I was so excited to listen to this case and it was the best oral argument I’ve listened to in a while. All the conservative justices did a great job pushing back against Harvards arguments.
I think the legal-centric nature of affirmative action misses and distracts from bigger questions of fairness or efficacy. - Tired of the talking point that the district court and appellate court found there was no racial animus (as w/Jews 100 years ago). First, the findings are pretty useless. I don't think they did a proper job of evaluating the crux of the question of whether Asians were effectively discriminated against whatever the animus. Partly I suspect it's because they are not good statisticians. In many ways, Asians are worse off than Jews today because Jews cannot be identified unless they self-identify and there are powerful groups that would rightly protest any attempt to group Jews. But Asians have no such ability to escape. - Second, if anyone takes time to actually go and see what A.A. does it would leave a sour taste on what it's doing. It's defended with lofty rhetoric of systemic racism. But it's being implemented by institutions that are going out of their way to try to find black and brown people. The issue is the pipeline problem. The most serious sufferers of that historical racism are not the ones applying to these institutions. In fact it's almost saying "your group has a lot more disadvantaged people, so let's give a boost to the advantaged among them." It also creates racial groups that have to compete within the group. For diversity to work, that math is unavoidable.
I was so excited to listen to this case and it was the best oral argument I’ve listened to in a while. All the conservative justices did a great job pushing back against Harvards arguments.
I have to say that both guests' interpretations of the oral arguments were very mediocre and unimpressive. Really nothing new or missed points.
I think the legal-centric nature of affirmative action misses and distracts from bigger questions of fairness or efficacy.
- Tired of the talking point that the district court and appellate court found there was no racial animus (as w/Jews 100 years ago). First, the findings are pretty useless. I don't think they did a proper job of evaluating the crux of the question of whether Asians were effectively discriminated against whatever the animus. Partly I suspect it's because they are not good statisticians. In many ways, Asians are worse off than Jews today because Jews cannot be identified unless they self-identify and there are powerful groups that would rightly protest any attempt to group Jews. But Asians have no such ability to escape.
- Second, if anyone takes time to actually go and see what A.A. does it would leave a sour taste on what it's doing. It's defended with lofty rhetoric of systemic racism. But it's being implemented by institutions that are going out of their way to try to find black and brown people. The issue is the pipeline problem. The most serious sufferers of that historical racism are not the ones applying to these institutions. In fact it's almost saying "your group has a lot more disadvantaged people, so let's give a boost to the advantaged among them." It also creates racial groups that have to compete within the group. For diversity to work, that math is unavoidable.