@pastorolan
"@JamesYanik: basic facts might be in order here. Quotas have been illegal in the US since 1977."
outright quotas do not exist, but if you don't think there is a basic discriminatory practice that is mathematically tabulated (sounds suspiciously like a quota, doesn't it?) then you're burying your head in the sand
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevecohen/2015/07/06/the-secret-quotas-in-college-admissions/2/#587ddd843ad7
"There are significant differences in measures of academic performance due to race in the US--even when you control for economic factors."
yes, this is true
"There are two possible reasons for this: either white people are naturally smarter than black and Latino people,"
i think we all agree this is ridiculous.
"or the measures are biased."
really? these are the only 2 possible options? the MEASURES are biased? massive drop out rates for black kids in high school, and you're attack the bias of what? facts?
how about the highest dropout rates being in underfunded inner city (predominately democrat controlled) public schools? what's your explanation... the liberals are racist? we've had school systems turned on their heads trying to stop "racist" statistics showing that black kids aren't doing as well in school, with little effective results.
(maybe we should ignore cultural problems, like how there are 3x more gang members who are black than white, despite being a smaller population. or maybe ignore the 70% single motherhood rate, which even is 30% higher than the hispanic single motherhood rate [and they have even HIGHER rates of kids going into gangs] no no no, none of this can be it... because then we can't blame racism!)
"Affirmative action policies are a way to correct for that bias."
a bias on statistics... jus making sure that point is reiterated. you believe the measurements of black children doing worse in high school and on national tests is racist. or... do you mean college admission rates? maybe the reason why a smaller proportion are getting into college (in relation to their population size) is because of.. you know. HOW READY THEY ARE FOR COLLEGE.
"People who are opposed to affirmative action policies talk about finding "the most qualified." Affirmative action looks to find the most capable."
no it doesn't. it works of the presumption that math tests and english tests are racist against blacks (oh sorry, the statistics are wrong) and then put out an arbitrary number to correct for that.
also: unless if you're asian. why are you ignoring this again?
"One of the reasons affirmative action policies aren't well defended is that the people defending them are the same people who create and perpetuate the biased system we have So rather than saying "the system we created makes white kids look smarter than they really are," they use fuzzy language about the importance of having a diverse range of perspectives. That's crap--affirmative action should correct for bias."
alright, that's something i can get behind, though you'd have to admit, quantifying bias is an extremely hard thing to do. you're attempting to determine whether the end results of "qualified" or "unqualified" was simply due to preferential leaning, or bias.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k
John Oliver isn't my favorite political comedian, but he's pretty damn accurate here. we need to reconstruct our education system.
"If they were serious about this, they could pretty easily figure out specific corrections to measures of academic performance based on race and gender. One of the advantages of this system is that it would be neutral based on race and gender. If a disadvantaged group stopped being disadvantaged, the numbers would demonstrate it and the advantage would be dropped."
once again, there's a differentiation between "disadvantaged group" and "disadvantaged individual" that i think is much more important to define.
Furthermore, you're going to have to identify where the "disadvantage" comes from: is it localized culture, or is there a discriminatory aspect?
99 times out of a 100 it will be a combination of both, and quantifying to what extent it's one or the other, i can't say with confidence we have the capacity to do.