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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   35217 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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But 'society' doesn't get a say in who gets to go to Harvard.

We're literally discussing SCOTUS, abstractly representing society, having a say in who gets to go to Harvard so it's worth thinking about what we as a society are aiming for.

We're literally discussing SCOTUS, abstractly representing society, having a say in who gets to go to Harvard so it's worth thinking about what we as a society are aiming for.

This is so misleading as to be inaccurate. SCOTUS isn't determining what Harvard's admissions standards ought to be; they're determining (determined) what sorts of discrimination is and isn't allowed when organizations like Harvard choose their admissions standards. In that context, the question of "what we as a society are aiming for" has to do with, "Do we want organizations, even private ones, to be able to discriminate their admissions against individuals on the basis of that individual's race?" Whether Harvard wants to prioritize students who would have the largest "Harvard marginal treatment effect" or whatever is up to Harvard; all SCOTUS (society by proxy) is telling them is that one thing they're not allowed to prioritize is the students' race. If Harvard wants to scrap the meritrocratic approach and look for students with the largest "Harvard marginal treatment effect," they're free to do so in a race-neutral way.

They're restricting the space of inputs that Harvard is allowed to use when making admissions decisions. I don't see how it's misleading at all to characterize that as SCOTUS having a say in who goes to Harvard.

In that context, the question of "what we as a society are aiming for" has to do with, "Do we want organizations, even private ones, to be able to discriminate their admissions against individuals on the basis of that individual's race?"

There's one line of argument that's saying, AA is bad because race-based discrimination is bad. I guess I agree with that but I'm kind of a libertarian at heart so my prior is that Harvard should be able to do what it wants. But anyway, I'm not interested in that part of the discussion.

There's another line of argument, which I'm asking about, which is saying that AA is bad because it's not meritocratic, and I'm trying to understand why we should really care about that per se.

There's one line of argument that's saying, AA is bad because race-based discrimination is bad. I guess I agree with that but I'm kind of a libertarian at heart so my prior is that Harvard should be able to do what it wants. But anyway, I'm not interested in that part of the discussion.

There's another line of argument, which I'm asking about, which is saying that AA is bad because it's not meritocratic, and I'm trying to understand why we should really care about that per se.

It's misleading, because SCOTUS is ruling on the first paragraph up there, about whether "race-based discrimination is bad," not on the 2nd paragraph, about whether "AA is bad because it's not meritrocratic," though the original statement was about the topic of the 2nd paragraph. SCOTUS - society by proxy - has nothing to say on whether or not Harvard choosing (pseudo-) meritrocracy for its admission standards is bad. Your claim was: "As a society the people we should be sending to Harvard are those who will get the largest Harvard marginal treatment effect." You responded to the claim that society doesn't have much of a say in this by saying that SCOTUS (representing society) just handed down a ruling which implies that they do have a say. But that's misleading, because the part society has a say in is only about the racial discrimination aspect of it, not on the overall standard of Harvard choosing meritrocracy or not. It's a shift in topic from "society getting to dictate what standards Harvard uses in admissions" to "society getting to dictate that Harvard and similar organizations can't racially discriminate in admissions." Just because they're both placing limitations on admissions standards don't make them the same thing.

Again, society has no say on whether or not a private institution like Harvard decides to pursue a meritrocratic approach in admissions. What we do have a say on is if they get to be racially discriminatory during it.

This feels like semantics so I'm going to drop it after this, but I'm responding to someone saying "But 'society' doesn't get a say in who gets to go to Harvard" by pointing out that if society is restricting the ruleset by which Harvard can choose who gets into Harvard, then clearly, plainly, obviously, society is on its face having a say in who gets to go to Harvard. I'm not sure what's complicated about this tbh.

Correct, it's semantics, and it seems like you're playing semantic games by responding to the person's point with an unrelated but technically semantically correct point that doesn't address the person's point in any meaningful way.

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