"Well, the first post–affirmative action numbers are out, and they show only a modest fall in the number of black first-year students at Harvard: 14 percent, down from 18 percent last year."
While I'm dead set against racial preferences in college admissions, this description is misleading. Going from 18% to 14% is a drop of 22%. When som…
"Well, the first post–affirmative action numbers are out, and they show only a modest fall in the number of black first-year students at Harvard: 14 percent, down from 18 percent last year."
While I'm dead set against racial preferences in college admissions, this description is misleading. Going from 18% to 14% is a drop of 22%. When something moves by 5% that is considered "statistically significant". In financial terms, between 5-10% is considered "material". Describing a 22% decline in a statistic as "modest fall" as if to say "all the people who said this would be awful were being dramatic, it's no biggie", misses the boat completely.
There was a thoughtful essay today in (of all places) The NY Times by John McWhorter saying these declines may not matter. There is also the argument that we should not focus on it because, after these changes, anyone who did get in will never be looked at by others who wonder "did they get in b/c they were ______?".
But pretending the declines were not big does nothing for the discussion.
Blacks are 13.9% of the U.S.population, but they are a vanishingly small percentage of science and engineering students. MIT says black enrollees are down to 5% this year from 13% in previous years, because of the Supreme Court ruling that banned racial preferences.
In other words, black enrollment goes down when admissions are tied more strongly to academic excellence.
Elsewhere in the news, Asian enrollment at Harvard is up, because top scoring, hard working Asian students are no longer being openly discriminated against (it would be naive to say the discrimination has ended).
"Well, the first post–affirmative action numbers are out, and they show only a modest fall in the number of black first-year students at Harvard: 14 percent, down from 18 percent last year."
While I'm dead set against racial preferences in college admissions, this description is misleading. Going from 18% to 14% is a drop of 22%. When something moves by 5% that is considered "statistically significant". In financial terms, between 5-10% is considered "material". Describing a 22% decline in a statistic as "modest fall" as if to say "all the people who said this would be awful were being dramatic, it's no biggie", misses the boat completely.
There was a thoughtful essay today in (of all places) The NY Times by John McWhorter saying these declines may not matter. There is also the argument that we should not focus on it because, after these changes, anyone who did get in will never be looked at by others who wonder "did they get in b/c they were ______?".
But pretending the declines were not big does nothing for the discussion.
Blacks are 13.9% of the U.S.population, but they are a vanishingly small percentage of science and engineering students. MIT says black enrollees are down to 5% this year from 13% in previous years, because of the Supreme Court ruling that banned racial preferences.
In other words, black enrollment goes down when admissions are tied more strongly to academic excellence.
Elsewhere in the news, Asian enrollment at Harvard is up, because top scoring, hard working Asian students are no longer being openly discriminated against (it would be naive to say the discrimination has ended).
I don't have a problem with any of it, except I dislike calling something it isn't - a 22% drop isn't modest.
Meanwhile, Asians dropped from 30% to 22% at Yale.....