I mean whatever you think of the case itself this is a fantastic scoop by the Times, that the Asian kids who did get in don't feel discriminated against pic.twitter.com/pzeM8KVNls
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) August 16, 2020
Here's the NYT article, "Justice Dept. Says Yale Discriminates. Here’s What Students Think."
ADDED: Immediately upon publishing this post, it became obvious to me that Singal is being sarcastic. So we're on the same page.
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Jessie Singal is very funny. I enjoy him even when I don't agree with him. Ditto Katie Herzog.
Yeah, sure they're going to say that. They want to come back next year. They're not stupid. They're Asians.
The DOJ busts Yale for discriminating against Whites and Asians. Pussy conservatives defend Jews and Asians.
https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/yale-cant-discriminate-against-jews-and-asians-and-expect-taxpayer-money/
True. When I entered MIT in 1967 the cutoffs were higher for females because of limited dormspace. That was a great comfort to me!
All them smart Democrats wuz rite. Their’s that sistimic raycizm.
It would be difficult to overstate a certain newspaper's obsession with the most elite of the Ivies.
I don't subscribe any more, but I assume it still runs at least one comforting article every spring to reassure anxious parents that, even if your child was not admitted to Harvard or Yale or Princeton or Stanford, he or she can have a perfectly successful life, probably.
During the Kavanaugh hearings, the news department had enough Elis on staff to research the man's behavior at Yale just by calling fellow alumni.
Naturally, when the bias charge came up, the first idea in editors' heads was, let's talk to some of those students (like us back in the day) and ask how they FEEL about it.
I'm not going to read the story. If the paper sent a reporter to talk to students at an HBCU every 10 years or so, that would be a different matter.
Some people need to get out more.
How do the Asians fare in the black studies courses, is the question.
Dare they say otherwise? See it works!
Jesse Singal is an independent thinker worth following. He's not remotely conservative but also not buying in to the madness on the far left.
It's cute the way the nyt quotes the feelings of some students.
Article: The government demanded that Yale stop using race and national origin as factors in admission. Yale has refused, ...
So Yale admits they use race and national origin as factors in admission, which is just a slimy way of saying they discriminate on the basis of race and national origin.
... saying its admissions process adheres to both federal law and Supreme Court rulings that have generally supported affirmative action
It's very unfortunate that so many gov't lawyers think that equal protection under the law is an impediment to be overcome when it's actually one of the great features of modern civilization.
When everyone works hard, the people who got ahead are going to think it was the result of their hard work.
That was something I picked up on in law school--needed reforms don't happen because the people in a position to bring about reforms are the people who succeeded under the current system. Obviously, those people are going to think the current system is just fine.
from wifi,
"Elihu Yale (5 April 1649 – 8 July 1721) was a British-American merchant. He was president of the East India Company settlement in Fort St. George, at Madras, WHERE HE BENEFITTED FROM THE SLAVE TRADE[*]. Yale was a benefactor of the Collegiate School in the Colony of Connecticut, which, in 1718, was renamed Yale College in his honor."
*Now there's an understatement.
I'm not going to go to the NYT's site because I quit them when they began to charge extra for the crossword puzzle (FYI, the WSJ puzzles are just as good and the paper isn't garbage), but I'd like to know about comments from students who didn't get in.
I have little doubt that the blacks who got in feel discriminated against, or at least can be depended upon to say so.
This might be from the era of "That's not Funny" for missing the sarcasm.
Everybody knows schools discriminate based on race.
Ask Elizabeth Warren.
"Immediately upon publishing this post, it became obvious to me that Singal is being sarcastic."
Althouse! Have another cup of coffee!
Anyway, progs are bound to have a little difficulty with the admissions pretzel, proudly claiming that they boost minority numbers while denying that they "discriminate" in any way. Normally, it doesn't bother them, and why should it -- until the DOJ comes calling.
Of course, they are actually cool with racism, as long as it favors blacks -- sorry, Blacks. The letter of the law is for little people.
And it's easier to get good grades with all that diversity. The diverses really bring the curves down. We need more diverses.
"I mean whatever you think of the case itself this is a fantastic scoop by the Times, that the Asian kids who did get in don't feel discriminated against..."
This is pure Babylon Bee stuff right here : )
I hopped over to the private Yale Alumni Facebook group to see how folks are reacting, and it is mostly what one would expect: Asians getting banned and posts getting deleted for raising racist concepts like the importance of hard work, persistence, and discipline, the "White" practice of pitting the Asian "model minority" against other minorities as a way of preserving the racist structures of capitalism and imperialism, lots of vituperative name calling, and so on.
I'm also picking up on something a little more subtle. It seems a lot of people who majored in the humanities and various XYZ studies fields quietly hold a pretty strong grudge against STEM graduates.
Asian kids who did get in don't feel discriminated against
This from the paper than cannot find any Republican that supports Trump.
Professora ADDED: Immediately upon publishing this post, it became obvious to me that Singal is being sarcastic. So we're on the same page.
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so are you taking him seriously or literally.
you do realize that sarcasm is serious business?! and needs to be crafted literally?
Don't mind the facts, people, the New New Journalism is all about feelings!
Aside from the obvious logical problem there is also willful blindness from the NYT to the pressure on these aspirants to membership in the overclass to conform to the dogmas of the overclass. One of those dogmas is that there is no discrimination against Asians. This NYT article is an example of policing that dogma.
Rename Yale! I suggest Korematsu College.
Using the Los Angeles Times playbook [inserting "some say" before every madeup qoute].
Some students say that it's okay to do the work, ace the tests, make the highest scores--and still not get admitted to Yale while some students say whoopee I got in with these lousy scores.
Of course you never learn who "some". But let me guess--the first "some" is Asian. The second "some" is affirmative action admits.
Biff:” I'm also picking up on something a little more subtle. It seems a lot of people who majored in the humanities and various XYZ studies fields quietly hold a pretty strong grudge against STEM graduates”
This is natural isn’t it? If you paid a bazillion bucks for an education, and those STEM folks got so much more of it than you did, you might resent it too.
I'm trying to sort out my feelings. I don't think my particular ethnic subset is represented in just proportion at Yale, but, on the other hand, I don't particularly give a damn. When more whites and Asians are admitted to Yale, it won't be like the fall of the Bastille.... I just hope that Joyce Carol Oates' foot recovers and that she gets to hike another day.
I’m a dinosaur about English so I disagree about him being sarcastic. As Narayan says, sarcasm is serious business and to wit it is in fact meant to wound like “that dress doesn’t make you look fat at all.” It is irony when one says a thing that actually means the opposite without being mean about it.
Biff @ 9:16: “...Yale Alumni Facebook page...”. Thanks for the report. I can only imagine how this move by DOJ is stirring the alums. Internecine warfare is probably the least of it. How will the school spin this to its community, especially as it tries to squeeze donations out of unhappy alums? “Now more than ever, your gift will make a difference as we write seven-figure checks to our attorneys to defend our right to screw white and Asian applicants (no less than we screw Blacks admitted with huge deficits in preparation and therefore doomed to struggle: see “Mismatch”)...”
The DOJ official who signed the letter to Yale has degrees from Harvard and Princeton. I smell a rat.
"Althouse! Have another cup of coffee!"
I don't like that kind of internet sarcasm. I think Singal is a good writer and I follow him on Twitter, but I wouldn't have blogged his tweet if I'd recognized the sarcasm before hitting publish. It's not my style of humor. I think it's the cheapest form of humor PLUS there are so many stupid things that people do mean seriously that you're stuck sifting through a lot of junk. I don't bring that stuff to the blog.
And one reason I began by taking it seriously is that I really did encounter people in my place of work, a law school, who would talk about the benefits of affirmative action to the people who did get in, and I found it morally deficient to omit to think about the people who did not get in. It's not something I think is funny at all.
Biff said, "a lot of people who majored in the humanities and various XYZ studies fields quietly hold a pretty strong grudge against STEM graduates."
So true. During undergrad the STEM majors learn calculus (the language of God, per Nobel Laureate in Physics Richard Feynman), and they understand that mathematics is the language of the universe. They generally end up highly employable and highly compensated.
The Humanities and XYZ majors, OTOH, possess a very different world view: they learn a social narrative instead, chanting their battle cry, "I was told there would be no math!"
Somehow you don't find too many Biochemistry or Electrical Engineering grads working as baristas or yoga instructors.
I say again: I despise, detest, and distrust the NYT (and its little dog WaPoo, too!)
Althouse confirms:
That's not Funny!
Once you're in, who do you want for your competition? A bunch of high scoring Asians? Or some affirmative action and legacy admittees who'll help fill up the bottom half of the class curve? For those who make it in, not only is there a social reason to conform to the party line, there's also a coldly practical reason to support it.
Steve Sailer was all over that article last night, and for the same reason.
It makes me wonder- are the writers at the NYTimes really that dumb, or do they not care that they appear to be?
Elihu Yale
Although born in Massachusetts, Yale was taken to England by his family at the age of three, and he never returned to America...
In 1671 Yale began working for the East India Company and arrived the following year in Madras. From a fairly low-ranking position he worked his way up by 1687 to become governor of Fort Saint George, the East India Company’s installation at Madras. Five years later the company removed him from office, charging him with self-aggrandizement at company expense. He was kept in Madras until 1699 and forced to pay a fine, but Yale was still able to take a sizable fortune with him to England. In London he entered the diamond trade, but he devoted a good deal of his time and money to philanthropy...
---------------===============
so where does the connection to slavery come from - afaik - slaves were not brought to India?
is he victim of the 1619 project? strange that Yale U would not try to establish the factual basis!
I recall a scene in The Social Network where Zuck and his Facebook cofounder demonstrate some non-discriminatory behavior to Asian students in the stalls of a bathroom. But that was Harvard. Or is that sort of thing not what the Asian Yalies are being asked about?
Well I think I disagree with this. I think it's the same kind of thing as Titania McGrath. The best, purest form of sarcasm (and satire) is the stuff that blows right over the head of most of the people it is intended to tweak.
My mother, a career elementary school teacher, once told me that she absolutely hated The Simpsons. I was never a fan of the show, but without thinking I shook my head at her and replied "It's brilliant satire", because I knew she was only seeing it as a cartoon. She gave me one of those purely empty shocked looks that people do when they realize they've been blindsided by something they haven't seen, and are shocked to find that it's different to what they thought. Satire and sarcasm have no edge if they are understood by everyone in the audience.
to keep in mind - free speech is /life or death/ important only to the dissidents - not the orthodoxy.
admitted students are now the in-group / orthos -
amazed that Professora climbed the high horse about having another coffee.
"And one reason I began by taking it seriously is that I really did encounter people in my place of work, a law school, who would talk about the benefits of affirmative action to the people who did get in, and I found it morally deficient to omit to think about the people who did not get in. It's not something I think is funny at all."
Wow, I am just gobsmacked by this. Singal doesn't think it is funny either, but he used the irony to bring to people's attention, and for the right reasons. Did you just skip over the story in the paper itself?
Of course they discriminate. Probably mostly legal, except that the Trump DOJ found their weakness - federal money. Easiest way, even easier than being a rich legacy, to get admitted to Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc, is to be the kid of a prominent politician, and in particular, a prominent Dem politician, though one of the Bush twins likely got into Yale this way, and maybe even their father. Can you believe that Fredo Cuomo went to Harvard and Chelsea Clinton to Stanford? We have all heard them speak, and neither comes close to being in the top 1% of IQs in this country. Fredo’s father was NY Gov, and Chelsea grew up in the White House. My memory is that Palsi had a kid go there, and 3-4 current Dem Senators had kids in Harvard last year. Their kids get in because politicians control the federal money spigot. Our money. Their kids.
The admissions offices at these schools weave a tapestry every year with their entering classes. There are a myriad of special categories. For example, this year, they may need a female lacrosse goalie and a talented flautist. After these special needs kids, as well as kids of powerful politicians, money is also important. Joe Kennedy bought Teddy’s entrance into UVA LS, after having been kicked out of Harvard for cheating by buying them a building. Those half million dollar salaries for top administrators and faculty come from all the donations these schools get. I was told by a fraternity brother, from one of the trustees of our alma mater, a small liberal arts school, that legacy admissions there essentially cost the equivalent of four years of tuition, room, and board as donations. You would essentially pay twice. It no doubt works that way at a lot of these schools, except that more exclusive ones probably require even more money up front in donations.
After those admissions, there are the Affirmative Action admissions. They make the leftists running these schools feel good about themselves, as well as many of the incoming students. Also, given preference at many of these schools are foreigners, who add color, plus inevitably pay full price.
Those admissions weren’t that academically competitive. The limitation on those admissions is that they drag down the admissions statistics for the entire entering class. If the published stats are allowed to drop too much, the school would lose their elite status. This means that the schools at one tier pretty much have to operate similarly, in order to maintain their respective positions academically. To simplify, there are really three remaining classes: non Jewish Whites (NJWs), Jews, and Asians, and esp East Asians (Orientals). Together, they have to maintain the rank of the college, and compensate for everyone else’s lower academic credentials. Used to be that NJWs were further subdivided, essentially between Protestants whose ancestors founded many of these schools and the kids of more recent RC immigrants. But as this sectarian divide in society has faded, so it has in admissions into elite schools. Moreover, a lot of those descendants of RC immigrants now have a lot of money, and many are legacies too. Jews are being absorbed into the White category, but prejudice remains, because they tend to be a little smarter on average and work harder. Which used to mean that if their numbers weren’t limited, they would become known as a Jewish school (as Brown was for my B School girlfriend almost 50 years ago). Asians work far harder than anyone else to get into top schools, all aimed, throughout HS, at building the best possible college applications. Highest GPAs, SATs, number of extracurricular activities, etc. Academically, they could probably afford to accept a lot more Asians, but many of them are second generation, which means that their families have yet to build up enough wealth that they could buy their way in, as is done by NJWs and Jews. So the schools cheat, pretend to accept on merit, but in reality put a heavy thumb on the scale for Asians, and sometimes a lighter one for Jews.
I don’t see “Have another cup of coffee!” as sarcastic. I see it as “You posted this at sunrise-ish, and maybe the irony slipped past you.”
Then again, I’m not the target. Possibly I’m too trusting, but when someone says I look good in shorts, I assume I’ve garnered a compliment.
"I found it morally deficient to omit to think about the people who did not get in. It's not something I think is funny at all."
For what it's worth, and deplorable sarcasm aside, I do agree, you know.
"Well I think I disagree with this. I think it's the same kind of thing as Titania McGrath. The best, purest form of sarcasm (and satire) is the stuff that blows right over the head of most of the people it is intended to tweak."
There are two types of responses to figuring out something is satire/sarcasm/irony- amusement that you got taken in, even if only briefly- and anger at having been fooled, even if only briefly. Of course, there is a third group that just doesn't get it even if you point it out.
The kids who do get in... clever. No comment.
Affirmative discrimination is evidence that affirmative action was a failure. That said, diversity normalizes adversity.
Yancey Ward said...
It makes me wonder- are the writers at the NYTimes really that dumb, or do they not care that they appear to be?
They suffer from the same problem the rest of the American left does. It's not that they are dumb, it's that they think the rest of us are that dumb.
Blogger tim maguire said...
When everyone works hard, the people who got ahead are going to think it was the result of their hard work.
And when people from one culture don't work hard, that's an indication that their culture sucks, and needs to change
Or be dumped for a better one
Which brings us to "black" people being attacked for "acting white".
In a sane culture the attackers would be drummed out of polite society. in our culture, they go to work for the Smithsonian
"And one reason I began by taking it seriously is that I really did encounter people in my place of work, a law school, who would talk about the benefits of affirmative action to the people who did get in, and I found it morally deficient to omit to think about the people who did not get in. It's not something I think is funny at all."
The fact that you can see this is one of the main reasons why I read your blog
The fact that you keep on voting for those people anyway is one of the things that drives me up the wall
How hard is it to stop voting for Democrats until they stop being so morally deficient?
"I think it's the same kind of thing as Titania McGrath."
I don't.
Titania McGrath is a brilliant comic character, who says things we're not meant to agree with but that are consistent with her persona and that satirize real-life people who are sort of like her. This takes a lot of cleverness and creativity, and there's a target that's being satirized.
The type of sarcasm Singal is resorting to is just stating the opposite of what you think is true — in writing, with no vocal cue to provide the amusement. We're just supposed to get that he really means the opposite. This is so common and so easy to do. It's like a 13-year-old saying "That's great" when he means "That's bad." Cheap!
"My mother, a career elementary school teacher, once told me that she absolutely hated The Simpsons. I was never a fan of the show, but without thinking I shook my head at her and replied "It's brilliant satire", because I knew she was only seeing it as a cartoon. She gave me one of those purely empty shocked looks that people do when they realize they've been blindsided by something they haven't seen, and are shocked to find that it's different to what they thought. Satire and sarcasm have no edge if they are understood by everyone in the audience."
I see your point that some of the fun of getting it is that there are some other people who don't get it. (Similar to the concept "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.")
BUT satire is not sarcasm, and I will continue to maintain that sarcasm is a much lower form of humor, especially when all you're doing is saying the opposite of what you mean. Try it out on your friends and family. Say the opposite of what you mean and then spring on them that it's sarcasm. Let me know if your reputation as a wit grows. Now, satire... do you even know how you'd do satire?
I think it's the same kind of thing as Titania McGrath.
True. He, I forget his real name, just uses the fake Titania character to say the things which are the opposite of what he believes.
Sarcasm is verbal mockery of ridiculous ideas- ideas like interviewing the people who got into Yale is a good rebuttal to the claim that Yale discriminates against those it didn't admit. Singal used it appropriately, and effectively- it got you to notice the article itself and its ridiculouslessness.
Your attack on sarcasm as a form of humor, though, is brilliantly thought out.
"And one reason I began by taking it seriously is that I really did encounter people in my place of work, a law school, who would talk about the benefits of affirmative action to the people who did get in, and I found it morally deficient to omit to think about the people who did not get in. It's not something I think is funny at all."
The black applicant who took the place of Alan Bakke at UC, Davis medical school was later successfully prosecuted for second degree murder in a gross malpractice case. I no longer remember his name. Bakke, on the other hand, went to another medical school and has practiced successfully for years.
The Asians who got in were not discriminated against, by definition. They may have had to clear a higher hurdle than others, but they aren't the ones who ultimately suffered.
A bunch of high scoring Asians?
Also, work ethic, higher expectations, perhaps honor, some, many are determined to act whiter... Whiter than White.
"I see your point that some of the fun of getting it is that there are some other people who don't get it. (Similar to the concept "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.")
That's a little unkind, I think - anyway it isn't what I meant. I don't see sarcasm as something that is always directed at the expense of others. I see humor generally as a way to shock people a little and get them to see things in a different light, in a positive way. That's the only reason we laugh, isn't it? Because we have just been made to understand something a little differently?
Many of us know people who might accidentally come across Titania McGrath's site and not immediately realize that it's satire. My initial reaction was internal head-shaking until I caught on. That edge - the degree to which it can make one uncertain - is what makes it brilliant satire, to me.
I would not boast of having matriculated at a university which would accept me
Ann Althouse said...
And one reason I began by taking it seriously is that I really did encounter people in my place of work, a law school, who would talk about the benefits of affirmative action to the people who did get in, and I found it morally deficient to omit to think about the people who did not get in. It's not something I think is funny at all.
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in the first case - people who did get in - you have the beneficiary you can address face to face - and signal your virtue.
in the second case - people who did not get in - even if you thought about them how and to whom would you express those thoughts? {other than self pat on back for thinking them!}
- and if you are able to think about them is not sarcasm and an avenging mood the response to any and all sponsors of AA?
BUT satire is not sarcasm,
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I admit I am not able to maintain a distinction though it should be possible to do so.
continuing on my inability to understand / maintain the distinction between satire and sarcasm - let me pose it this way
Socrates and "his method" - was it satire or sarcasm? or simple didactic without direct exposition.
The NYT reporters found three Asian-American students who'd been rejected by Yale, but they were unwilling to be quoted for fear of being attacked on social media.
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