Califorina votes on whether to repeal anti-discrimination laws

[Houseman]

California voters will be asked whether to repeal Prop. 209 ban on affirmative action

State Senate votes to place proposed constitutional amendment on November ballot. Repeal...

www.sfchronicle.com

Prop 209, a California anti-discrimination law that restates the 1964 Civil Rights act, might be repealed in its entirety. by the California Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 5 (ACA 5)

This includes the passage: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."

The passage above seems like a good thing, right? Discrimination is bad, right? So why would people want to get rid of such a law?

Because of affirmative action. A measure was passed earlier in June asked voters if they wanted to reinstate affirmative action. In order to do that, you have to grant preferential treatment to protected classes, which is discrimination. Hence, you can't have affirmative action AND anti-discrimination laws at the same time.

Affirmative action has been criticized, as doing more harm than good, though this is still an ongoing debate among academics.

So what do you think? Is discrimination always bad, or do we need to consider the context first? Is affirmative action a good and useful thing, or does it do more harm than good?

 

[Trunkage]

Just a quick question. What graphs or info can you find on, say, UCLA (or a other universities in California) about racial diversity over the last three decades? Basically covering the time that 209 was introduced and comparing that to the previous Affirmative Action regulations

 

[Houseman]

Just a quick question. What graphs or info can you find on, say, UCLA (or a other universities in California) about racial diversity over the last three decades? Basically covering the time that 209 was introduced and comparing that to the previous Affirmative Action regulations

This official page has some nice interactive graphs: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/freshman-admissions-summary
Here's what is, I think, the same data focusing on the before and after when it was introduced:

Prop 209 was introduce in 1996, and I can't find any pre-1994 data, so there's only two years of data to use for a "before" and "after" comparison.

 

[Hawki]

So, AA was removed, and Latinos went up, whites went down, and Asians and blacks remained the same?

Also, I looked up the demographics of the state. As of 2018, here's the groups:

-Hispanic: 39%
-White: 36%
-Black: 5.5%
-Asian: 14.4%
-Biracial: 3.1%
-Pacific Islander: 0.36%
-Amerindian: 0.35%

So from this, we can conclude that the whites and Hispanics are under-represented, Asians are over-represented, and blacks are roughly equally represented.

Am I missing something?

 

[Houseman]

So from this, we can conclude that the whites and Hispanics are under-represented, Asians are over-represented, and blacks are roughly equally represented.

Am I missing something?

Seems about right.

 

[Trunkage]

So, AA was removed, and Latinos went up, whites went down, and Asians and blacks remained the same?

Also, I looked up the demographics of the state. As of 2018, here's the groups:

-Hispanic: 39%
-White: 36%
-Black: 5.5%
-Asian: 14.4%
-Biracial: 3.1%
-Pacific Islander: 0.36%
-Amerindian: 0.35%

So from this, we can conclude that the whites and Hispanics are under-represented, Asians are over-represented, and blacks are roughly equally represented.

Am I missing something?

I dont think those numbers match the graphs above

edit. Sorry. I miss reread what you wrote

 

[Trunkage]

So this might be relevant:

Whites make up way less of the demographic now thus less, hence the drop in attendance
Latinos have doubled their size. There would probably be a lag here if it’s lots of immigration.
Don’t know why Asian-Americans were always so high but I remember that Harvard case was Asians being underrepresented. I know in Australia, foreigners make up a big proportion of university because they are willing to pay exorbitant fees for elite schooling. It might be that too

I would point out that just like many of those studies I showed in the other thread - getting rid of Affirmative Action hurts African Americans. They may have been overrepresented before but are now underrepresented. There’s got to be a better solution.

 

[Houseman]

I would point out that just like many of those studies I showed in the other thread - getting rid of Affirmative Action hurts African Americans. They may have been overrepresented before but are now underrepresented. There’s got to be a better solution.

The first step to finding the solution would be to identify the problem. Is underrepresentation the problem, or is it just a symptom?
Can African-Americans get into these colleges on their own merits, or have grades K-12 failed to adequately prepare them?
Is the problem with the public school system, or is it more about the home life of students?
Can we blame poverty for that?
Can we blame slavery, racism, and oppression for poverty?

Where do we start?

 

[Phoenixmgs]

The first step to finding the solution would be to identify the problem. Is underrepresentation the problem, or is it just a symptom?
Can African-Americans get into these colleges on their own merits, or have grades K-12 failed to adequately prepare them?
Is the problem with the public school system, or is it more about the home life of students?
Can we blame poverty for that?
Can we blame slavery, racism, and oppression for poverty?

Where do we start?

It's the systemic disadvantages that minorities have had over the 100+ years. To me, the one thing that would make a ton of sense would be evenly distributing all school funds evenly per child so every school gets say $2,000 per kid. Instead we have some schools that get $5,000 less per kid than another school.

 

[Agema]

Can we blame slavery, racism, and oppression for poverty?

Yes, we can.

To a large extent, the attainment of an individual is heavily dependent on their parents' attainment, because parental resources, attitudes and general social milieu are key to bringing up a child. The effect of having effectively an entire demographic group in zero to low education and poverty, mostly also living in areas of extreme deprivation and social disorder, is that it will take many generations to erase that difference between groups. It will take even longer if there is racism against that group, because it stunts the ability of higher performers to attain and pass the advantages to their offspring.

Thus we also see the resistance to helping such groups. The more the disadvantaged have their disadvantages removed or compensated for, the harder it will be for the advantaged to get better station in life, simply because of more competition. Or put simply, the rich and powerful know full well that all their kids need to do is not fuck up to also be the rich and powerful of their generation, because it's so much harder for the less affluent to get their foot in the door. And that's how they like it.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

So this might be relevant:

Whites make up way less of the demographic now thus less, hence the drop in attendance
Latinos have doubled their size. There would probably be a lag here if it’s lots of immigration.
Don’t know why Asian-Americans were always so high but I remember that Harvard case was Asians being underrepresented. I know in Australia, foreigners make up a big proportion of university because they are willing to pay exorbitant fees for elite schooling. It might be that too

I would point out that just like many of those studies I showed in the other thread - getting rid of Affirmative Action hurts African Americans. They may have been overrepresented before but are now underrepresented. There’s got to be a better solution.

What is this even a graph of? Is it for nationwide statistics, California statistics, statistics for jobs in California, statistics for college admissions in California?

 

[dreng3]

In as far as I know many places in the US made a large blunder in regards to schools, they assigned schools funds by taxation in the school districts. This means that schools in poor districts will inherently have less money than schools in wealthy districts, even if there is the same population density. This ensures that the wealthy districts will attract wealthier people, thus further dividing the population by have already poor students go to schools with fewer resources, while students from wealthy districts can attend schools with lots of resources.

Not only will this affect the quality of teachers in the poorer schools, it will also affect the self worth of the students.

And all of this carries over into both grades, which are needed for good colleges, and desire to continue education.

 

[ObsidianJones]

The first step to finding the solution would be to identify the problem. Is underrepresentation the problem, or is it just a symptom?
Can African-Americans get into these colleges on their own merits, or have grades K-12 failed to adequately prepare them?
Is the problem with the public school system, or is it more about the home life of students?
Can we blame poverty for that?
Can we blame slavery, racism, and oppression for poverty?

Where do we start?

First thing to start at? Not always gunning for anything that was set up to try to get them back on the right path.

Then we look at the situation. Why are blacks primarily in the ghettos? Well, first off, like I've said before, the ghettos were actually not supposed to be the ghettos. They were supposed to be housing for the new young and modern successful couples, and then the great depression hit. Or people who came up from the South to help with the World War 2 effort.

And let's stick with the WW2 effort for a bit. They built up housing for the workers and their families. Oddly enough (and I'm sure not indictive of how blacks will be treated for generations to come), the white workers were given much better accommodations than whites, and no the races didn't live together.

While there were long waiting lists for the Black housing from people who came up to work for this country, there were new houses built for the white workers. With special clauses in the deeds to forbid non whites from owning or renting.

Those same whites who were making the same product built up a life, equity which they used to invest in themselves. After the factories stopped, they transitioned their skills to the private sector, using their homes for collateral to open up business. But after the factories stopped for blacks, they had no more money coming in. Nothing to put up for collateral to make their own businesses.

Again, Color of Law. It's an interesting watch. You can still look up that these deeds still have this wording on them.

Then we go to education. Where teachers themselves get together and say that even accounting for income level, Minorities still get less federal money for education.


Then we look at the people who wish to assign blame right back on the victim. When I give to charity, when I help, I don't hold my wallet to my chest and say "Wait... tell me everything that this person ever did, what his family has done historically, and where does his views lie so I can judge if I care enough to give". I'm not interested in passing judgment on someone who wants to better his or her lot in life. Because in the long run... I'm very selfish.

I realize the more people in my nation who can contribute leads to a better nation. It's the same analogy with the chain. A chain will only be as strong as it's weakest link. If you only put in time and effort to shine links that came from one store that you really love, and every once and again try to wash the other links that come from your dad or your brothers... when you attempt to use that chain, the weaker links will strain and break.

It's not the fault of those links because the person who are supposed to take care of it does not. But that's the situation we often find ourselves in.

 

[Trunkage]

The first step to finding the solution would be to identify the problem. Is underrepresentation the problem, or is it just a symptom?
Can African-Americans get into these colleges on their own merits, or have grades K-12 failed to adequately prepare them?
Is the problem with the public school system, or is it more about the home life of students?
Can we blame poverty for that?
Can we blame slavery, racism, and oppression for poverty?

Where do we start?

Here's some other possibilities:
How does information translate generationally? If you come from a home that has parents who didn't do well at school, it's unlikely you will do well at school. If you're only 5 to 7 generation removed from deliberately having learning banned, it might take a long time to catch up. Especially when you're learning was significant limited by segregation during that time.

Wirh BLM, a common discussion point for African Americans is how their afraid of cops. I would imagine that many authority figures, like teachers, would generate similar feelings

How do we value all people? Capitalism tends to only value certain traits and is that destructive? For example, in the workplace it doesn't value collaboration and values Authoritarism. Is there some way we can make compassion and collaboration profitable?

Slavery may be an issue but also the Southern Slave holders ideologies is worth of consideration. For example, they believed slavery was good for the African Americans. Usually reduced today to White Saviour complex. One way to see this is that African Americans are usually NOT invited to discussions about how to fix problems of their communities. It's usually other people telling them how they should live. But there are plenty of other issue that arose from that ideology. Eg. There is a tendency for some to think they cant work hard. I actually see this personally but Asians being the target. I've heard way too many, 'they work hard for an Asian' comments from colleagues. How much have we held onto those ideals?

African Americans were never parted of gangs before the Civil War and didnt really start til a bunch moved north. So, looking at people that were in gangs back then, the Irish and Italians, you can have a guess why African Americans started in gangs. Poor, ostracized (even in the north), targeted and limited prospects. But the Irish and Italians were gradually more accepted and most left gangs. Why dont we try to replicate that?

When you showed that graph, I was actually surprised. Just looking at them, they look like admittance rate for Africa Americans went from 8% to 4% after one law was passed. Possibly 50% reduction in numbers. That's... not good. Way more than I would have thought. Especially when it didnt happen to any other demographic. But was happy to see that it was gradually trending upward over time, closer to the demographics rate. I am interested in seeing why this later change happened.

 

[Houseman]

When you showed that graph, I was actually surprised. Just looking at them, they look like admittance rate for Africa Americans went from 8% to 4% after one law was passed. Possibly 50% reduction in numbers. That's... not good. Way more than I would have thought. Especially when it didnt happen to any other demographic. But was happy to see that it was gradually trending upward over time, closer to the demographics rate. I am interested in seeing why this later change happened.

The first thing that comes to mind is that the extra 4% of African-Americans were the ones that got in based on the color of their skin, and once that was made illegal and they had to compete in order to get in, they simply didn't measure up.

Edit: I got the book Mismatch, and I learned that the total number of black and Hispanic graduates (with a bachelors) in the five years before and after prop 209 were the same, despite the drop in acceptance.

 

[Agema]

The first thing that comes to mind is that the extra 4% of African-Americans were the ones that got in based on the color of their skin, and once that was made illegal and they had to compete in order to get in, they simply didn't measure up.

Okay, think this way.

I was a course admissions tutor for two years. Studies suggest that on average, for equal end attainment (as measured by degree result or ~20 years into career), British state school pupils have worse school grades than British independent school students. In other words, a state school student who scores BBB (120 points) is statistically likely to be about as good as an independent school student who scores AAB (136 points). Is this not a form of injustice, where a supposed merit-based system is actually disorted by parental wealth?

Equality laws mean that universities cannot offer state school students lower entry requirements than private school pupils, even though we know about the above: at least one unviersity tried, and it was shut down by the courts. Therefore the real, core societal inequality that's going on is in the school system, of privileged attainment due to wealth. What the law does in the name of "equality" in university admissions is to gratify and entrench that societal inequality.

This is not to say that affirmative action is necessarily without problems: it is difficult to sell to those in society who enjoy their privileges, and policies may be in places clumsy and ineffectual. But I also don't think that should blind us from the real privileges that exist, and that the debate and laws on "equality" can act to favour and protect privileges, not break them down.

 

[Trunkage]

What is this even a graph of? Is it for nationwide statistics, California statistics, statistics for jobs in California, statistics for college admissions in California?

Sorry. Got it from here

The Next California | Othering & Belonging Institute

belonging.berkeley.edu

Here's another with very close, but slightly off results (by a percetange here and there). The first is US Census Bureau data with projections, and the later is California Dept of Finance data

California's Population

Growth in the nation’s most populous state has slowed notably in the 21st century, with recent years bringing a drop in population due to higher deaths, lower births, and changes in migration. More than half of Californians under 24 are Latino while more than half of Californians 65 and older...

www.ppic.org

The first thing that comes to mind is that the extra 4% of African-Americans were the ones that got in based on the color of their skin, and once that was made illegal and they had to compete in order to get in, they simply didn't measure up.

Edit: I got the book Mismatch, and I learned that the total number of black and Hispanic graduates (with a bachelors) in the five years before and after prop 209 were the same, despite the drop in acceptance.

Maybe its 1%. Let's take Berkley only because its slightly easier to read. My tables show the African American percentage was about 7 in 1990 (and 6 recently but that's irrelevant for the time frame we are talking about.) Admittance looks to be 8% on your graph before 209 but it could be 7. So maybe one percent higher. It immediately dropped about 4 points after 209 but still at 7% of the total demographic.

Also, I was wrong about Latinos. They were always lagging in the 90s at around 26- 32% of the total population for the decade, but only getting 15-17% admittqance. They almost dropped half once 209 came in. Some of those would be illegal immigrants so I could understand if this rate was lower as they probably wouldn't be eligible.

Now, here are your assumption: the ONLY reason for this drop is performance based. Where's your evidence of that? All we got here is perhaps a correlation to 209 and reduce admittance rate. We haven't proved causality. If we are talking about Mismatch as your evidence, how many people have replicated his work? Because I provided some evidence that refutes his claims as they were biased. That he used dodgy data and massaged the results. Lefties are going to say that it based on racial bias, not performance that caused the drop, so you better have some evidence to refute that. The phrase: 'you're just throwing the word racist around to shut down conversations,' James Linsey or Jordan Peterson style, wont work here. You have to back up, with evidence, that something isn't racially motivated. For example, I noticed in your graph that Whites seem to be dropping in attendance so I went to try and find if 209 was biased against them. I found a reasonable solution of changing demographics shown in my graph and assuming that its not racially biased. But am willing to hear more evidence if it shows up to be wrong. I'm finding a possible cause but not saying there is a causation.

If the rate of bachelors was the same for African Americans and Latinos after 209, did the other demographics rise? Also, have a look at this page. https://datausa.io/profile/university/university-of-california-berkeley
Apparently, 4000 graduates in 2017 (about 240 grads at 6%, the current African American percentage in the demographics). 85,000 applications (5100 applications at 6%) That's 21 times higher. Are you tell me Berkley cant find 240 smart African Americans that can last the 4 years out of 5100. They can only find 160?

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Sorry. Got it from here

The Next California | Othering & Belonging Institute

belonging.berkeley.edu

Here's another with very close, but slightly off results (by a percetange here and there). The first is US Census Bureau data with projections, and the later is California Dept of Finance data

California's Population

Growth in the nation’s most populous state has slowed notably in the 21st century, with recent years bringing a drop in population due to higher deaths, lower births, and changes in migration. More than half of Californians under 24 are Latino while more than half of Californians 65 and older...

www.ppic.org

I see, thank you.

 

[Houseman]

Is this not a form of injustice, where a supposed merit-based system is actually disorted by parental wealth?

Sure, we can call it that. I never said that it wasn't an injustice. I fully believe that poorer schools in poorer neighborhoods churn out "worse" students.

Now, here are your assumption: the ONLY reason for this drop is performance based. Where's your evidence of that?

I have no evidence for that, it's just a hunch.

If the rate of bachelors was the same for African Americans and Latinos after 209, did the other demographics rise? Also, have a look at this page. https://datausa.io/profile/university/university-of-california-berkeley
Apparently, 4000 graduates in 2017 (about 240 grads at 6%, the current African American percentage in the demographics). 85,000 applications (5100 applications at 6%) That's 21 times higher. Are you tell me Berkley cant find 240 smart African Americans that can last the 4 years out of 5100. They can only find 160?

I was, the book was, comparing the five years before 209 with the five years after it. So, not 2017. But I don't know the answer to your question. The takeaway is that, given that acceptance dropped after 209, but graduating students remained the same, those "extra" students are dropouts.

 

[Agema]

Sure, we can call it that. I never said that it wasn't an injustice. I fully believe that poorer schools in poorer neighborhoods churn out "worse" students.

And what should we do about it, given that the political system is so abjectly disinterested in improving them to help kids better themselves?