dagblog - Comments for "Affirmative Action for Unqualified Whites"

I suspect a lot more

AnonymousPP — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 18:45:46 +0000

In reply to Yes, athletic ability is, as

I suspect a lot more donations from alumni enthusiastic about sports performance than academics. A lot of trickle down effect from one super jock. School spirit etc.

For what it's worth, I agree

Ramona — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:08:25 +0000

In reply to You know, anonymous, other

For what it's worth, I agree completely with you, Doc. I've seen no evidence that she was such a sterling student she should have been chosen over anyone else, no matter their color.

I never had to worry about any of this, thanks to an annoying and ultimately destructive habit of daydreaming when I should have been paying attention, but I did work hard to help get my grandson into U-M. He had a good but not great GPA, but he was a whiz at test-taking, so his SAT scores were always right up there. He started out as a math major, which was an advantage since schools were actively looking for math and science majors then.

If he hadn't been chosen I can't imagine any of us would have chalked it up to discrimination or AA. It is what it is. There are hundreds of kids vying for every slot. Some get chosen and some don't. That's life.

Sorry, forgot to post the

Dan Kervick — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 05:41:10 +0000

In reply to You are relying on Wikipedia

Sorry, forgot to post the Walton link. Here it is:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=27&ved=0CFE...

You are relying on Wikipedia

Dan Kervick — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 05:36:21 +0000

In reply to Begging the question: is a

You are relying on Wikipedia gibberish for your definition of pettio principii. You shouldn't. Check out some logic textbooks, and you will get better accounts. Here is a better discussion by Douglas Walton.

Your final paragraph is so garbled that I can't even understand it. But trying to guess at what you are saying, I can only reiterate that the constitutional issue is not whether a state is permitted to use race-sensitive admissions policies. The court has already determined that it may do this to achieve certain purposes. The issue will be whether this particular race-sensitive policy satisfies the criteria for constitutionality that the court has already laid out - or can be justified on some other constitutional grounds that the court has not yet articulated.

The background issue here is that Texas's schools are very nearly racially segregated. So the plaintive has argued that the 10% rule - all students in top 10% of their classes get in automatically - already suffices for UT to achieve its legitimate racial diversity goals.

Begging the question: is a

Elusive Trope — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 05:09:39 +0000

In reply to Sorry, but I do know what

Begging the question: is a type of logical fallacy in which a proposition relies on an implicit premise within itself to establish the truth of that same proposition. In other words, it is a statement that refers to its own assertion to prove the assertion. Such arguments are essentially of the form "A is true because A is true" though rarely is such an argument stated as such. Often the premise 'A' is only one of many premises that go into proving that 'A' is true as a conclusion.

Now - you state: The issue is whether this particular policy is constitutional.

So...a policy that allows for the top 10% academically to make it in no questions asked and then for the spot that remaining the state determines it will use among the qualifications race is not constitutional? How so? I mean constitutionally? Where in the constitution is that found? Please explain.

What is your basis for

Dan Kervick — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 04:58:00 +0000

In reply to You know, anonymous, other

What is your basis for claiming that she is not qualified? There is no a priori standard of qualifications for admission to a college. The admissions standards themselves are what establishes the qualifications for admissions, and she is challenging the fairmess of those standards.

And she is not asserting some sort of privilege to decide herself . She is asking the court to decide.

Sorry, but I do know what

Dan Kervick — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 04:50:57 +0000

In reply to Maybe you should look up the

Sorry, but I do know what begging the question means. You seemed to claim that because the plaintiff did not make it into the top 10% of her class, she did not deserve to go to the University of Texas. But I doubt that you can make an argument for that claim that does not rely on a premise that assumes the constitutional legitimacy of the current admissions procedures, and since it is precisely those procedures that are being challenged, it appears to me you are begging the question.

Again, the issue is not whether Texas or any other state is permitted to employ race-sensitive admissions standards. The court has already decided that states can do that, under certain circumstances and in certain ways. The issue is whether this particular policy is constitutional. One of the plaintiff's arguments is that the University of Texas has already achieved its diversity targets due to other admissions policies, including the 10% rule, and so the additional race-sensitive admission standard lacks a legitimate basis.

Consider it this way: suppose some state had a law that said that any student who gets an SAT score over a certain number X is automatically admitted to the state university, which has room for annual freshman classes of 5000 students. And suppose that 10% of the students in the state are Hispanic and that the state has established a goal of making sure that at least 10% of the students admitted are Hispanic - i.e. at least 500 students. And suppose 20% of the students from all ethnic groups who are accepted at the university matriculate. Now suppose that 2500 Hispanic students get over X on their SATs and are automatically accepted, and 20% of them - 500 students - matriculate at the university. Then this SAT rule has already achieved the 10% representation goal. Now suppose the state university also has an additional admission rule that gives Hispanic students extra points in the admissions system for being Hispanic. One could argue that this additional rule is not justified by the equal representation goal, since the SAT rule already accomplishes that, and so the additional rule introduces a kind of unfair preferential bias.

You know, anonymous, other

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 04:33:55 +0000

In reply to Doctor Cleveland, I?m sorry

You know, anonymous, other people have objected about my harshness toward Fisher. And personal invective is not usually my thing.

But I find the complaints that I have been too hard on Fisher surprising and, well, appalling.

It is not character assassination to say that someone who is not qualified is not qualified. And it is not character assassination to say that they have shifted blame onto other parties when they are pressing their blame-shifting strategy in the Supreme Court, and when their sense of personal dudgeon stands to penalize many other people who are in much worse shape.

I repeat: white privilege means that you get to decide whether or not it was fair that you didn't get into college. And white privilege means that people calling you on your egregious nonsense is likewise "not fair." I said that Fisher was a failed applicant making excuses in a particularly nasty and racially charged way. And when I said that, more people started making excuses for her. That's not terribly convincing.

Maybe you should look up the

Elusive Trope — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 04:20:56 +0000

In reply to I don't think these comments

Maybe you should look up the meaning of begging the question. The Texas university established a criterion for making into the school based on academic basis. A basis which seems to reasonable mind to be, well, reasonable. After that, it is up to the system to determine how they will take in the rest. That the university system determines it will use the other applicants to address in part the racial issue is not inherently wrong.

I don't think these comments

Dan Kervick — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 04:06:30 +0000

In reply to My society has decided to

I don't think these comments really pertain to the nature of her argument, which is that UT policies are are unconstitutional given prior Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action policies. As I understand it, she is not asking the court to overturn those previous decisions, but to find against Texas in light of those previous decisions. The fact that affirmative action is constitutional as a general principle does not mean that each and every law passed or policy implemented to achieve affirmative action goals is constitutional.

And also, what kind of argument is it to claim that "if she truly wanted to attend UT, she should have been in the top 10%?" Maybe she tried to the best of her ability, and wasn't capable of getting in the top 10%. If you then say, "Well then, she doesn't deserve to go to the University of Texas," you are begging the question against the claim that is in dispute.