Should applicants' races be taken into consideration in the college admission process?

Not even a little. Race is 100% irrelevant. If you qualify and can afford, that’s all that should matter. We just went through the whole college applying and waiting for admittance thing, hope to never have to go through that again. Yes, as an aside, she got into the university she was hoping and praying to get into, a small Christian university in rural Indiana.

Agree with @Acrylic . Well put!

What @Acrylic (and probably a number of other cishet white jellies) refuse to acknowledge, is that (and I paraphrase from the segment) centuries of marginalization of various groups has already created an extremely unequal environment, so Affirmative Action levels the playing field a bit.

The in-person college experience should include more than academics, cultural diversity enriches and enhances all.

Strictly academic focus can happen with online

So yes, to answer your question, race should be considered.

No, it should be merit based and merit based only with few exceptions. It should be illegal to even ask about gender or race on an application. The marginalized segment of our population is largely clustered together in certain geographic areas, if colleges want to give some slack to certain zip codes then by all means let them. It’s no particular race in those marginalized areas now, it’s whoever happens to grow up in that environment who will be at a disadvantage and should be given special considerations.

@canidmajor I may be white, good guess I guess, but my daughter isn’t. She’s adopted and not the same race as my wife nor me. That’s one reason why we don’t like considering race, as it’s irrelevant in our household. We get your point, affirmative action was once necessary to level the playing field, to borrow your terminology, but not so much today. Just an opinion, yours may differ and I totally respect that.

@Acrylic it is as relevant today as it always was, fascism and exclusion are still rampant.
And, with all due respect, you are posting on this Q, not your daughter.

I’d like to see the application process be conducted race-blind, but then adjusted for race so that the application pool at least matches the general racial distribution of the state. That gap should be published to demonstrate how unequal things still are. In Virginia, black and brown kids don’t get equal educations to white kids—not by a long shot.

No. And their sex shouldn’t either.

@gorillapaws I don’t understand your point, because in most or many colleges, kids attend from all over the country and sometimes from other countries.

The CBS episode mentioned that something like 30% of Harvard admissions are Asian, whereas the population of the country is less than 10% Asian.

I’m not arguing your point, just looking for clarification.

There is only one race. The human race.

@gondwanalon That’s a lovely sentiment until you’re part of a minority that is being oppressed.

Only criminals and SOB’s discriminate against or oppress people because of their skin color.

Hahaha, @gondwanalon, surely you are not so naïve as to believe they’re aren’t SOBs on admissions boards?

If one wants to only go by “merit”, the process would have to be completely anonymous, with a foolproof system in place to prevent plagiarizing and cheating.
And the concept of zero cultural influence in the college and university experience would render it pretty barren.

I would focus more on hardship rather than race.
The University of Calgary has hardship in their admission criteria.

The politically correct answer is “of course not”. But that’s simplistic. And the end result of “only by merit” is that you have a homogeneous (or near homogeneous) population cohort. In other words, built in segregation.

I don’t buy that “merit above all” theory even though it’s popular.

The real answer is: What is the mission/goal of the college that is doing the admitting? That has to be considered – not just the applicant’s race.

If the goal is the admit a diverse, multiracial, multiethnic student body because the mission of the college is to prepare a racially and socioeconomically diverse group for the future, then absolutely yes the college should look at race, as well as socioeconomic factors, as well as test scores.

If the goal is to only educate whites (and probably white males) and Asians, then merit should be only factor without regard to race. Is that really a societal goal? Maybe at Liberty University, but not a whole lot of other places.

Simply ignoring race perpetuates white supremacy.

[If the race-blind community wants to persist in saying “merit only” then schools in black, Indian, Asian, and other non-white communities have to be every bit as good as schools in white communities. Honest people will admit they aren’t.

@elbanditoroso GA

I am strongly in favor of affirmative action in college admissions. As a small-c conservative I am going against the vast majority of people who are in my cohort, but an educated, healthy society is good for the economy. Straight white males are the lowest difficulty setting there is.

@jca2 So if they allow for 10% international and 10% out of state, the remaining 80% of in-state applicants should have a racial blend similar to demographics of the state.

@gorillapaws, Ok, gotcha. The CBS Show mentioned Harvard, and I looked at the location stats for Harvard, and they have a decently diverse studen population as far as where they’re from: https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/harvard-university/student-life/diversity/#location_diversity

If blacks were on an equal footing as whites then I would be against showing preference for blacks. The problem is that, even if there were currently no racial discrimination (which is certainly not the case), racial discrimination in the past causes blacks to have lower incomes and lower test scores. Showing preference toward blacks provides a way of escaping the cycle and moving toward a point where affirmative action is no longer required.

Would it not be nice if everyone, at least everyone in charge or attached to these selection processes was so rational that their decisions were completely unbiased, and that every applicant also has no economic or social barriers before even getting to that point.
Unfortunately, that is an utopian pipe dream.
Racial bias, conscious or unconscious, exists.
It exists now just as it existed decades in the past, where the decision was made to counteract that bias through affirmative action.
To pretend that it is no longer an issue because modern society has become “oh so enlightened”, is a denial of objective reality.

@canidmajor Someone on a college admission board that discriminates and or oppresses students because of their looks or any reason is an SOB and a criminal.

@gondwanalon you need to look higher – it may be the specific admissions employee, but it may also be policy on the part of the dean, the provost, or the president of the university. Admissions employees get their marching orders from someone in authority.

If DeSantis says “only admit white Christians to state schools”, what options do the admissions people have?

Will this ruling only affect public institutions or private ones also?

I’m conflicted on this topic. Mostly, I think we should base it on merit, but there is no denying that K-12 is unequal across the US regarding race, and living situations are unequal also. Minorities, more specifically poor minorities, don’t have the same advantages that the average middle class white person has, and certainly not what the upper-middle and upper white class have. I was completely in favor of affirmative action in the ‘70’s, ‘80’s, and ‘90’s, but I am less in favor now. Not that I think everything is equal now, but it is much better than 50 years ago.

From what I understand California did away with affirmative action for universities, or maybe it was just specific universities? What I heard is some of the kids being let in at a lower standard had a tough time or weren’t make it through the four years. I would be curious to find out more about that. The data would matter. Segregation was reversed in the Supreme Court once we had the data that proved separate was not equal.

If Black students don’t do well on tests and the tests have a good prediction of being successful at the school, then that is a valid argument not to admit them into the school. If they are not lowering standards, but just creating a quota to give minorities more access, that is probably a good idea. Or, make the process to accept students completely blind. I think all colleges should take the person’s name off of the application when reviewing the application. At least get rid of that.

Years ago there was an uproar about Harvard limiting Jews, because too many Jewish people were getting in, now there is a question about there being too many Asians. Here is an article from 5 years ago. If you ask me about this, I have always felt don’t limit the Jewish people and Asian people, so that contradicts affirmative action I guess. For years Asian children were in poor situations and worked their asses off to accomplish what they have accomplished. In fact, that was the case with Jewish children also back in the early to mid 1900’s when Harvard became an issue. Harvard actually takes a lot of international students, I wonder how much of the diversity there is not Americans.

Harvard is an extreme example. Even if we take state universities, the “Black” universities tend to rank lower, which is the point @elbanditoroso was making I think, and no one likes to say it, and even a lot of Black people don’t want it said, but that is the case. I tried to google and could not find a list that designated Black college ranking among all colleges, if someone finds it I would be interested. Not that a person has to go to a top 20 school to do well in life.

If it is coming before the Supreme Court, I expect the court to rule against affirmative action in any mandatory way at universities.

Edit: Ethnic Diversity at Harvard. I didn’t see this when I clicked on @jca2‘s link, but here is the page directly to the diversity page.

NO.

@SnipSnip – can you expand at all on your “no”?

As long as we continue to include race on anything, there will continue to be cries of racism. Drop it from everything…applications, census, everything.

@seawulf575 The absolutely homogenous culture you advocate for won’t exist for a very long time, if ever.

I’m sorry, this is uncomfortable to say out loud but if we don’t educate our population to the best of our ability we are a society in decline. That means merit based selection should be the primary focus when selecting individuals for finite educational resources. If that means Asian, Jewish, white, indian, female, male or whatever demographic is over represented then so be it. Is there affirmative action in sports? In the arts such as music? No, it’s merit/ability based. This should not be any different for academics. If certain demographics are not making the cut it’s not the universities fault. There are other issues at play that we can and should address externally.

@Blackwater_Park based on your definition, we have been a society in decline for 60–70 years or even longer.

@canidmajor the population will never be homogenous. But every time we split people by their race, we continue to propagate division, not unity.

Recognizing cultural diversity to promote inclusivity and opportunity equity doesn’t count as “splitting people by their race”. Refusing to recognize that there is inequity, does.

@canidmajor Of course it promoting inclusivity and opportunity equity counts as splitting people by their race. It is the basis of those things. Look at all that is happening in the world. Anytime you say “we need to hire more (fill in your race/sex) to be more inclusive” you are suddenly saying that you aren’t looking for the most qualified person, you are looking to fill quotas. If a 1 legged drag queen is the best candidate for the job, that is the person you should hire. If the Asian with a double doctorate pertinent to the job is your best candidate, that is who should get the job. And if the white guy with 20+ years experience in the job is the best candidate, that is who should get hired. I could go on with women, gays, blacks, hispanics, etc but you get the picture. The best candidate is the one that will be doing the job the best. To pass on the best candidate so that you can hire some other division of society for “opportunity equity”, you are now telling the best candidate they aren’t good enough because they aren’t a part of this other group. That isn’t opportunity equity either…it is discrimination.

I am a firm believer that the best candidate is the one that will do the job the best regardless of their race or gender. And as a white guy who has hired MANY people in his day, I can tell you I have passed over white candidates because they are NOT the best choice. I’ve hired hispanics, blacks, women, gays…it doesn’t matter. The inclusivity and opportunity equity is based on their skills, not on their fitting into a niche.

I watched that as well. It is such a slippery slope. It should not matter, yet how are you going to have a diverse cultural mix of students if you don’t take account for it?
Enrollment should not only be based on merit either.
College enrollment is not like hiring a person to do a job. Higher education is about growth and moving society along and not simply a teaching plan like most public school systems K-12.

@Forever_Free College enrollment has had it scandals because of race as well. For example, I think it was the University of Michigan that got sued (and ultimately had to have a Michigan vote to change) for their policies. They were not taking the best qualified candidates for enrollment, they were meeting quotas. They had white and Asian students that got passed over even though they had close to 4.0 gpas when applying. Instead they were accepting black kids that had gpas closer to 3.5. So basically you are punishing people because of their skin color. They lost the law suits if I remember correctly and things had to change. Likewise I know the Marshall Law College at Cleveland State University lost a discrimination lawsuit for purposely holding blacks back.

It doesn’t matter what pretty words you want to apply to it, it is still discrimination when you give preferential treatment to people because of their race or sex.

^^ But holding women and Blacks back for generations is not discrimination that still needs to be overcome?

Hopefully most postsecondary education will be mostly online and free soon. M.O.O.C. online universities are becoming more and more accessible. Like Athabasca university. To get in you just need to be 16 years old for most classes.

@janbb And how much of it really goes on these days? The opportunities are the same for me as for you based on sex. I’ve been passed over for promotions based on my skin color even though I was clearly the best candidate for the job (and I’m white). So how much really goes on? I believe it’s a nice talking point, but that really is all it is.

College admission is an outcome not an opportunity. It should be demographic blind. Certainly let’s make the opportunity available to everyone possible but in the end college admission is like hiring someone for a job. We are determining what the candidate pool for those jobs will be by selecting people for college admission. Who here thinks that the right people are making the right decisions about serious things like how we move away from fossil fuels or how we approach foreign policy? I don’t. Part of the reason is that people in power came from esteemed universities and likely made it there because of their family connections or donations and not by their merit. The flip side to making things purely merit based is that that crap should be filtered out as well. It’ll never be perfect but we should try to make it as close as we can.

Yes.

Affirmative action would not favor my kids for college applications.

But I think in the long run it still ultimately benefits my kids to create a society that is diverse and strives to balance out the inequities that exist.

Agree with @raum

@raum But should that not be addressed before kids get to college admission boards? Like long before? I also think we are fooling ourselves in thinking that choosing based on merit won’t create a diverse cultural environment. I’ll go a step further, it’s a little condescending to think that it won’t.

@Blackwater_Park It should be addressed before, during and after.

It’s not condescending. It’s looking at actual numbers and statistics.

If lower income students get a helping hand through college, they get a chance at getting a well paying career. This reduces odds of them being a burden on society. In fact, a high paying career results in paying plenty of taxes, which the govt. ought to find attractive.

Yes but what does being low income have to do with this other than deciding who gets scholarships? Still can be merit based and provide financial aid.

Of course, it’s our moral responsibility to deal with the past/present mistakes and evil practices created by America that negatively affect people even today.

Whether people acknowledge basic socioeconomic issues and history is a separate problem.

Test scores are affected by family income due to the cost and time required for test prep courses. If colleges filter only by scores, they filter out low income students. If they open up for promising students (with lower scores), they give opportunity to those students (many of whom are not white or Asian).

@RocketGuy Studies show that standard tests like the SAT and ACT are not good predictors of college performance. GPA in prior education like high school or community college is however. Colleges are actually dropping the SAT requirements, and they really should. A single test can be bought, cheated or excessively crammed for but the area under the curve of a good GPA is much harder to fake. I already mentioned that colleges should factor in an applicants location when making decisions. Still, this decision should be based on who people are, their abilities, drive and relative performance. It should not be based on what they are in any way.

@Blackwater_Park What do you mean “what” they are? I agree with the dumping of the standardized test idea.

Look at it this way. Poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids.

@seawulf575 Your statement sounds a bit racist to me – “Poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids”

@Forever_Free It does, doesn’t it? I was quoting Joe Biden.

I just googled it and Joe Biden did say that, in 2019. This is what I found: “He paused, then quickly clarified, “wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids.”

Nice try, though, @seawulf575.

Why is it racist? Poor kids have a disadvantage regarding education, and minority groups are disproportionately poor for many reasons including systemic reasons.

@JLeslie Because it implies that “poor kids” are not white.

@Caravanfan I would say who a person is has to do with personality, work ethic, performance, demeanor etc. What a person is would be their sex, race, country of origin etc.

@Forever_Free I see what you are saying, but I guess I am just tired of being so concerned that everything is worded very carefully. If we are concerned that Black people don’t test as well because statistically they are more likely to be in poor neighborhoods with schools that are below par, then it is just simply a reality that we are talking about poor Black kids. Obviously, poor people of every race and ethnicity are at a disadvantage when it comes to college admissions and college costs. I guess people might argue even middle class and upper class minority kids are discriminated against, I am sure that does happen, but at least they do have the opportunity to go to better schools K-12. I think most universities want to be able to boast about being diverse so they are self motivated to accept minorities. I realize that still doesn’t guarantee anything. Colleges and companies need to literally track the numbers if they want to keep themselves in check, they can’t be guessing at how diverse the campus is, because people notoriously guess wrong. Perceptions are way way off usually.

@jca2 Yep, he did stumble through a correction. But his mind spoke first. He is a racist. In his mind, blacks are all poor. But they can be just as bright and talented as white kids. OR maybe he just considered white kids above everyone else! He spoke exactly what was in his mind.

@seawulf575 How do you know this? Did he tell you he is racist? Propagating your feelings about someone as truth is wrong.

@seawulf575 What total bullshit. He thinks Obama is poor? He has wealthy smart Black people all around him in government and in his social circles.

A lot of people do view the poor as stupid and saying poor people are just as bright and deserve the opportunity to go to school is not racist. My dad was an extremely poor white kid and thank goodness he was able to go to free college on the tax payer’s dime. I’d bet lots of money the segregated South wasn’t paying for poor kids to go to college back then.

When I lived in Memphis in 2010 white people in the county didn’t want to pay taxes for the Black kids in the city to go to school. They wanted to keep those kids out of the same tax base and liked the idea of vouchers. I doubt their attitude was different at the college level.

Correction: the white Republicans out in the county didn’t want to pay for other people’s kids, which translated to poor kids and Black kids, and there was a lot of overlap. I voted to keep the school district intact and the county together.

@JLeslie No, what Biden said about Obama was ” “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.””

As for poor white people, I came from that group. Started off in middle class and then dad had a breakdown and mom ended up having to work 3 jobs just to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. I put myself into college and then into the military. I got my degree over time and had to work my ass off to do so. I never considered myself a stupid person, but did have to overcome many things. And I’m still one of those people that is a firm believer that not everyone needs to go to college. There are many other options for good paying careers out there that don’t require a college degree. Somewhere along the way we convinced ourselves that you had to have a college degree to be able to make it in life.

@seawulf575 I agree not everyone needs to nor wants to go to college, but the poor kid who is great at academic and who wants to go to college should have the opportunity. As far as Biden’s comment, I think people overreacted, and even back then I said I am tired of people being too easily offended.

White people compliment the speech of other white people all of the time, including using the word articulate, and now because of what Biden said and the public reaction, a lot of people know that that wording hits Black people negatively, and it is understandable why, but a lot of white people didn’t know, I wouldn’t have. Saying he looks good and clean, another thing that now we know. My FIL will say someone is dressed well and clean and it annoys me that he puts so much stock into someone’s appearance, but he says that about any race or ethnicity and I think there are a lot of people like that. Obama said he was not offended.

Biden was just commenting on Obama and his ability to reach the public. People talked about Clinton and how he looked and spoke to the public. Same with Pres Bush. You just got lucky so many liberals freaked out about what Biden said and you can pile on with them. The Democrats are their own worst enemy sometimes.

It hits black people negatively because he said it like it was an exception. In other words, to Joe Biden, black people are usually not articulate, bright, clean, or nice looking. But hey, racists often have those views and would likewise be surprised if they actually saw it wasn’t so.

@seawulf575 I personally don’t think that is what Biden meant. I think he was commenting on Obama’s presentation regarding running for president. Biden has been in Washington too long and he is too wealthy and his social circles would have plenty of Black people (and many other minorities) who are wealthy and well educated. It is very different in diverse affluent metro areas compared to Bible Belt cities with some exceptions.

@JLeslie C’mon. When has ANYONE ever commented on their running-mate’s “presentation”? And if you did you wouldn’t use term like articulate or clean. You comment on his/her vision, their drive, their leadership…not how they smell or there ability to string a sentence together.

Yes, Biden has been in DC a long time and there are plenty of blacks, but you make a great assumption that he socialized with them. Remember this is the same guy that in 1977 was still fighting against segregations in schools because he didn’t want his kids in a “racial jungle”. Why is it so very hard to believe that Biden is a racist? He has demonstrated it over and over and you on the left keep giving him a pass.

@seawulf575 The “left” jumped all over Biden when he said it. I don’t know why you say they gave him a pass. If Trump said the same you would be excusing it. 1977 was a long time ago and I have friends who moved cities to avoid their kids being on a bus for an hour back then. They did not move to avoid their kids being with Black kids in school, they moved to avoid the busing. In the ‘70’s Biden argued intergrated housing projects was a better way to intergrate.

I am pretty sure Biden was running for president when he said it, he was not Obama’s running mate. He was commenting on the other candidates he would be running against. Even though Biden said that, Obama still chose him as a running mate. I would think Obama would not choose someone who he perceived as racist.

Number 1. I find it ironic that someone is calling Biden a racist when his favorite golden boy Trump can be easily googled and many racist comments come up within seconds. Direct comments.

Number 2. What does this all have to do with the question about applicants’ races being taken into consideration? Yes, this is in Social so some off topic is allowed, but this thread is now seriously derailed. Can we please get back on topic or close to topic?

@jca2 Go ahead and cite those racist comments from Trump. I’ll give you a clue: most, if not all, are complete B.S.

@jca2 And what does all this have to do with the original question? That’s actually quite easy to answer. The fact we have to take race into consideration at all for jobs or college applications or really just about everything, we have to wonder why that is so important. It is because of the ones trying to divide the country…splitting everyone by identity politics to keep people in line by trying to pit them against one another. And when you look at that, you have to consider people like Joe Biden. He has made more racist comments than you folks are willing to acknowledge. And while you try to deflect with a whatabouttrump, you are giving Biden a pass. If Trump actually said half the crap Biden has said, You would be screaming about what a racist he is and the MSM would be parroting the talking points 24/7 as a “Got him!” moment. And I would agree with you that he is a racist. But he hasn’t. In fact the biggest one the left claims is the Charlottesville lie where he supposedly said the White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis were very fine people. That claim is a verifiable lie.

And by giving Biden a pass, you are playing entirely into the identity politics and are, in effect, part of the problem. The only way to completely get rid of racism to the greatest extent possible is to stop segregating people by their race. The only exception would be for actual physical description (a white guy, black guy, Asian guy and Latino guy in a group and you say Fred is the black guy). Anything else continues to bring down racism.

Wondering what percentage of the “‘No” answers came from white folks…

@bob_ I wonder what percentage of the “Yes” answers came from left-wingers.

@seawulf575 I’m not a left winger.

Such projection right wingers have! They have been enjoying various privileges in a divided country and don’t want to descend into equality (with the riffraff). So they just go ahead and accuse the other side of what they are guilty of – dividing the country. If equality was so good, wouldn’t they want it for everyone (including themselves)?

@RocketGuy I’ve never been given any privileges that I didn’t work for. Came from a poor family, had to put myself through school without school loans, went into the military and got excellent training that I worked my ass off to complete and turned it into a career for most of my life. NONE of that is unique to white people nor Asian, Black, or Latino.

Having been on a par with people of all races and sexes throughout my life, I find your assumptions to be offensive. And here’s a thought for you…Equality can NEVER be found if you are giving one division of society something that is not offered to all. You are pushing racism or sexism or whateverism but you are not pushing equality. You are saying that whatever group you are favoring are just too weak to do it for themselves and you are making bogus assumptions that it is everyone else’s fault.

But maybe we need to look at what you call equality. We all have the same options open to us but it is up to us to set our goals and be willing to work towards them. Here’s a perfect example of what I am saying. Our first pediatrician was from Korea I believe. His parents legally immigrated to this country when they couldn’t speak English. He was born shortly afterward. His parents did what they needed to do to make a life for themselves here and to help work to make their next generation better. He worked hard and ended up as a pediatrician. And a damn good one! He and his family were not professional victims. They didn’t blame anyone for the adversity in their lives. They made the life they wanted.

So how did they do that without some progressive yahoo “helping” them?

@seawulf575 I come from a poor family too. They both started with nothing. I started with nothing. But they had advantages because they were white, as did I, and as did you. Being a straight white male is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

@Caravanfan I know that is the talking point, but to be honest, I was discriminated against because I am white. Numerous times throughout my life. Example: when I started going to college, I was ineligible for student loans because mom made too much money. She was working 3 jobs to make that money, but the gross income put me over the top. Banks wouldn’t give me a loan because I had no credit and mom had bad credit (because of dad) and I didn’t qualify for assistance because of the income thing. BUT…any foreigner that applied was given a free ride. One of the jobs mom worked was at the college. A guy came in that was from Viet Nam. He was talking about how he didn’t understand why people would complain about the United States…all 4 of his kids were going to college for free! How could anyone complain? Soooo….being a white male hurt me rather than helped me.

Fast forward a few years when I was working in a civilian nuclear power plant. I’d been there for a dozen years as a chemistry technician, was qualified on everything I could qualify on, basically was the lead any time I was there. A specialist position opened…straight days and a little pay bump. I put in for it. Another technician, a black man, put in for it. He hadn’t been there as long as I had, wasn’t a qualified as I was, and wasn’t as knowledgeable as I was in the area of specialty for which we were applying. I should have been the obvious choice based solely on merit. But he told them that if they didn’t promote him he would bring a discrimination suit against the company. Wanna guess who got the job? Now, I liked this guy and I didn’t hold it against him that he played the race card. But we had an honest talk with him (which is how I found out he played it) and I told him I didn’t hold it against him. But I pointed out that as a middle aged, white, heterosexual, American male, I was probably the most discriminated group in the country. He asked how I figured that. I pointed out that if he was discriminated against, or a woman, or an Asian, or a gay/lesbian, or really just about any other group, they could scream discrimination and all would be taken care of. If I cried discrimination I was ignored. He fully agreed with that assessment.

But interestingly you say you were poor and had nothing. What advantage did YOU have to get where you are today? Was anything given to you? Or did you have to work for it?

@seawulf575 I worked for everything I have and started with student loans and no income. I worked my way through college as a dishwasher first, and then a tutor. But you’re right—I did have an advantage. I’m a white male.

Let’s be real, 15–20 years ago being a white male was an advantage. In 2023 it’s the opposite.

How is it the opposite? Maybe the field is a little more level now.

@Blackwater_Park – your perch seems to be lower, when actually others’ perches have become a bit higher. Your privileges are going down. Equality doesn’t sound so good, eh?

@Caravanfan And how did being a white male give you the advantage? Did you do something that anyone couldn’t have done (providing they had the intelligence)? An opportunity that was only open to white people? Did you go to a school that excluded all minorities and only let white people in? Did you get student loans or grants that were only available to white people?

@Caravanfan I have absolutely no idea. That’s the beauty of being a straight white male. It’s the lowest difficulty setting. I’m not the person to ask that question to, but you need to ask someone who is black, from a poor area of a city with underfunded schools and violence how that has affected them.

@RocketGuy I’m old enough to have had those privileges of being white and male. I know I had them and I know what they are. I’m just old enough to have gotten in under the wire. A much younger me in today’s world would not. If you’re older, like 50+ I doubt you understand what the younger men, especially white have to face. I do not believe that young white males now have the old privileges you knew and to go further, they are discriminated against by most systems and about 70% of the population. It’s not equality when this happens. Equality would be great but it’s a hard target. White females now hold the most privilege of you asked me. They still face things that suck sure, but they have the privilege of being white yet can still take advantage of the special privileges granted to minorities. Here is the real stinker, minorities still face discrimination. Sometimes more than they did before.

Oh yes. It’s so hard being a white male nowadays. I see the pain, tears, and horror on their faces every single day.

@Caravanfan The point is that there is nothing, and was nothing when you were going to school or getting your job, that is institutionally in favor of white people. I know because I grew up through those times as well. Everything you did, you did because you worked hard for it and set your goals for it. Are there black doctors? Asian doctors? Hispanic doctors? Woman doctors? The answers are yes, there are all of these. They had the exact same opportunities you did. Were you a wild child, always getting into trouble as a kid? I’m not talking about passing a note in class or cutting classes once in a while. I’m talking about drugs, fights, etc. If not, and I’m guessing not, then you showed respect for rules. Again, this is not unique to white people. Now, if you were in and out of trouble with the law through out HS and still graduated with honors and you went onto college and had more behavioral problems and still were given great grades you didn’t deserve, you might have an argument.

I find it a bit disturbing that you can’t think of a single thing that actually gave you an advantage because you are white, but still you cling to that fantasy. As for the poor black person, do you believe there aren’t poor white children? You said yourself that you were one. I was too. Are you saying there wasn’t violence anywhere around you when you were growing up? I know there was for me. Or are you saying that just by being black, they are at a disadvantage because they can’t help themselves when it comes to getting into trouble? That is an awfully condescending and racist thought, but that almost sounds like it is what you are saying. And I don’t believe that is you. But think of what you are saying. You are saying that black children are at a disadvantage because they can’t work hard, they can’t set their priorities on their school work and reaching their goals and it’s all because they are black. If you are saying that the violence around them would stop them from attaining goals, I’d have to ask why? You said I’d have to ask them how their poor existence affected them. Should it have affected them differently than you or I?

@seawulf575 I find it disturbing that you are actually (and not just rhetorically) disturbed by my rhetorical arguments. If this is true, you need to take a deep breath.

“You are saying that black children are at a disadvantage because they can’t work hard, ”
When the actual fuck did I even remotely make that argument? Project much?

@Caravanfan You made that argument when you said you didn’t know a single thing that was an advantage for you because you are white and that I needed to “ask someone who is black, from a poor area of a city with underfunded schools and violence how that has affected them.” You are saying that you were poor, you weren’t given anything, you had to work for everything you got, yet it is somehow different for black people. So the questions become You were poor and overcame it, why can’t a poor black person? You were not given anything so why should it matter if extra is given to the poor black person or not? You worked hard to achieve your goals so why can’t poor black kids?

You are the one that stated that you have no actual idea why being white is an advantage for you but that the black people don’t have the advantage you had…the advantage you can’t identify. So to you, being black precludes them from doing what you did. They can’t help where they start from economically so being poor isn’t an excuse…you started from the same point. Not being given special help to move up isn’t an excuse since you were not given anything either. So the only thing left is working hard. That is the specific thing that is personal in nature…the one thing they can actually control.

Your statements paint a very clear picture.

@seawulf575 You obviously think if you worked so hard (I’m thinking suffered) getting your education that others should too. This reminds me of a friend of mine arguing that if her generation teenagers dragged themselves out of bed for school at 0’dark hundred so can the current group of kids. She didn’t care that studies show making that easier on high school kids by having a later start time their learning and grades go way up. She was a cheerleader and her husband played sports and both of her kids did after school sports or band and so she was predisposed into buying that schtick about kids needing to go to school early so there is time for after school activities.

Let’s take my dad, extremely poor, son of an immigrant who worked in a factory. My dad’s mom didn’t want him to go to college, she wanted him to work, because she wanted new furniture. Luckily, my dad lived in a “liberal” city that believed education was important for the future, and believed even poor kids deserve a good education, so he went to college for free tuition on the tax payers dime. People like Colin Powell benefitted from that same NYC system.

Making it harder for people to get an education doesn’t help the country, we should be making it easier.

Your insistence that Black people and other minorities had the same access to education as white men 50 years ago is just false. Maybe in some spots in the country it was more equal, but overall there was still discrimination.

White men have a completely different experience than minorities, and I am including women as minorities. That doesn’t mean white kids and men don’t have times when they feel inadequate or maybe they get bullied, or some other negative situation, but on the whole white men simply don’t have as much psychological and actual shit that so many other people have to deal with.

That’s a great comparison, @JLeslie. On a recent FB local group post, where there is a survey out in our school district about earlier start times, there are a few parents who are saying exactly what you’re saying in their debate. They were never late for school, they never had a problem. It’s been this way forever, why should it change now (the logic being the kids now are pansies and snowflakes). Some parents are presenting data and facts about kids needing more sleep, but other parents are stubbornly insisting the old way is fine. I didn’t comment on it but I was thinking it’s like saying they walked miles to school in the snow, why should kids take a school bus? I suffered, so should you. It’s a poor argument.

@JLeslie No, what I believe is that everybody has adversity in their lives. You have three options when you face adversity. The first is to work hard and smart to overcome adversity. The second is to just say “I’ll never overcome this adversity”. The third is to expect someone else to take the adversity away for you. Children do this, expecting mommy and daddy to make it all alright. Not surprisingly, the second and third tend to go hand in hand when you are no longer a child.

As for you dad, look at what you said he did and compare it to my lists on adversity. What did he do? He overcame the adversity. While I disagree strongly with “free” college for all, it is something that was available to him. He made decisions. He worked hard through college to help him find a better life for himself and his family in the long run. He didn’t play victim.

White men do indeed have a completely different experience than minorities. And as a woman you really have no idea what it means to be a white man or what we go through. You have a stereotype in your mind. And you apply that and thereby make us scapegoats and excuses. Take your dad as an example. He had to not only plot his course through life, he had to do the work to make it happen and he had to overcome opposition even from your mom because she wanted instant gratification. But hey, he has so many more opportunities that all minorities, right? Because none of what he did could be done by black people or latinos or women, right? So you are negating his efforts to say his experiences were somehow not as hard as someone else’s. Here’s a clue: It will never be equal for everyone. We all have different situations, different starting points in life, different experiences on our travels through life. They mold us.

This is not the 1920’s or the 1950’s anymore. Those days had many examples of blacks being treated differently, women being treated differently….lots of discrimination going on. But then came Affirmative Action which is a double edged sword, one I think was necessary to some extent since society was clinging to its biases. But let’s look again at those special white men that had things so easy. Did you ever get passed over for a job or a promotion because your skin wasn’t the right color…because you were white? It wasn’t right when it was done to black people so why was it right to do to white people? Because you want to justify it…because white people are privileged? And Affirmative Action started morphing into the idea that whites have it all and we have to give it all to other groups. Did your dad have it all? Did your husband while he was growing up?

Even Dr. Martin Luther King held similar beliefs to myself. He believed that blacks had to work for their education…had to make it a priority in their life…if they wanted to start breaking the cycle of racism and discrimination.

Until you can point at one thing in society where white men are actually, institutionally, given some benefit, you are spouting rhetoric that is not based in fact and you are creating more problems concerning segregation and division in this country. And all this ties right back to the original question because any time you divide society you are creating a problem.

^^In NYC it was not free education for all, it was free for kids who were accepted to the colleges that had free tuition. You had to test well, grades, etc, just like any college application.

Growing up in the ‘70’s there was still a ton of talk about equality for women in the workplace, and my dad told me as a young girl women want to be able to do any career and they want equal pay for their work. He always agreed with women having that opportunity and right. He actually had that topic in a sociology class he taught. I remember him telling me about a student who really fought back about women ever becoming equal in the workplace.

My dad also said that men have the pressure of supporting the family, which rarely gets acknowledged, while women have more if a choice. Again, this was back in the ‘70’s and early ‘80’s. So, at a young age I did have some understanding of the stress men feel. Plus, since I grew up in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s it was expected that I would be self supporting financially, so I had that pressure too. I got married fairly young (age 25) so I wasn’t on my own for very long.

Women grow up having to be cautious about so much more shit than men. White men it is even less worry than men of color.

What happened to you? What happened that was traumatizing that you feel you dealt with just as much as minorities? I reject some of the complaining made by minorities, because I feel like what white women go through isn’t acknowledged half the time, but I would never say everything is equal and just takes hard work. There is definitely systems in the country that work against minorities and against the poor, and often there is overlap in those two groups.

Plus, the cost of a college education now is very different than 50 years ago, or even 30 years ago. Tuition prices have gone up much more than wages and inflation.

@JLeslie What happened to me is that I have gotten fed up with hearing about how great I had it throughout my entire life because I’m white. NOTHING I did in my life was given to me or even easier because I am white. Nothing. I’ve been passed over for promotions, I’ve lost out on jobs BECAUSE I’m white, not vice versa. So I got fed up with it. And when someone totes out the platitudes about things being systemically racist? Bullshit. That is the cry of the victim. I’ve worked with all races and sexes throughout my life. And even you continue with the platitudes.

“There is definitely systems in the country that work against minorities and against the poor, and often there is overlap in those two groups.” Name one system that works against minorities and against the poor. I can name many that work in favor of them, but no one that claims as you do can actually name a single system that works against them by design. Until you can actually do that, those claims are garbage.

@seawulf575 The poor wind up paying higher interest rates, paying bank fees, and even paying cashing check fees that the middle class usually does not pay.

It has been shown over and over again that managers tend to hire people similar to themselves, including how they look, hopefully that’s changing. When almost all managers were white males that worked against minorities. Affirmative action and quotas forced managers to go outside of that box.

White Christian men do not have the same generational trauma burdening their psyche. You probably saw I might cancel doing a presentation about being Jewish where I live. Would you think twice about talking about Christianity to people? What about putting a cross on your lawn or Christmas decorations? Would you think to be afraid?

In one of my discussion groups 9 months ago a white man asked a black friend in the group why does she think so many more Black people are still wearing masks compared to white people. The entire group of people are Democrats and took covid as a serious health risk. Her answer was she thinks it’s because Black people are more concerned they won’t get good medical care if they get very sick. I hadn’t even thought of that!

I agree that the people who achieve success usually work hard for it, and people can’t expect it to be easy, but we just aren’t quite to the point of equality yet. Not yet. It’s better in some places than others.

Edit: Also, minorities are disproportionately poor. So, on average they are starting ten paces back in the race to their middle class counterparts.

@JLeslie The banking things are pretty much universal. If your credit isn’t that great you get charged higher interest rates. There are always banking fees…I’ve paid them my whole life at a variety of banks. Check cashing fees are frequently charged if you don’t go to a bank in which you have money. Check cashing services are scams that prey on those that feel it is a quick and easy way to get cash.

As for managers hiring within their ethnic circle, I can easily tell you that is a thing of the past. Every job I have worked has had diversity in it. Every single one. And my work history goes back to the mid-70’s. As I mentioned, I believe that Affirmative Action was a necessary evil in the beginning that has worn out its need.

As for Christianity v Judaism and publicly discussing it, I have no problem with displays of Christianity. Not because I don’t believe it will offend someone or someone might say something about it, but because it is part of who I am. And you are the one that brought up the SPLC. Remember I showed you a number of examples where they have classified religious organizations as radical extremists? Funny they don’t say the same about Jewish organizations. The FBI did a full blown swat team raid on the home of a Christian man who dared to pray outside an abortion clinic. Guns to his head and pointed at his wife and 7 kids, thrown to the ground and handcuffed. Seems a bit excessive, don’t you think? So apparently the DOJ believes Christians to be a domestic terror threat. Funny they don’t have that same view of Jews, isn’t it? And heaven forbid anyone should say or do ANYTHING about Muslims! So it seems Christians are targeted quite a bit, not by individual nut jobs but systemically by the government and other groups that are given credence. Yet I refuse to be afraid.

As for minorities being disproportionately poor, you are really talking blacks and maybe Latinos. Women are not disproportionately poor. Neither are Asians. And nothing you have stated shows any institutional reason for that. It might be cultural, but that is, again, on them. If there are things that are not helping them such as a disproportionate number of single parent homes and absentee fathers (both of which have been shown again and again to contribute FAR more to the decline of the black neighborhoods than racism), that is on them as a culture. They have allowed that to fester. Funny that you aren’t willing to jump on that as something that needs to be fixed…just blaming white men as being privileged.

Women ARE disproportionately poorer than men. My wife had been underpaid for years. We adjusted our spending accordingly. A few years ago she got hired by a woman-owned firm and finally got paid as well as comparable men. After a while I noticed that our checking account was a lot higher that it usually was. I hadn’t noticed that it had been inching upwards every month since she got hired. So it’s real that women are often paid less than comparable men. I’m liking this equal pay for equal work.

@RocketGuy Every job I have worked paid women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, et al the same for the position and time in rate. That means that the starting wage for someone coming into a position is set and it goes up with annual raises. And interestingly, that is how the law works. It is illegal to start a man at one rate of pay for a job and a woman at a lesser rate of pay for the same job. But at the same time if a man starts in a position and is there for a couple years (and got a few pay raises) and then they hire a woman at a lesser wage, that is not discrimination, that is how it works.

If that isn’t how it was working for your wife (and I suspect it was) then there was a solid discrimination lawsuit ready to be brought against the company.

The “wage gap” is real, just much, much smaller than is reported when certain things are taken into consideration. Examples: for many women work is optional and for men it’s not as optional. Women often drop out of the workforce to raise kids. Etc. Etc. Some of those reasons are positives. People are underpaid all the time. Just because an underpaid person is a female does not mean that they are underpaid because they’re female

@Blackwater_Park I agree with that. If you just look at what the average wage for a man is and compare it to the average wage for a woman and take no other variables into consideration, it looks like women are paid much less per hour than the men. But it’s sort of like with the US Women’s soccer team claiming they were paid less than the men because of bonus structures. But when they looked at all the compensation the women get that the men didn’t it suddenly showed the women made more.

And yes, people are underpaid all the time. When I got out of the navy I started working for $14/hr. For the next 5 or 6 years I’d get pay raises (merit raises they called them) and my pay was going up. But at the same time, overall salaries were going up. I was there for 6 years before I made more than someone walking through the door, even though I was expected to train them all. But that wasn’t any kind of discrimination, it was just a cheap ass company trying to save a few pennies.

We were looking at years of experience. Obviously the years off taking care of kids will reduce the years of experience.

I haven’t ever paid a banking fee, except to do a wire transfer when I bought a house.

I do think there needs to be a cultural shift among some subgroups in the Black community, but I would say the same about white people.

That is not an excuse to ignore or dismiss the prejudice and racism that has made the climb out of poverty harder and longer for Black people. Black Americans came here as slaves, lived through segregation, and so their history in this country is different than other groups. You want to blame everything on them and completely ignore the history and that there are still problems.

Let’s say 10% of poor children make their way out of poverty (I don’t know the real stat) that means it will take Black people much longer over time than white people to rise through the socioeconomic strata even if they are working equally as hard, because slavery and segregation kept them poor, and segregation only ended 60 years under the law, but continued in many places beyond that.

Latin Americans are still coming into the country in large numbers so their poverty is partly being new immigrants.

Asians had horrible discrimination for a long time, but that turned around significantly, and many Asians coming in the last 50 years are very educated and affect the statistic.

On the news, Monday 6/26 they said the Supreme Court’s decision could come down as early as tomorrow, Tuesday 6/27/2023.

Thursday 6/29 at 10 in the morning, the programs at Harvard and University of South Carolina and other schools are not valid.

So, it does affect private schools too if Harvard is affected. If Harvard still wants to be using the same parameters that have been is the ruling saying they can’t now? Is that correct? I would think the ruling means they don’t have to use affirmative action anymore, not that they can’t.

The ruling declares affirmative action to be unconstitutional

@jca2 It sounds like what happened is that the SCOTUS just ruled that affirmative action is not required any longer at Harvard or UNC, the two universities that were being challenged. Their admission programs are open enough to meet the Equal Opportunity Clause. It (the SCOTUS) found that their admission programs were robust enough that they didn’t need affirmative action anymore. From what I can gather it only addressed those two schools and doesn’t do away with Affirmative action overall, but it does open the door for companies to no longer need to be bound by it.

From what I understand, they’re saying the schools can’t use a blanket policy of using race for admissions. If a student wants to write an essay, mentioning their race or how their race has impacted them, @JLeslie.

@seawulf575 I don’t believe it only addressed those two schools. One of those schools is public and one is private which is why specifically those two schools were chosen.

@seawulf575 Here’s a link to the high school coach praying article. I am running out now so I don’t have time to look for links for the other stuff:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-coach-public-school-prayer-case-rcna31662

I guess time will tell what the effect is from the ruling.

Universities can still admit whoever they want, this really does not change anything except that “race” cannot be used as a sole discriminator. IMO this removes the lazy cop out of just using race. They’ll have to look at people with finer detail which is not such a bad thing. Race alone is pretty granular.

Looks like SCOTUS sided with @seawulf575 although I have only seen the headlines.

@jca2 The two cases that were heard and that were both rolled into one decision were Students for Fair Admissions, Inc v President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc v University of North Carolina et al. What the overall decision was, from what I can tell reading the actual opinions, is that Affirmative Action had finally pushed the pendulum the other way and was no longer needed to ensure a diverse student population. In other words, the best candidates were no longer getting selected if there was a lesser candidate of a minority.

So yes, it was only on these two universities, but the decision can apply to any other University out there. Now something I found in my research that I am still seeing if I can verify is that only about 20% of the universities out there actually use race as a determining factor anymore.

I wonder if income level could replace race. Colleges could treat top graduates of schools in low income neighborhoods the same as graduates from higher income levels, or maybe they could be treated preferentially. Since income level correlates with race, the net effect could be the same as having affirmative action.

@LostInParadise I heard someone ask the question of how, specifically Harvard, was supposed to keep their diversity in the student population without Affirmative Action. The answer I heard pointed to another issue. Stop giving preferential treatment to legacy students or the children of professors. Start going solely on other criteria like grades, extra curricular activities (such as student council), public service efforts, admissions essays, etc.

@LostInParadise On the news they mentioned that schools could use other data, like income data for admissions.

@seawulf575 When you mention legacy students, I think of the Bush family who all went to Yale. I thought it was kind of charming that they all went to Yale. I don’t know if Dubya would have been smart enough, on his own, to get in but it was fun that they all went.

@jca2 Exactly. If you are holding all students to one level of accountability and then letting in someone that couldn’t compete with the other applicants, you are showing a bias. And, in this case, you are likely avoiding diversity. In other words, the legacies and the nepotisms (professor kids) you could be taking spots from other students that might otherwise be acceptable. Then you get down to a smaller population with which to meet your diversity quotas. And yes, W would not seem to be one that could have cut the mustard.