What should universities do about systemic racism?

[Troll]

On 6/18/2021 at 12:29 PM, maxchoboian said:

I was off-topic a bit, in talking more about employment than academic admissions.

What I found interesting is the process of an individual climbing the corporate ladder.

Minorities can be given opprtunities to work for companies. Then, for instance in the case of a sales organization or an accounting firm or a law firm, how an individual is initially assigned to a team or group within the organization is significantly influenced by their background ("He is from West Lafayette, the other candidate is from somewhere near Gary. Let's put the West Lafayette guy on my team" or "She went to Purdue, the other candidate went to IU-Fort Wayne. I'll take the Purdue grad" or "Bob Belly is his name, the other candidate is named Zhang Wong. Let's go with Bob Belly in our group"). The West Lafayette, Purdue, Bob Belly types are certainly more often selected for the higher profile groups/teams within organizations, which leads to considerably more exposure, and in turn creates many more opportunities for significant corporate advancement. This is what I find interesting, not neccessarily how many minorities are given entry-level positions.

LOLOLOL... must have missed this, but apparently you have never worked a corporate day in your life or just like to make your own shit up 🤣🤣   You are starting to sound like Anus 😝

Your story basis is how people get assigned to "groups", and that somehow groups are key to advancement in corp life? 🤪 LOL

Nobody gets placed into "geographic groups" when you hit your cubicle, if you are actually selecting people for tasks choosing the guy from Purdue is OBVIOUSLY more qualified than anyone from IU 😆, and somehow your name is now some magic ticket to get into  some high profile "exposure group" ??? 

Talk about making 💩 out of thin air 🤣🤪🤣

you are lost...

 

 

 

PS: Here...🍪 I'll give you a cookie...(as the best advantage one carries is knowledge).  I had one piece given to me upon entering corp life by the guy who put ESPN on paper and made it a company. 

"If you are looking to 'fast track' or get ahead in corp life, look for areas of crisis, and plant yourself firmly in the middle." 

There is one obvious caveat tho....you better be able to perform. 

BTW: THERE...now you have "the same advantage" (of successful family guidance), and it's the best piece of corp advise you will probably ever get...😉

 

 

 

[Bormio]

3 hours ago, Troll said:

LOLOLOL... must have missed this, but apparently you have never worked a corporate day in your life or just like to make your own shit up 🤣🤣   You are starting to sound like Anus 😝

Your story basis is how people get assigned to "groups", and that somehow groups are key to advancement in corp life? 🤪 LOL

Nobody gets placed into "geographic groups" when you hit your cubicle, if you are actually selecting people for tasks choosing the guy from Purdue is OBVIOUSLY more qualified than anyone from IU 😆, and somehow your name is now some magic ticket to get into  some high profile "exposure group" ??? 

Talk about making 💩 out of thin air 🤣🤪🤣

you are lost...

 

 

 

PS: Here...🍪 I'll give you a cookie...(as the best advantage one carries is knowledge).  I had one piece given to me upon entering corp life by the guy who put ESPN on paper and made it a company. 

"If you are looking to 'fast track' or get ahead in corp life, look for areas of crisis, and plant yourself firmly in the middle." 

There is one obvious caveat tho....you better be able to perform. 

BTW: THERE...now you have "the same advantage" (of successful family guidance), and it's the best piece of corp advise you will probably ever get...😉

 

 

 

Companies are paying lip service to all this nonsense, but ultimately they care about doing the job, and they are going to promote and hire those that can do it.  Individuals should forget all this counting of groups and focus on being excellent - that is what gets you noticed.

[Belly Bob]

5 hours ago, RedZone said:

You should read more in the winter...

Is that your secret? 

[Troll]

1 hour ago, Bormio said:

  Individuals should forget all this counting of groups and focus on being excellent - that is what gets you noticed.

 

Bingo LOL

 

And on the other side...🤣

people do best

who recognize that INDIVIDUAL drive....

...instead of trying to "group" any person.

go figure

🤓

[On2whls]

1 hour ago, Bormio said:

Companies are paying lip service to all this nonsense, but ultimately they care about doing the job, and they are going to promote and hire those that can do it.  Individuals should forget all this counting of groups and focus on being excellent - that is what gets you noticed.

Yes, our company has a number of metrics including one related to diversity.  But, it’s failure to meet the ebitda target that will compromise people’s status.  

[RedZone]

2 hours ago, Belly Bob said:

Is that your secret? 

One of them.......

[15yds4gibberish]

@Belly Bob

Happy Father's Day.

A lot to respond to in your last two posts.  I'm clearly out over my ski's and standard caveats apply.   I’m going to have to pick just a couple points from across both posts.

On 6/19/2021 at 2:45 PM, Belly Bob said:

...1) I'm thinking about all colleges...

Somehow saying this is a question that applies to all 5000ish colleges in the country waters it down, making it less interesting, at least to me.

For whatever reason, colleges and universities preside over the system by which modern societies allocate opportunity. 

I find Operation Varsity Blues (aka the college admissions scandal) interesting because of the mirror it holds up to our society.  I don’t think the debate is really about kids not not being able to get into college (setting price aside because I think that's a slightly different issue with yet more different remedy proposals) -- Dickenson State University is said to have a 100% acceptance rate.  I think the Varsity Blues parents bought their kids admission to academically prestigious campuses not only because they wanted them to study in the presence of academically gifted students, but because those colleges conferred the greatest meritocratic prestige. 

More than just bragging rights, the kudos associated with attending a highly selective college carry over into employment opportunity after graduation.  This isn’t mainly because employers believe students learn more at elite colleges, but because employers have faith in the sorting function these colleges perform and value the meritocratic honor they bestow.  I think access to this is what we are really talking about.

 

On 6/19/2021 at 2:45 PM, Belly Bob said:

...2) Though I have ideas about this and I think it's the right approach--I like to think of myself as an Aristotelian--I think it would take us too far afield....

I agree that asking the question ‘what is the purpose of a university’ has a ‘trying to boil the ocean’ feel to it – In no small part because it’s really a question about values both in the University and in American society as a whole.  We Americans like to avoid those if we can.  But I’d suggest not talking about it may no longer be a luxury available to us and we are already having the discussion.   Broadly speaking those who believe that universities exist to celebrate and reward scholarly excellence alone are likely to reject affirmative action, whereas those who believe universities also exist to promote certain civic ideals may well embrace it.  I see this dynamic playing out in this thread...

On 6/19/2021 at 2:45 PM, Belly Bob said:

One criticism that antiracists often make is that the academy isn't nearly as interested in antiracism as they pretend to be, which I think is fair,...

I think it fair too.  I think Uni’s pretend a lot of things about their mission that don’t ring true.  Not sure I could find any Harvard mission statement about building a $41B endowment – But here we are, spontaneous accident I guess.

On 6/19/2021 at 10:43 PM, Belly Bob said:

I think I get your point: Harvard continues to admit rich kids.  But I'm puzzled by what "academic merit" means here. Is it implausible that the wealthiest twenty percent of Americans would have about two thirds of it?...

To your point, the meaning of merit is fiercely contested.  In debates over affirmative action, for example, some argue that counting race and ethnicity as factors in admission violates merit; others reply that the ability to bring distinctive life experiences and perspectives to the classroom is a merit relevant to the the universities mission.

Many argue the SAT is the objective measure of academic merit.  But it turns out the SAT doesn’t measure scholarly aptitude or native intelligence independent of social and educational background.  To the contrary scores are highly correlated with wealth. 

I would say the statistics are out of line enough that I do find implausibility in the notion that 2/3 of the most academically meritus come from the top fifth economic slice of society.  The stats only get more troublesome the further you drill down into them.  A student from the top 1% is 77 times more likely to get into an Ivy than a student from the bottom 20%.  I’d suggest these numbers are skewed such that they don’t put the burden of proof on me, but rather places the burden on those that are claiming that elite universities are accomplishing much beyond reinforcing inequality by consolidating already existing wealth, access, and prestige.  

  

Given all that, back to the Warren piece:  Having not read any Foucault, my grasp of 'Faucauldian deconstructionism' is tenuous to non-existant.  While I think I disagree with at least half of her recommendations, I also think I hear some of the motivation behind them.  When it appears that the system reinforces American aristocracy by birth and then when the response to those who don’t succeed in that system is something like:  “If you didn’t make the cut, you have no one and nothing to blame but yourself, " and those who did make it feel morally pleased with themselves—their talents, discipline, good choices—and even take a grim kind of satisfaction when they come across someone who hasn’t made it, and the prevailing attitude is not “There but for the grace of God go I,” or even “Life is unfair,” but “You should have been more like me, "(don’t believe me, read this thread)  who standing on the outside of that system isn’t going to lose faith and call for reform?

[15yds4gibberish]

On 6/19/2021 at 10:43 PM, Belly Bob said:

...

I don't think this would work -- or work very well -- either. But would it fail to work because it was racist? That would be a bit of a surprise.

If our system is racist (in part) because those making admissions and hiring decision are influenced by their implicit biases, then you'd think we'd make the system less racist if we eliminated the information that might trigger those biases. The revised system might be worse for other reasons, but it would come as a bit of a surprise to me if it was worse for being more racist. 

Thinking about this a little more overnight, I don't think I adequately addressed the core part of your question touched upon above.

I think a lottery of the qualified could potentially work better than you might think.  An easy experiment would be to admit half  the class the old fashioned way and half the class through lottery and then track how the students under each system do.

Your question about bias is a little more nuanced – You gave a specific example elsewhere about too few females in engineering, so lets use that because it’s illustrative.  As I understand it, females are underrepresented in engineering, but as I further understand it, for whatever reason females tend not to apply to be engineers in the first place.

This is where the ‘what is the purpose of the university’ question comes in.  If you believe that the purpose of the university is to pick the most qualified students out of the pack of engineering applicants, then eliminating gender characteristics from the application process would eliminate bias.  If you believe that the purposes of the university is to promote civic values, and females in engineering is one of those civic values, then you haven’t corrected for any bias that may have occurred that discouraged females from applying in the first place.

In principle, the lottery could be adjusted to ensure diversity along any particular dimension a college deemed compelling by assigning a student in a favored category two lottery tickets (or whatever weighting).

[Atticus Finch]

On 6/17/2021 at 9:52 PM, Bormio said:

All we do is talk about race and oppression.  I used to think more dialogue was good, I no longer do.  We need to stop talking about this.  It is hurting everyone. 

"I used to think more dialogue was good but now I don't. The more I heard about it the more uncomfortable I became. Stop it!" 

🤡

[Atticus Finch]

On 6/18/2021 at 6:01 AM, BUFORDGAWOLVES said:

White Privilege is the result, White Fragility is the reaction when confronted with reality. 

@Bormio literally explained white fragility in full and yet was somehow totally unaware of it.

[Atticus Finch]

On 6/17/2021 at 11:19 PM, Ga96 said:

Not to mention those that are willing to remain ignorant on matters that effect others because they benefit from things like systematic racism.

Yes, the people who always want the dialogue to stop are the ones who themselves never have to worry about the effects of systematic racism in their lives.

Three people actually liked @Bormio's stupid post.

Think about that.

[Nolebull813]

Can someone post a link from a down the center publication that shows an in-depth look of a specific system that is trafficking in racism? 
 

 

[Atticus Finch]

On 6/18/2021 at 9:20 AM, badrouter said:

Reacting harshly or defensively to the assertion that, through no fault of your own, but by your very existence, you are an oppressor is a human reaction. Not one withheld only for people of a certain race.

But humans are inherently flawed.

Your post here is seemingly a defense of any reaction that is inherently human. So if I kill someone in the heat of passion it's just a human reaction. So it must then be OK.

I've never seen badrouter make a good argument about anything.

[Atticus Finch]

On 6/18/2021 at 12:13 PM, badrouter said:

The idea that any disparity in outcomes based on race is automatically a product of discrimination is ludicrous. 

I agree.

But, of course, that's not what's being said.

It would be easier to take you seriously if you ever understood what you were talking about.

[Nolebull813]

Nevermind I found it. 
 

Yoga. Yoga is the culprit 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-yoga-american-white-supremacy-michigan-state-university-shreena-gandhi-racism-professor-a8185206.html%3famp

[Atticus Finch]

On 6/18/2021 at 12:29 PM, maxchoboian said:

I was off-topic a bit, in talking more about employment than academic admissions.

Don't expect any of those clowns to give your post a fair reading.

Belly Bob will continue to push his Asian narrative despite the fact that Asians don't disproportionately make hiring decisions which is what I think you were referring to.

Any "advantage" Asians have in employment is overwhelmingly through merit and not preferential treatment or systematic racism.

Therefore, this issue doesn't apply to them.

[Atticus Finch]

On 6/18/2021 at 12:45 PM, Bormio said:

White people being racist vs Asians results in them being over represented in universities 

White people being racist vs African Americans causes them to be under represented in universities 

Got it

You are not a serious person.

We already knew that.

[Atticus Finch]

On 6/19/2021 at 8:09 PM, 15yds4gibberish said:

I've read about similar reform suggestions for Harvard admissions  -- Make it a lottery of the qualified.  

Every year 40,000+ students apply for roughly 2000 spaces.  Admissions officers tell us that a great many of those who apply are qualified to do the work and do it well.  So winnow out the ones obviously not qualified, and toss the remaining 30,000 (or 25,000 or 20,000) down the stairs and pick up a random 2,000 for admission.

Malcolm Gladwell talked about this and I agree. Define a standard of admission to these elite schools and then take every qualified individual and place them into a lottery.

[Atticus Finch]

19 minutes ago, Nolebull813 said:

Can someone post a link from a down the center publication that shows an in-depth look of a specific system that is trafficking in racism? 

No source would meet your criteria and you don't even understand what systemic means.

You're basically a lost cause.

[Nolebull813]

7 minutes ago, Atticus Finch said:

No source would meet your criteria and you don't even understand what systemic means.

You're basically a lost cause.

What’s the system? What’s holding down people say born in the 1980’s and beyond? 

[Atticus Finch]

12 minutes ago, Nolebull813 said:

What’s holding down people say born in the 1980’s and beyond? 

The entire history of the United States that came before them and shaped everything that exists today.

Cumulative advantage is a real thing and that explains the difference between, say, being rich and being wealthy.

If you don't understand these things then you're hopeless like I said.

[badrouter]

41 minutes ago, Atticus Finch said:

But humans are inherently flawed.

Your post here is seemingly a defense of any reaction that is inherently human. So if I kill someone in the heat of passion it's just a human reaction. So it must then be OK.

I've never seen badrouter make a good argument about anything.

The assertion being made is that defensive reactions are direct evidence of being guilty of the initial accusation of being racist. And that is total bullshit.

[Atticus Finch]

Just now, badrouter said:

The assertion being made is that defensive reactions are direct evidence of being guilty of the initial accusation of being racist. And that is total bullshit.

No.

Defensive reactions are direct of evidence of being uncomfortable with the conclusions that must be drawn.

You are the driver of the clown car on this topic.

[Nolebull813]

The only system of racism and oppression against black people I have seen in my life is the Democratic Party. 
 

They teach minorities that they are helpless victims that can not achieve greatness because white supremacists are holding them back. All the black judges, doctors, accountants etc etc just slipped through when those dastardly klan members weren’t looking. 
 

Also, the highest percentage of black people live in cities/areas run completely by Democrats down the line. When you think of places like Chicago, Baltimore, Washington DC, New York, Philly, Atlanta, New Orleans etc etc the first things that come to mind are Democrat controlled and extreme violence. 
 

By far the worst system for blacks in America is the dem party 

[Belly Bob]

46 minutes ago, Atticus Finch said:

Malcolm Gladwell talked about this and I agree. Define a standard of admission to these elite schools and then take every qualified individual and place them into a lottery.

Whether this would satisfy the concerns of those who advocate greater diversity will depend on how one defines "standard of admission."

As @15yds4gibberish suggested, standardized tests favor the rich over the poor. Asians do better than other races. Men do better than woman, especially on the math potion.

My guess is that any standard which was "blind" to race and gender and class would favor some over others and therefore promote or even constitute (depending on who you ask) systemic racism or sexism or classism.