Affirmative action ruling

[ochotona]

Chinese-Americans have known for decades that our numbers were being suppressed at many universities because, "oops, too many Chinese". It's just exactly what happened to Jews in the early 20th century when the Ivies thought there were "too many Jews" and severly limited Jewish enrollment.

[yankees60]

Chinese-Americans have known for decades that our numbers were being suppressed at many universities because, "oops, too many Chinese". It's just exactly what happened to Jews in the early 20th century when the Ivies thought there were "too many Jews" and severly limited Jewish enrollment.

A few questions.

1) This has been confined to or is primarily Chinese-Americans or does it also include Chinese who come to this country to go to college?

2) To what do you attribute this overachievement on the part of Chinese-Americans?

My junior high school was predominantly composed of Italian-Americans like myself.

While there I was always in the "accelerated" divisions. Started taking a language in 7th grade, took Algebra I in 8th and Algebra II in 9th, advanced biology in 9th and so on.

All the Jewish kids who were in my school year were in one of the two accelerated division. Except for one Jewish kid with a real Jewish name - Robert Israel. Nice kid but I always wondered what was wrong with him, why wasn't he as smart as all the other Jewish kids I knew.

As a 15 year old the only conclusion I could draw from all of this was that Jewish people are quite a bit smarter than the typical Italian-American.

I confidently told this to my sister. Her being about 7 years older than me explained to me that the Jewish kids parents pushed them to achieve.

Has this same pattern been going on with Chinese-Americans?

In our graduating class of 693 I can only think of one kid who was a Chinese-American. Also don't really remember any Chinese-American classmates from five and one-half years of college. So have had little direct experience with Chinese-American classmates.

I did, though, have a Taiwanese classmate who I got close to and who sat next to me during two quite demanding intermediate accounting classes. She was a worker. We had 3 hour exams. I'd always be the first out of 30 taking the exams. I'd be done in an hour. She would take five hours.

I later bought her tax book for the same class that I was going to take. The poor thing has written Chinese above just about every single word in the book! I really admired her a lot after I realized the incredible effort she put into our classes.

[Mountaineer]

Chinese-Americans have known for decades that our numbers were being suppressed at many universities because, "oops, too many Chinese". It's just exactly what happened to Jews in the early 20th century when the Ivies thought there were "too many Jews" and severly limited Jewish enrollment.

A few questions.

1) This has been confined to or is primarily Chinese-Americans or does it also include Chinese who come to this country to go to college?

2) To what do you attribute this overachievement on the part of Chinese-Americans?

My junior high school was predominantly composed of Italian-Americans like myself.

While there I was always in the "accelerated" divisions. Started taking a language in 7th grade, took Algebra I in 8th and Algebra II in 9th, advanced biology in 9th and so on.

All the Jewish kids who were in my school year were in one of the two accelerated division. Except for one Jewish kid with a real Jewish name - Robert Israel. Nice kid but I always wondered what was wrong with him, why wasn't he as smart as all the other Jewish kids I knew.

As a 15 year old the only conclusion I could draw from all of this was that Jewish people are quite a bit smarter than the typical Italian-American.

I confidently told this to my sister. Her being about 7 years older than me explained to me that the Jewish kids parents pushed them to achieve.

Has this same pattern been going on with Chinese-Americans?

In our graduating class of 693 I can only think of one kid who was a Chinese-American. Also don't really remember any Chinese-American classmates from five and one-half years of college. So have had little direct experience with Chinese-American classmates.

I did, though, have a Taiwanese classmate who I got close to and who sat next to me during two quite demanding intermediate accounting classes. She was a worker. We had 3 hour exams. I'd always be the first out of 30 taking the exams. I'd be done in an hour. She would take five hours.

I later bought her tax book for the same class that I was going to take. The poor thing has written Chinese above just about every single word in the book! I really admired her a lot after I realized the incredible effort she put into our classes.

I had no Asians in my high school or college classes. I do think family support/expectations/encouragement is a key factor in how well individuals do in school, regardless of social status or background.

[yankees60]

I had no Asians in my high school or college classes. I do think family support/expectations/encouragement is a key factor in how well individuals do in school, regardless of social status or background.

For some. Maybe not for others.

I've always been intensely self-motivated so that others cannot affect me that much.

Also, how does one explain the drastic differences between the educational performances of siblings who were presumably raised similarly?

Though as I ask that question I realize from reading about birth order that there are complex dynamics that arise with each additional child in the family and where they fit in the order (place and years apart) so that probably none of them are raised exactly the same way.

[dualstow]

Like John McWhorter and Glenn Loury (and perhaps Thomas Sowell) have said, it’s rather shortsighted to place African Americans in elite schools because they’re African Americans. Place them there because they have the grades. If they don’t have the grades, they can still get an excellent university education at a non-elite where they’ll be better served. But, put them in Yale where they’ll major in something that ends in “Studies” and see how the real world works out for them. It won’t be kind.

If we’re going to continue to lead or at least be near the top as a nation, the last thing we should be doing is depriving our brilliant and hardworking Asian American population.

If it’s not already clear, I’m not trying to make some kind of Bell Curve statement. I’m just saying, yes, base admissions on merit.

[Hal]

I’m just saying, yes, base admissions on merit.

+1

However, I am a little surprised Universities in the US would actively discourage sections of the student population from studying. The profit motive in Australian Universities is such that I could see them enrolling a potted plant if they could charge fees....

[boglerdude]

Siblings arent raised equally, first child gets more parental effort. Occasionally too much and it backfires.

Elite education is just busywork and hazing anyway. Go to a bad school and study math at your own pace. Put minimal effort into classes that dont interest you.

And some random content https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/ ... n/jq0wand/

[dualstow]

I had no Asians in my high school or college classes. I do think family support/expectations/encouragement is a key factor in how well individuals do in school, regardless of social status or background.

We had a handful of Taiwanese, including our valedictorian. She’s a cardiologist now.

[dualstow]

I’m just saying, yes, base admissions on merit.

+1

However, I am a little surprised Universities in the US would actively discourage sections of the student population from studying. The profit motive in Australian Universities is such that I could see them enrolling a potted plant if they could charge fees....

Hey, potted plants are the future. Don’t sell them short
In the U.S., I think applicants still greatly outnumber enrollment, so the seats will be filled.

[yankees60]

Like John McWhorter and Glenn Loury (and perhaps Thomas Sowell) have said, it’s rather shortsighted to place African Americans in elite schools because they’re African Americans. Place them there because they have the grades. If they don’t have the grades, they can still get an excellent university education at a non-elite where they’ll be better served. But, put them in Yale where they’ll major in something that ends in “Studies” and see how the real world works out for them. It won’t be kind.

If we’re going to continue to lead or at least be near the top as a nation, the last thing we should be doing is depriving our brilliant and hardworking Asian American population.

If it’s not already clear, I’m not trying to make some kind of Bell Curve statement. I’m just saying, yes, base admissions on merit.

I do like John McWhorter and generally agree with what he has to say.

Well stated by you!

[yankees60]

I had no Asians in my high school or college classes. I do think family support/expectations/encouragement is a key factor in how well individuals do in school, regardless of social status or background.

We had a handful of Taiwanese, including our valedictorian. She’s a cardiologist now.

I was involved with a Taiwanese for a short period of time. She had a masters degree in computer science. I called her "Ms. Green Card" as that was her top priority at that point in life (29 years old).

[yankees60]

Like John McWhorter and Glenn Loury (and perhaps Thomas Sowell) have said, it’s rather shortsighted to place African Americans in elite schools because they’re African Americans. Place them there because they have the grades. If they don’t have the grades, they can still get an excellent university education at a non-elite where they’ll be better served. But, put them in Yale where they’ll major in something that ends in “Studies” and see how the real world works out for them. It won’t be kind.

If we’re going to continue to lead or at least be near the top as a nation, the last thing we should be doing is depriving our brilliant and hardworking Asian American population.

If it’s not already clear, I’m not trying to make some kind of Bell Curve statement. I’m just saying, yes, base admissions on merit.

Excellent opinion piece by McWhorter below:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/04/opin ... ences.html

On Race and Academia