"James Fallows pointed out that there are between 3,500 and 5,500 colleges in the U.S. and all but 100 of them admit more than 50% of the students who apply. Only about 70 admit fewer than a third of all applicants. That is, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, “the great majority of schools, where most Americans get their postsecondary education, admit most of the people who apply to them.”
The United States spends an outsized amount of attention (not to mention alumni donations) on these 100 elite universities (well, more like the top 20 of them) and how they sort our future ruling class toward elite positions in society. But, like the (mostly-)wealthy people who attend them, they are different from you and me. Meanwhile, most Americans don't go to college at all, and almost all American college students go to one of the other 4000 or so less-famous institutions that don't really have competitive admissions, in practice.
Does it matter who gets into Harvard? Yes, insofar as the Ivies send such a disproportionate number of alumni into the commanding heights of the American Establishment. But most of the kids attending Harvard come in as elite as they came out, and that includes non-white students. These students would be fine, either way, so one wonders why all the fuss about getting into Harvard in the first place?
Meanwhile, the schools that are actually giving vertical mobility to racial minorities are less famous and contested. If a more equitable society is the goal, we'd be much better off supporting those than fighting over a few thousand spots at these brand schools.
I'm one of the edge-cases of people who went to both types of school: My mom was a community college professor so I got a great deal attending there for free and then transferring on scholarship to a local elite university. My community college educated more undergraduates per year than my elite university did. The former was 93% minority and the latter was quite the opposite. It's clear which one is doing the heavy lifting on elevating minorities.
It's heretical to say so, but I also actually found the lower-level undergraduate courses at the community college better quality than at the elite university, since the student-to-teacher ratio was far more favorable, we tended to get taught by full professors instead of adjuncts and TAs, and our professors were incentivized more towards the teaching than research and publishing. So, Black or white, you might just get a superior undergraduate education at a "no-name school!"
But the education is not why Americans go to college anymore, sadly, so let's talk material benefits: In terms of increasing earning power for anyone, regardless of race, the community college also comes out ahead. For the community college, the ROI numbers thrown around are often based on societal benefits for public subsidy (about $6 for every $1 invested by the state). But the individual lifetime earnings payoff for an Associates Degree is huge, individually, at $42,000 increased wage 4 years out (compared to $57K for a Bachelor's). Considering how inexpensive an AA is and how expensive most 4-year programs are, this makes the payoff for community colleges even more dramatic: only 2 years and <$10K tuition invested for $42,000 extra entry-level income vs. 4 years and $120K+ for +$57,000/year. (Also, it's less well-known that you can get very marketable vocational certifications, a 4-year degree, or even a graduate-level degree from most community colleges, too, at a fraction of the price).
My elite university ostensibly offers one of the best ROIs in the biz for the (mostly already-wealthy) alumni who spent dearly to attend, but that average is heavily skewed by the minority who go into remunerative fields like finance or management consulting. For the median graduate, the payoff was certainly more modest. And there's some anecdotal research that seems to suggest that racial minorities and students from lower socio-economic strata don't even capture the same benefits that their richer, white and Asian peers do. I can understand why: it was a little alienating even for middle-class me to attend a school where 75% of the student body was part of the top quintile of household incomes when you yourself weren't. You'll not be developing those valuable networking friendships over expensive lunches or on the slopes of Vail like your peers if you don't have the budget.
BTW.. there are reasons for the current structure. A lot of markets which exhibit this behavior (realtors, VCs, etc). It is an interesting phenomenon which drives all sorts of capital misallocation. This leads to the wild cost growth of education...enabled by government loan guarantees. It is much longer discussion.
@Geoffrey Greene I went to Harvard. I completely agree with you. In the scheme of things, this is like the 20th most important problem for the US. I am far more worried about how we empower/enable the large churn technology is/will drive through the economy (AI, Robotics, etc).
Overall, there is an abundance of excellent educational options available in the US. Really, it is up to the student today. In a perverse way, this whole focus actually helps highly branded institutions like Harvard because the subtext is that there is some golden pathway to success. This is not true. Peter Thiel had a great analogy where he compared the branded school business model to a LA nightclub.
What if we just want an equitable elite? The thing about Harvard, Stanford, Yale and a few other colleges is they’re going to be the people in charge by virtue of having access to those social networks.
So we want them in particuar to be diverse over and on top of of the society goals.
Like there’s a weird blind eye to the fact that getting into about 10 schools is the chance to end up in the aristocracy.
AA has contributed a great deal to the formation of an elite that is entitled and arrogant and contemptuous of ordinary American citizens, as we have seen in the hysterical responses to this ruling. It would be far better for this elite to be less diverse but more responsible
I’m skeptical since I’ve listened to pre-Affirmative action elites speak since Johnson and Nixon recorded so much. They were pretty contemptuous of ordinary Americans and were less responsible in my view. I suppose reasonable people can disagree but the excesses were horiffic on a scale I struggle to put into words.
This is why I've been rolling my eyes every time Ivy discussions come up on twitter or wherever. AA has to apply to like, a couple hundred people and then gets gamed so most of the slots go to foreign students anyway?
Imagine a world where people reacted to that by saying "oh no - what disparities are these children experiencing that lead to these scores, and what can we do about them?"
But no, we live in a world where some people thought the better plan was to just stop measuring the disparities. :facepalm:
I'm against affirmative action and other forms of racial discrimination, but I don't consider it a good argument for my position that it took 20-25 years for black admission to recover after prop 209
If you're against treating people differently based on race, then why does the racial makeup of the University of California matter at all? 20 years ago, John Roberts famously said, "the way to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." I would go further though: the way to stop obsessively focusing on race is to stop obsessing and even asking about race.
The social and economic benefit of a university is to expose the brightest and most talented people to the best ideas in a field, in the hopes that some small percentage of them might be able to improve upon those ideas and thus advance human knowledge a tiny bit forward. I don't care if the guy who cures cancer is black, white, or brown, and I don't think anyone else (even an uber-progressive) does either.
While I desire institutions to treat people fairly and—unlike many on the left—don't see enforced equality of outcomes as a higher goal than that, I still see this racial disparity as *evidence* of a broader problem of basic fairness. It tells me that the wealth and opportunity disparities originally created by slavery and Jim Crow, likely alongside other disparities for other groups who don't divide so visibly along racial lines, are persisting through generations.
I think that's a basic fairness issue that needs to be addressed, because one's opportunities in life shouldn't be dictated by the fortunes of one's parents. Where I disagree with the left is on addressing this through the lens of race, as I'd rather we directly address individuals' lack of opportunities.
Most Americans are descended from people who also faced unfairness and disparities of wealth and opportunity. There have been many opinions about what “basic fairness” is. The existence of such in the eye of the beholder is not evidence of anything.
I agree with the sentiment, but the vast majority of life opportunities are closed to you almost at the moment of your birth, and certainly based on the choices of your parents. Most of us live in a narrow window of options.
That's what I'd like to change. Though I don't expect we'll ever see "perfect" equality of opportunity along that axis, I think we can do much better than we currently do: With more widespread phonics instruction, for example
I'm not arguing that it's good , TJ. And my options have been decent (middle class parents and college) but certainly not unlimited. I am extremely smart (Mensa+), but there was no way I was ever going to become an elite Harvard grad. That level of social mobility was always closed based on a combination of my parents socioeconomic level and my own life choices even at a young age.
I agree with Mark that if we can improve the situation we certainly should. More social mobility is usually better, up to a point; economists know that near limitless choice is actually not beneficial. However, I believe universities have a great role to play in providing social mobility. For example, a university accepting students who demonstrated an unusual level of achievement in light of their circumstances makes total sense, and this ruling actually encourages that on a case-by-case basis. A 100% test-score based meritocracy (ala China or Japan) is not desirable to me at all. I also believe that systems beyond the university should be brought to bear on the problem; more progressive taxation comes to mind.
That said, I do not believe that a high degree of social mobility is actually possible for most people. For every JD Vance, there are thousands of young men still living in a 4 generation Kentucky holler. For every Walter Williams, there are thousands of young men eking out an existence in gang infested hoods. Some of these could perhaps have been Einstein or Hawking, but their actual life (nutrition, family structure, morality, political views, work ethic, etc...) has foreclosed that possibility. Fixing that would require a state so large and intrusive that it would be incompatible with freedom.
That's why I'm skeptical. But please don't take my skepticism as an endorsement.
I am against affirmative action in theory though personally I don’t mind giving a leg up to descendants of slaves (ie, not Barack Obama) to Native Americans and to poorer kids generally. “Diversity” has morphed into favoring LGBTQ++ admits and Latinos, the former in particular at tech firms, consultancies and investment banks as it is easier to find a candidate that ticks this box (and fulfills diversity requirements) than to fight for the great African-American candidates (in scarce supply and high demand). In other words, if affirmative action were intended to help right historical wrongs, our current “diversity” policies at universities and employers have strayed far away from this. Let’s help poorer kids of every race.
The other problem is that poor kids of every race tend to be underprepared and unable to do the work in elitist institutions. Such institutions spend lavishly to recruit such but fall short which is why they get affluent minority and foreign students to fill out their wishful goals. Actually doing something meaningful to integrate those students would require those institutions to rethink themselves.
I'm frustrated that the main spin on this seems to be "Harvard was trying to be Good and let in more under-represented minorities, but the hateful Supremes stopped them." [EDIT: to be clear, I don't mean it was Noah's main spin here, but I mean out in the general liberal infosphere.]
Let's not lose sight of the actual discrimination against Asians!
Harvard was discriminating against Asians to maintain a status quo of White dominance. They were happy to let in "diversity" as long as the WASPs kept the reins. That's basically tokenism, not multiculturalism.
Yes, I am sad that the short-term result here is bad for Hispanics and Blacks. But I am hopeful that this moves us toward a true multiculturalism, which will only happen when Whites become just another minority group. When no group has control, we will be in a better spot with more recognition of minority protections.
Either that or we become Yugoslavia. I don't actually think we will go that route at all. but I do believe a no-majority-ethnicity country would be wise to tamp down ethnically based grievances as much as possible. Our current, progressive, ruling class seems to be ramping them up instead.
As a parent of 5 college age or younger white kids, I don't think the 'Next Generation' will care about it.
As I write that though, I immediately think of the big trucks with American flags and young white men driving them that roar around our small town, and would agree that there is a chunk of people that will have some adjusting to do.
Our 3 girls are half-Latino by genetics and half-Filipino by adoption and look completely white. We've taught them that it doesn't matter and it's wrong for people do give them preferences or punishments based on their perceived or actual race. However, we've also made it clear that we are fine with them checking whatever box they think will help them in any given setting. After all, if your gender-identity can change day to day (or minute to minute) surely your racial identity can too.
The sooner we stop obsessing about race, the sooner we can talk about the real privilege that matters: class.
2016 Bernie was the last man in the ruling class room who acknowledged this. The political consultants got to him by 2020 though and he jumped on the racialist bandwagon (and became far less interesting as a result).
Yep, my kids are half Latino but they’re the whitest Kids you’ll ever see - like they look Aryan. The fact that they could’ve benefitted from this on a college application highlighted to me the absurdity of the concept of race in the first place. The sooner we all realize that race is simply a social construct the better off we’ll be.
This decision is, first and foremost, an invitation to right-wing lawyers and law firms to sue, sue, sue the elite institutions that hatched them. It's like a full-employment program for those dolts.
And I very much look forward to that time in the not-too-distant future when the student bodies of the Ivies consist entirely of Asians, uber-rich legacies, and football players: The white Federalist Society bros who engineered that result will come to rue the day they were born. Their kids will have to write admissions essays detailing their struggles with the anxiety and depression induced by the knowledge that, though anxious and depressed, they don't really have a chance of getting into Harvard anyway. And when they don't get in, they'll all be, like, "Daddy, WTF were you thinking??"
Surely now is the time for US to shift more to class-based metrics and measures to combat institutional disadvantage?
In UK access to Oxbridge has been opened up during recent years by encouraging applicants from state schools. The proportion of places taken by mainly male former pupils of elite private (public schools) has fallen.
The result is a more diverse intake without accusations of positive discrimination.
The process may lead to some of the offspring of the privileged or moneyed elite (think of Boris Johnson, David Cameron) applying to Ivy League universities instead, some think!
Surely, likewise, practices, such as, in effect, preferential quotas for offspring of previous graduates should end a clear example off what we call indirect discrimination in the UK are insupportable?
"Most Americans will continue to consider SCOTUS a legitimate actor" Kinda sorta. Once it's accepted that the Gorsuch appointment was just part of the game, why would there be genuine outrage (as opposed to partisan posturing) if a Democratic majority expanded the Court? That position had majority support among Democrats a year ago https://www.npr.org/2022/06/27/1107733632/poll-majorities-oppose-supreme-courts-abortion-ruling-and-worry-about-other-righ, and the exposure of personal corruption can only have enhanced that.
Some years ago I participated in the admissions process for a graduate program at a selective private university. I rated the applicants on a variety of qualities, high, medium, or low. I was given guidelines for each category. The applicants were compared to others in their designated group, so that Asian applicants had to have higher GRE scores in math (which was most relevant to admissions) than Whites in order to be ranked as High and non-Asian minorities would be rated High with lower scores. It was as if there were three separate input streams.
I was once interviewing a group of middle school girls of color who had participated in a federally funded program designed to encourage them to pursue higher education and make them aware of opportunities for them in STEM careers. When I asked them if they had thought about college, one said, “I’m the first person in my family to go to middle school and my family is excited that I might finish high school and go to college.” Another girl said, “My mom went to Stanford and my dad went to Berkeley…” Such different backgrounds, yet this program lumped them both in the category “underrepresented”.
"Progressives will therefore take their campaign underground."
Since when have progressives ever taken their campaigns underground? They want society to be flat out transformed and accepting of their viewpoints. And that means they have to be "out" In the public square demanding there are large place in the sun.
And this is exactly what the far right is doing also. And that's why our politics are so very loud these days.
One thing Nixon was right about was when he called the middle in American politics “The Silent Majority."
I agree with you on the decision about Affirmative Action. I like the California approach.
Still, as the charts show, progress is good, but insufficient. We need to keep pointing to the data.
To quote a famous econ blogger, paraphrase, "..it is the dutiful responsibility of the strong to care for the weak."
Another famous tall guy long ago said, "Four score and seven years ago, our Fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and >>>>> dedicated to the Proposition!!!! <<< that all "people" are created Equal."
A "Proposition" was how Lincoln nuanced his disdain for the original Constitution of the Founders as to slavery and injustice.
I really don't understand this. Why is it "insufficient"? Why do you believe differences in outcomes must be caused by differences in race? Why can't these be caused by poverty, family structure or just raw intelligence? I'm not saying they are, and I'm open to data showing actual discrimination against any group. But simply saying "blacks aren't doing as well as whites and Asians" isn't evidence of that.
We had a society of complete equality. It was called the Soviet Union. It was equally miserable for almost everyone.
Did you look at the data Brian ? It's overwhelming proof of a structural "bias" against blacks. Yes, blacks are doing better, but not as fast or well as whites, and in various areas getting worse. Many of those evidences are the reason for higher black poverty, family structure. I think your "raw intellengence" comment is inappropriate.
The Soviet Union was NEVER EVER and equal society. That's just so wrong. duh. You know very well that its always be an autocracy, an oligarchy where the rich and powerful dominate. Frankly Russia today is an example of a pure "free market" society where, absent all regulation, the rich got all the riches as unbounded system allowed the exterme power oligarchs to rise.
Lincoln was referring to civic equality which we all have thanks to the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1965. There were then as now many “gaps” between all kinds of Americans and he had no idea or implication that all such gaps should or could be eliminated by legislation. He was a Whig (a conservative) and had some very perceptive things to say about the essential nature of class interests, for instance.
So many Americans were raised and born flawed about black humans in the 18th and 19th century. Including Lincoln who had to navigate a Constitutional systemically approved racism thanks to slavers Madison, Jefferson, Washington et al. Lincoln did so much more than anyone. And I disagree with you that Lincoln didn't feel gaps between the elite and poor, white and black, couldn't be improved greatly by legislation. It's what I posted.
I didn’t say he didn’t recognize those gaps only that such gaps are normal and even essential in a free society as he conceived it. You can have the opinion you like but don’t cite Lincoln in support of it.
As I see it, elite selective institutions have a fundamental choice. They could make cosmetic adjustments to go on as before in contemptuous defiance of the law, or they could revamp themselves to do a good job of attracting and teaching non-elite students. It's imaginable that one of them could could get rid of legacy preferences, set a reasonable floor for SAT scores, and choose applicants by lottery weighted by a few non-racial criteria. But then they would not be elite institutions anymore. So I'm betting they will choose the first path, turning their admissions process into something like an interview for a country club, but with a lot of moralistic rhetoric slathered on top. No new tricks for that dog.
I worked for a time as a college professor. Due to incompetence in our admissions department, our average SAT score which had been 1200 dropped one year to a 1000 (it rebounded later). Let me tell you, it is really hard to teach stupid and/or poorly prepared students.
It is also extremely hard to teach a group of students with a broad range of intelligence and preparation, as would be the case with a lottery system. You have to aim the material just under the median, which leaves both ends of the bell curve suffering.
Are there any selective colleges that are likely to lean into this ruling and admit based on grades/test scores alone? The University of Chicago, maybe?
I don't know which way we will go, either. But, it's clear the momentum at the moment is towards ignoring our society's systemic issues with a narrow focus on our individualism. Unless our individualism embraces the collective good, this will not end well and entrenched power will become more powerful and the disadvantaged more so. Someone said something like this in the past....
Fantastic development, because it will break the connection between Stanford, the Ivies et al with “elite” employment opportunities. Activist groups/NGOs, grad schools, tech firms, investment banks, consulting firms will now need to recruit more from state universities and “second tier” schools, exposing them to a more economically and politically diverse student body.
You are assuming that DIE will continue to be a determinative force in the business world, rather than a rainbow-wash of occasional employee "training."
"James Fallows pointed out that there are between 3,500 and 5,500 colleges in the U.S. and all but 100 of them admit more than 50% of the students who apply. Only about 70 admit fewer than a third of all applicants. That is, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, “the great majority of schools, where most Americans get their postsecondary education, admit most of the people who apply to them.”
The United States spends an outsized amount of attention (not to mention alumni donations) on these 100 elite universities (well, more like the top 20 of them) and how they sort our future ruling class toward elite positions in society. But, like the (mostly-)wealthy people who attend them, they are different from you and me. Meanwhile, most Americans don't go to college at all, and almost all American college students go to one of the other 4000 or so less-famous institutions that don't really have competitive admissions, in practice.
Does it matter who gets into Harvard? Yes, insofar as the Ivies send such a disproportionate number of alumni into the commanding heights of the American Establishment. But most of the kids attending Harvard come in as elite as they came out, and that includes non-white students. These students would be fine, either way, so one wonders why all the fuss about getting into Harvard in the first place?
Meanwhile, the schools that are actually giving vertical mobility to racial minorities are less famous and contested. If a more equitable society is the goal, we'd be much better off supporting those than fighting over a few thousand spots at these brand schools.
I couldn't agree more!!!
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/who-cares-about-the-ivy-league
This is a great essay!
I'm one of the edge-cases of people who went to both types of school: My mom was a community college professor so I got a great deal attending there for free and then transferring on scholarship to a local elite university. My community college educated more undergraduates per year than my elite university did. The former was 93% minority and the latter was quite the opposite. It's clear which one is doing the heavy lifting on elevating minorities.
It's heretical to say so, but I also actually found the lower-level undergraduate courses at the community college better quality than at the elite university, since the student-to-teacher ratio was far more favorable, we tended to get taught by full professors instead of adjuncts and TAs, and our professors were incentivized more towards the teaching than research and publishing. So, Black or white, you might just get a superior undergraduate education at a "no-name school!"
But the education is not why Americans go to college anymore, sadly, so let's talk material benefits: In terms of increasing earning power for anyone, regardless of race, the community college also comes out ahead. For the community college, the ROI numbers thrown around are often based on societal benefits for public subsidy (about $6 for every $1 invested by the state). But the individual lifetime earnings payoff for an Associates Degree is huge, individually, at $42,000 increased wage 4 years out (compared to $57K for a Bachelor's). Considering how inexpensive an AA is and how expensive most 4-year programs are, this makes the payoff for community colleges even more dramatic: only 2 years and <$10K tuition invested for $42,000 extra entry-level income vs. 4 years and $120K+ for +$57,000/year. (Also, it's less well-known that you can get very marketable vocational certifications, a 4-year degree, or even a graduate-level degree from most community colleges, too, at a fraction of the price).
My elite university ostensibly offers one of the best ROIs in the biz for the (mostly already-wealthy) alumni who spent dearly to attend, but that average is heavily skewed by the minority who go into remunerative fields like finance or management consulting. For the median graduate, the payoff was certainly more modest. And there's some anecdotal research that seems to suggest that racial minorities and students from lower socio-economic strata don't even capture the same benefits that their richer, white and Asian peers do. I can understand why: it was a little alienating even for middle-class me to attend a school where 75% of the student body was part of the top quintile of household incomes when you yourself weren't. You'll not be developing those valuable networking friendships over expensive lunches or on the slopes of Vail like your peers if you don't have the budget.
So, yeah, who cares about the Ivy League?
Yes... this is a great essay.
Thanks!!
BTW.. there are reasons for the current structure. A lot of markets which exhibit this behavior (realtors, VCs, etc). It is an interesting phenomenon which drives all sorts of capital misallocation. This leads to the wild cost growth of education...enabled by government loan guarantees. It is much longer discussion.
@Geoffrey Greene I went to Harvard. I completely agree with you. In the scheme of things, this is like the 20th most important problem for the US. I am far more worried about how we empower/enable the large churn technology is/will drive through the economy (AI, Robotics, etc).
Overall, there is an abundance of excellent educational options available in the US. Really, it is up to the student today. In a perverse way, this whole focus actually helps highly branded institutions like Harvard because the subtext is that there is some golden pathway to success. This is not true. Peter Thiel had a great analogy where he compared the branded school business model to a LA nightclub.
What if we just want an equitable elite? The thing about Harvard, Stanford, Yale and a few other colleges is they’re going to be the people in charge by virtue of having access to those social networks.
So we want them in particuar to be diverse over and on top of of the society goals.
Like there’s a weird blind eye to the fact that getting into about 10 schools is the chance to end up in the aristocracy.
AA has contributed a great deal to the formation of an elite that is entitled and arrogant and contemptuous of ordinary American citizens, as we have seen in the hysterical responses to this ruling. It would be far better for this elite to be less diverse but more responsible
They were entitled and arrogant for sure but they didn’t pretend to be otherwise.
I’m skeptical since I’ve listened to pre-Affirmative action elites speak since Johnson and Nixon recorded so much. They were pretty contemptuous of ordinary Americans and were less responsible in my view. I suppose reasonable people can disagree but the excesses were horiffic on a scale I struggle to put into words.
This is why I've been rolling my eyes every time Ivy discussions come up on twitter or wherever. AA has to apply to like, a couple hundred people and then gets gamed so most of the slots go to foreign students anyway?
100% agree re SAT disparities.
Imagine a world where people reacted to that by saying "oh no - what disparities are these children experiencing that lead to these scores, and what can we do about them?"
But no, we live in a world where some people thought the better plan was to just stop measuring the disparities. :facepalm:
I'm against affirmative action and other forms of racial discrimination, but I don't consider it a good argument for my position that it took 20-25 years for black admission to recover after prop 209
I think it'll probably take less time this time around, because they had to proceed by trial and error before, while now they will know how to do it.
If you're against treating people differently based on race, then why does the racial makeup of the University of California matter at all? 20 years ago, John Roberts famously said, "the way to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." I would go further though: the way to stop obsessively focusing on race is to stop obsessing and even asking about race.
The social and economic benefit of a university is to expose the brightest and most talented people to the best ideas in a field, in the hopes that some small percentage of them might be able to improve upon those ideas and thus advance human knowledge a tiny bit forward. I don't care if the guy who cures cancer is black, white, or brown, and I don't think anyone else (even an uber-progressive) does either.
While I desire institutions to treat people fairly and—unlike many on the left—don't see enforced equality of outcomes as a higher goal than that, I still see this racial disparity as *evidence* of a broader problem of basic fairness. It tells me that the wealth and opportunity disparities originally created by slavery and Jim Crow, likely alongside other disparities for other groups who don't divide so visibly along racial lines, are persisting through generations.
I think that's a basic fairness issue that needs to be addressed, because one's opportunities in life shouldn't be dictated by the fortunes of one's parents. Where I disagree with the left is on addressing this through the lens of race, as I'd rather we directly address individuals' lack of opportunities.
Most Americans are descended from people who also faced unfairness and disparities of wealth and opportunity. There have been many opinions about what “basic fairness” is. The existence of such in the eye of the beholder is not evidence of anything.
I agree with the sentiment, but the vast majority of life opportunities are closed to you almost at the moment of your birth, and certainly based on the choices of your parents. Most of us live in a narrow window of options.
That's what I'd like to change. Though I don't expect we'll ever see "perfect" equality of opportunity along that axis, I think we can do much better than we currently do: With more widespread phonics instruction, for example
I'm not arguing that it's good , TJ. And my options have been decent (middle class parents and college) but certainly not unlimited. I am extremely smart (Mensa+), but there was no way I was ever going to become an elite Harvard grad. That level of social mobility was always closed based on a combination of my parents socioeconomic level and my own life choices even at a young age.
I agree with Mark that if we can improve the situation we certainly should. More social mobility is usually better, up to a point; economists know that near limitless choice is actually not beneficial. However, I believe universities have a great role to play in providing social mobility. For example, a university accepting students who demonstrated an unusual level of achievement in light of their circumstances makes total sense, and this ruling actually encourages that on a case-by-case basis. A 100% test-score based meritocracy (ala China or Japan) is not desirable to me at all. I also believe that systems beyond the university should be brought to bear on the problem; more progressive taxation comes to mind.
That said, I do not believe that a high degree of social mobility is actually possible for most people. For every JD Vance, there are thousands of young men still living in a 4 generation Kentucky holler. For every Walter Williams, there are thousands of young men eking out an existence in gang infested hoods. Some of these could perhaps have been Einstein or Hawking, but their actual life (nutrition, family structure, morality, political views, work ethic, etc...) has foreclosed that possibility. Fixing that would require a state so large and intrusive that it would be incompatible with freedom.
That's why I'm skeptical. But please don't take my skepticism as an endorsement.
The demographics of California have changed in that time period.
Year | Asian | White | Latino | Black | Mixed Race
-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------
1990 | 12.1% | 56.4% | 25.8% | 7.1% | 0.6%
2000 | 13.3% | 52.8% | 32.2% | 6.6% | 1.1%
2010 | 15.3% | 43.7% | 37.6% | 6.2% | 2.2%
2020 | 16.1% | 34.7% | 39.4% | 5.7% | 13.0%
So recovering to 1996 or whatever is an overperformance for Black and White students and probably an underperformance for Asians and Latinos.
*Note I got this chart off Google Bard*
I am against affirmative action in theory though personally I don’t mind giving a leg up to descendants of slaves (ie, not Barack Obama) to Native Americans and to poorer kids generally. “Diversity” has morphed into favoring LGBTQ++ admits and Latinos, the former in particular at tech firms, consultancies and investment banks as it is easier to find a candidate that ticks this box (and fulfills diversity requirements) than to fight for the great African-American candidates (in scarce supply and high demand). In other words, if affirmative action were intended to help right historical wrongs, our current “diversity” policies at universities and employers have strayed far away from this. Let’s help poorer kids of every race.
The problem is that if you took the best comers of poor kids of every race, you won't hit your ethnic diversity goals.
The other problem is that poor kids of every race tend to be underprepared and unable to do the work in elitist institutions. Such institutions spend lavishly to recruit such but fall short which is why they get affluent minority and foreign students to fill out their wishful goals. Actually doing something meaningful to integrate those students would require those institutions to rethink themselves.
Agreed!
I'm frustrated that the main spin on this seems to be "Harvard was trying to be Good and let in more under-represented minorities, but the hateful Supremes stopped them." [EDIT: to be clear, I don't mean it was Noah's main spin here, but I mean out in the general liberal infosphere.]
Let's not lose sight of the actual discrimination against Asians!
Harvard was discriminating against Asians to maintain a status quo of White dominance. They were happy to let in "diversity" as long as the WASPs kept the reins. That's basically tokenism, not multiculturalism.
Yes, I am sad that the short-term result here is bad for Hispanics and Blacks. But I am hopeful that this moves us toward a true multiculturalism, which will only happen when Whites become just another minority group. When no group has control, we will be in a better spot with more recognition of minority protections.
Either that or we become Yugoslavia. I don't actually think we will go that route at all. but I do believe a no-majority-ethnicity country would be wise to tamp down ethnically based grievances as much as possible. Our current, progressive, ruling class seems to be ramping them up instead.
Basically agree, but can you imagine how traumatizing loss of centrality and privilege
in American culture is for so many white folks?
This is going to be a bumpy ride.
As a parent of 5 college age or younger white kids, I don't think the 'Next Generation' will care about it.
As I write that though, I immediately think of the big trucks with American flags and young white men driving them that roar around our small town, and would agree that there is a chunk of people that will have some adjusting to do.
Our 3 girls are half-Latino by genetics and half-Filipino by adoption and look completely white. We've taught them that it doesn't matter and it's wrong for people do give them preferences or punishments based on their perceived or actual race. However, we've also made it clear that we are fine with them checking whatever box they think will help them in any given setting. After all, if your gender-identity can change day to day (or minute to minute) surely your racial identity can too.
The sooner we stop obsessing about race, the sooner we can talk about the real privilege that matters: class.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/economic-mobility-of-families-across-generations/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103115000062 (for the nerds)
2016 Bernie was the last man in the ruling class room who acknowledged this. The political consultants got to him by 2020 though and he jumped on the racialist bandwagon (and became far less interesting as a result).
Yep, my kids are half Latino but they’re the whitest Kids you’ll ever see - like they look Aryan. The fact that they could’ve benefitted from this on a college application highlighted to me the absurdity of the concept of race in the first place. The sooner we all realize that race is simply a social construct the better off we’ll be.
This decision is, first and foremost, an invitation to right-wing lawyers and law firms to sue, sue, sue the elite institutions that hatched them. It's like a full-employment program for those dolts.
And I very much look forward to that time in the not-too-distant future when the student bodies of the Ivies consist entirely of Asians, uber-rich legacies, and football players: The white Federalist Society bros who engineered that result will come to rue the day they were born. Their kids will have to write admissions essays detailing their struggles with the anxiety and depression induced by the knowledge that, though anxious and depressed, they don't really have a chance of getting into Harvard anyway. And when they don't get in, they'll all be, like, "Daddy, WTF were you thinking??"
Surely now is the time for US to shift more to class-based metrics and measures to combat institutional disadvantage?
In UK access to Oxbridge has been opened up during recent years by encouraging applicants from state schools. The proportion of places taken by mainly male former pupils of elite private (public schools) has fallen.
The result is a more diverse intake without accusations of positive discrimination.
The process may lead to some of the offspring of the privileged or moneyed elite (think of Boris Johnson, David Cameron) applying to Ivy League universities instead, some think!
Surely, likewise, practices, such as, in effect, preferential quotas for offspring of previous graduates should end a clear example off what we call indirect discrimination in the UK are insupportable?
"Most Americans will continue to consider SCOTUS a legitimate actor" Kinda sorta. Once it's accepted that the Gorsuch appointment was just part of the game, why would there be genuine outrage (as opposed to partisan posturing) if a Democratic majority expanded the Court? That position had majority support among Democrats a year ago https://www.npr.org/2022/06/27/1107733632/poll-majorities-oppose-supreme-courts-abortion-ruling-and-worry-about-other-righ, and the exposure of personal corruption can only have enhanced that.
Some years ago I participated in the admissions process for a graduate program at a selective private university. I rated the applicants on a variety of qualities, high, medium, or low. I was given guidelines for each category. The applicants were compared to others in their designated group, so that Asian applicants had to have higher GRE scores in math (which was most relevant to admissions) than Whites in order to be ranked as High and non-Asian minorities would be rated High with lower scores. It was as if there were three separate input streams.
I was once interviewing a group of middle school girls of color who had participated in a federally funded program designed to encourage them to pursue higher education and make them aware of opportunities for them in STEM careers. When I asked them if they had thought about college, one said, “I’m the first person in my family to go to middle school and my family is excited that I might finish high school and go to college.” Another girl said, “My mom went to Stanford and my dad went to Berkeley…” Such different backgrounds, yet this program lumped them both in the category “underrepresented”.
"Progressives will therefore take their campaign underground."
Since when have progressives ever taken their campaigns underground? They want society to be flat out transformed and accepting of their viewpoints. And that means they have to be "out" In the public square demanding there are large place in the sun.
And this is exactly what the far right is doing also. And that's why our politics are so very loud these days.
One thing Nixon was right about was when he called the middle in American politics “The Silent Majority."
New York Times, 2019:
The Gaps Between White and Black America, in Charts
https://nyti.ms/3fDJ39J
I agree with you on the decision about Affirmative Action. I like the California approach.
Still, as the charts show, progress is good, but insufficient. We need to keep pointing to the data.
To quote a famous econ blogger, paraphrase, "..it is the dutiful responsibility of the strong to care for the weak."
Another famous tall guy long ago said, "Four score and seven years ago, our Fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and >>>>> dedicated to the Proposition!!!! <<< that all "people" are created Equal."
A "Proposition" was how Lincoln nuanced his disdain for the original Constitution of the Founders as to slavery and injustice.
It means a test? Will we be Equal?
It means a Proposal? Will be be Equal?
It means an unfinished Project to be Equal.
I really don't understand this. Why is it "insufficient"? Why do you believe differences in outcomes must be caused by differences in race? Why can't these be caused by poverty, family structure or just raw intelligence? I'm not saying they are, and I'm open to data showing actual discrimination against any group. But simply saying "blacks aren't doing as well as whites and Asians" isn't evidence of that.
We had a society of complete equality. It was called the Soviet Union. It was equally miserable for almost everyone.
Did you look at the data Brian ? It's overwhelming proof of a structural "bias" against blacks. Yes, blacks are doing better, but not as fast or well as whites, and in various areas getting worse. Many of those evidences are the reason for higher black poverty, family structure. I think your "raw intellengence" comment is inappropriate.
The Soviet Union was NEVER EVER and equal society. That's just so wrong. duh. You know very well that its always be an autocracy, an oligarchy where the rich and powerful dominate. Frankly Russia today is an example of a pure "free market" society where, absent all regulation, the rich got all the riches as unbounded system allowed the exterme power oligarchs to rise.
Lincoln was referring to civic equality which we all have thanks to the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1965. There were then as now many “gaps” between all kinds of Americans and he had no idea or implication that all such gaps should or could be eliminated by legislation. He was a Whig (a conservative) and had some very perceptive things to say about the essential nature of class interests, for instance.
So many Americans were raised and born flawed about black humans in the 18th and 19th century. Including Lincoln who had to navigate a Constitutional systemically approved racism thanks to slavers Madison, Jefferson, Washington et al. Lincoln did so much more than anyone. And I disagree with you that Lincoln didn't feel gaps between the elite and poor, white and black, couldn't be improved greatly by legislation. It's what I posted.
I didn’t say he didn’t recognize those gaps only that such gaps are normal and even essential in a free society as he conceived it. You can have the opinion you like but don’t cite Lincoln in support of it.
Can you supply Lincoln quotes that support your view and are obverse to my understanding?
Can you do the same?
I already did this
Just remember, it doesn’t matter so much what race you think you are, it matters what race the police officer thinks you are.
And the neighborhood citizen patrol, too.
And the swarm on Nextdoor
As I see it, elite selective institutions have a fundamental choice. They could make cosmetic adjustments to go on as before in contemptuous defiance of the law, or they could revamp themselves to do a good job of attracting and teaching non-elite students. It's imaginable that one of them could could get rid of legacy preferences, set a reasonable floor for SAT scores, and choose applicants by lottery weighted by a few non-racial criteria. But then they would not be elite institutions anymore. So I'm betting they will choose the first path, turning their admissions process into something like an interview for a country club, but with a lot of moralistic rhetoric slathered on top. No new tricks for that dog.
I do like the lottery idea, but diversity statements and holistic admission (and eliminating test scores) will likely be the first approach, I agree
I worked for a time as a college professor. Due to incompetence in our admissions department, our average SAT score which had been 1200 dropped one year to a 1000 (it rebounded later). Let me tell you, it is really hard to teach stupid and/or poorly prepared students.
It is also extremely hard to teach a group of students with a broad range of intelligence and preparation, as would be the case with a lottery system. You have to aim the material just under the median, which leaves both ends of the bell curve suffering.
i wish alba was right but i think he was wrong. brazil shows a path of mixture where there is still a lot of racial dynamic going on...
Alba was probably aware of the existence of Brazil...
Are there any selective colleges that are likely to lean into this ruling and admit based on grades/test scores alone? The University of Chicago, maybe?
I don't know which way we will go, either. But, it's clear the momentum at the moment is towards ignoring our society's systemic issues with a narrow focus on our individualism. Unless our individualism embraces the collective good, this will not end well and entrenched power will become more powerful and the disadvantaged more so. Someone said something like this in the past....
Fantastic development, because it will break the connection between Stanford, the Ivies et al with “elite” employment opportunities. Activist groups/NGOs, grad schools, tech firms, investment banks, consulting firms will now need to recruit more from state universities and “second tier” schools, exposing them to a more economically and politically diverse student body.
You are assuming that DIE will continue to be a determinative force in the business world, rather than a rainbow-wash of occasional employee "training."