NYT: Justice Dept. to Take On Affirmative Action in College Admissions

[Associate Justice PiT]

It'd be nice if they took on legacy admissions practices instead.

     I would like to see them take on both. It wouldn't be the first time that the two were thought of as a package deal either.

Politically, yeah. They're packaged together frequently.

But it isn't clear what avenue opponents of legacy admits could take. There isn't a law against the practice and Grutter expressly rejected the idea that legacy admits violate the 14th.

     There are public schools that engage in legacy admissions, and that practice should end full stop. I admit that private schools are trickier to deal with, given that they have the right to control their own admissions process. Elite schools also don't have an impetus to change given the money that lies in admissions. I guess the NSF/NIH could make grants dependent on eliminating legacy admissions to create a monetary impetus to change, but there is a risk of hurting research if the Harvards don't play ball and it also seems ethically dubious to use research as a bludgeon to coerce admissions.

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

Politically, yeah. They're packaged together frequently.

But it isn't clear what avenue opponents of legacy admits could take. There isn't a law against the practice and Grutter expressly rejected the idea that legacy admits violate the 14th.

     There are public schools that engage in legacy admissions, and that practice should end full stop. I admit that private schools are trickier to deal with, given that they have the right to control their own admissions process. Elite schools also don't have an impetus to change given the money that lies in admissions. I guess the NSF/NIH could make grants dependent on eliminating legacy admissions to create a monetary impetus to change, but there is a risk of hurting research if the Harvards don't play ball and it also seems ethically dubious to use research as a bludgeon to coerce admissions.

I think on principle, there's agreement here. The point that I poorly attempted to make is that it's a difficult task to impose a top-down, federal ban on legacy admissions from the federal administrative level. I'm not aware of any laws against the practice and the Constitution doesn't prohibit it. The only way to implement it would be to either shoehorn another law that wasn't intended to remedy legacy admissions in to do so (see, e.g., Obama Admin's Dear Colleague letter using Title 9 to convince colleges to combat sexual assault on campus) or to use monetary persuasion.

The idea of using grant money as a condition for eliminating the practice is a good idea and could be applied to public schools.

Either way, it's probably just a fun thought experiment, since a ban on legacy admits won't be happening any time soon.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I mean, the trouble with AA in practice is that is served its initial purpose - to create and boost an autonomous African American middle-class and now is sort of left spinning the wheels whilst inequality within African Americans continues to grow and grow. Of course, it's not as demented as how UMNO do it in Malaysia, but very few things are.

[krazen1211]

There is no winning in affirmative action for anybody, regardless of race.

It's time for affirmative action to go.

Back in 2003 Sandra Day Oconnor said that affirmative action would be unconstitutional in 25 years. So Trump is winding it down now right now schedule for when he leaves office in 2025.

[JA]

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"Maybe if minorities want to get into college they should just have their dad call their Senator and give a donation to the college of their choice. That's what we do" - Jared & Co.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Hmm, this is an interesting new development:

Asian-Americans’ Complaint Prompted Justice Inquiry of College Admissions

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My points:

1. My previous point about this becoming a dumpster fire still stands.

2. I suspsect that this will become another example of white conservatives like Trump using Asians as a tool to advance their agenda. I mean, when have Trump or Sessions sincerely cared about Asians before?
 
3. Affirmative action is not something that's unanimously condemned by the Asian American community, simply because it's the ultimate "neoliberal identity politics" issue, i.e. it only really affects rich and/or well-educated Asians (at least when talking about schools like Harvard).

4. This won't affect legacy admissions, so...