Justice Department Finds Yale Illegally Discriminates Against Asians and Whites

[Specter Von Baren]

Justice Department Finds Yale Illegally Discriminates Against Asians and Whites in Undergraduate Admissions in Violation of Federal Civil-Rights Laws

The Department of Justice today notified Yale University of its findings that Yale illegally discriminates against Asian American and white applicants in its undergraduate admissions process in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The findings are the result of a two-year...

www.justice.gov

Any thoughts on this?

 

[meiam]

One thing I'd love to see whenever this comes up, but is never actually discussed, is the rate of graduation of the various group that get preferential treatment. Like if the university preferentially allow latino/black with lower grade then asian/white, does this translate to lower graduation numbers (particularly for people at the bottom of the grade rank)? If yes, then doesn't this show that admitting them based on race is ultimately pointless and is only harmful to the group being discriminated against? If not, doesn't this mean that admitting based on grade is ultimatly pointless and should be moved away from?

 

[Iron]

Nothing ever happens, unless a serious class-action lawsuit strips the school of big bucks.

 

[Tireseas]

Any thoughts on this?

Considering the Sessions/Barr Justice Department has been surprisingly consistent with its treatment of anything related to civil rights, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

That said, while the DoJ has heft when it comes to legal interpretations, the relevant cases are already in the appellate process, so at most it would be considered the government's position in the matter.

When it comes to the Supreme Court, it's unclear what the result is going to be. The court has generally favored giving discretion to universities on the make-up of its classes so long as they are not using a racial quota system. Conversely, the conservative justices have generally been hostile to the idea of affirmative action in general. I can see a 5-4 ruling to maintain allowance of the practices (possibly unpublished, though unlikely) with Roberts being the swing justice, but we'll probably only find out once the court issues a decision on the matter.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

One thing I'd love to see whenever this comes up, but is never actually discussed, is the rate of graduation of the various group that get preferential treatment. Like if the university preferentially allow latino/black with lower grade then asian/white, does this translate to lower graduation numbers (particularly for people at the bottom of the grade rank)? If yes, then doesn't this show that admitting them based on race is ultimately pointless and is only harmful to the group being discriminated against? If not, doesn't this mean that admitting based on grade is ultimatly pointless and should be moved away from?

Partly, I believe a good chunk of them switch majors to the easier social sciences. But I'd need to actually go find an article on this first to confirm.

 

[Houseman]

One thing I'd love to see whenever this comes up, but is never actually discussed, is the rate of graduation of the various group that get preferential treatment. Like if the university preferentially allow latino/black with lower grade then asian/white, does this translate to lower graduation numbers (particularly for people at the bottom of the grade rank)?

There's a book on this (and a research paper by the same author) called "Mismatch"
The conclusion is that the rate of graduation of the group that gets preferential treatment is lower.

If yes, then doesn't this show that admitting them based on race is ultimately pointless and is only harmful to the group being discriminated against?

Yes it does. But nobody wants to admit that for political reasons.

 

[Worgen]

Considering the justice department we have at the moment, I am very skeptical about how unbiased this finding is.

 

[tstorm823]

One thing I'd love to see whenever this comes up, but is never actually discussed, is the rate of graduation of the various group that get preferential treatment. Like if the university preferentially allow latino/black with lower grade then asian/white, does this translate to lower graduation numbers (particularly for people at the bottom of the grade rank)? If yes, then doesn't this show that admitting them based on race is ultimately pointless and is only harmful to the group being discriminated against? If not, doesn't this mean that admitting based on grade is ultimatly pointless and should be moved away from?

The success in college of people selectively chosen based on their race rather than their competence is often lower than their peers, and some argue a detriment to their long term success if they had been instead sent to a lower school. A mid-tier private school recruiting specifically black students away from a basic state school might actually hurt their chances of career success.

But probably not in this case. The problem with using Ivy League schools for all these law suits is that Ivy League schools have infinitely more competent applicants than they need, so they could pick any arbitrary demographic breakdown they want to and likely still fill every slot with a successful student. Black students may be less represented at the top than Asian students in a competitive sense, but there are almost certainly enough smart, hard working black seniors graduating from high school to fill an entire Yale class with people who can do well there.

 

[Hawki]

Not sure why AA is still a thing, but what do I know?

Also, on a related note:

Affirmative Action in a Multiethnic Nation

India’s reticular caste system poses unique problems. Legions of ethnic groups seek categorization as “backwards classes.”

quillette.com

 

[Trunkage]

There's a book on this (and a research paper by the same author) called "Mismatch"
The conclusion is that the rate of graduation of the group that gets preferential treatment is lower.



Yes it does. But nobody wants to admit that for political reasons.

When there is more evidence other than Sanders own work, this book and his work won't have consensus in the scientific realm. At this point, his claims are about as true as Flat Earthers, Anti-Vaxxers or Climate Skeptics

But then Conservatives still believe the Charles Murray nonsense so... I dont expect any proof to matter

And I dont think they should be allowed in based on race. For example, whites are definitely over represented in Yale based on average test scores. All this ruling will do is makes sure whites are pushed out of higher education... if entrance was ever based on results and performance. Which it has never been. It's only ever been about money

 

[Houseman]

When there is more evidence other than Sanders own work...

There is! He talks all about it in his book. Turns out, most everybody has replicated his findings and has come to the same conclusion that he has, and the ones that haven't have been (silently) issued corrections once Sanders pointed out that their math was wrong.

I have the book. Want me to drop some titles and names of all the papers and authors that replicated his findings?

At this point, his claims are about as true as Flat Earthers, Anti-Vaxxers or Climate Skeptics

Have Flat Eathers, Anti-Vaxxers or Climate Skeptics gotten papers published in the Stanford Law Review?

Seems like you're just dismissing science because it conflicts with your political views, Mr. "I-don't-expect-proof-to-matter-to-Conservatives"

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

This is the same justice department that thought that firing dudes who liked dudes but not firing ladies who liked dudes wasn't discrimination based on sex, somehow.

I think it's safe to say that they're pushing politics more than sound case law

 

[Agema]

There is! He talks all about it in his book. Turns out, most everybody has replicated his findings and has come to the same conclusion that he has, and the ones that haven't have been (silently) issued corrections once Sanders pointed out that their math was wrong.

No.

Sander, in writing a book for the public, was freed from the stricter demands of academic literature to address the wider range of opinions in the field. This meant he was able to present himself and his hypothesis in the best possible light. The advantage of this can be to go "over the heads" of dissenting peers to take the argument straight to the media and public, some of whom naturally treat it as fact just because it looks authoritative.

What we actually need to do is to go back to the academic literature and see what lots of people who do research on the area say when they speak for themselves. With just a brief search, it is plain that there are considerable criticisms of Sander's methodology and conclusions. Sander's hypothesis remains controversial, and the argument rages on.

 

[Trunkage]

There is! He talks all about it in his book. Turns out, most everybody has replicated his findings and has come to the same conclusion that he has, and the ones that haven't have been (silently) issued corrections once Sanders pointed out that their math was wrong.

I have the book. Want me to drop some titles and names of all the papers and authors that replicated his findings?



Have Flat Eathers, Anti-Vaxxers or Climate Skeptics gotten papers published in the Stanford Law Review?

Seems like you're just dismissing science because it conflicts with your political views, Mr. "I-don't-expect-proof-to-matter-to-Conservatives"

Hey, how you doing! Gotta couple of things for you

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals

Subscription and open access journals from SAGE Publishing, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

This one talks about how black students improve performance at highly contested schools

Assessing Affirmative Action - American Economic Association

Assessing Affirmative Action by Harry Holzer and David Neumark. Published in volume 38, issue 3, pages 483-568 of Journal of Economic Literature, September 2000, Abstract: Economic research provides extensive evidence regarding discrimination against women and minorities, and some evidence on...

www.aeaweb.org

This one talks about how there is little to no performance loss due to AA

The Shape of the River

The landmark New York Times bestseller that demonstrates the benefits of race-conscious admissions in higher education

press.princeton.edu

Here's one comparing black performance of those admitted and not admitted.


Here's some interesting facts about Blum, who regularly does this Anti-AA cases. Particularly from about the 11 min mark

It looks at a case that Blum filed a few years ago where someone stated they were effected by AA. And, it's true, 5 blacks students got in with worse results when she didn't .... and 42 other students from other demographics got in with worse results. And 168 students with results equal to her or BETTER than here didn't get in. I wonder, if it wasn't Affirmative Action that caused her rejection, what could have? (Please go have a look around because its not that hard to find and will tell you why whites are very over represented in Universities)

And, as previously discussed by the graph you provided last time, letting go of AA in CA reduces the black demographics by half, falling way lower than the general population. Mainly because blacks are generally less rich and cant afford the kickbacks you need to get in.

Also, just to be clear, what do you think Affirmative Action does for blacks?

 

[Houseman]

Sander, in writing a book for the public, was freed from the stricter demands of academic literature to address the wider range of opinions in the field. This meant he was able to present himself and his hypothesis in the best possible light. The advantage of this can be to go "over the heads" of dissenting peers to take the argument straight to the media and public, some of whom naturally treat it as fact just because it looks authoritative.

In his book, he recounts how he followed proper procedure to disprove his critics on the academic stage, which is why and how those papers critical of him were issued corrections. He doesn't go "over their heads" and lambaste his critics in his book, he simply describes how he was able to originally lambaste them when they first appeared.

, it is plain that there are considerable criticisms of Sander's methodology and conclusions.

Lempert (an author in both those links) is actually mentioned in his book as being one of his critics. He credits Lempert as being the one to kick off the debate and bring media attention in on it.

However the book (2012) precedes this latest piece (2016), so of course there's no comment on what you linked. In the book, he recounts how he responded to Clydesdale, Ayres and Brooks, and Barnes.

Sander's hypothesis remains controversial, and the argument rages on.

It will always remain controversial and the argument will always rage on, because it's mainly a political argument. Scientists will say one thing, and politicians will say the other.

Did you know that, before Sander's paper was published, Stanford announced a national competition to gather critiques against his paper, so that when his paper was published, it was published alongside four other critiques? Did you know that Sander was essentially blacklisted from his former research body (the body that collected the data that he used to publish his paper) over this paper?

Academia doesn't want to admit that it was wrong, so of course it's in their best interest to keep this marked under "controversial". People were writing critiques against his paper before it was even published, that's how "controversial" it is.

 

[Houseman]

Had to double-post for some unknown reason. TECH TEAM, IS IT SO HARD TO EXPOSE THE ACTUAL ERROR MESSAGES?

This one talks about how black students improve performance at highly contested schools

I believe you, but how do you know that? That's not what it says in the abstract. Can you access the full article, or did you read a summary of it somewhere?

Here's one comparing black performance of those admitted and not admitted.

"The Shape of the River" is also directly mentioned in the "Mismatch" book. It's not a critique of Mismatch, and in fact, predates it. One of the problems with their findings, is that they refused to make their data available to other scholars for replication. The author also noted that because of how they were looking at the data, it could be seen as a confirmation of mismatch due to something called the "cascade effect". As tstorm correctly pointed out, the elite schools at the very top can choose the best minority candidates. They don't have to lower their standards. The next "second-choice" college gets the left-overs, and they pick from that, and the same goes with the third and fourth choices. Each time you move "down" the ladder, the effect becomes more pronounced because the candidates become "worse".

The problem with The Shape of the River" is that they only looked at these Tier 1 schools and said "See? Minority students are succeeding! This is a good thing!"
But they can't explain why minority students at Tier 2 and Tier 3 schools are getting lower grades and dropping out at proportionally higher rates. That's how it can be seen as a confirmation. The facts line up.

It looks at a case that Blum filed a few years ago where someone stated they were effected by AA. And, it's true, 5 blacks students got in with worse results when she didn't .... and 42 other students from other demographics got in with worse results. And 168 students with results equal to her or BETTER than here didn't get in. I wonder, if it wasn't Affirmative Action that caused her rejection, what could have? (Please go have a look around because its not that hard to find and will tell you why whites are very over represented in Universities)

That's fine, I'm not arguing against AA from the perspective that "this White student was kept out so that a Black student could get in", or anything like that. I'm arguing against it from the perspective of "this does more harm than good to the students for whom the bar is lowered"

And, as previously discussed by the graph you provided last time, letting go of AA in CA reduces the black demographics by half, falling way lower than the general population. Mainly because blacks are generally less rich and cant afford the kickbacks you need to get in.

Or maybe it's because they didn't have the grades and test scores necessary to get in without racial preferences?

Also, just to be clear, what do you think Affirmative Action does for blacks?

I think it helps a small minority of blacks, but hurts the rest.

 

[Agema]

In his book, he recounts how he followed proper procedure to disprove his critics on the academic stage, which is why and how those papers critical of him were issued corrections. He doesn't go "over their heads" and lambaste his critics in his book, he simply describes how he was able to originally lambaste them when they first appeared.

It will always remain controversial and the argument will always rage on, because it's mainly a political argument. Scientists will say one thing, and politicians will say the other.

Did you know that, before Sander's paper was published, Stanford announced a national competition to gather critiques against his paper, so that when his paper was published, it was published alongside four other critiques? Did you know that Sander was essentially blacklisted from his former research body (the body that collected the data that he used to publish his paper) over this paper?

Academia doesn't want to admit that it was wrong, so of course it's in their best interest to keep this marked under "controversial". People were writing critiques against his paper before it was even published, that's how "controversial" it is.

1) You've effectively argued that Sander is right because he says he is. This is not a useful argument.
2) A de facto ad hominem that Sander is a scientist (he's not, by the way) but that the people who disagree with him are "politicians" is not useful.
3) I do not think this supposed "competition" occurred in the way you present. As a preamble, this isn't "Stanford", it's "Stanford Law Review", which is independent from the university. It would be scandalously unethical for a journal to invite opposition to an as-yet unpublished paper. Secondly you can look up the volume of the journal, and there doesn't appear to be four critiques of the article in the same volume. It is more likely that after publication of a very controversial paper, the journal invited comment, which is completely normal, and it's not a "competition".
4) It is another ad hominem to say "academia doesn't want to admit it is wrong". After all, it's easy enough for me to say you and Sander don't want to admit you're wrong either. It doesn't get anyone anywhere for everyone to accuse each other of bias.

 

[Houseman]

It would be scandalously unethical for a journal to invite opposition to an as-yet unpublished paper

And yet, that is what happened, if we can take Sander's word on it. Here's what he says in his book:

"...They did, however, agree to a request from Stanford's administration that they publish multiple responses to "Systemic Analysis". A national competition was announced and they recieved dozens of proposals. What neither the entrants nor I knew at the time was that the Review editors, again under pressure from their school administrators, would only publish critiques of "System Analysis." Commentators who found my analysis persuasive and important were effectively excluded from the competition.

This meant that regardless of actual content, the Stanford Law Review's follow-up issue would, by design, feature four articles (with a total of eight well-known authors, as it would turn out) all arguing that "Systemic Analysis" was wrong. The idea of giving equal time to my opponents had reached, in this most crucial instance, the level of caricature." (emphasis his)

But I was wrong about the critiques appearing in the same issue. As the quote says, they appeared in the next issue.

You can deny it, but there is a clear bias in academia, not only around this subject, but in other subjects as well. It is not unhelpful to point out bias where it exists, just as it is not unhelpful to point out Sander's own bias. Understanding this bias, the reasons for it, and what effects it produces, is absolutely necessary.

In a few pages previous to the quote I included above, there's also this:

"...There are several hallmarks of healthy academic discourse: When new work is published raising original and potentially important claims, other scholars try to replicate the work (i.e, check its results), acknowledge what is and is not disputed, clarify the hypotheses under debate, obtain and share new data relevant to shedding further light on the contested issues, engage in careful debate, and help the broader academic community understand the progress of knowledge on the issue.

Little or none of that was evident here. Important academics and institutions in legal academia often reacted as though my work was simply evil- a demagogic, mortal threat to one of their proudest achievements. The thrust of their responses was that my ideas were so flawed that they did not merit serious discussion. A recurring subtheme from both academics and reporters was that I was mentally unbalanced; one law review published an entire article devoted to analyzing what in my psychological makeup could have caused me to write "Systemic Analysis." Regardless of the motive for many of these attacks, their effect was both to discredit me and to warn off the many reasonable observers in the middle: Stay away, or you, too, will be caught in the crossfire..."

 

[Agema]

But I was wrong about the critiques appearing in the same issue. As the quote says, they appeared in the next issue.

Okay. This is not so unusual.

You can deny it, but there is a clear bias in academia, not only around this subject, but in other subjects as well. It is not unhelpful to point out bias where it exists, just as it is not unhelpful to point out Sander's own bias. Understanding this bias, the reasons for it, and what effects it produces, is absolutely necessary.

Pointing out bias is useful. But what bias, why, and what supporting evidence is there for it all?

As a tangent, do you mean in universities as educational institutions, or in academic research, because they're two rather different things that should not be conflated. (There is of course bias in both, but of different types.)

I'm concerned here of pressing the trope of the hero, maverick truth-teller who is shut down by an oppressive, stupid and fearful "establishment". It is a very simple narrative, and can be more appealing than real. Sander, of course, is not without very substantial political support of his own.

"...There are several hallmarks of healthy academic discourse...

Yes, he might say that. But why should we just take his word for it?

 

[Houseman]

As a tangent, do you mean in universities as educational institutions, or in academic research, because they're two rather different things that should not be conflated. (There is of course bias in both, but of different types.)

I wouldn't know how to distinguish one from the other, but one example from the book is that the Law School Admissions Council. They administer the LSAT exam and were also the largest single funder of the data-gathering study that was central to Sander's work called "After the JD".

LSAC didn't like Sander's work, so they tried to demand that "all scholarship coming from AJD be "cleared" with it before publication", which didn't work as that was an obviously unethical, and nobody had ever agreed to anything like that when they first started working with AJD. Next, they said that they'd withhold funding AJD if Sander was still on the coordinating committee. At this time, Sander had already moved on, but they scrubbed all mention of him from the project. Around this time, LSAC also fired a senior staff member who had been "contentiously accused of being too sympathetic to [Sander's] work".

Previously to all of this, in the 1970s, people accused the LSAT, and therefore, LSAC, of being biased against minorities, so they were trying to shake that image. This was one of the ways in which they tried to do that.

So is this a problem of bias in educational institutions or in academic research, because here we clearly see an institution bullying a research group because the former didn't like the scholarship coming out of the latter? Like I said, I don't know.