Althouse: "Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than any other race on personal traits like 'positive personality,' likability, courage, kindness and being 'widely respected'..."

June 15, 2018

"Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than any other race on personal traits like 'positive personality,' likability, courage, kindness and being 'widely respected'..."

"... according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records filed Friday in federal court in Boston by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university. Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, according to the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria. But the students’ personal ratings significantly dragged down their chances of being admitted, the analysis found.... In court papers, Harvard said that a statistical analysis could not capture the many intangible factors that go into Harvard admissions.... [The plaintiffs] compare Harvard’s treatment of Asian-Americans with its well-documented campaign to reduce the growing number of Jews being admitted to Harvard in the 1920s. Until then, applicants had been admitted on academic merit. To avoid adopting a blatant quota system, Harvard introduced subjective criteria like character, personality and promise. The plaintiffs call this the 'original sin of holistic admissions.'"

The NYT reports.

129 comments:

Alex said...: So confirmed racism against Asian-Americans is confirmed.; 6/15/18, 12:59 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Identity politics of the Left starts to eats its own.

Phase 1: Due to America's special historical mistreatment of blacks, let's stop discrimination against them.

Phase 2: Due to America's special historical mistreatment of blacks, let's give them affirmative action.

Phase 3: America also mistreated Mexicans and Asians, let's give them affirmative action too.

Phase 4: Diversity is beautiful, let's give affirmative action to all people of color!

Phase 5: Darn. Diversity is still beautiful, but too many Asians at Harvard-- let's focus on other people of color. The hell with those geeky, robotic Asians.; 6/15/18, 1:04 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: I don't feel sorry for any Asian-Americans who suffer such discrimination but who nevertheless vote Democrat.; 6/15/18, 1:04 PM
n.n said...: Jew privilege. White privilege. And now Asian privilege?

Clear and progressive diversity (i.e. denial of individual dignity or color judgments). I wonder if Planning normalization/promotion is commensurate to the diversity quota.; 6/15/18, 1:05 PM
Jaq said...: Statistics are just one more tool of the Asian robots!

That's sarcasm, BTW.; 6/15/18, 1:07 PM
n.n said...: Whites. White-Hispanics. And now White-Asians?

Wait, White-Europeans. All half-breeds. Diversity or color judgments is so retro, with historic consequences when permitted to progress.; 6/15/18, 1:09 PM
Jaq said...: Somebody should open a Sorbonne type school in Costa Rica and base admissions entirely on academic merit. Away from American courts.; 6/15/18, 1:09 PM
n.n said...: Harvard introduced subjective criteria like character, personality and promise.

They decided that objective criteria, including exams, did not meet the diversity quotas. They were right, and, as it turns out, Left, too.; 6/15/18, 1:12 PM
Alex said...: Mike - it's a bit of cognitive dissonance. Also I think that those Asians feel that they will succeed in the end despite the racism directed at them by Democrats, so they can vote Democrat. Oh wait, yeah they're mentally fucked up even if they can do advanced calculus.; 6/15/18, 1:12 PM
Rob said...: Simultaneously shameful and shameless, as is President Faust's defense of Harvard.; 6/15/18, 1:13 PM
MadisonMan said...: Well, obviously the Asian applicants to Harvard were all unlikeable smell-of-cabbage cowards who routinely pushed/tripped the Elderly and then ran away.

That's sarcasm by the way.; 6/15/18, 1:14 PM
Paul Zrimsek said...: Or, why Elizabeth Warren didn't claim to be part Hmong.; 6/15/18, 1:16 PM
Kevin said...: “Whites. White-Hispanics. And now White-Asians?”

If they have just one drop of white blood!; 6/15/18, 1:16 PM
Fernandinande said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/15/18, 1:16 PM
tcrosse said...: It won't take long for some smart Asian to start a Charm School to teach Asian kids how to be Chatsworth T. Osborne, IV. God knows it's not rocket science.; 6/15/18, 1:17 PM
Tregonsee said...: About 13 years ago, my undergraduate alma mater asked me to be part of a group to "improve diversity." I asked them why? After a few seconds of stunned silence, I asked whether they were ignoring qualified applicants in undeserved areas, and whether they were discriminating against any groups. That brought about a adamant NO. I politely explained that they clearly had exactly the diversity they should have, since all the students and faculty who were qualified and wanted to be there were already there. It was mutually agreed that this might not be the appropriate fit. I have not been invited again.

One shudders to think what would happen if it had been my graduate alma mater, the University of Wisconsin.* They would no doubt have wanted to rescind my degrees.

*When you just say the University of Wisconsin, you mean the one in Madison. Not the many other regional or junior colleges. ;); 6/15/18, 1:17 PM
Fernandinande said...: "Harvard" sounds like an Einstein.; 6/15/18, 1:19 PM
Fernandinande said...: Asian admissions at CalTech match their general population numbers, but Harvard capped their Asian admissions in 1993, decreasing since.; 6/15/18, 1:22 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Funny, I've never felt too guilty about my white privilege.

Should I start now?; 6/15/18, 1:24 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: Alex:

Mike - it's a bit of cognitive dissonance. Also I think that those Asians feel that they will succeed in the end despite the racism directed at them by Democrats, so they can vote Democrat. Oh wait, yeah they're mentally fucked up even if they can do advanced calculus.

It's perfectly rational. A lot of Asian Americans live in places (e.g. California) that are overwhelmingly Democratic. Essentially, one-party states. If you want to have any chance of power and influence, you join a faction within the party. You don't join those no-hopers out in the dwindling opposition. Now, there's a lot of young Asian Americans who have essentially assimilated to posh White norms, and are emotionally attached to the Democratic party (or even more left-wing parties) as a result. And the growing perception that Republicans are the party of working class whites hurts Republicans as well (note that back in the 90's, when Republicans had a somewhat more posh image, Republicans sometimes won a majority of the Asian American vote). But the basic calculus isn't unreasonable.; 6/15/18, 1:25 PM
Real American said...: to be fair, they're probably all a bunch of NERDS! who spend all day doing homework and other academic pursuits their Tiger moms demand. Many of those traits disappear when you're a dorkbot who spends all day destroying the curve.; 6/15/18, 1:26 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: tcrosse:

It won't take long for some smart Asian to start a Charm School to teach Asian kids how to be Chatsworth T. Osborne, IV. God knows it's not rocket science.

The problem is -- in the arms race between racist admissions departments and Asian parents, admissions officers can change their criteria on a dime, while children take 18 years to apply to college. When it became apparent that "extracurriculars" were the excuse for keeping Asians out, Asians started doing extracurriculars. Now that Asians are overperforming on extracurriculars, admissions officers have turned to something else. If Asians end up excelling on charm and polish, they'll find something else.; 6/15/18, 1:28 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: If the Asians are so smart, why aren't they checking the box for African-American on the application? If they choose to self-identify as such, is Harvard really going to dispute it?

It's a win-win-win: They get in, Harvard gets to claim more African-American students, and Harvard still gets to claim high test scores for admitted students.; 6/15/18, 1:29 PM
Anonymous said...: There is an upside to all this discrimination at Harvard. The Chinese, having displaced a substantial amount of our manufacturing industry, and eventually succeeding at displacing our technology industries will eventually set a national goal of displacing American universities as the world's leading centers of higher learning. At which point, discriminated-against Asian-Americans will apply for admission to the then-superior Chinese universities where they will be admitted on the basis of merit alone. Then the Chinese, having taken over the intellectually and socially bankrupt United States, will do what all good Commie dictatorships do - dispose of those useless to the new regime. Gender-studies and racialist rabble rousers will be among the first stood up against a wall and shot, or perhaps starved to death like the Ukrainians.; 6/15/18, 1:29 PM
Big Mike said...: I can envision a Harvard of the future where every student is Asian-American except for a handful of athletes and a group of white legacies from wealthy families. And I have no problem doing away with the legacies while we’re at it.; 6/15/18, 1:31 PM
Big Mike said...: Balfegor at 1:28 is absolutely correct.; 6/15/18, 1:33 PM
Anonymous said...: I have defended Harvard's holistic admissions policies here till I am quite blue in the face. However I am so disgusted with Harvard's new policy re: Final Clubs ( freedom of association) and Harvard and other universities and colleges advocacy of PC positions that I have decided I would be happy to see the Asians win this case. As I told one my classmates the next entering class will be made up of 120 pound physicists who will happily be beaten in football by Yale 200-0. When I got Faust's letter I wrote her back and said that if you live by the PC sword you will die by the PC sword and here we are.; 6/15/18, 1:36 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Tiger Woods is an African-Asian-American. Lotta different boxes to check.

Any thought to treating people as INDIVIDUALS or is that terrible?; 6/15/18, 1:38 PM
Anonymous said...: I'd get more worked up about stuff like this if there were any noticeable positive correlation in human beings between complaining about discrimination against one's own, and refraining from indulging in nepotism and tribalism oneself, when the shoe is on the other foot. High-scoring flyover whites are also discriminated against (pound for pound, even more so than Asian-Americans, according to one study I saw go by), and I don't care that Harvard's not taking them, either.

Still, I applaud Asian-Americans suing the crap out of places like Harvard, if for no other reason than to watch the contradictions-inherent-in-the-system clown show. What's the demographic make-up of the group responsible for setting admissions standards, and making those "holistic" selections, I wonder? I wouldn't be shocked if WASP-y males, the "original sinners", were not proportionally represented.; 6/15/18, 1:38 PM
Anonymous said...: I am all in with Chief Justice Roberts: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” and let the chips fall where they may.; 6/15/18, 1:38 PM
Two-eyed Jack said...: I have long thought that the early life that showed on my successful Ivy League application, lo these many years ago (good grades, test scores, State art shows, a little Lacrosse, tutored inner-city Hispanic kids, really), was taken and masticated, and regurgitated as a template to which my children, if they were to achieve similar access, would have to conform. They had to check my boxes, but what was left out of the application, like underage drinking and other recreations, reading Beckett and Freud and Byron on my own initiative for no class at all, and heading to museums for contemplation, was left out of the template. High School has become a boot camp for overachievement and competitiveness as a result. I bet that you could literally throw away every successful application to Harvard, pick the next people on the list, and have just as good a class.; 6/15/18, 1:42 PM
Anonymous said...: @Big Mike Harvard will lose a lot of athletes - both Black and White - without the "holistic" approach. Not that Harvard athletes are stupid by any means, but the athleticism has, in most cases, played an important part in admittance. As for legacies, the case is pretty much the same. Although I think the influence of a legacy has diminished significantly over the last 20 or 30 years.; 6/15/18, 1:47 PM
Darkisland said...: Tregonse,

When I say University of Wisconsin, I mean the one in Menomonee.

Where they teach useful subjects lik Packaging.

John Henry; 6/15/18, 1:47 PM
Tank said...: As a private institution, Harvard should be able to admit or reject anyone they want for any reason. Of course, that's not the law because … (not allowed to say why in America).; 6/15/18, 1:49 PM
Jim Gust said...: Apparently the admissions department at Harvard never heard of Martin Luther King. A pity.; 6/15/18, 1:50 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/15/18, 1:53 PM
Anonymous said...: Balfegor: Now that Asians are overperforming on extracurriculars, admissions officers have turned to something else. If Asians end up excelling on charm and polish, they'll find something else.

I have a hard time believing that significantly more Asian kids than kids from other groups are really deficient in "'positive personality,' likability, courage, kindness and being 'widely respected'". So I doubt working on the charm and polish would sway the holistically-bent committees - who would never, ever, indulge in racial stereotyping - from their stereotyping.; 6/15/18, 1:54 PM
Sebastian said...: The rampant higher ed discrimination starts with throwing Chinese and Indians and Japanese and Vietnamese and Iranians into the "Asian" basket.

But, hey, Asians there is a party that wants you to succeed on your own merit.

And by the way, hey, Jews, there is a party that wants you to succeed on your own merit and also wants your fellow Jews over in Israel to survive in peace.; 6/15/18, 1:56 PM
Fernandinande said...: "The Chinese emigrants possess an extraordinary instinct for political and social organization; they contrive to establish for themselves a police and internal government, and they give no trouble to their rulers so long as they are left to manage those matters by themselves. They are good-tempered, frugal, industrious, saving, commercially inclined, and extraordinarily prolific. They thrive in all countries, the natives of the Southern provinces being perfectly able to labor and multiply in the hottest climates.
...
For these reasons it is probable that the streams of emigration from China have sufficient "head" to enable them to reach and overflow the coasts of Eastern Africa if they were watched and judiciously diverted in that direction. ..." -- Francis Galton; 6/15/18, 1:57 PM
Anonymous said...: @Tank The problem is that Harvard takes bundles of money from the Feds. With the money come the strings. If Harvard stopped taking Federal funds then you are absolutely correct. In 2015 Harvard received almost $600 million in Federal funds.; 6/15/18, 2:00 PM
AustinRoth said...: I don’t believe any of this. Harvard is a bastion of progressive, multi-cultural acceptance. They would never, ever, ever discriminate against any group. Except conservatives. Who aren’t really people, anyway, right?; 6/15/18, 2:01 PM
Big Mike said...: @Khesahn, well, it's not as though Harvard contends for the national championship in any sport.

BTW, it's coming up on a fiftieth anniversary for you in about three weeks, isn't it.; 6/15/18, 2:01 PM
readering said...: I interview for another Ivy school and I see Asian-Americans admitted at a lower rate than other applicants. I don't have a 160,00 student sample but it's discouraging to observe.; 6/15/18, 2:07 PM
TreeJoe said...: Just for clarity: Was Harvard's response actually something along the lines of,

"You can't use statistics to evaluate our score-based admissions system. Statistics don't capture the intangibles that we also don't use to admit people, since we use a score based system. But you can't use statistics on our system."

I'm trying to understand their response basically saying that evaluating the trends of their scoring process for assessing personality characteristics by population is somehow....not ok.; 6/15/18, 2:12 PM
Birches said...: What's the opposite tag for Lawsuits I Hope Will Fail?; 6/15/18, 2:12 PM
Cath said...: Hang on, these applicants rate lower on "likeability" according to WHOM? Isn't Harvard saying they just don't like Asian kids very much?; 6/15/18, 2:13 PM
Anonymous said...: @Big Mike Harvard has contended for, and won, many national championships. Here's the list. Remember, too, that what is now called "Ivy league" football was the home of big time football as it was adopted in this country.

I assume you are referring to my rotating out of country in July 1968. Hadn't thought of that. If you remember the USMC tour in country was 395 days. I flew out of Danang on day 395. The odd thing about it was that I felt irresponsible leaving the men of my battery. Took me a while to get used to that when I got back to the states.

Thanks for noticing!; 6/15/18, 2:16 PM
William said...: Tim in Vermont has a good suggestion, but I don't see why it has to be done in Costa Rica. Why can't one of the Ivies take the stand that they will recruit on academics alone. They say students learn mostly from one another. Why not assemble a collection of very smart people who compete to see who's the smartest. I think good things will come from the products of such university. Let the other schools fashion themselves however they want, i.e fewer Asians, more blacks, and rich well connected whites. Compare the results. Settle the science,,,...I'd like to go to school with Natalie Portman or Emma Watson and the children of billionaires and Presidents. I don't think the science is settled, but it's worth examining.; 6/15/18, 2:20 PM
Earnest Prole said...: I knew Affirmative Action was dead in California when I arrived in the mid-eighties and saw it being used to deny superior Asian students entry into the University of California. Ten years later it was banned.; 6/15/18, 2:26 PM
fivewheels said...: The key to understanding affirmative action is that no one cares about diversity, really. No one. You see this in the refusal to consider diversity of viewpoint, but it starts earlier than that. The entire concept was merely a fig leaf to figure out a way to include more African-Americans in certain groups. Legally, the SCOTUS decided you can't just say, "We're going to give black people a hand here," because that's unequal under the law. Another excuse needed to be found. Diversity was just the excuse, it was never really anyone's goal. No one genuinely thinks a critical mass of Samoan natives is necessary in every college so the kids can understand the world -- they only want to get more blacks and latinos into colleges and jobs.

Honestly, I would be more sympathetic to the argument of: "Black people tend to need more help than others, so we're going to give them help." Point blank. Instead of this rampant dishonesty.; 6/15/18, 2:32 PM
Tommy Duncan said...: Blogger Bay Area Guy said...

"Any thought to treating people as INDIVIDUALS or is that terrible?"

It's terrible if the adherents to your ideology are comprised largely of identity group members.

It's also terrible if you believe your ideology entitles you to enforce outcomes for the greater good.; 6/15/18, 2:33 PM
DrSquid said...: Has anyone investigated whether the Asians who apply to Harvard might actually be less personable, likable...thrifty, brave clean and reverent etc., than their non-Asian counterparts? Probably this is not the case, but on the other hand Harvard might not want the class makeup they would have if they simply took the first 2000 (or however many they take) highest qualified by standard criteria. No sympathy for Harvard here, fuck them. But it's their school, let them run it (ruin it) anyway they like; 6/15/18, 2:36 PM
Drago said...: readering: "I interview for another Ivy school and I see Asian-Americans admitted at a lower rate than other applicants. I don't have a 160,00 student sample but it's discouraging to observe."

Why?

These are the actions of the enlightened, empathetic, compassionate, educated, elite, social-justice-filled lefties.

By definition, that makes what they think, believe and do wonderful beyond words.

And they could never, under any circumstances, be mistaken for "deplorables".; 6/15/18, 2:41 PM
Jersey Fled said...: My daughter's high school boyfriend was president of his senior class, an all-conference athlete, active in the drama and music clubs, and a straight A student.

Unfortunately, he was (and is still) white.

Brown University declined to admit him.

When he took his interview at Brown, the admissions councillor asked him if he might be gay. The implication was that if he said yes, he was in.

So he took his white, heterosexual butt to Villanova.; 6/15/18, 2:53 PM
James K said...: I’ve been told that Harvard and other schools added the essay to the application after standardized testing was introduced, because when admissions was based on objective criteria, Jews ended up being 20% or more of the admissions. The essay was basically designed to ferret out who was Jewish, if it wasn’t obvious, and to give cover for discrimination.; 6/15/18, 2:55 PM
fivewheels said...: "Has anyone investigated whether the Asians who apply to Harvard might actually be less personable..."

Read The F****** Article.

"Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial group, often without even meeting them."; 6/15/18, 2:57 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: tcrosse @ 1:17 - I'd bet Admissions would need something more like Eddie Haskell.; 6/15/18, 3:08 PM
Birkel said...: All:

Harvard is a private organization. However, they have publicly announced for quite some time that they will hold the Harvard Corporation to the standards of a public (state, if you prefer) university. In doing so, Harvard has created a contract with its applicants, students, and alumni.

Therefore, it is not accurate to say Harvard can choose its entering class of students in whichever way it prefers. Harvard has rejected that option.; 6/15/18, 3:08 PM
Luke Lea said...: When it comes to our elite liberal arts colleges, ethnicity and culture — including gene-culture coevolution — matter. Not in the sciences, but when it comes to choosing tomorrow's cultural elites. Everybody knows this, at least intuitively, but now we are going to have to face up to it more frankly. If we are going to have a truly multi-cultural society I suggest we consider affirmative action for all. We need elites who reflect the ethnic and geographic diversity of America.; 6/15/18, 3:12 PM
readering said...: Drago my blogging Doppelgänger.; 6/15/18, 3:17 PM
n.n said...: Asians there is a party that wants you to succeed on your own merit.

Not just Asians, but people, irrespective of their diversity class. That is to say, judge an individual by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

#PeopleMatter; 6/15/18, 3:18 PM
Henry said...: In court papers, Harvard said that they were only kidding and Asians didn't understand sarcasm.; 6/15/18, 3:21 PM
Henry said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/15/18, 3:24 PM
Henry said...: Once de Blasio succeeds in diluting the percentage of Asians graduating from Stuyvesant High School, Harvard can feel free to add it to their holistic standard.; 6/15/18, 3:25 PM
Rick said...: Alex said...
So confirmed racism against Asian-Americans is confirmed.

Yes, we all knew they were discriminating. But forcing Harvard (and all selective universities really) to defend it means they have to argue the lack of proportionality doesn't prove racism.; 6/15/18, 3:25 PM
Henry said...: In court papers, Harvard said that a statistical analysis could not capture the next Einstein. A travel essay will be required.; 6/15/18, 3:29 PM
Henry said...: In court papers, Harvard said it is keeping a steely focus on the fact that American democracy is under attack by a foreign power, possibly with collusion from Russky chess clubs. This is a crisis. Certain rules don’t apply in a crisis; 6/15/18, 3:32 PM
Rory said...: Bay Area Guy said, "Any thought to treating people as INDIVIDUALS or is that terrible"

Like true communism,true equality before the law has never been tried. And the Democrats exist to make sure it never will be.; 6/15/18, 3:35 PM
rcocean said...: In the 1920s Harvard quite rightly wanted to have a student body that "looked like America". So it set up geographical quotas.

Of course, today this has been turned into some great myth about "Harvard being antisemitic". It wasn't. Jews still made up over 10 percent of the Harvard Student body before WW 2 - almost 2 or 3 times their percentage of the population.; 6/15/18, 3:35 PM
Jupiter said...: Rob said...
"Simultaneously shameful and shameless, as is President Faust's defense of Harvard."

Well, I give her credit. At least she didn't say that even to entertain the idea made her physically ill. For a Harvard woman, that's real progress.; 6/15/18, 3:38 PM
Clyde said...: Did Einstein go to Harvard?; 6/15/18, 3:39 PM
Henry said...: Einstein went to China.; 6/15/18, 3:41 PM
Bilwick said...: Or as the enlightened of Harvard called them back in the day, "People of the slant-eyed small-dick persuasion."; 6/15/18, 3:49 PM
mockturtle said...: If personality assessment can [apparently] be culturally biased then maybe other assessments are, too. Therein lies a problem facing educational institutions in general. Is there a 'gold standard' for the end product of your university? If there is, then who defines it?; 6/15/18, 3:53 PM
readering said...: Einstein went to Princeton; 6/15/18, 3:55 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: Henry at 3:32 PM
In court papers, Harvard said it is keeping a steely focus on the fact that American democracy is under attack by a foreign power, possibly with collusion from Russky chess clubs. This is a crisis. Certain rules don’t apply in a crisis.

LOL at this comment and at all your other comments here.; 6/15/18, 3:59 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: mockturtle:

If personality assessment can [apparently] be culturally biased then maybe other assessments are, too. Therein lies a problem facing educational institutions in general. Is there a 'gold standard' for the end product of your university? If there is, then who defines it?

See what fivewheels quoted above:

"Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial group, often without even meeting them."

The people who interviewed actually rated Asians the same. Apparently, it's at the admissions office that Asians got downgraded. It's a subjective factor, one they control, and one that's hard to contest directly, so they decided to use that lever to keep Asians out.

This lawsuit is almost certainly going to expose a lot more ugliness in the Harvard admissions process than it already has. Plaintiffs are just getting started. I hope they don't settle, and force Harvard to litigate it out to the bitter end, forcing sunlight into every last darkened corner of their admissions office.; 6/15/18, 4:01 PM
tcrosse said...: Einstein went to Princeton

Einstein went to Zurich Polytechnic. He ended up at Princeton.; 6/15/18, 4:05 PM
mockturtle said...: Guess they're afraid Asian students are likely to set a bad example for the others by their good study habits and academic excellence.; 6/15/18, 4:05 PM
Elliott A said...: At least they are consistent. They use the same criteria in hiring faculty. The application allows you to designate yourself by race or heritage. Pocohontas!; 6/15/18, 4:12 PM
Doug said...: Hey, Harvard had to put the thumb on the scale SOMEWHERE in order to have enough slots for POC.
How high did Harvard rate Asian-Americans on "inscrutability"?
Hey, at least they didn't rate them as"eyes too slanty".; 6/15/18, 4:16 PM
Comanche Voter said...: Ah those boys (and girls) on the Harvard admissions committee. First it was the Joooos! Can't admit too many of them now, can we? But now those folks at the venerable institution have gone full Old Skool! It's the dreaded Yellow Peril! We sure don't need any of those, and we'll do whatever it takes to make sure not very many of them manage to slip through the chinks--so to speak. Or is that "don't let too many Chinks slip through the cracks"?

Inquiriing simple minds want to know.; 6/15/18, 4:24 PM
Narayanan said...: 'Sorbonne launches bid to become 'French Harvard'; 6/15/18, 4:28 PM
James K said...: “Jews still made up over 10 percent of the Harvard Student body before WW 2 - almost 2 or 3 times their percentage of the population.”

Doesn’t mean they didn’t discriminate. I’m sure Asians are still overrepresented at Harvard, but much smaller than if Harvard weren’t discriminating. There’s no question Harvard was anti-Semitic. That’s why they didn’t give economist Paul Samuelson a job, and he went to MIT instead.; 6/15/18, 4:29 PM
Mountain Maven said...: It's the NYT, so it's a lie.; 6/15/18, 4:30 PM
Yancey Ward said...: It is going to be hilarious watching Harvard try to defend this. There is practically no chance that the evaluations aren't deliberately designed to balance against the higher scores. In an alternate universe where Asian-Americans scored lowest on the entrance exams, but where everything else were completely the same, the personal evaluations of Asian-American applicants would be reversed.

Harvard's only defense is going to be a basic admission that Asian-American applicants aren't very nice people compared to everyone else. How they thread this needle is a mystery to me.; 6/15/18, 4:34 PM
James K said...: Imagine the uproar if Harvard decided that gays were over-represented (which they probably are) and they started discriminating against them.; 6/15/18, 4:39 PM
MacMacConnell said...: Asians are the "new jew" in the Ivy League, they don't go the the "right" prep schools.; 6/15/18, 4:42 PM
bagoh20 said...: Completely understandable. You can't fast track Asians. We all know what it's like if you get behind one.; 6/15/18, 4:48 PM
Yancey Ward said...: What a world of petards we have these days!; 6/15/18, 4:51 PM
Caligula said...: "Guess they're afraid Asian students are likely to set a bad example for the others by their good study habits and academic excellence."

Actually, Harvard receives so many applications from highly qualified applicants that it is one of the few schools that truly can afford to put a heavily discriminatory thumb on the admissions scales and still obtain top-tier students.

Unfortunately one doesn't have to go very far down the school rankings list before that's no longer true. Especially if Harvard has already taken the best of those offering both "diversity" and high academic potential.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court, although it claims race is subject to strict scrutiny, has steadfastly refused to draw a bright line between lawful and unlawful racial discrimination. Thus, selection criteria that produce a "disparate impact" are highly suspect if/when they harm a protected class, yet (apparently) may be freely used to discriminate against non-protected classes.; 6/15/18, 4:52 PM
mockturtle said...: Thus, selection criteria that produce a "disparate impact" are highly suspect if/when they harm a protected class, yet (apparently) may be freely used to discriminate against non-protected classes.

Well, yes, Caligula. Non-protected classes, e.g., Whites, Men, Straights, Christians and East Asians. They don't require legal protection because they are deemed capable of acquiring positions without it. The problem lies in the question of whether or not we want the 'protected classes' to have an artificially high population in our institutions just because they are protected classes.; 6/15/18, 5:00 PM
Big Mike said...: @Khesahn, the battle of Khe Sahn officially ended on 9 July 1968. If you were rotating out that July then you no doubt had other things on your mind besides official communiques from Westmoreland’s HQ.; 6/15/18, 5:02 PM
Rabel said...: Asian student: This is library?

Harvard: Not for you it's not, Slant eyes.; 6/15/18, 5:18 PM
jono39 said...: I was at Harvard from 1957 50 1969. I followed my older brother who was there for six years. I was well aware of the limitations imposed on Jews in the 1920s and Asian students today. I recall a conversation I had with an assistant dean of admissions while I was working on my PhD. It was a friendly conversation about competing needs in making admissions policy. He said on the basis of test scores in the last year or two Harvard could admit a Freshman class that comprised 90% coming from Metropollitan New York.He asked me what I thought of that? Without hesitation I told him I would not have accepted the offer.And I would not have. As long as diversity does not dilute intelligence and competence, there is immense benefit. Look at the moron mayor of NYC who is now going to destroy its elite high schools by forcing them to admit student of various other colors and ethnicities which requires significant reduction in the competencies of the coming classes. He is a serious moron.; 6/15/18, 5:26 PM
rhhardin said...: Ashkenazi jews have an average IQ of 110-115, smarter than Asians.; 6/15/18, 6:06 PM
rcocean said...: "I was well aware of the limitations imposed on Jews in the 1920s and Asian students today."

I'm not too sure what you mean by "Limitations" - there was no "SAT test" in the 1920s. Harvard introduced "Geographical" quotas with the goal of making Harvard "look like America" aka more diverse.

Surely that's a good thing - after all Harvard brags about its "diversity" today.

And Harvard accepted Jews far in excess of their percentage of the population. I'm sure Harvard "limited" the number of Lutherans and Catholics too. Since it always has more applicants than slots available.; 6/15/18, 6:41 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: The avg IQ claim I am not sure of anymore...

Read someplace study was faulty...; 6/15/18, 6:45 PM
Gahrie said...: The avg IQ claim I am not sure of anymore...

The existence of IQ, the measurability of IQ, the usefulness of IQ in predicting success, the racial (and to a smaller degree gender) differences in IQ are not even controversial. They are the most accurate measurement of humanity ever come up with by the social sciences.

The problem is, there are some unpleasant demographic facts they force you to confront.; 6/15/18, 6:57 PM
mockturtle said...: Whether or not Asians have higher IQs than other races is beside the point, IMO. What I have witnessed is that Asians in general are more serious about their studies, their families are stricter and their academic achievement is greater. I concede that most of my education was in the sciences rather than the humanities and far more Asians are drawn to the sciences. But as a nation we need more scientists and engineers than we need English majors, so there's that.; 6/15/18, 7:17 PM
chickelit said...: Blogger Mike Sylwester said...”I don't feel sorry for any Asian-Americans who suffer such discrimination but who nevertheless vote Democrat.”

You mean like Hawaiians? I don’t care for their judges either.; 6/15/18, 7:36 PM
CWJ said...: Twelve posts in and Paul Zrimsek wins the thread!; 6/15/18, 7:53 PM
mockturtle said...: From Quora in 2016 re UCLA:
A Hispanic kid and an Asian kid has the same SAT of 2200 and GPA of 3.7 at a high school in California. Under affirmative action, the Hispanic kid would get the offer from UCLA and the Asian kid would be rejected. The reason is, there are already too many Asian kids on campus, much higher than the demographic percentage of the Asian Americans in California.; 6/15/18, 7:54 PM
mockturtle said...: PS: It was added that this was true even if the Asian kid's family is poorer.; 6/15/18, 7:56 PM
mockturtle said...: Social engineering sucks. It's that simple.; 6/15/18, 7:56 PM
CWJ said...: "Likeability"

I can just imagine a white female Democrat interviewing Black applicants automatically scoring each one 5/5 or 10/10 on these scales for fear that someone somewhere might think she's racist. I know such people. Was that just now racist on my part? Yeah, who cares. Not nearly as racist as the interviewer.; 6/15/18, 7:58 PM
Anonymous said...: @BigMike What I think of Westmoreland's headquarters can't be printed on a family blog. We (1st Marines/ 1st AirCav) had relieved Khe Sanh in April/May 1968. The NVA had withdrawn prior to that. As we have learned Khe Sanh was a diversion aimed at getting Westy to move troops out of the rest of VN for Tet. Khe Sanh should have been shut down as soon as it was relieved and all troops withdrawn, but the atmospherics were wrong. Something like: "If Khe Sanh was so important why are we leaving as soon as we can"? It was a ridiculous position tactically. However we were sent into Khe Sanh and were there being shot at occasionally until the word came down that the base would be evacuated in early July. I left around 1 July and everything was being prepared to move. Typical of the BS that surrounded MACV I am sure that the announcement of the "end of the battle" was used to justify an evacuation that should have taken place three months sooner.; 6/15/18, 8:09 PM
Anonymous said...: The reality is that the Harvard Admissions Committee does a great job of filling the needs of the college (scholars, musicians, athletes, etc.) from the applicants available. Even so I am willing to see the results of an Asian win.; 6/15/18, 8:15 PM
Openidname said...: "rcocean said...

"Of course, today this has been turned into some great myth about 'Harvard being antisemitic.' It wasn't."

Oh, yeah? Well, I haven't read the book that the New Yorker is reviewing here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in

but it sure sounds like it makes a good case that Harvard and its admissions process were anti-Semitic:

"A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school: 'The summer hotel that is ruined by admitting Jews meets its fate . . . because they drive away the Gentiles, and then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also.'"; 6/15/18, 8:15 PM
rcocean said...: Funny how when Harvard wanted its college to "look like America" in the 1920's that was "antisemitic" - and bad.

But now having Harvard "look like America" and be "diverse" is A-OK.

And ADL/SPLC approved.; 6/15/18, 8:46 PM
rcocean said...: "A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school:"

Yep. And the President of Harvard TODAY thinks too many white men or Asians would "destroy their school".

Things haven't changed much. Have they?; 6/15/18, 8:48 PM
Ken B said...: Paul Zrimsek: Bravo.; 6/15/18, 9:17 PM
Big Mike said...: One of my younger son’s Asian-American high school classmates was accepted into Harvard. He didn’t have perfect SAT scores, but he could throw a football pretty far with a high completion percentage.; 6/15/18, 9:46 PM
langford peel said...: I hope these poor Orientals realize that if they don't have a black tickee they no get shirtee. So Sorry.; 6/15/18, 9:57 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: Analysis of iq claims - seems a bit of cherry picking was done...

https://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-myth-of-jewish-intelligence.html?m=1

I’m becoming disillusioned on psychology studies - seems that the Stanford prisoner experiment had some slight of hand stuff...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5842893/Famed-Stanford-prison-experiment-shows-naturally-abuse-power-based-LIES.html

A psych professor I had did note understand most psych studies are done on college students...; 6/15/18, 10:29 PM
Rory said...: CWJ said, "I can just imagine a white female Democrat interviewing Black applicants automatically scoring each one 5/5 or 10/10 on these scale...."

It would be 4/5 or 9/10, or there'd be no room to them by giving them a big helping of diversificating goodness. But yeah, the scores would all be the same, and above average.; 6/15/18, 11:30 PM
n.n said...: Jew privilege? Hitleresque.

White privilege? Progressive.

Asian privilege? Diversity in its many colors.; 6/15/18, 11:30 PM
Gahrie said...: Analysis of iq claims - seems a bit of cherry picking was done...

The U.S. military has been working with I.Q. for 100 years, and has produced very reliable data on the subject.; 6/15/18, 11:46 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: rcocean,

You seem to mean that if Jews or Asians are "overrepresented," they can't have been discriminated against. If and when you apply this to top college football and basketball teams, I might concede that you are serious. Let's put an informal (of course!) cap on black players in these sports at 12%, which is their percentage of the nationwide population. You could even double that -- but, still, only one in four players can be black. You're OK with that?

Of course, this could only be done via "holistic review." Maybe the black athletes just aren't as "personable" on average as those of other races, hmmm?; 6/15/18, 11:49 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Balfegor,

"I hope they don't settle, and force Harvard to litigate it out to the bitter end, forcing sunlight into every last darkened corner of their admissions office. [emphasis added]"

I hope they don't settle, either, but in the part I bolded at the end it seems your imagination falls short a bit. Surely, surely the admissions office has not gone rogue and is doing this all on their own, without the knowledge and approval of the leadership of the University.; 6/16/18, 12:09 AM
FIDO said...: I had this one class by an ex Marine law enforcement type. He...was an uneven teacher. But he loved him some Jarheads.

So after tons of his Jarheads flunked or did rather dubiously on his tests, he had each of us come in for 'grade evaluation.'

Essentially he was going to grade on a curve based on 'personality'

When he got to me, he let slip 'oh...you actually EARNED an A.'

At that point, I wanted to thank him for making that effort irrelevant, but I didn't know how many more classes I would have with him.

I imagine that the Asians feel the exact same way.; 6/16/18, 6:21 AM
roesch/voltaire said...: Joni just as Harvard could have had ninety percent of the freshman class composed of New Yorkers,I would guess that ninety percent of the class could be filled by Asians today which why I suspect these quotas have always benn put into place to,protect the Anglo population of both Republican and Democratic backgrounds. In any case one only has to look at our science labs and medical field to note that the Asian wave is growing no matter the filters.; 6/16/18, 7:35 AM
Anonymous said...: Michelle Dulak Thomson: You seem to mean that if Jews or Asians are "overrepresented," they can't have been discriminated against.

Of course you can be "overrepresented" and discriminated against. Contrary to Roy's link @10:29, Ashkenazi Jews really do have a relatively high average IQ, so you'd predict that they'd be overrepresented. There appears to be a dopey sub-culture within the "alt right" (represented at the link) dedicted to "proving" that the high level of achievement observed among Ashkenazi Jews is all smoke and mirrors and nefarious Jewish propaganda, and has nothing to do with native ability.

On the other hand, there's overrepresented, and there's overrepresented. If the latter is the case (and that can be examined statistically), it's reasonable to assume that other factors are in play - and not necessarily just positive or neutral ones, like "a culture of learning" or the aggregate result of individual preferences, but the usual human tendencies toward nepotism and group favoritism. It isn't "anti-Semitic" to assume that Jews (or anybody else) are as prone to this in-group behavior as those awful quota-setting Waspy McWasps everybody is so butthurt about.*

Thus I'm skeptical of what seems to be the general implicit assumption here - that all this discriminatin' against Asians is being carried out by Chatsworth T. Osborne IV in cahoots with Thurston Howell III. Could be - those evil old legacy WASPs could still be running admissions with an iron fist, despite gentile whites being underrepresented relative to their numbers in the high-scoring general cohort. It would be interesting to see what, as Balfegor put it, "forcing sunlight into every last darkened corner of their admissions office" would turn up.

*If Harvard were actually a private university, I'd agree with Tank @1:49 - I wouldn't give a rat's who they discriminated against, then or now, or why. If Waspy McWasp doesn't like your kind, establish your own damned university. That's what Waspy McWasp did, when there were no universities around to send his kids to. And, as a matter of fact, some Jews - and Catholics - did do just that.

But it isn't, and there are precious few truly private universities in America today.; 6/16/18, 8:27 AM
n.n said...: Here's an objective measure:

1. Is the individual qualified?
2. Their order of arrival.
3. A window of opportunity.

Anything else is a shade of diversity.; 6/16/18, 11:24 AM
hstad said...: Blogger Tank said...
"As a private institution, Harvard should be able to admit or reject anyone they want for any reason. Of course, that's not the law because … (not allowed to say why in America)."
6/15/18, 1:49 PM

So true! But you forgot to mention one additional item - follow the money! Most large universities, including Harvard, get a substantial amount of money/grants/etc., from Governments, Foundations, Pharmaceuticals, Various Companies, etc. So they are only "Private" in theory not in practice. The economics of higher education looms larger than our collective view of "Private"!; 6/16/18, 12:13 PM
Anonymous said...: @hstad In 2015 Harvard took about $600 million from the Feds. With just a few strings attached.; 6/16/18, 4:49 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Asians really do not have a "positive personality,". They lack likability, courage, kindness and are definitely not "widely respected." They're worse than Jews!

So what? If they get the best scores, they should get in. Do you want a doctor or an engineer who can cure your disease, or build a bridge, or do you want them to be cool?

Anyway, Asians don't care about Harvard, Yale, or any other tony universities. The only Asians who apply there are slackers or snobs. The best of any race go for MIT and Cal Tech, and a few other tech schools like them, and those universities don't give a shit about subjectives.; 6/17/18, 1:46 PM
Joe said...: I once had a boss who got his bachelor and masters degrees from Harvard. I wasn't impressed.; 6/17/18, 2:01 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Asians and Jews should stop being such geeks.; 6/17/18, 5:47 PM