Is tolerance intolerant?

[bennyboy]

Did you forget the link I posted in the Peterson thread to a study that showed race-based affirmative action was necessary to address racial inequalities in certain contexts? You even kudos'd that post, lol

Yeah, I had forgotten that.  I'll go check it out again.

-edit-
Okay, I remember it now.  

I gave you kudos for providing that paper, which was the best attempt we've seen so far to find numerical support for affirmative action.  The long and short is that if the goal of the program is racial diversity, ideally one where college makeup matches that of the general population, then SES-based A.A. doesn't arrive at that goal.

I found it strange because it was published by ETS, which is strange because they are the makers / administrators of the TOEFL test of English.  They make HUGE money in Asia, as their test is used to establish English proficiency scores for universities, English-speaking elite private high-schools, and so on.  Behind every international student at MIT filling a spot at MIT or in Harvard, there are probably a half-dozen ETS-administered tests.  Ironic!

Also ironic are the following lines from that paper:

These dimensions may include not only race or SES, but also academic interests, extracurricular talents, geography, and other
factors. For example, colleges may want to boost enrollment in an undersubscribed major or program or find talented players for their sports teams.

I sniff some serious implications  here-- because it's possible that it won't even be the best-achieving black students who are accepted, but the best running-backs for a sports team. What a win for the institution-- you get to fill your quota, and justify the presence of an academically weak athlete on the basis of "urban difficulties" or whatever. More power to the kids who get accepted on that basis, but it's unlikely to do much to change the position of black Americans overall.


There's a lot of nastiness behind the failure of SES policies-- but it's not all implied racism, which is why I've said that SES affirmative action needs to be from the cradle to the Harvard application.  It's not just enough to have policies at the college level to turn away Asian applicants and accept black ones instead-- that's racist, and serves as an impediment to those who end up being rejected to THEIR pursuit of opportunity and eventual happiness. I really feel that an academic institution should use grades and test scores as their main criteria for acceptance.