Zone1 Let's Talk About "Merit"

[MizMolly]

I have an A.A. B.S. and M.A. I helped build or develop 3 NFP'S. Do not come here using a tweet from some black idiot that has nothing to do with the thread topic.

You can’t possibly have those degrees, since black people aren’t allowed to succeed and whites are keeping you from doing that.

 

[MizMolly]

whites are smarter, stronger and more successful. period. deal with it im2 im not black liar.

These traits are not racial. There are smart, strong and successful people of all races.

 

[JoeB131]

Correct my arithmetic if you need do.

Let's say that an average century has four generations. A thousand years has 40 generations. Six thousand years has 240 generations. An animal breeder will tell you that all kinds of things can be done with 240 generations.

The problem with that analogy is that humans aren't animals. Yes, you can domestic a dog breed over generations (or sooner), but humans have minds of their own. No matter how much you tried to impress Sally back in the day, she went with Jamal and you are still bitter.

That explains why whites and Orientals have higher IQ averages than Negroes, and much higher averages than Australian Aborigines, Pygmies of central Africa, and the San Bushmen of south east Africa.

No, it just proves that you get better results living with higher levels of technology. Check your privilege.

Save your threats of violence for those who are impressed by them.

Where did I threaten you with violence? By pointing out that you wouldn't last a day in the wilderness?

 

[JoeB131]

The irony is that the odds are 2:1 that he got into the grad program (if he indeed went) BECAUSE he was black, while a better-qualified white was rejected. And STILL he cries and whines.

Really? Because it seems to me that his posts are generally well researched and written. He's also crazy as a loon, but no one doubts the education level involved.

On the other hand, you sound like the kind of prissy person who sits behind a desk at a school shuffling papers around.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Okay, but it goes back to that fundamental question about whether equality means everybody gets three strikes or now blacks must get 4 and whites get 2. I personally think that free undergrad at any public college or university would resolve much of this affirmative action issue since about half of the top 30 universities are private universities and that is where you will see this legacy stuff more pronounced.

What's wrong with everyone getting 3 assuming you're referring to opportunities and not the three strike rules when it comes to getting locked up?

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Yes, it’s a business decision. If donors didn’t give big bucks to get their kiddo in, then the schools would have to raise the already sky high tuition substantially, and students from mere middle-class backgrounds (INCLUDING the blacks who get in because of skin color) wouldn’t be able to attend at all.

Being a business decision is irrelevant, they are admitted because of their parents' money, not based on their own merit.

I wonder how many of them are subpar students because they didn't have to work/work hard to get in? I think IM2's point is why isn't there all this angst about them being admitted and taking a slot from a more meritorious students when this has been going on long before Black people were even being allowed into these colleges for the most part.

 

[Lisa558]

Being a business decision is irrelevant, they are admitted because of their parents' money, not based on their own merit.

No, it is not irrelevant. They are admitted because the university can make use of big donations - and that benefits middle-class students since that lowers the cost for THEM. It’s a financial decision.

I wonder how many of them are subpar students because they didn't have to work/work hard to get in? I think IM2's point is why isn't there all this angst about them being admitted and taking a slot from a more meritorious students when this has been going on long before Black people were even being allowed into these colleges for the most part.

The reason there’s more angst about letting in black students due to their skin color, when they otherwise would have been rejected, is because it’s RACIST. I thought you were opposed to racist actions. Or is it different when the racism hurts whites?

 

[Dekster]

What's wrong with everyone getting 3 assuming you're referring to opportunities and not the three strike rules when it comes to getting locked up?

There is nothing wrong with everybody getting three strikes (baseball) but that really isn't reality on the ground at the moment. If it were, affirmative action would be a non-issue and would not continue to exist.

 

[JoeB131]

Why do they NEED to be representative of society as a whole? Why can’t they be representative of the most qualified students regardless of color instead of rejecting whites who are better students than the 2/3rds of blacks accepted? Doing so is racist, and punishes whites for their skin color.

Works on the assumption that there is a huge gap.

If they are admitting a black kid with a 2.0 GPA and a 1200 on his SAT, you'd be absolutely right, that would be silly.

If they are picking the black kid with the 3.6 GPA and a 1500 on his SAT over the Asian kid with a 3.7 GPA and a 1600 on his SAT, that's not a big enough difference, and you SHOULD look at other factors, including diversity, service to the community, etc.

Again, you don't have a big problem with the 43% of white students who get in on ALDC admissions.. you should have a problem with this.

 

[AZrailwhale]

You're making the OP's point. Those kids are not getting in due to "merit" they're getting in because their parents are wealthy mega Donar alumni.

So what? Money always has power. You might as well complain about gravity. Work hard, invest wisely and you could put your children or grandchildren into the university of your choice as legacies.

 

[AZrailwhale]

So you are okay with affirmative action letting less qualified people in as long as it benefits the affluent?

Interesting. But not surprising.

That's not affirmative action, it's economics. Show me a system anywhere in human history where the children of the rich and powerful don't have significant advantages over everyone else.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Then a simple enough solution. Let's get rid of legacies. That just means the rich white person who got in on a legacy will be replaced by an Asian kid who got in on test scores and GPA. Really won't do that much to help blacks.

Conversely, who is benefiting from AA now? Is it the black kid from the ghetto? Nope, it's usually the middle class or affluent black kid who comes from good circumstances because his parents did the hard work, but didn't get as good of grades and test scores as the Asian Kid who worked hard. Meanwhile, a lot of black kids are going to get free rides to college on Athletic Scholarships, even though if you watch some athletes on TV when they are being interviewed, they can't put together a coherent sentence in the King's English.

Final point. The ONLY reason why any cares about Harvard is that it and other Ivy League Schools are given an outsized role in business and politics. You have a Harvard Degree, that's a golden ticket for life, while the kid who did something like joined the military to pay for college and worked two minimum wage jobs while in attending classes will be happy to just get a state college degree.

So a simple enough solution-

Get rid of Legacies.
Ger rid of Athletic Scholarships
Get rid of Affirmative Action
Stop giving preferential hiring treatment to Ivy League schools.

I wouldn't be at all against that, but don't hold your breath. Any congresscritter to propose such a law wouldn't have a dime in his reelection coffers.

 

[AZrailwhale]

The problem with that analogy is that humans aren't animals. Yes, you can domestic a dog breed over generations (or sooner), but humans have minds of their own. No matter how much you tried to impress Sally back in the day, she went with Jamal and you are still bitter.



No, it just proves that you get better results living with higher levels of technology. Check your privilege.


Where did I threaten you with violence? By pointing out that you wouldn't last a day in the wilderness?

Homo Sapiens responds to genetic tinkering just like dogs, cats and cattle do. Selective breeding has been done by natural selection as long as the earth has existed. Breed frogs for bigger legs by only allowing the frogs with big legs to breed, you eventually get big frog legs to cook. Breed chickens with big breasts to other chickens with big breasts, you eventually get the Dolly Parton chicken breasts we take for granted. Make intelligence a desired trait and breed smart men with smart women and you get smarter children. Natural selection works; people have proven it over centuries with domesticated animals and people are no different biologically than other mammals.

 

[BackAgain]

A prime example of the length and consistency of a big lie is the distortion of Affirmative Action. Whites have been given what the right complains about blacks getting since the beginning of this country. The discomfort some whites have in recognizing how they benefit from race-based law and policy is evident in any discussion a person of color has with a person who opposes equal rights legislation. Do they not understand how long whites were hired, promoted, admitted into colleges, and even allowed citizenship rights only because of the color of their skin? Do they not question the qualifications of white legacy students?

While Harvard is currently gearing up for a lawsuit around affirmative action and discriminatory admissions policies against Asian Americans, the real vector for race-based discrimination goes on unchallenged: white privilege. While white privilege operates at every level of society, the case against affirmative action cleverly hides how white privilege influences college admissions specifically. This article will answer the question what is white privilege, and will explain how it is pertinent within the discussion of affirmative action and college admissions. To conclude the article, a discussion of how our understanding of white privilege can be rectified in concrete ways to help end racial discrimination in college admissions. The central argument of this article is that white privilege affects admissions in three crucial ways: the importance placed on legacy admissions and connections, affluence-restricted athletics, and wealth.

Before we can analyze how white privilege affects admissions, it is important to examine what white privilege means. Francis E. Kendall, author of Understanding White Privilege, explains white privilege as “having greater access to power and resources than people of color [in the same situation] do”. There are two main aspects of white privilege that have been identified over the last 50 years: 1) legal and systemic advantages, or overt white privilege 2) subconscious, psychological prejudice. As Cory Collins writes in his article “What is White Privilege, Really?”, “white privilege is both unconsciously enjoyed and consciously perpetuated. It is both on the surface and deeply embedded into American life”. This dual thrust of white privilege is critical to understanding how white privilege operates both visibly and behind the scenes. While there are some overt policies that can be directly critiqued as favoring whites, the subtle ways that white privilege operates can be much harder to identify. Within the realm of college admissions, both forms of white privilege operate in equal measure.

The first way that white privilege impacts admissions is through overt admissions preference through legacy admissions. To contextualize, legacy admissions are defined as “the boost that most private colleges and universities give to the children of alumni”. The the list of schools that place weight on legacy status include: Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Cornell, Georgetown, the University of Southern California and the University of Virginia. These students who are eligible for legacy consideration are called “legacies”, and they are “admitted at twice the rate of other applicants at some universities, and average SAT scores for legacies are, in some cases, [are] lower than the average scores of their peers”.

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​

While legacy admissions are not overtly racialized, Richard D. Kahlenberg explains that these advantages overwhelming benefit white students: “legacy preferences disproportionately benefit white students to the detriment of AsianAmerican, African-American, and Hispanic students… only 7.6% of legacy admits in 2002 were underrepresented minorities, compared with 17.8% of all students”. To drive this point home even further, while “Asian Americans composed 15.7% of all Harvard applicant [they only represented] 3.5% of alumni children”. While legacy admissions could benefit any student who has family that attended the university, research shows that legacy admissions disproportionately benefit white students. As a result, they form one arm of white privilege’s impact on admissions. In concurrence with legacy admission, elite private universities also place a large amount of weight on the connections of a student and there family. For example, “at the University of Texas at Austin, an investigation found that recommendations from state legislators and other influential people helped underqualified students gain acceptance to the school”. These preferences thus elevate “predominantly white, affluent applicants”.

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Study finds 43 percent of Harvard's white students are legacy, athletes, related to donors or staff

The number drops dramatically for black, Latino and Asian American students with less than 16 percent each coming from those categories, the study said.

www.nbcnews.com

‘Affirmative Action’ For Wealthy, White Students: Why Colleges’ Legacy Admissions Must End Now​

In 1963, Duke University admitted its first five Black undergraduates.

When I walked onto campus as a freshman 29 years later, most of my Black classmates and I were still the first in our families to attend the prestigious university. We—like many lower-income students across racial and ethnic backgrounds and first-generation college students—could not benefit from the legacy preference that was extended to our white, wealthier peers—a privilege bestowed upon applicants whose parents or grandparents are alum of the school.

While the United States Supreme Court prepares to decide whether race-based affirmative action should persist, legacy admissions—essentially “affirmative action” for wealthy and white students—remain untouched.

It’s time to demand colleges and universities end the unfair, unjust, and unearned privilege of legacy admissions that has excluded students of color and low-income students for decades.

Among the top 30 universities, legacy students have a 45% greater chance of being admitted than non-legacy students and fill between 10% and 25% of all available slots in an incoming class

'Affirmative Action' For Wealthy, White Students: Why Colleges' Legacy Admissions Must End Now

While the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to decide whether race-based affirmative action should persist, legacy admissions—essentially “affirmative action” for wealthy and white students that's excluded students of color and low-income students for decades—remain untouched.

newsone.com

Could you maybe be a lot more verbose next time? My idea has merit.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Being a business decision is irrelevant, they are admitted because of their parents' money, not based on their own merit.

I wonder how many of them are subpar students because they didn't have to work/work hard to get in? I think IM2's point is why isn't there all this angst about them being admitted and taking a slot from a more meritorious students when this has been going on long before Black people were even being allowed into these colleges for the most part.

A lot of legacies are sub-par students and turn into sub-par adults and failures. Just like most athletes who are handed full ride scholarships are failures after their sports careers are finished and they blow through the insane amounts of money, they are paid to play children's games. Money buys OPPORTUNIES, not guaranteed successes.

 

[Lisa558]

Works on the assumption that there is a huge gap.

If they are admitting a black kid with a 2.0 GPA and a 1200 on his SAT, you'd be absolutely right, that would be silly.

If they are picking the black kid with the 3.6 GPA and a 1500 on his SAT over the Asian kid with a 3.7 GPA and a 1600 on his SAT, that's not a big enough difference, and you SHOULD look at other factors, including diversity, service to the community, etc.

Again, you don't have a big problem with the 43% of white students who get in on ALDC admissions.. you should have a problem with this.

Except there IS a big gap. Black kids with a 3.3 are getting in while whites with a 3.6 are being rejected.

As far as the legacy admits, that’s done to get funds into the school. Nothing to do with racism.

 

[Hector12]

The problem with that analogy is that humans aren't animals. Yes, you can domestic a dog breed over generations (or sooner), but humans have minds of their own. No matter how much you tried to impress Sally back in the day, she went with Jamal and you are still bitter.

Natural selection works the same way animal breeding does. Civilization and cold climates select genetically for intelligence. Until very recently prosperous people were more prolific than poor people.

I never dated anyone named Sally. I never dated anyone who would have wanted to be in the same room with a black ghetto thug like your imaginary friend Jamal. You see they were not impressed with semi literate high school dropouts with no work history, and with several felony convictions and several illegitimate children they did nothing to support.

 

[Carl in Michigan]

I have an A.A. B.S. and M.A. I helped build or develop 3 NFP'S. Do not come here using a tweet from some black idiot that has nothing to do with the thread topic.

We all know about the "BS"

 

[JoeB131]

That's not affirmative action, it's economics. Show me a system anywhere in human history where the children of the rich and powerful don't have significant advantages over everyone else.

Then don't whine when it gets balanced out by affirmative action.

I wouldn't be at all against that, but don't hold your breath. Any congresscritter to propose such a law wouldn't have a dime in his reelection coffers.

Well, to start with, the Federal Government shouldn't be micromanaging admissions to that degree, anyway. But the colleges themselves should be doing this.

Homo Sapiens responds to genetic tinkering just like dogs, cats and cattle do. Selective breeding has been done by natural selection as long as the earth has existed. Breed frogs for bigger legs by only allowing the frogs with big legs to breed, you eventually get big frog legs to cook. Breed chickens with big breasts to other chickens with big breasts, you eventually get the Dolly Parton chicken breasts we take for granted. Make intelligence a desired trait and breed smart men with smart women and you get smarter children. Natural selection works; people have proven it over centuries with domesticated animals and people are no different biologically than other mammals.

The problem is, those animals have no say in the matter. People do. Unless you are going to practice actual eugenics and not let the "undesirables" breed, such factors really don't exist in humans.

 

[JoeB131]

Except there IS a big gap. Black kids with a 3.3 are getting in while whites with a 3.6 are being rejected.

As far as the legacy admits, that’s done to get funds into the school. Nothing to do with racism.

0.3 isn't a big gap. It's kind of a small one. And if you are going to let legacies and people who donate big money get in over kids with a 3.6, then you need to let the black kids in, too.