Talk:Affirmative action in the United States/Archives/2017

Evaluation of this article
In regards to the section of "Bias against Asians and whites", the research is reliable and appropriate. One of the statistics came from a book with multiple positive reviews. They're also peer reviewed so even if Thomas Espenshade is involved in both research, it's not just from one perspective. These statistics are eye opening and provides an objective analysis of how much bias happens.

The only issue I have is that this research is somewhat old. These numbers came from applications from around 1997. A lot has certainly changed since then. This inspires me to find more up-to-date research and statistics approaches. Has anything changed? Has the scales been balanced? Why or why not? OliverHGLAS (talk) 18:23, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

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No, affirmative action does not increase recruitment of minorities in general
The second paragraph says "many higher education institutions have voluntarily adopted policies which seek to increase recruitment of racial minorities."

It is demonstrably false that these institutions seek to increase recruitment of racial minorities in general. Instead, they seek to increase recruitment of only certain racial minorities. The proof is in a reliable source, The Economist, which reports "Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford of Princeton looked at the data on admissions and concluded that Asian-Americans need 140 SAT points out of 1,600 more than whites to get a place at a private university, and that blacks need 310 fewer points."

The collective policies that give rise to these statistics increase recruitment of one racial minority, African Americans, and at the same time decrease recruitment of another racial minority, Asian Americans. Note that the imposed "spread" between these two minorities is a whopping 450 SAT points (140 + 310).

Also incorrect is where the article says affirmative action programs "affirm the civil rights of people of color." Asian Americans are, of course, people of color. Policies that so heavily discriminate against them can hardly be said to affirm their civil rights.

The article needs significant rewriting to accurately explain these facts. 75.163.201.188 (talk) 22:17, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to clarify the word "many"
I attempted to add a clarification tag, and it was reverted, so I bring this up here. In the Introduction, there is a phrase "For example, many higher education institutions have voluntarily adopted policies which seek to increase recruitment of racial minorities.". The word "many" is misleadingly vague. In fact, per some statistics gathered here, it appears that the fraction of higher education institutions that have voluntarily adopted policies which seek to increase recruitment of racial minorities could be less than 20%. In the sense that I can't count that many colleges on my hands and toes, it is "many", but in the sense that it is less than a quarter of colleges, it is "few". As such, the terms "many" or "few" are misleadingly vague and the sentence should be clarified. --Ihearthonduras (talk) 18:54, 14 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The page you cited at Ballotpedia, is about public four-year universities, not private universities or community colleges. Also, Ballotpedia says that its data comes from the College Board and College Data, where it is self-reported by the schools, and that Ballotpedia was unable to account for more than 650 public schools. So do 18.9% of self-reporting four-year public universities use affirmative action in admissions? Not quite, because the data is about using race in admissions, which is a slightly different question, and our article further complicates things by referring to "policies which seek to increase recruitment of racial minorities", which may or may not be a third thing altogether. Also, because (as Ballotpedia notes) the consideration of race in university admissions has been outlawed by some state legislatures, and these numbers are self-reported and unaudited, are they truthful? Who would acknowledge using race if it were illegal even if the practice were still ongoing. University administrators, not looking to disobey the legislature that funds their university would describe what they do as something other than consideration of race.
 * As I wrote when I reverted (undid) your edit to the article, there is no requirement for schools to self-report and no precise count, and the number has changed over time. If you can find a reliable source that provides some answers, it would be helpful. This Ballotpedia page isn't it. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:15, 15 November 2017 (UTC)