Race-Based Affirmative Action is harmful discrimination against Asians and I, as an Asian American, don’t really like it, particularly in the context of it being used as a deciding factor in college admissions.
(Affirmative action based on other factors like income or disability is fine, but using race is kinda weird to me… too arbitrary)
In theory I agree this would be better, but how do we stop rich people from buying a run down broken home in a poor neighbourhood and then registering in that zip code? The system could be easily gamed
Edit: I think your tax returns or your parent’s tax returns would a better proxy. Shows how well off you are but is harder to game
I agree with you, I just figure better is better and not let perfection be the enemy of good. Aside from that, they couldn’t go too far out of their way and have the school records make sense with their “residency”. Also, it’s too bad we’ve made higher education so expensive in general.
I agree, but does suck for upper middle class kids who’s parents suck. My parents were poor so I was eligible for all kinds of scholarships/aid. My hs boyfriend’s dad was well off enough that he qualified for zero aid even though his dad wasn’t interested in supporting him financially at all.
He ended up with much higher student loans than me, though we received equal financial support from our parents.
Our mindsets around money were different though so maybe it evens out? He wasn’t afraid of debt, took out loans for everything, became an engineer, does ok. I got a full ride, worked three jobs to cover room and board, ended up overwhelmed and depressed and dropped out. Eventually got my AA at community college. Still have like 7k in student loans a decade later with no real degree.
I think a underlying problem in this story is just that education is way too expensive in the US. Here in Canada you’ll occasionally find American international students at our schools because apparently it’s cheaper for them to pay the international fee + room and board in one of the most expensive cities in the country than to simply pay the domestic fees back home.
The challenge is that historically in America discrimination was applied in a race based fashion and this is not fully captured by socioeconomic status. So the rectifier has to at least in some way acknowledge race. That being said, it doesn’t have to be in perpetuity.
I hear where you’re coming from as an Indian American myself. It can feel weird that some minority groups are disadvanraged / have a handicap applied relative to the majority demographic but I will say yours and our demographic tend to do pretty well despite that.
Until we live in a world where a resume with the name Tyrone or Mercedes isn’t more likely to be discarded without review, looking at socioeconomic status alone won’t make sense. We have evidence now that the AI hiring tools used by major corporations are just as biased, if not more so, than humans so this a problem that still needs solving.
You really want one?
Okay:
Race-Based Affirmative Action is harmful discrimination against Asians and I, as an Asian American, don’t really like it, particularly in the context of it being used as a deciding factor in college admissions.
(Affirmative action based on other factors like income or disability is fine, but using race is kinda weird to me… too arbitrary)
Yeah, I always thought Affirmative Action should be much more strongly influenced by zip code.
In theory I agree this would be better, but how do we stop rich people from buying a run down broken home in a poor neighbourhood and then registering in that zip code? The system could be easily gamed
Edit: I think your tax returns or your parent’s tax returns would a better proxy. Shows how well off you are but is harder to game
I agree with you, I just figure better is better and not let perfection be the enemy of good. Aside from that, they couldn’t go too far out of their way and have the school records make sense with their “residency”. Also, it’s too bad we’ve made higher education so expensive in general.
This is true it would only really be a problem when there are high and low income neighbourhoods relatively close by
I agree, but does suck for upper middle class kids who’s parents suck. My parents were poor so I was eligible for all kinds of scholarships/aid. My hs boyfriend’s dad was well off enough that he qualified for zero aid even though his dad wasn’t interested in supporting him financially at all.
He ended up with much higher student loans than me, though we received equal financial support from our parents.
Our mindsets around money were different though so maybe it evens out? He wasn’t afraid of debt, took out loans for everything, became an engineer, does ok. I got a full ride, worked three jobs to cover room and board, ended up overwhelmed and depressed and dropped out. Eventually got my AA at community college. Still have like 7k in student loans a decade later with no real degree.
There’s no solution that doesn’t suck for somebody.
I think a underlying problem in this story is just that education is way too expensive in the US. Here in Canada you’ll occasionally find American international students at our schools because apparently it’s cheaper for them to pay the international fee + room and board in one of the most expensive cities in the country than to simply pay the domestic fees back home.
The challenge is that historically in America discrimination was applied in a race based fashion and this is not fully captured by socioeconomic status. So the rectifier has to at least in some way acknowledge race. That being said, it doesn’t have to be in perpetuity.
I hear where you’re coming from as an Indian American myself. It can feel weird that some minority groups are disadvanraged / have a handicap applied relative to the majority demographic but I will say yours and our demographic tend to do pretty well despite that.
Until we live in a world where a resume with the name Tyrone or Mercedes isn’t more likely to be discarded without review, looking at socioeconomic status alone won’t make sense. We have evidence now that the AI hiring tools used by major corporations are just as biased, if not more so, than humans so this a problem that still needs solving.
This is essentially Critical Race Theory in a nutshell.
For an even more digestible in-a-nutshell, there’s also an entire Adam Ruins Everything on the subject.
Affirmative Action is more historically important than people seemingly unaffected by it realize.