Affirmative Action Debate

That's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action

I grew up in Europe and then moved to US. In US, at least in some context (college admissions for example), there is a thing called affirmative action. It seems in order to right a a wrong from the past, or to promote diversity they would sometimes have quotas on how many students from each background to pick. So depending just on race, one could have an easier or much harder way getting accepted. Therefore people would play that card in order to game the system.

There are a couple takes on this. One is that it was genuine discrimination targeted at Jewish people and Asian people then where as now that is not so much the case. The other take is the reason for affirmative action is to address a very real and stubborn problem where we have what seems to be a permanent underclass. Asian and Jewish people do not seem to be having that problem now, at least regarding college admissions.

The answer is one that was unfortunately rejected years ago - class-based affirmative action instead of race-based affirmative action. For example, there are far few legitimate greivances that would (or could) be raised by giving admissions preferences to those whose parents don't have a college degree. The end result would still end up assisting minorities most in need without codifying racial preferences or getting bogged down in the arbitrary idea of race at all.

That sounds like class-based affirmative action, not race-based affirmative action. Is class-based affirmative action even called affirmative action? The article sounds like it would be in favor of class-based affirmative action.

It's affirmative action! Only the downtrodden will be "educated!"

This is why, to me, the entire debate about affirmative action at elite colleges is a complete red herring. The amount of kids, regardless of race, who can be considered "deserving" of a spot has been reduced more so by legacy admissions and these bribes than by any effort of individual institutions to even out racial or gender demographics.

It is certainly discrimination. Evidence has been collected and judgements made, e.g. that African-Americans are severely discriminated against, and special provision be made for them to compensate.This is specifically trying to be fair, rather than trying to make access equally difficult. I don't know why that is hard to grasp. I don't think 'righting injustice' is bad way to explain it.Harvard is also discriminating against Asians because there are 'too many'

I've seen many Black people made to feel inferior by comments like this, which have the result of implying that the reason they probably got in was because a "superior" student didn't. But for one thing, those of privileged races who didn't get in were obviously extremely marginal candidates anyway, who even failed to capitalize on their racial privileges.(And of course, a Black individual who happens to agree with affirmative action is less likely to publicly offer their perspective here, si

Affirmative action isn't racial discrimination, it's an attempt to correct for racial discrimination.The figures cited above are with affirmative action. They would be a lot worse without attempting to correct for it.But of course correcting for historic and systemic inequities is more obvious than just letting the status quo happen. That doesn't make it morally reprehensible, anymore than the status quo, in which white students are advantaged, isn't morally superior.<p