[Kabal]

(04-07-2013 10:13 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

And when I'm talking about diversity being a good thing for a college experience, I'm not just talking about skin color. But the truth is there's remarkably little diversity among typical white kids in the US, and the most significant minority populations are Black, Latino, and Asian (though asians famously don't need or get the help).

Whites are not a monolith. There being little alleged diversity among white kids seems to be your prejudice more than anything. And that's right, as mentioned before, Asians get help to the tune of -50 points on the SATs.

(04-07-2013 10:13 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

This is different for several reasons. Women are not a minority population. STEM subjects don't benefit as much from diversity as softer subjects and the 4-year degree in general. Finally, as a total population, women are not 280 points less qualified than males.

The first means that any adjustments made to favor women have a high chance of backfiring and flooding classrooms with unqualified students.

The hypothetical situation I posed of women being preferred over men is a difference of degree, not kind, vis a vis the preference for blacks and latinos over whites and Asians. We already experience the situation you hypothesized... blacks transition to less rigorous majors due to harsh grading standards and have higher drop-out rates overall.

(04-07-2013 10:13 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

The opportunity to socialize with other people your age with different ideas and different backgrounds improves your perspective as a person.

Okay, and having more people of different races is not a harbinger of having different ideas and/or backgrounds. People of the same race can have different ideas and different backgrounds. A group of people of different races can be homogenous in ideas and backgrounds.

(04-07-2013 10:13 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

The problem is that when applying the sort of changes the extent that feminists desire them, the assertion "anyone reasonably competent and intelligent should be able to find a good fit" would no longer be true. For every man there would be a woman being given preference. The change is far more threatening to individuals and to STEM programs overall than the 15% affirmative action populations.

The problem with the assertion "anyone reasonably competent and intelligent should be able to find a good fit" is that it's the inverse of No True Scotsman--"Any True Scotsman should be able to find a good fit."

Espenshade and Chung estimated that in the absence of racial preferences, 4/5 of spots occupied by blacks would be taken by Asians. So there already is whole-scale discrimination. It's not quite 1 to 1, but it seems that for every five black persons at elite universities, four Asians got screwed over due to their race. It's not a phenomenon only at the margins, not that something being only at the margins makes it just. It's actually pretty eyebrow-raising how close to 1 to 1 it is.

I imagine you would find this 4/5 figure to be much more unpalatable if it were with regard to women and men.