US Supreme Court curbs consideration of race in university admissions

I read that Harvard estimated the share of Asian students would rise from 19% to 43%

Quote from Roberts’ opinion:

Yeah, that’s gong to guarantee future employment for some lawyers.

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The full quote is:

At the same time, as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.

The distinction between the two sentences is super-thin IMO. So yeah, I think lawyers will be getting paid

“it may have been appropriate in the past, but at some point it has to end, and that point has been reached”. The decision does not say whether that point has been reached. It states that point is unknown and incalculable. Many AA/diversity initiatives have been set up to create a victim class in perpetuity, as the impacts to individuals or society can not be measured. It will never be known if the initiatives were the correct thing to do.

This ruling applies to Harvard because they receive Federal money.

Like, federal financial aid?

If so, that’s essentially every college, no?

Not trying to dispute your assertion… just clarify it.

I would assume research grants more than student financial aid, but yes, essentially every college.

Agreed, very few colleges. Hillsdale College is one.

Biden is now considering executive action to allow Universities to consider race in their admissions.

The application of federal anti-discrimination policy to private schools through obligations conveyed by federal money comes through the Civil Rights Act.

The SCOTUS ruling was based on the Equal Protection Clause, which applies to the feds and the states (and by extension, creatures of the states, e.g. public colleges and local government).

Admittedly, I only skimmed the ruling, but what I saw in the majority opinion, only the EPC was invoked, and there wasn’t an explicit link made (such as via Federal funds) that brought private organizations under the umbrella of the EPC’s applicability.

It’s also possible that there’s an implicit application of some transitory property of jurisprudence, in the form of “federal funds cause a prohibition of discrimination via the Civil Rights Act, and the Civil Rights Act implies application of the EPC” that lawyers would inherently know, but I don’t because I’m just an amateur amchair pundit.

So the lawyers get the additional billable hours sooner, rather than later.

Have the elite schools like Harvard reduced/removed legacy admission preferences? It seems like if the past was biased, eliminating ties to the past would help. I think the alumni might get upset, but it sounds like a decent response.

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lol, no. Legacies aren’t going away anytime soon.

I expect that schools are going to change their geographic weights, as well as relative weights on test scores vs GPA, as proxies for the demographics they want. Plus they will use Roberts’s essay loophole. And then in 5 years, when the demographics of college classes remains similar today, we will get another law suit.

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That would cut into their donations, so it won’t happen.

In my actsci classes, it was likely split 90-95% asian, with a few white people and a trickle of east asian, maybe one black person. The entire class was.pretty much asian.

Im honestly unclear what that means or if i should care. Or at least, i didnt care when i.was.in class.

I do think that college level catering to race is treating the symptom. If they want to equalize things they should be treating the causes at the primary, hs level.

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My classes were majority women as.well. Thats one of the things i like about the actuarial field, exams are the great equalizer. They dont care about your race or gender or if youre poor or if daddy has millions. Its the ultimate bootstrap career system.

I haven’t read everything either, but I think prior rulings heavily relied on the EPC and didn’t mention the civil rights act as much, so that’s where the opinions went.

Gorsuch’s concurring opinion says that AA also wouldn’t be allowed under the civil rights act.

The IRS doesn’t allow tax exempt status for schools that practice discrimination (501c3 organizations have to file a non-discrimination policy: Upheld by SCOTUS in Bob Jones University vs United States).

I think you may not be emphasizing enough just how important the University name still is.

Attending Waterloo and doing actuarial exams will allow you to progress faster in your career vs attending Podunk U and doing actuarial exams.

School in that context does matter.

Its the same over here in the UK. My current company is basically full of Russell Group (UK Ivy League equivalent) graduates in Actuarial. From Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial etc. It is extremely rare for a graduate to come from a non-competitive school even when doing exams.

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That is definitely what I liked when starting my career. I also fought against FEM or any certification that was school-based vs. Society exam-based. Are there paths to ASA/ACAS that do not require formal exams?

Harvard is 9.3% African American. Even if you replaced every single African American and Hispanic student with Asian students, you won’t get to 43%. The reason why Harvard is 19% Asian isn’t b/c of affirmative action, but because the administration doesn’t want a large Asian American population.

In a similar vein, it is / was widely rumored that Harvard turned down a huge gift from An Wang b/c they didn’t want to name a dorm for him.

RIP wang laboratories