comment: >
  
  
  equally amazing?
  
  This is a lie. If Asian applicants need to score 300 points higher on the SAT on average to have the same chance of admission, there's fuckery going on, unless you're claiming that all these applicants have subpar extracurriculars or essays for some reason.
  Harvard has a proven track record of rating Asians lower on subjective criteria like "likability" and "courage" even though the admissions committee has never met the applicant, even though alumni interviewers frequently rate Asian applicants equally on those same metrics. It's blatant stereotyping and racism.
  
  Let's say the Harvard cutoff is 1350 on the SAT. A black student with a 1370 then has just as much right to entrance as the Asian with a 1550.
  
  hell no. The chances of anyone White or Asian getting into Harvard with 1370 is very slim. I daresay impossible without legacy or recruitment.
  
  Most universities have a minimum number, a cut off of sorts.
  
  Then they should raise the cutoff. If you can't even get a decent score on SAT math, you have no fucking business going to MIT.
  
  However, it's not a race to the top.
  
  yes, that's exactly what it is. they choose the admits based on who has the most impressive extracurriculars and most moving essays. except now none of that matters because muh racial equality.
context: The best argument opposing affirmative action is what researchers refer to as ‘mismatch.’ Research on the phenomena is abundant and can be fairly harmful to students of whom affirmative action is supposed to benefit. >
  
  OP I’m glad you mentioned point two. It’s amazing how many people think race or gender are the biggest factors for success. But this has been well studied and financial status of the home you came from is by far the biggest determinant. 
  So in US, a poor white male has much less opportunity than middle class black women.
  (On average of course) >
  
  I've actually read the opposite. That a middle class black woman has less economic mobility than a poor white male. Can you point me to some of the studies? Also what are they measuring (economic mobility, happiness, wealth, admissions)? >
  
  
  That a middle class black woman has less economic mobility than a poor white male.
  
  perhaps that is true, but that is not an accurate measure of advantage.
  Let's say that poor white males are able to become middle-class 10% of the time, and middle-class black women are able to become upper-class 5% of the time. Who has more advantage at the end of the day? Because 90% of the poor white males stay poor white males.
  And at the end of the day, going from middle class to upper class may just be harder than lower class to middle class. >
  
  The problem here is that you are simply assuming that the default method of admitting students is based on scores, and therefore any deviation from that needs to be justified. However, it's not at all obvious why admission based on scores should be the default. In other parts of our society, organizations don't distribute services based on who "deserves" them the most or based on who would make best use of the services (2 reasonable justifications for the score-based admission). Instead, even public services tend to distribute service based on willingness to pay, need, first come first served, the seller's subjective preferences, or some combination of all the above.
  Now I'm not trying to say that pure score-based admission would be a terrible approach to college admissions - there are obviously far worse options - but the fact that affirmative action-based approaches result in different demographic distributions among accepted students than the score-based approach doesn't necessarily mean that the affirmative action-based approach is discriminatory. I think there's an argument to be made that since it results in a distribution more similar to that of the general population in the country, it's actually less racially discriminatory on the whole. >
  
  
  based on who "deserves" them the most or based on who would make best use of the services
  
  from my perspective, those are often the same. the only time they are not the same is when people who don't make the best use of the services or products pay for services or products in voluntary transactions.
  
  doesn't necessarily mean that the affirmative action-based approach is discriminatory.
  
  yeah, it does. if the tables were reversed there would be a common consensus that the colleges or the system was clearly discriminatory in a negative way. in fact, there seems to be a clear consensus now that affirmative action is necessarily causing discrimination from the perspective of all demographics but most white people and asian people (except those who were clearly negatively affected) simply accept it as the price of being forgiven for being innately (based upon their race) evil. it is a very sad thing when the system is designed to punish you based on your family's genetics. >
  
  
  simply accept it as the price of being forgiven for being innately (based upon their race) evil. i
  
  This is not, and never has been the point of affirmative action or its intention. Affirmative action policies are an attempt to "right the ship" due to the extended history of exclusion inflicted upon certain demographics until recent history. To give an example of how recent, I'm in my 30s and I'm the first generation in my direct line to NOT be born under discriminatory law. The entire previous generation of my family was born under Jim Crow law. >
  
  
  To give an example of how recent, I'm in my 30s and I'm the first generation in my direct line to NOT be born under discriminatory law.
  
  if you ignore affirmative action and equal opportunity laws that essentially mandate race and sex-based admissions. you cannot now say that you live under non-discriminatory law because your "righting of the ship" is only effective because it is sinking the right way up.
  you cannot solve a race problem by making more race-based laws. >
  
  
  if you ignore affirmative action and equal opportunity laws that essentially mandate race and sex-based admissions. you cannot now say that you live under non-discriminatory law because your "righting of the ship" is only effective because it is sinking the right way up
  
  Do you think those laws have anywhere near the effect of Jim Crow, cause I was talking about Jim Crow. The racial caste system that governed a good portion of the country for 100 years that allowed us to be MURDERED. 
  Second I would like examples of these discriminatory laws, because by including equal opportunity law you have basically equated mandating fair treatment with JIM FUCKING CROW. That's a hell of an argument to make. >
  
  to stop jim crow laws you just need to remove the jim crow laws from the books. you don't need to mandate "fair" treatment in lieu. if the world were "fair" there would be no public services, welfare nor schools except those which were voluntarily funded. if you want "fair", i am right there with you. >
  
  This is false, segregation and all that came with it was a way of life in the American south, not just law. Mandating equality legally was the only method short of unrestrained violence that was going to result in change. Integration was literally met with harassment and violence. There were literally parts of the south were all black babies were born at home (often with no birth certificate) because the county only had one hospital and it was whites only. Even without Jim Crow many old black code laws could be discriminatorily enforced to render being black in a county almost illegal. Not to mention sundown counties scattered across the south that would just kill you for being there. An entire community could be destroyed because one person tried to vote. >
  
  I have a college counseling company, and I'm actually working on a video about this very topic. So I'd love to discuss it with you more. 
  I think we need to start with how affirmative action works (and when it even applies) in the first place. You've stated:
  
  Affirmative action allows universities to sometimes admit students with lesser scores than other students with higher scores by focusing on the race of the applicants
  
  You are 100% correct. But that word "sometimes" is critical. When are some of those times? 
  It can really be boiled down to one situation: When the university has thousands more applicants than it has available spaces. This only happens at some of the best universities, usually the top 50 or so. Michigan State isn't excluding high-performing Asians to include black students because they've got seats for everybody. Harvard, on the other hand, has over 40x more applicants than available seats. 
  
  admit students with lesser scores than other students with higher scores
  
  I want to go a little deeper here. Generally, there are 4 big factors that universities always consider first: GPA, Academic rigor (how hard your school/courses were), SAT scores, and Extracurricular Activities (ECs). However, it's not a race to the top. Most universities have a minimum number, a cut off of sorts.
  Let's say the Harvard cutoff is 1350 on the SAT. A black student with a 1370 then has just as much right to entrance as the Asian with a 1550. 
  If you want to change the system to say whoever has the highest scores is admitted straight away, we still have a problem: Harvard gets more perfect SAT scores than it has available seats. How will they decide who to take? What do you do when you have thousands of applicants with perfect profiles who are all equally amazing? 
  Affirmative action is essentially a solution to a very rare problem. And the people "hurt" by it are people who didn't get into Harvard but still got into a top-20 school somewhere. The benefits to those who do get into these competitive schools because of affirmative action are far greater than the "losses" of those students who weren't admitted.