UCLAA
Speaking of diversity, today's NYT has a really fascinating article on affirmative action and UCLA. I've only had time to glance through the first page, but it seems like worth the read.
Labels: Law School
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 10:38 AM
10 Comments:
What the hell is this supposed to mean: To be truly meritocratic, a college must be diverse — or else accept that some groups in society have less merit than others and their underrepresentation can’t be helped. It's a totally meaningless statement and the author fails to clarify or support it.
I like how Armen knows it's a "really fascinating article" despite having only "glance[d] through the first page."
Hey genius, how much effort does it take to spot four key letters?
I thought that meritocracy comment was pretty silly as well.
I think the meritocracy comment was supposed to mean is something like this:
Since right-thinking people take as an axiom the fact that all groups have the same distribution of "merit," a system truly based on merit must admit an equal number of people from each group. Group disparities provide evidence that the system is not truly meritocratic at its core.
- lurker
I think my biggest issue with the article is the way it conflates the notion of race and socio-economic class. Whether or not the two are statistically linked is irrelevant.
Why is it so difficult to look to the actual circumstances of the person's upbringing as opposed to immediately drawing the conclusion that person A had a more difficult upbringing than person B because person A is an underrepresented minority and person B is not? I have no problem with programs give "boosts" to applicants from a legitimately diverse background, but to assume such a background based entirely on a person's race is absurd.
You are right in your translation, lurker. I just think it is silly because that goes against the literal definition of merit.
Not only does it go against the literal definition of merit; it's circular -- it defines merit as diversity.
Well if A=>B and B=>C and C=>A then of course affirmative action is good.
enjoy the last years of your majority status white boys
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