Harvard Hit With Racial Bias Complaint

An anonymous reader writes: A coalition of 64 organizations filed a complaint against Harvard on Friday alleging the university discriminates against Asian-American applicants hoping to attend classes there. "Many studies have indicated that Harvard University has been engaged in systemic and continuous discrimination against Asian-Americans during its very subjective 'Holistic' college admissions process." One such study shows Asian-Americans had to score an average of 140 points higher than white students on their SAT test to have an equal chance of getting in. The complaint seeks a federal investigation and demands Harvard "immediately cease and desist from using stereotypes, racial biases and other discriminatory means in evaluating Asian-American applicants."

Comments

Affirmative Action

[Zelucifer]

Isn't racial discrimination the definition of affirmative action? I'm not sure what makes them think they have any actionable complaints against the university.

Re:Affirmative Action

[techno-vampire]

Actually, affirmative action is reverse discrimination because it seeks to make it easier for various minorities to get accepted than it otherwise would have been. The fact that this causes the institution to discriminate against qualified applicants who aren't members of the favored minority is just an unpleasant consequence that proponents of the scheme try to sweep under the rug.

Re:Affirmative Action

[Darinbob]

No. Though some people feel that way. Affirmative action is what t says it is; instead of passively assuming that civil rights makes people equal overnight, there needed to be an active response to try and make things equal. Ie, most colleges refused historically to enroll black students, and black schools were historically underfunded and so did not prepare students well for college, then it's completely naive to say "you're all equal now, good luck with that!" and assume things will sort themselves out.

Of course those who do not believe that institutional racism exists don't believe it though.

Re:Affirmative Action

[Dunbal]

Yes it's that old argument that "x" is only bad when used against us.

Re:Affirmative Action

[Anonymous Coward]

Affirmative Action's original intent seeks to cease historical racism and racists/sexists from claiming that people of color or sex cannot attend a legal institution. People in power misinterpret that to mean that its reverse racism when the policies put in place to handle the compliance of the declaration are the culprit, not the declaration of Affirmative Action itself.

In any case, money talks. Those who are richer are most likely to get into Ivy league schools regardless of affirmative action.

Re:Affirmative Action

[jcr]

Back when Kennedy coined the term "affirmative action", he was directing federal agencies to take "affirmative action to ensure that race is not a factor" in hiring decisions.

-jcr

Re:Affirmative Action

[ganjadude]

there is no such thing as reverse discrimination. all discrimination, is discrimination

Re:Affirmative Action

[Anonymous Coward]

TL;DR: Affirmative Action tries to attain Equal Outcomes by eradicating Equal Opportunity.

Re:Affirmative Action

[Oligonicella]

And that has what to do with discrimination against Asian Americans?

Re:Affirmative Action

[Shakrai]

Affirmative action is what t says it is; instead of passively assuming that civil rights makes people equal overnight, there needed to be an active response to try and make things equal.

Meanwhile, those of us who came of age having nothing whatsoever to do with slavery or Jim Crow are disadvantaged because of the crimes of yesteryear. Corruption of blood is antithetical to American values. So is ignoring both the letter and spirit of the Equal Protection Clause. The only people who advocate in favor of Affirmative Action are those that believe the "original sin" is being born with a low melanin count.

By the by, since TFA is about Asian-Americans, perhaps you'd care to explain why that group has done so well for itself? They were rounded up and put into camps within recent memory, to say nothing of the racially biased immigration laws of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, or the more subtle racism directed towards their group even into modern times.

Here's another inconvenient truth for you: The biggest predictor of success in life isn't how much money your family has or what your melanin count is. It's whether or not you come from a two parent household. That Tea Party zealot known as Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed this out decades ago but was completely ignored by the policymakers of the day. Government can't compel people to stay in relationships (nor should it try) but it could provide mechanisms to remove some of the stresses of American society on families. We could start with a decent family leave system (something half as good as the Nordic Countries and/or Canada) that would actually enable both parents to spend time in the household without worrying about destroying their career prospects.

Re:Affirmative Action

[NicBenjamin]

Depends on what you mean by qualified.

If you're looking for the kid whose actual talent level is top 1%, then a valedictorian from a school with few AP classes, whose SAT score is low because he had to spend his off-hours working at his dad's gas station is a really good bet. Especially if he got a 95th percentile on the test. You know he didn't spend 20 hours a week with an SAT coach. He's probably actually a lot better then 95th percentile.

OTOH a rich tiger daughter, whose mother insisted she take 8 AP classes, was not allowed to do any extracurricular activities that don't add mondo points to the student-selection algorithm (ie: classical violin rather then rock guitar), and got 96th percentile. You know she did spend 20 hours a week with an SAT coach. Let's just say she's probably not gonna do better then 96th percentile in real life.

But any criteria solely for accepting applicants based on points, GPA, test scores, etc. is gonna result in her getting in 100% of the time.

Re:Affirmative Action

[NicBenjamin]

Affirmative action is what t says it is; instead of passively assuming that civil rights makes people equal overnight, there needed to be an active response to try and make things equal.

Meanwhile, those of us who came of age having nothing whatsoever to do with slavery or Jim Crow are disadvantaged because of the crimes of yesteryear. Corruption of blood is antithetical to American values. So is ignoring both the letter and spirit of the Equal Protection Clause. The only people who advocate in favor of Affirmative Action are those that believe the "original sin" is being born with a low melanin count.

Don't give a shit about the melanin count. It's actually illegal to give a shit about melanin count in a quantifiable sense.

Do give a shit that folks like Mitt Romney can arrange it so their kids maximize their SAT scores and GPAs, while using their superior knowledge of the college admissions process to ensure that when their kid spends a couple months obsessed with silly-ass hobby it's something that colleges give points for (ie: computer programming) rather then something they consider more suited to the hoi polloi (ie: learning to be a car mechanic).

Most Affirmative Action programs that have survived the court system look at the "whole student," so that a kid from a school system that has no AP classes doesn't get penalized for not having those classes, particularly compared to the kid whose Mom got them above 4.0 by refusing to let little Timmy take anything but the 5 AP classes offered his senior year. They look at the numbers, but they are allowed to consider the fact that, yes, little Timmy has GPA and test scores in the top 4%, but compared to his actual peers at $50k a year Prep Schools he's more like 12th percentile. OTOH Billy Bob from West Virginia was top in his class, spent time doing things that look shitty on a college resume (like hunting and car races), and he still got a test score in the top 5%.

Billy Bob could be taught to be the smartest man in the country. Timmy from Prep School is gonna be lucky if he turns into Dubya.

By the by, since TFA is about Asian-Americans, perhaps you'd care to explain why that group has done so well for itself? They were rounded up and put into camps within recent memory, to say nothing of the racially biased immigration laws of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, or the more subtle racism directed towards their group even into modern times.

Here's another inconvenient truth for you: The biggest predictor of success in life isn't how much money your family has or what your melanin count is. It's whether or not you come from a two parent household. That Tea Party zealot known as Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed this out decades ago but was completely ignored by the policymakers of the day. Government can't compel people to stay in relationships (nor should it try) but it could provide mechanisms to remove some of the stresses of American society on families.

The problem with that is that nobody wants to marry a working class guy with a part-time gig in retail, but nobody wants to give working-class guys without a very nice degree and some good networking skills any other type of job.

If they try to get ahead by getting that college education, some Tiger Mother will notice their mother didn't make their applications 100% perfect, and sue the school for racial discrimination because the white/asian-types who have perfect apps are racially different then the black-Latin-white types who make up the working class.

Note that the obvious solution (having Harvard accept lots more kids) is untenable because part of the USNews college ranking formula is how many kids they say no to.

We could start with a decent family leave system (something half as good as the Nordic Countries and/or Canada) that would actually enable both parents

Re:Affirmative Action

[Anonymous Coward]

Better TL;DR: Affirmative Action tries to attain lifelong Equal Opportunity by eradicating short-term Equal Opportunity.

Re:Affirmative Action

[PopeRatzo]

Meanwhile, those of us who came of age having nothing whatsoever to do with slavery or Jim Crow are disadvantaged because of the crimes of yesteryear.

No, it means that you were advantaged by the "crimes of yesteryear", and now it's time to share some of that advantage.

Privilege is a really hard concept for people to grasp. It's not you, Shakrai, it's human nature. Everybody likes to believe that they got where they are through natural talent and hard work, when in fact people with privilege start the inning on second base. It's like playing a video game on the easiest setting. At some point, you start to think that you're just really good at the game. I'm not saying that you have a special privilege, or did not have challenges in life, only that certain people are part of a privileged class.

No society is without privileged classes. It might be something as trivial as those with blond hair and blue eyes. There are those who believe that there is benefit to flipping that privilege, based on a desired outcome. Also, remember that Harvard is a private institution.

Re:Affirmative Action

[Anonymous Coward]

My sister worked in Ivy undergrad admissions. She actually tells a story of how an Asian father called her asking WHY they let his son in - his grades and test scores weren't perfect. Her answer was- because he actually played sports, had hobbies, and joined clubs that weren't just resume builders... the kid was interesting.

They actually had a name for this: "atypical asian"

Re:Affirmative Action

[liquid_schwartz]

Better TL;DR: Affirmative Action tries to attain lifelong Equal Opportunity by eradicating short-term Equal Opportunity.

Affirmative action has been going on for over 50 years years and has no end in sight. Your being disingenuous if you call that short term. Indeed, any program that has had >50 years to achieve the goal and is still hopelessly falling short should be dropped and a search started for a more effective replacement.

Re:Affirmative Action

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps removing race and simply addressing this issue as a social economic one would be a better way to help correct these past imbalances.

Re:Affirmative Action

[Taco Cowboy]

Affirmative Action's original intent seeks to cease historical racism and racists/sexists from claiming that people of color or sex cannot attend a legal institution

Fuck you!

I am an Asian American and I will tell you to stuff that goddamn 'historical racist/sexist' excuse back where the sun never shines

I never need any affirmative action to get to where I am

I never applied for any aid, and never receive any either

And in academic study I never get - and never even thought of getting - any break just because I am a "minority"

I do not believe in the bullshit that because of some 'historical event' I am in any way 'disadvantaged'

And I will say the same "Fuck You!" to those who say that "Affirmative Action" is still needed

--- --- ---

That said, regarding the TFA, I do not know why they complaint about the 140 point above the White thing when the fact is that the Hispanic and the Blacks are being enrolled into ivy league colleges (and all other colleges as well) with really, and I mean, unbelievably low scores!

What they are doing is that they are forcing the talented individuals to share the same class with idiots, they are actually discriminating against those with genuine talents

I dunno man ... This AA thing is a fucked up thing to begin with and it's 2015 and we still getting stuck with this fucked up thing

When will America grow up?

In Japan, in Korea, in China they do not have AA --- and their economies are growing leaps and bounds and everybody can attest to their technological achievements

America should get rid of this fucked up AA thing, or else we can never catch up to those living in East Asia

Re:Affirmative Action

[Eunuchswear]

In Japan, in Korea, in China they do not have AA --- and their economies are growing leaps and bounds and everybody can attest to their technological achievements

In Japan? Economy growing leaps and bounds? Where have you been for the last 20 years?

Re:Affirmative Action

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

You are TOTALLY right. Black people in America were equal the SECOND slavery was repealed. Great insight.

Re:Affirmative Action

[jordanjay29]

In Japan, in Korea, in China they do not have AA --- and their economies are growing leaps and bounds and everybody can attest to their technological achievements

Wait, you mean in a country with low ethnic diversity, there's no need for special measures to prevent ethnicity-based discrimination?!

Re:Affirmative Action

[serviscope_minor]

The closest you've gotten to being beaten nearly to death is corporal punishment delivered by your elders or in gang initiation or at the hands of police in commission of a crime.

Yep, the polive never violently assult innocent people for shits ang giggles then lie about the dashcams. Good job thre's no evidence of that anywhere on the internet.

Re:Affirmative Action

[serviscope_minor]

A lot of people simply don't understand the concept of privilige and much of that is wilful. There's always a lot of noise about how we're nerds and we're not priviliged because nerds have it hard.

I would like to assure those people that if you are a female gay black transgender nerd it would have been even harder.

Privilige is a fairly statistical thing. It doesn't mean that you personally (e.g. a white male) muse necessarily do better than every member of some less priviliged group. It is also additive, and different privliges have different scales. It ALSO doesn't mean that you (the white male) are evil. It doesn't actually reflect on the members of a more priviliged class at all.

For example:

The police and justice system are institutionally racist. This makes being white a priviliged class because as a black person you're much more likely to have a less easy life by virtue of being accused of more crimes and more likely to be found guilty and then given a harsher sensence than a white person would be given.

Rich people have privilige for incredibly obvious reasons.

Cis people are priviliged compared to trans because apparently a lot of people really hate transgendered people and they're much more likely to be discriminated agains, beaten and have their complants ignored by the police.

And the list goes on.

Having various priviliges doesn't make succes guaranteed, nor does not having them guarantee failure. It does make it respectively easier or harder. It does not make a straight white cis guy evil for working his arse off to succeed. But one really ought to be aware that there are things that affect other people which make it harder. Imagine for example if you were trying to work your arse off to succeed only to be hassled by the police on the way to a job interview, or then be turned down because someone thinks you might stop to have babies at some indeterminate point in the future.

That would really suck.

Re: Affirmative Action

[ttfkam]

Jewish = religious tradition and linguistic, cultural, and historical heritage
Polish = linguistic, cultural, and historical heritage
Native American = too vague without tribe

Now let's look at black folks in general in the US. Religion? Tossed aside and forced to convert to Christianity. Some small vestiges eake by in voodoo. Language before slavery? Tossed aside and forcibly forgotten while simultaneously forbidding English education and literacy. Cultural memory before slavery? Eradicated. History before slavery. Erased.

We say "African American" because you have a huge swath of people that have no idea what country their ancestors came from, no idea what tribe, no idea the heritage, no idea the lineage, no idea the cultural connections...

Imagine forcing people to forget their families were Irish or Polish or Russian or French. Imagine no idea they came from Christian or Jewish communities. And all records from the time destroyed so that you have no hope of ever finding out. Ever. Your ancestral history? Gone. Poof.

No tell me again how you don't see any difference.

Re:Affirmative Action

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you were african american:

You have not been kept as a slave, nor have your parent or grandparent.

I see that you conveniently only used the parent and grandparent for the slave point and not the others.
His parents and grandparents have systematically been excluded from jobs and housing, they have also experienced a time when they weren't allowed to vote because of their skin color.
Now, if we ignore skin color for a little while we have plenty of studies that show how accessible academic life is for children of low income families.
Social liquidity is very low in the U.S. so if you are born poor, hard work will not be enough to bring you out of it, you also need luck.
If we now go back to consider his skin color we see that because of the way his parents, grandparents and great grandparents have been discriminated against it is very likely that his opportunities to actually break out from the lower income class have been extremely limited.

You don't need affirmative action to solve this, what we need is a system that isn't stacked against people based on what family they were born into.
In general society would benefit a lot from funding all or part of everyones education with taxes. Even if you don't intend to study more yourself you benefit from people around you getter more educated.

Re:Affirmative Action

[drinkypoo]

The closest you've gotten to being beaten nearly to death is corporal punishment delivered by your elders or in gang initiation or at the hands of police in commission of a crime.

Yeah, any crime. Guess what? The police are not supposed to be there to mete out punishment. That's not their fucking job. Did you get a free brown shirt and jack boots with that comment?

Your family has not been broken up and sold off, though statistics show that african american households have far greater tendency to be single parent homes, that has NOTHING to do with said parent being sold off.

For-profit prisons exist and blacks are overwhelmingly more likely to be convicted, not just charged. So yes, that is precisely what is happening to black families.

You haven't been systematically excluded from jobs, housing or medical care.

Yes, yes they have, and the evidence is overwhelming.

And, at some point, you KNOW that it's going to have to go away, right? Or are we still going to have to deal with it 100+ years from now, when nobody in living memory even alive at the same time as anyone who suffered through racial segregation, let alone slavery. At some point, the hand-out is going to stop.

When did it start? Blacks are still disadvantaged, and adequate reparations for slavery (those which would place them on an equal footing) have never been made. This isn't about they should get something because it's fair, this is about they should be brought up to equal footing because it's fair. If giving them something is the way to do that, education perhaps, then that's what should happen. We're talking about people who were literally bred to an economic purpose, and you want to pretend like that just didn't happen (it did) or like we've moved past it (we haven't) when that won't help anything.

If our government had made good on the promise of forty acres and a mule, which frankly is far less than adequate reparations for being born into slavery, then we probably wouldn't have to have this conversation now. Today, it will cost our society considerably more than that to make good. Because our forebears failed to take action to correct this situation, we have to do it. It's not just solving itself.

Of course, it's tempting to absolve yourself of responsibility because it was your ancestors who created this situation, not you, but the truth is that it doesn't matter who created the situation. We shouldn't solve this problem out of guilt. We should solve this problem because we want to solve this problem, because we want to make the world more fair. We can make excuses about life not being fair all day, but that won't absolve us of our share of responsibility for why we can't have nice things. Like freedom.

Re:Affirmative Action

[drinkypoo]

If slashdot had any character then they would delete his/her account.

Shit no. It's awesome when you have a record of what someone thinks. My record may show I'm wrong sometimes but by shit it'll show me on the side of fairness and justice. But it's awesome when you can scroll through someone's history and see they're a racist ass. It lets you know what to expect.

Re:Affirmative Action

[Solandri]

Social liquidity is very low in the U.S. so if you are born poor, hard work will not be enough to bring you out of it, you also need luck.
[...]
what we need is a system that isn't stacked against people based on what family they were born into.

My family immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s with only $1000 and the clothes in our suitcases (our (Asian) home country feared mass emigration, and limited how much money you could take with you to the equivalent of about $500 per adult). For years we lived in low-income housing, bought staples from the local Salvation Army, and rummaged other people's garage sales trying to find bargains. We were basically lower class, except we had no preconceptions about what we were "supposed" to do. Nobody telling us like you are that "the system" was stacked against us so it wasn't worth trying to fight it. We fought tooth and nail to better our lives.

Today we're in the lower fringes of the upper class. Most of my extended family immigrated shortly after, and most of them have "made it" into comfortable middle-class lives. A few are upper-class (including one who owns a multimillion dollar cell phone store chain), and one is still stuck in low-income housing. So we are not an outlier. This is what you can really do in this country if you don't have any preconceptions about breaking out of the lower class, and really try to succeed.

If you have the willpower and the ability, you can succeed in this country regardless of what circumstances you were born into. Hard work can in fact bring you out of poverty. If you believe it when others tell you otherwise, you've already given up on the game of life. You cannot succeed if you don't try, and telling people it's not worth trying is consigning them to their current state for the rest of their lives.

In general society would benefit a lot from funding all or part of everyones education with taxes. Even if you don't intend to study more yourself you benefit from people around you getter more educated.

The U.S. already spends more on education per student than any other country. The problem isn't funding for education.

IMHO the problem is a lack of desire to take advantage of that education to better yourself and your circumstances. My parents were flabbergasted at the quality of education that was being provided "for free" by the government here, and made sure my sister and I always kept up with our schoolwork. It was an opportunity they never had when they were kids (unless you count forced indoctrination into Imperial Japanese philosophy that all other Asians were put on Earth serve them). And they made damn sure we took full advantage of it. That's the main difference I saw between myself and the other students. I never took public education for granted because my parents emphasized how fortunate I was to even have it.

That last sentence...

[O('_')O_Bush]

"The complaint seeks a federal investigation and demands Harvard "immediately cease and desist from using stereotypes, racial biases and other discriminatory means in evaluating Asian-American applicants.""

OR... we could just evaluate students on their merits, rather than their skin color. Remove the race/ethnicity indicators from the application forms altogether and don't make them a factor during interviews.

Re:That last sentence...

[ShanghaiBill]

Remove the race/ethnicity indicators from the application forms altogether and don't make them a factor during interviews.

Fine with me. But people should be aware of what that will lead to. Caltech already does this. Their admission process completely ignores race. The result is that their student body is 60% Asian and less than 1% black, in a state were Asians and blacks make up a similar portion of the population.

Re:That last sentence...

[jcr]

The result is that their student body is 60% Asian and less than 1% black, in a state were Asians and blacks make up a similar portion of the population. ..and the blacks at Caltech are those who can actually succeed there.

-jcr

Re:That last sentence...

[lgw]

Sound fair to me. Only idiots and racists care about race.

So asians aren't white again?

[Shadow of Eternity]

I'm just trying to keep track since first they weren't white, then they were white when everyone wanted to attack the tech industry and particularly google for being "too white", and now apparently they're not white again. Is there a newsletter I can subscribe to? Maybe a calendar or twitter feed that keeps us all up to date on who's "white" or not today?

Someone is about to learn about the Simpson's para

[melted]

Someone is about to learn about Simpson's paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Systemic

[Livius]

If there are racist recruiters, there should be little difficulty tracking them down and firing them.

However, if there is racism, it is presumably systemic bias that is inadvertent and unconscious and there is no single person who is actually acting in a prejudiced way. Telling them 'cease and desist' is ineffective.

It's quite conceivable that there is discrimination that is not based on race but only loosely correlated with it, perhaps actually due to income, culture, or command of English, which might or might not be part of a legitimate application process.

Hopefully Harvard has a few people with knowledge of statistics to figure it out.

Re:Something DOES Stink at Harvard

[BlackHawk-666]

That's because most of the second year syllabus is written and examined in Yiddish!

Re:Numbers

[chipschap]

That's what this is really all about, isn't it? That Latinos and Blacks should be present in higher numbers for social equality reasons?

Everyone deserves an equal chance, but it happens that the Asian culture highly values education and family, and instills those values (Jewish culture is similar). It seems to work.

If Latinos and Blacks grow up in a culture that values these things to a lesser degree, they start off with a disadvantage. But giving them a free boost (artificially lowered admission standards via preference or however) doesn't seem right either (matter of opinion, that's my opinion), but more importantly, I don't think it's sustainable.

So what's the answer? I think as usual it's to work on the root cause. Make sure kids aren't disadvantaged by accident of birth. Now, that's a lofty aspiration, and very hard to accomplish. But in the end I think it's the only real and lasting answer.

Side note: I'm an MIT alum, graduated way back in 1970. At the time, MIT was trying to attract Black students who they thought could succeed. One of the administration's ideas was to guarantee a four-year full scholarship to such Black students.

Do you know who opposed that policy? The Black Student Union! The BSU said that help for the first year was a good thing, for the student to get started, but guaranteed help for four years sends the message that the Black student can't make it on his/her own, while other students can. My respect for the BSU was really, really high. They were straight shooters.