The other day I pulled a couple of quotations from this book, which I mostly liked although it has some annoying parts too. What got me wondering is why so-called US “liberal” academics are capable of writing penetrating and thoughtful pieces on certain areas of life but also clearly dumb as stumps on economics. Take this passage from Professor Hanley on page 72 and 73 of the book, where he defends racial quotas in universities:
“Suppose that a white male applicant loses out on a college place to a black male applicant, even though his SAT score was higher… I think the sense of unfairness here springs instead from the intuition that since the white student didn’t do anything wrong, and since his score was higher, he deserves the place ahead of the black student.”
“To which I say, bullcrap.”
This professor has a nice line in reasoned argument. Let’s go on.
“This is once again simply ignoring structural discrimination, if it’s not just plainly racist.”
Define “structural discrimination”, Professor. What is it? How can a person be discriminated against where no actual conscious human being has decided that Fred is going to get a fairer deal in a college admission than John? Structurual discrimination is a sort of catch-all expression that in fact simply says that over a long period of time, certain racial groups have underperformed in certain ways and that there might be factors that should be corrected. But for how long does the impact of this “structural discrimination” last? 10 years? 20? 100? What sort of empirical evidence does Prof. Hanley think will be needed to show that this is over and we can revert to the idea of treating people equally before the law, like those fuddy-duddies such as James Madison said should be the case? The Professor does not say, although he swears a lot and thinks that people who disagree with him are idiots. I guess he is so struck by his own moral grandeur that he cannot imagine anyone decent disagreeing. What a jerk.
He goes on:
“If we’re granting that the white student is a beneficiary of structural discrimination, then we can’t say that he is more deserving (of a college place). Desert is a matter of what you’ve done with what you’ve got. We have no prior reason to think that the white applicant has done more – so we have no reason to think that he has been unfairly done by.”
So presumably the honest thing for such a professor would be to give up the pretence of holding SAT or other education tests at all. Why not say this: “White folk are beneficiaries of former discrimination in their favour, even if the folk today are not to be blamed for what their ancestors did. As a result, no matter whether the white college applicant is a clever, conscientious person, he or she should be wiling to let people from racial groups we think are the victims of ancestral discrimination take first place in the queue. And if you disagree with that judgement, then you are an evil person and quite possibly a Republican.”
I take back what I said about this book and its author a day or so ago. He is not as smart or as funny as he first appeared (well, we all make mistakes). He is, in fact, a thug with a fancy academic title. Sadly, there are a lot of them.
‘Structural discrimination’ surely means – if it means anything – that where the choice is between two candidates one is chosen for reasons unrelated to the job/position and that this sort of discrimination is built into working practices. It would equally apply where the white candidate had lower SAT scores (whatever they are) but was selected nevertheless.
If we take the case where a black student arrives for a job interview underqualified that says nothing of course about their capacity to do the job in question eventually. It may well be that some factors have been at work that prevented that student from achieving their full potential – I don’t suppose black kids in Alabama in 1950 had much of a chance for example – but the question is how much employers should be expected to take on board the shortcomings of the educational system through the sort of process described.
It may well be in their specific interest to do so – for example in cases of labour shortages – but in the long run it is in everyones interest that people are not prevented from working because of the colour of their skin.
If only it stopped at race. It doesn’t. Every conceivable way the population can be divvied up has potential for the discrimination industry. Race, sex, sexual orientation, disability, religion, nationality and now even social class (as defined by one’s postcode) are used as excuses for some form of social engineering. “Social class” is the really cute one. Please define. If we are talking about defining it by postcodes then please explain why I’m in a lower-class area but can see a neighbour’s Mercedes out the window right now?
There only ever has been one tractable criterion for university admission: ability. Everything else is rot.
Unfortunately we in the UK have had two regimes in charge which utterly failed to twig that one. On this score Johnnie Major was as bad as Blair. They fail to get it because by their own twisted logic a degree in “Modern Studies” from Wolverhampton is seen as being the same as getting a first in physics from Imperial.
They have blinded themselves to the true meaning of education. They have decided that actually learning things and developing skills doesn’t matter. All that matters is getting the widest possible cross-section of society into a “university” of some form or other just so we can say we done it.
I’ve met people doing the most unbelievably fatuous degrees. Most of ’em by the end felt utterly ripped off. 15 grand in debt for a degree in “licensed premises retail management” (when did running a pub require a degree from Leeds Met?)
I was looking for a new house in Leeds and these two birds contacted me and my mate ‘cos they were also looking for a gaff. Well, we met up and as we were all students (important to check on because of the council tax) and there was a zero meeting of minds. It was like this, “So whaddya do?”, “PhD in Astrophysics”, “PhD in textile engineering” (my Italian pal Michelle was doing research into the use of memory metals in industrial knitting machines). You know what, they giggled! They didn’t giggle at the textile engineering, they laughed at the astrophysics. They said they thought “astrophysics wasn’t real – it was only something they had in Bond films”. Michelle (first degree: physics, University of Milan) looked outraged! So, moving swiftly on, I asked what these two ladies were doing. They were both on the Leeds Met BA course in “play” – as in what kids do. Well, that was my opportunity to do a double-take.
They also found it weird that Michelle spoke fluent English. “Is he really Italian? With that ginger hair?” The pair of us were exiting stage-left by this point. I absolutely didn’t see any advantage to be gained by pointing out that ginger hair is actually quite common in North Italy. I suspect I would’ve had to explained what “North” meant.
So, spin, spin the wheel of careers! Go to University and become a lawyer or surgeon or get a job at a kindergarten! It don’t matter what ‘cos we’re all graduates now!
An objective capacity to do the job may not be a concept Prof. Hanley would subscribe to. If the job is pomo blathering fine, who cares, there’s no objective standard, what is important is that all contributions are valid. (In pomo land)
If the job is being a physician or engineer then incompetence will cause harm and there is a minimum standard which all must reach.
My girlfriend comes from a poor background, she had no help and/or encouragement from her parents(they didn’t even go to parents evenings) and was the first person in her family to go to university.
Compare this to say someone who went to one of the best schools in the country state or private run who’s parents supported/encouraged/cajoled them through out their school career.
Even if my girlfriend did get a few less marks(although she didn’t as she bright as a button) on her A-Levels/SATs who’s achieved more?
The test says the latter, but i disagree
The American ability to twist themselves stupid over racial matters provides a lot of hilarity to the rest of the world.
Or at least to me, anyway.
“who’s achieved more?”
Arguably your girlfriend, but is this a measurement of achievement or ability? I would say it is the latter, not perhaps ability in a general sense but at least in the specific sense of the test.
It seems like something simple and meaningful is being abandoned for something impossible to objectively quantify.
not the Alex above,
Well, kudos to your girlfriend. She got there swimming against the tide. And I guess that’s the whole point. In the end, regardless of everything else her ability and dedication shone through.
Did she achieve more or less than, say, the average Etonian? Hard to say but also I would hazard completely irrelevant. I say average Etonian because I’m deliberately ignoring one particular member of our beloved Royal Family.
Maybe it matters to your girlfriend that she got there the hard way but I don’t think that should matter to admissions boards. Anything else would be patronising.
And before you go off on one, I got there the hard way too. I did a physics degree without an A-level in Math. I taught myself calculus and trig concurrent with passing my first year. Oh, and I’d missed the first three weeks of the course. It was like walking over broken glass but it made me a bloody good mathematician.
lol, bet it was nick
I just think that the person who’s going to better at uni is likley to be the person who is used to the self motivation required at university and therefore an addmisions tutor SHOULD take it into account even if its only a little bit.
re leeds met
I know what you mean i went to leeds met i was on the history and politics course. The main problem i noticed was that no seemed to be intrested in history or politics. I found the whole thing very depressing.
It seemed to me that they were there for a degree – any degree it didn’t matter
not the Alex above,
When were you at Leeds Met? BTW I wasn’t slagging off that institution in general, just using it as an example of some of the more unusual courses on offer in UK higher education. I was at the Uni ’98-’01 where I absolutely failed to get a PhD in Astrophysics / Computational fluid dynamics. I have memories of getting pissed at the Met and my Nike’s sticking to the floor.
The most mental person I ever met suffered a complete breakdown at Leeds Met. He was raving mad and his prodigous consumption of skunk wasn’t doing him any favours either. In the end his mate asked him to get them a couple of pints. Now, unkown to Dave, this mentalist took “two pints” in a very liberal though literal manner. He returned with two pints of assorted spirits. Scarfed one and a half of them and then collapsed. Somehow they managed to get a Taxi back. The strange thing was that the mentalist (whose name eludes me) recovered by 4am and spent the rest of the early hours laughing his fucking head off. He was sectioned three days later.
We have no prior reason to think that the white applicant has done more…
Well, he gave more correct answers in his SAT, for a start…
I understand the need to address structural discrimination, but shouldn’t the answer be to take the “privileged white male” at the top of the admissions list and deny him entry (let him go to the community college), so the struggling lower class white kid can attend the better school, along with the rising black kid?
“Engineers should reach a minimum standard”
Says who? And who sets the standard?
Another attempt to replace judgement with rules.
In Canada you can’t ‘be’ an engineer unless you ‘belong’ to a professional association, special ring and all.
In other words, the government bans anybody it pleases.
I had a couple of beers at Ontario Professional Engineers.
They said it would be easy for me to become a P.Eng.
How does that make me competent, and why can’t I get a job?
It does not matter if we are discussing university places, jobs, whatever.
Any system that discriminates against ability, or the best person for the job is in fact unfair.
There is simply no such thing as ‘positive discrimination’ without an accompanying negative discrimination.
To say an employer or university must now be unfair to this group for x years because they feel they may have been unfair to another group previously is simply to replace one wrong with another wrong.
As they say two wrongs don’t make a right, that’s just revenge and no basis to build sustainable social interaction.
In addition this sort of thing is in danger of both tarnishing the achievements and reputation of the favoured group, if good candidates still get through – and providing less capable candidates than might otherwise have been chosen if they don’t.
That’s a false dichotomy. Lots of things are meaningful, and even simple, but still impossible to quantify. I find scored exams to be pretty useless as a measure of how good people are at a task (software engineering in my case). Although I set tests for job applicants, the people with the highest number of correct answers often do not end up with the job offer.
One of the problems with tests is that they favour people who are good at tests, rather than people who are good at the job. From that point of view, I have no problem with universities offering places to people with lower test scores SO LONG AS that is not a blunt policy.
To say “Given what I know of this individual’s background, that fact that he got 63% suggests he is in fact smarter and more able than this other guy who got 73%” is entirely sensible, and I do it all the time. To then say “I notice, over the course of a year, that many black people fall into the category of ‘those who tests scores do not reflect their ability’ is also a reasonable observation to make. Finally, to say ‘In cases where I cannot determine the background of the candidate, where the candidate is black, I shall assume their background is likely to be such that their test scores do not accurately reflect their ability’ – well, that is racist. Whether it’s also reasonable I’ll leave to others….
As long as colleges use race as a criteria for entrance then there is no need to improve the schools that don’t prepare these kids for college in the first place. It’s taking the easy way out. Why am I not surprised that it is the way being used?
Not a lot of clear thought going on here. Let’s suppose we are interested in recruiting those with ability. But we only have test scores to go on. One can imagine that
test score = ability + training
where both ability and training are distributed in some way (you can decide which way if you enjoy maths). Thus
ability = test score – training.
Now if both candidates get the same test score, but we decide that one has had less training, we would conclude that that person has more ability, and recriut them.
In the article, the decision to hire the black applicant is based on the assumption that they received less training, or training of poorer quality, so their ability must be higher. The assumption could be wrong, of course, but the idea of discriminating in this was is quite reasonable.
Not a lot of clear thinking on your part, I am afraid. The assumption is just that, an assumption. And how on earth can one measure this and use it as the basis for setting a quota to let more or less of group X or Y into a university? It is about as pointless as counting the number of angels that dance on the head of a pin.
No, I think if we go down this route of social engineering then the point of test scores becomes meaningless. The guy I attacked in my post would gain my respect if he admitted as much.
Quite so Phil A (I refer to his April 19th, 0859 comment). As Walter Williams often says “I am glad that I got my education before it became fashionable to like black people – at least everyone knows my qualifcations are real”.
I tried to deal with these matters with a comment of my own. But, due to my own crapness, it ended up on the wrong thread (Guy Herbert’s posting about government logic, directly above this posting).
Thanks Jonathon for the reply. We do however all implicitly agree that test scores are a sum of ability and training. I for example would not like to take a French test unless I knew something about French, despite having reasonable ability in language (like all humans). And the complaint against rising standards in schools is precisely a complaint that training – for the test – has improved while training – for real life – has not. So I think the assumption can’t be attacked on the grounds that it’s just an assumption. It could still be wrong, of course, but most people would agree with it. And I think that if you believe it to be wrong, you might want to try a counterexample. Calling something an assumption doesn’t make it false.
However there is a more important drawback in my scheme, in that measuring training can be difficult, which is why so many useless surrogates such as ethnicity or class are employed instead. And a bad measure of training may be worse than none at all.
In addition, there are some places where the test score is all that matters. For example, if I hire a plumber or lawyer, I may only want to know how good he is (test score) rather than how good he may become (ability)