(split) Affirmative Action discussion

[Metaphor]

I agree the government shouldn't discriminate by race, either.

And what do you propose we do to deal with the long term effects of this injustice?

It depends on the specific effect you're talking about. It depends on how distant in time it was. It depends on how effectively we're able to action anything. It depends on the cure not being worse than the disease.

 

[laughing dog]

If a university graduate school selects based partly on GPA and aptitude, of course the process is biased towards selecting those with higher grades and aptitude; it's designed to do so. Grades and aptitude predict academic performance.

Apparently the only example you can handle is applicants to school. The world is larger than that.

Qualified candidates are not all alike. There are 47,000 anaesthesiologists in the United States. Each licensed anaesthesiologist is qualified to administer anaesthesia. That does not mean they are all as good as each other.

Without a well-defined objective measures of what constitutes the best qualified candidate, your argument is pointless.

I didn't say they were not well defined. I said they were not perfectly defined.

You have yet to come up with a well-defined measure.

There is no doubt that grades and aptitude predict academic success. This is true no matter what we discover about other factors in the future, and it's true if grades and aptitude predict 95% of the variance in academic success or 50% or 5%.

I don't know there is no doubt what predicts academic success without defining academic success. And none of this is relevant to people applying for jobs.

It is therefore fair to use grades and aptitude in a prediction equation to rank people for selection.

Not if there is more to going to school than "academic success".

The moral case against selecting people based partly on race has been settled. Or do you believe it was morally right for Harvard to exclude Jews from its economics department?

That involved rejection solely on a demographic characteristic which is not the same as selecting qualified candidates partly on demographic characteristics.

 

[laughing dog]

Well, the only thing I am assuming is that admissions counselors are basically honest when I've talked with them and when I read articles where they are quoted extensively.

If you read what I have written or better yet, the words of admissions counselors, you will see that indeed some perfect scorers do not get into some programs. Because being good at taking tests is no the same as being a good doctor.

I think you will find you are not correct in your other assumptions.

And when you assume, what do you do? Ass-u-me.

To tell the truth would get them nailed. Of course they're lying.

Speaking the truth you don't want to hear makes someone a liar. Do you realize how fucking ridiculous that makes you look?

 

[untermensche]

And when you assume, what do you do? Ass-u-me.

To tell the truth would get them nailed. Of course they're lying.

Speaking the truth you don't want to hear makes someone a liar. Do you realize how fucking ridiculous that makes you look?

The world is as I imagine and any testimony to the contrary is a lie.

 

[Never]

Moderator Note: This thread split from here by request. Please let me know via PM if I'm missed a post to move here or moved one here in error that needs to go back.

 

[Derec]

Yeah, you still don't understand how affirmative action works.

No, you don't understand it. For example, it certainly doesn't work like the silly cartoon Athena posted.

 

[Derec]

It is true that AA has been distorted in practice by some, but that does not mean that AA as originally designed is discriminatory.

As originally designed (Kennedy's and Johnson's executive orders) AA was intended to counter and remedy actual instances of racial discrimination, not to use racial discrimination to "help" certain favored groups. As such it is exactly the opposite of what AA has become.

 

[Toni]

It's not called affirmative action but yes, indeed: male candidates for primary school positions as well as for nursing are highly sought after.

If a university is preferencing male candidates for teaching and nursing degrees, that is appalling. A candidate's gender does not make him more qualified to be a teacher or nurse.

You musundestand. Universities are not making any such decisions. But sometimes workplaces do indeed hope for good candidates who are from under represented groups. I think we can all agree that young children benefit a great deal from positive male role models. Further, unfortunately many children do not have many or any of those on their day to day lives. Male elementary teachers are relatively rare: it's not a well paying profession. But their gender can be a positive asset. Similarly, some areas of nursing benefit especially from male nurses. This is not sexism so much as recognition that sometimes, care and instruction is best received from someone who has direct experience. New mothers will respond better to women giving advice about breast feeding. A man would perhaps feel more comfortable and confident receiving patient education from a male after say: a prostatectomy or a vasectomy. Two obvious examples.

 

[George S]

It is true that AA has been distorted in practice by some, but that does not mean that AA as originally designed is discriminatory.

As originally designed (Kennedy's and Johnson's executive orders) AA was intended to counter and remedy actual instances of racial discrimination, not to use racial discrimination to "help" certain favored groups. As such it is exactly the opposite of what AA has become.

AA was justified as a remedy. In medicine there are chronic conditions requiring lifetime treatment because there is no remedy. When there is a remedy it is removed when the patient is healthy.

Is racism a chronic disease of society needing permanent AA? If not, how do we decide when the patient is healthy and AA can be removed?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

As originally designed (Kennedy's and Johnson's executive orders) AA was intended to counter and remedy actual instances of racial discrimination, not to use racial discrimination to "help" certain favored groups. As such it is exactly the opposite of what AA has become.

AA was justified as a remedy. In medicine there are chronic conditions requiring lifetime treatment because there is no remedy. When there is a remedy it is removed when the patient is healthy.

Is racism a chronic disease of society needing permanent AA? If not, how do we decide when the patient is healthy and AA can be removed?

And how do we decide when the remaining problem is something else and thus continuing the treatment is a bad idea? (Personally, I think we reached that point decades ago.)

 

[Toni]

AA was justified as a remedy. In medicine there are chronic conditions requiring lifetime treatment because there is no remedy. When there is a remedy it is removed when the patient is healthy.

Is racism a chronic disease of society needing permanent AA? If not, how do we decide when the patient is healthy and AA can be removed?

And how do we decide when the remaining problem is something else and thus continuing the treatment is a bad idea? (Personally, I think we reached that point decades ago.)

Decades ago? How many decades ago, exactly? When do you think affirmative action* was put into place?

*By affirmative action, I mean the kind designed to help under represented demographics gain jobs and education in fields not typical for that demo. Not the affirmative action that favored white men to the exclusion or near exclusion of any other group.
That has been practiced for centuries.

 

[Horatio Parker]

As originally designed (Kennedy's and Johnson's executive orders) AA was intended to counter and remedy actual instances of racial discrimination, not to use racial discrimination to "help" certain favored groups. As such it is exactly the opposite of what AA has become.

AA was justified as a remedy. In medicine there are chronic conditions requiring lifetime treatment because there is no remedy. When there is a remedy it is removed when the patient is healthy.

Is racism a chronic disease of society needing permanent AA? If not, how do we decide when the patient is healthy and AA can be removed?

How many years of slavery/encoded segregation are we talking about? 350? Why not use that number as a guide.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

No, AA was never broadly justified as a remdy. It is only justified in very specific circumstances. You don't defeat discrimination with more discrimination. The better answer always has been and still remains fair and equal treatment for all. If individuals are held back, then they should be moved forward, but only as against those who held them back. Happening to belong to an earmarked grouping based on your skin colour and getting special treatment, good or bad, based on that, is racist discrimination. And worse yet, it is racist discrimination endorsed by the state. To do this and call it "Affirmative Action" or any other sanitized buzzword does not change that fact. The only place I would recommend points in hiring based on race is where the job actually calls for it and you can justify that call. This may allow for a limited amount of "Affirmative Action" if there is a shortage of say female or black police officers, who carry with them by their very race/gender an advantage in handling particular police situations.

 

[George S]

AA was justified as a remedy. In medicine there are chronic conditions requiring lifetime treatment because there is no remedy. When there is a remedy it is removed when the patient is healthy.

Is racism a chronic disease of society needing permanent AA? If not, how do we decide when the patient is healthy and AA can be removed?

How many years of slavery/encoded segregation are we talking about? 350? Why not use that number as a guide.

I am not sure that the rate of recovery from racism would take as long to fix as the disease has been in place. I had a physical ailment that had been there for years. The fix took one day.

There was severe racism against the Irish in New York once. "No Irishmen need apply." There was severe racism against the Japanese (we put innocent Japanese Americans in a prison camp because they were of Japanese heritage. Michio Kaku was in one. One O'Reilly in New York is quite successful (even though I think he's nuts). We had slavery of kidnapped Africans once. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is possibly the best astrophysicist on the planet, consultant to presidents. Isaac Asimov, of Jewish heritage, was a prolific writer.

Not sure it should take 350 years.

 

[none]

^ I guess racism has only been around a couple hundred years, thanks for you input... try again.

 

[George S]

No, AA was never justified as a remedy, at least not wholecloth. It is only justified in very specific circumstances. You don't defeat discrimination with more discrimination. The better answer always has been and still remains fair and equal treatment for all. If individuals are held back, then they should be moved forward, but only as against those who held them back. Happening to belong to an earmarked grouping based on your skin colour and getting special treatment, good or bad, based on that, is racist discrimination. And worse yet, it is racist discrimination endorsed by the state. To do this and call it "Affirmative Action" or any other sanitized buzzword does not change that fact. The only place I would recommend points in hiring based on race is where the job actually calls for it and you can justify that call. This may allow for a limited amount of "Affirmative Action" if there is a shortage of say female or black police officers, who carry with them by their very race/gender an advantage in handling particular police situations.

I was going with and accepting that assertion by a prior poster, um, Derec. Sort of an "even if AA was justifiable as a remedy."

There should be no groups which are favored. Underrepresented or not. It would be like having a Mexican quota for basketball. The rules of how to get into any given school should not take anything about race into account. Regrettably that is not yet fully the case today. Some practices ("legacy" students for example) lead to a school being very like it was a generation ago. Some Registrars and Admissions Directors are prejudiced. There are things we can do (not necessarily AA) and should do. Education about lingering racism. Education about how to see past personal prejudice. How to judge a person for what they do, not what they are. Etc.

Including discussions like these.

 

[laughing dog]

No, AA was never broadly justified as a remdy. It is only justified in very specific circumstances. You don't defeat discrimination with more discrimination. The better answer always has been and still remains fair and equal treatment for all. If individuals are held back, then they should be moved forward, but only as against those who held them back.

Wow, talk about entrenching the consequences of racism.

Happening to belong to an earmarked grouping based on your skin colour and getting special treatment, good or bad, based on that, is racist discrimination. And worse yet, it is racist discrimination endorsed by the state. To do this and call it "Affirmative Action" or any other sanitized buzzword does not change that fact. The only place I would recommend points in hiring based on race is where the job actually calls for it and you can justify that call. This may allow for a limited amount of "Affirmative Action" if there is a shortage of say female or black police officers, who carry with them by their very race/gender an advantage in handling particular police situations.

Doing nothing to deal with recognized consequences of racism is a form of racist discrimination. We don't live in some utopia where we can wave a magic wand and make everyone all better.

Making efforts to get qualified candidates by demographic characteristic is not necessarily racism. Automatically equating AA with racist discrimination is simply wrong whether motivated by high ideals or ignorance (persistent or willful) and plays into the hands of racists and their dupes.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Making efforts to get qualified candidates by demographic characteristic is not necessarily racism.

Yes, it is, unless the race of the person is actually a demonstrable advantage to the performance of the job. Such cases exist, but are rare, and it is just as wrong to assume wholecloth that every case should call for such discrimination based on race as to assume it never should.

Automatically equating AA with racist discrimination is simply wrong whether motivated by high ideals or ignorance (persistent or willful) and plays into the hands of racists and their dupes.

It is discrimination based on race, however you want to sanitize that. It may be justified in some cases, but yes, it is racist.

 

[laughing dog]

Yes, it is, unless the race of the person is actually a demonstrable advantage to the performance of the job.

Why, because you say so? Finding qualified candidates is a laudable goal. Do you realize there is a distinction between finding qualified candidates and hiring them?

Such cases exist, but are rare, and it is just as wrong to assume wholecloth that every case should call for such discrimination based on race as to assume it never should.

And it just as wrong to assume wholecloth that AA is racist.

It is discrimination based on race, however you want to sanitize that.

No, it isn't. Making an extra effort to find qualified candidates with specific under-represented characteristics does not require they be hired. Such qualified candidates may be unaware of the opening or opportunities for a variety of reasons. Such an effort may not be necessary for qualified candidates without such characteristics. It's called trying to level the playing field.

It may be justified in some cases, but yes, it is racist.

No, it isn't. But your attempts to portray it as racist play right into the hands of racists and their dupes.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

And what do you propose we do to deal with the long term effects of this injustice?

It depends on the specific effect you're talking about. It depends on how distant in time it was. It depends on how effectively we're able to action anything. It depends on the cure not being worse than the disease.

so you don'tt have a plan, just excuses to let the effects stands.