This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
They will find work arounds, and people will challenge those work-arounds. What I want to know is how much money is on the line. If people can smell 100 megabuck payouts then they will go for it and attack at all angles. That will change the risk calculus among university admins and slowly change the culture.
But if it's just a few court losses with smallish fines, then it's business as usual.
I suspect the money isn’t there and that the cases will be very hard to prove. Unless the university is in the habit of telling students why they’re rejected, there’s no real smoking gun, especially given the reliance on non-objective criteria for admission. Essays, life-experience, and in some cases meeting the students can give admissions officers plenty of “I-can’t-believe-it’s-race” reasons to exclude whites and Asians. Your essay about visiting your ancestral home in Korea might simply not meet standards. Had nothing to do with you outting yourself as Asian. We just didn’t like the essay.
But this is not the way American anti-discrimination law works. For decades lawyers and civil-rights bureaucrats have been successfully going after every more implicit forms of putative discrimination. "Here's my statistical evidence that Foo has a disparate impact on Bar. I was FooBarred, now give me $$$$$$$" is standard practice.
That cat really will be among the pigeons if the Court can make that particular sword cut both ways. My guess is that over time the court system will follow the leader, but the EEOC will not unless the Republicans take over the government and gut the thing.
As far as bringing a case sure, but I don’t think anyone wins the case. In most employment cases, you actually have a hard time because of at will employment. I can fire you if I don’t like your haircut. This makes those kinds of cases hard to prove because unless you have some sort of evidence in your possession that race figured into it at all, the defense simply has to cite any other reasons why you got fired and unless you have proof or witnesses, they win.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link