This sentence deserves an award: “Harvard has testified that race, when considered in admissions, can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in.” [Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, via Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review]
This sentence deserves an award: “Harvard has testified that race, when considered in admissions, can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in.” [Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, via Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review]
16 Comments
Particularly the rich race.
Bob
If there are only X amount of slots, that statement is nonsense.
Even if they did somehow create extra slots for minorities the statement would still be statistical nonsense. Because then they could have created a slot for a person, and didn’t because of their race, thereby hurting their chances.
I suspect their meaning is that Asian students don’t have a lower chance of getting in than Caucasian students.
Perhaps they should consult with the Business School about the meaning of “zero-sum game.”
What’s amazing is that they (presumably, going from the NY Times article) testified to this logical impossibility under oath.
Economic keyword of the day: Scarcity. If prices are held below the market equilibrium for a scarce good, then allocation of that good must be decided by other factors. While Harvard emphasizes academic merit as the primary factor, their testimony confirms/admits that race is a factor. Harvard claims its ok because “race can only help”. But that’s impossible with a scarce good (admission to Harvard).
The perpetual motion machine has been discovered at last!
“If you are white or Asian, you have no chance at Harvard; surely you knew this?”
My sympathies lie with applicants who have no race.
Clearly the absence of race, when considered in admissions, can only harm, not help, a student’s chances of getting in.
I would hope that when one testifies “that race, when considered in admissions, can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in.” that a skilled attorney would pounce on the illogicality of this statement in cross and make a fool of the witness. The statement is arguably perjury.
Hmmm…”race can only help”.
OK…
Two otherwise nearly equally qualified candidates….person A and person B. Say person B is the very slightly better candidate in a race neutral process. They’ll get in, right?
Instead of a race neutral process, lets take up the Harvard, or for that matter, any process that gives “help” to whatever favored race.
Well, lets say that person A is “helped by race” and person B isn’t hurt, but also isn’t “helped by race”, and that tips the scale in person A’s favor.
And now, the decision is reversed….person A gets in and person B doesn’t.
Tell me again how person B isn’t hurt when “race only helps a student get into Harvard”?
Maybe the great thinkers in the humanities at Harvard are not as brilliant as we have been led to believe.
Everyone seems to be ignoring the “when considered” modifier….according to Harvard logic, race is only “considered” for minorities who need extra help getting it, and then only as a plus-factor. It is not “considered” for whites or Asians, and thus has no effect at all on those groups’ admission chances. Voila…by the internal logic, “when considered” it can only be a plus-factor, because it is only “considered” for the express purpose of being a plus-factor.
Now, as a matter of TRUE logic, everyone can take me (and Harvard) apart, but the statement holds for the internal logic, as above.
“race is only “considered” for minorities who need extra help getting it, and then only as a plus-factor. It is not “considered” for whites or Asians, and thus has no effect at all on those groups’ admission chances.”
As long as the number of slots for students at Harvard is finite and less than the total number of applicants of all races, the above is an impossibility.
Every time a non-Asian minority gets a slot due to consideration of race that they wouldn’t have other wise gotten , it lowers the admission chances of every white and Asian applicant.
Therefore, “Harvard logic” is not logic in any meaningful sense.
A+X>B == B-X<A
So whether you add to one or remove from another, the result is the same. All else is labeling. Harvard chooses false labeling.
So, if I am racially pure White extraction, mostly from England but with a soupçon of Dutch Patroon and French Calvinist extraction to sully my immaculate race, then all the money my family has donated to dear old Harvard won’t be held against me?
Bob
No, their money is always welcome. You, maybe not so much, but they will take your money without any regard to race.