurricane Katrina (though that, too, is a class issue as well as a racial one).
Kate,
There is no compelling case for racism in the Katrina response. The response was consistent past relief efforts. For example, boots were on the ground 5 days after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but they were on the ground 3 days after Katrina.
The only possible argument for racisim stems from the road blocks set up by the sheriffs of surrounding parishes and counties. Their objective was to keep New Orlean’s looters and other criminals out of their jurisdictions. The overwhelming majority of these criminals are black.
Had Katrina solely ravaged a posh suburb known to the inhabited by wealthy blacks, no one would have feared these wealthy people taking refuge in their counties.
It is now very easy to live one’s entire life as a black person in the United States without experiencing a single incident of detectable racism (other than attempts to grant one special privileges).
Lubos,
For your review:
Supreme Court Decisions: On June 23, 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court finally issued its much awaited decisions in these two cases. The Court issued its Grutter decision first–a 5-4 decision written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. In it the Court endorsed Justice Powell’s decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, finding diversity in higher education to be a compelling state interest and upholding the law school admissions program. The Court noted the individuality of the review in the law school, and held that race can be considered as a “plus” factor in admissions if it is considered in the context of a “highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant’s file, giving serious consideration to all the ways an applicant might contribute to a diverse educational environment.”
At SIU it isn’t even admissions it is fellowships which follow admissions.
Regards,
Elliot
Elliot
“It is now very easy to live one’s entire life as a black person in the United States without experiencing a single incident of detectable racism.”
Belizean, I respectfully disagree on this point. Here is a link to a description of a study about racial disparities in hiring. The researchers sought to determine if a “black-sounding” name would fare as well in the job market as a “white-sounding” name. So they sent out something like 5000 resumes and they determined that a white-sounding name was 50 percent more likely to get a callback, the equivalent of about eight years job experience. The study isn’t perfect, but it is clear and simple, and unfortunately, uncovers what I would say is “detectable racism” with a big impact on people’s lives.
Tim
As I wrote before, racism continues to exist but it is now well exceeded by other common forms of discrimination. Being fat, ugly, short, or stupid is a much greater obstacle to employment than is being black.
Moreover, Laquisha and Jamal can simply change their first names on their resumes or use their initials. Name changing for economic and social advancement is hardly unknown in the U.S. It was a common practice, for example, in the entertainment industry (e.g. Crackor Ohanian –> Mike Connors).
In a similar vein, socially ambitious residents of Brooklyn and the Bronx invested heavily diction lessons to escape discrimination on the basis of their their annoying accents.
Fortunately, most blacks do not have “black-sounding” names and are not subject to the particular form of (readily circumvented) discrimination that you cite. They can easily live their whole lives without personally detecting racial discrimination directed against them. [They will, however, experience misguided discrimination intended to help them.]
Again, this is not to say that discrimination no longer exists. I would probably not be welcomed into The Billionaire Yacht Club of the Hamptons. I would probably have a hard time getting an Idaho Neo-Nazi chick to date me. But this is hardly the sort of thing that I’m going to notice. It is, moreover, a blessing in that I’m not particularly interested in socializing with bigots. [Unless, of course, the Nazi chick is exceedingly hot.]
I am confused.
ANON has already responded to Lubos’ link (comment 68). But did no-one mention that Haelfix’s link (from comment 32) bears no relationship to his conclusion?
Or was Haelfix choosing to *agree* with Sean? The substantive content of the link certainly seemed to indicate that Sean was right: “clunky, but (seems to) work.”
This would leave Haelfix’s personal taste in students to be just that, and as Sean pointed out, I would be very leery of trusting my grade to an instructor like that.
On a side note, Haelfix: I’ve noticed that many of the “American-speaking” students who have initially struggled in my courses turned out not to be American-educated (or often American) at all, but rather foreign-educated. Seems that learning how to write or do exposition, the coherent expression of ideas, in a foreign country does not necessarily train one to do it well in the United States. I’m just glad that I was able to realize this before I came to the conclusion that they were just ‘incompetent students’ or “AA babies,” who clearly shouldn’t be in the university what with their substandard academic skills and inability to think.
Please use Gricean principles to extrapolate to topic at hand.
I ask that Haelfix don’t feel persecuted simply because others (myself included) think you’re giving off the distinct impression of being both a bigot and a moron, though. I hope Haelfix is being misunderstood — after all, I’d hate to think that a fellow teacher was being so aggressively and proactively blinkered and close-minded.
Belizean,
Thanks for your comments. I think my main point was that for many people in this country, racism is still a “big deal”. And I don’t think it is just coming from Yacht Clubs and neo-Nazis, it is more of a structural problem.
I think the fact that black folks would have to change their name to something more white-sounding in order to compete in the job market is a pretty powerful testament to the harm that racism works in their lives. Just because people have strategies for competing and surviving does not make it OK. I doubt that discrimination in hiring is “readily circumvented”. Getting a callback is only the first step in the process.
I don’t know what types of names “most blacks” do or don’t have, but I would suspect that most blacks would disagree with your statement about “easily living their whole lives without personally detecting racial discrimination.” I believe polls have consistently shown that many black people say racial discrimination is still powerful in this country. Here’s a recent (although Katrina-specific) poll, if you’re interested.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-12-katrina-poll_x.htm
Obviously, class factors into all of this, but IMHO racism still has an impact in this country. The hiring study doesn’t even address the racial disparities in the criminal justice system or in basic educational funding, both of which are considerable, systematic and destructive.
Tim D/Belezian:
“Systematic” is the key word here. When Belezian compares the (very real) discrimination that short, fat, or ugly people face to the discrimination that blacks face, he’s comparing apples and oranges. There are no public schools in the US where there are no playgrounds, where the bathrooms don’t work, where there is no air-conditioning in the summer or heat in the winter, where the classrooms are overcrowded but there are no textbooks, where a majority of the teachers are relatively inexperienced and are teaching on emergency credentials–and where 95% of the students are short. There are tens of thousands of public schools in the US where these conditions apply–and where an overwhelming majority of the students are black.
Please read Jonathan Kozol, “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid,” Harper’s, September 2005 (41-54).
“…IMHO racism still has an impact in this country.”
Sure. But is it a greater impact than that of anti-fat prejudice and the other common forms of discrimination? It isn’t.
Re: polls — It helps to remember that a majority also believe in angels or astrology.
Maybe we should take our own poll:
1. You’re looking for a job. Which of the following would in general hurt your chance the least?
a) being old
b) being fat
c) being ugly
d) being stupid
e) being short
f) being black
2. You’re trying to get a date. Which of the following would in general hurt your chance the least?
a) being old
b) being fat
c) being ugly
d) being stupid
e) being short
f) being black
You can’t discriminate against white men, they’re the oppressor-race according to popular media. And all white men have greater power than minorities, irregardless of their economic situation, social background, finances, etc.
So what if less qualified members of minorities are given certain advantages just because they’re a different ethnicity? Many people agree it’s a healthy double-standard since minorities are at an inherent disadvantage due to the color of their skin. I mean, it’s because more talented minority wouldn’t get the job because the racist white boss (because all white people are racist and only white people hold positions of power) would prefer one of his own kind, right?
And of course, all white people are just one race. There can’t be any discrimination between those ethnicities. Let’s just ignore that problem altogether.
Belizean,
I think Phillip’s post said it best. Racism is systematic in a way that being fat/ugly/etc just isn’t. I could give a list of questions about which is the best predictor of going to an underfunded school, of getting a harsher sentence for a first-time drug offense, or of being stopped by a cop for no apparent reason. The answer to all of those questions would be “f) being black.”
It’s unfair and it sucks, and the first step in fixing the problem is admitting that we (as a society) have one.
Scapegoat:
How did George W. get into Yale?
Philip,
Under funded schools occur in poor school districts that are inhabited by poor people, many of whom are black. The conditions that you attribute to systematic racism are actually due merely to poverty.
Unfortunately, the minds of a significant fraction of the population of American blacks are running a poverty-inducing program, which I’ll call the Under-Class Program, or UCP for short. When you’re running UCP, the idea that you will escape poverty and become bourgeois by adopting traditional bourgeois virtues — industriousness, perseverance, punctuality, courtesy, studiousness, ambition, articulation, abstemiousness, decorum, delayed gratification, honesty, chastity, diligence, etc. — strikes you as absurd and undesirable.
While I think there is negligible discrimination against people for being black, I also think that there is widespread discrimination against those who are UCP hosts. Because there’s a large intersection between these groups, anti-UCP bias is often confused with racism. White UCP hosts — evidenced by, say, tattoos from head to toe — are also heavily discriminated against.
Discrimination against -and affirmative action programs aimed at- women (and gays, the physically disabled, and the elderly) shouldn’t be lumped together with their race-based equivalents. Women’s lib tends to (overwhelmingly) be a good thing, and a sign of positive social developments, while ethnic minority lib tends to be a rather mixed blessing, and is often a sign of runaway multiculturalism and political correctness; of a culture that is (and will be!) at war with itself. The former (WL) should be embraced and stimulated, the latter (EML) approached with due caution. It’s important to keep in mind that if & when the multicultural experiment fails, it will fail hard. It is highly doubtful, to put it mildly, that liberal achievements such as women’s and gay’s lib will survive the collapse of the Western world.
So Philip, you think a rich black alumnus couldn’t pull some strings for his son?