On 11/12/2022 5:47 PM, Ed Stasiak wrote:
>> moviePig
>>> The Horny Goat
>>>
>>> Creating equality of results by making use of bigotted methods (i.e.
>>> favoring one group artificially over another) to achieve those results
>>> is racist. No question about it.
>>
>> Here, for practical purposes, is the sort of pejorative definition that,
>> afaics, people intend when they fling accusations of 'racism':
>>
>> the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics,
>> abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as
>> inferior or superior to one another.
>>
>> And "equity" policies, ill-advised or not, embody none of that.
>
> Nonsense, racial quotas are implemented because of the racist believe that
> White people (and only White people) are evil racists and purposely promote
> other White people at the expense of other ethnicities, whom they see as
> untermensh.
>
> Racism is racism.

I think quotas are implemented 1) to redress wrongs, and 2) to change
expectations by and about the disadvantaged. And neither of those
motives springs from belief in racial superiority (...which is what
we're talking about, rather than those methods' actual effectiveness).

> moviePig
> > Ed Stasiak
> >
> > Racism is racism.
>
> I think quotas are implemented 1) to redress wrongs,

Committed by evil racist Whites (and only Whites) who are still evil
and racist and must be forced to accept Blacks, Eskimos, etc. who
thru conceivable no fault of their own, are underrepresented.

> and 2) to change expectations by and about the disadvantaged.

By claiming that the ONLY reason X ethnicity isn't more represented
at colleges or wherever, is due to evil racist Whites?

> And neither of those motives springs from belief in racial superiority
> (...which is what we're talking about, rather than those methods' actual
> effectiveness).

For Whites promoting racial quotas, it's a racial belief of self-hatred
and for non-Whites, it's a racial belief that Whites are inherently racist.

On 11/12/2022 7:18 PM, Ed Stasiak wrote:
>> moviePig
>>> Ed Stasiak
>>>
>>> Racism is racism.
>>
>> I think quotas are implemented 1) to redress wrongs,
>
> Committed by evil racist Whites (and only Whites) who are still evil
> and racist and must be forced to accept Blacks, Eskimos, etc. who
> thru conceivable no fault of their own, are underrepresented.
>
>> and 2) to change expectations by and about the disadvantaged.
>
> By claiming that the ONLY reason X ethnicity isn't more represented
> at colleges or wherever, is due to evil racist Whites?
>
>> And neither of those motives springs from belief in racial superiority
>> (...which is what we're talking about, rather than those methods' actual
>> effectiveness).
>
> For Whites promoting racial quotas, it's a racial belief of self-hatred
> and for non-Whites, it's a racial belief that Whites are inherently racist.

Accusing others of racism, rightly or wrongly, still isn't 'racism'.

> moviePig
> > Ed Stasiak
> >
> > By claiming that the ONLY reason X ethnicity isn't more represented
> > at colleges or wherever, is due to evil racist Whites?
>
> Accusing others of racism, rightly or wrongly, still isn't 'racism'.

Accusing an entire ethnic group of being inherently racist is the definition of racism.

On 11/13/22 10:07 AM, Ed Stasiak wrote:
>> moviePig
>>> Ed Stasiak
>>>
>>> By claiming that the ONLY reason X ethnicity isn't more represented
>>> at colleges or wherever, is due to evil racist Whites?
>>
>> Accusing others of racism, rightly or wrongly, still isn't 'racism'.
>
> Accusing an entire ethnic group of being inherently racist is the definition of racism.

Is there a sockpuppet's dictionary somewhere?

On 11/13/2022 11:07 AM, Ed Stasiak wrote:
>> moviePig
>>> Ed Stasiak
>>>
>>> By claiming that the ONLY reason X ethnicity isn't more represented
>>> at colleges or wherever, is due to evil racist Whites?
>>
>> Accusing others of racism, rightly or wrongly, still isn't 'racism'.
>
> Accusing an entire ethnic group of being inherently racist is the definition of racism.

Here's the definition of 'racism' I quoted a bit earlier:

the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics,
abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as
inferior or superior to one another.

Now, you may (or may not) think it too narrow and/or out-of-date, but I
maintain that it's what people still think of first when they hear
"Racist!". And it's something that quotas etc. have nothing to do with.

> moviePig
> > Ed Stasiak
> >
> > Accusing an entire ethnic group of being inherently racist is the definition of racism.
>
> Here's the definition of 'racism' I quoted a bit earlier:
>
> the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics,
> abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as
> inferior or superior to one another.
>
> Now, you may (or may not) think it too narrow and/or out-of-date, but I
> maintain that it's what people still think of first when they hear
> "Racist!". And it's something that quotas etc. have nothing to do with.

Quota systems distinguish White people (and only White people) as inferior
due to their supposed inherent racism. That's racism.

On 11/13/2022 7:00 PM, Ed Stasiak wrote:
>> moviePig
>>> Ed Stasiak
>>>
>>> Accusing an entire ethnic group of being inherently racist is the definition of racism.
>>
>> Here's the definition of 'racism' I quoted a bit earlier:
>>
>> the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics,
>> abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as
>> inferior or superior to one another.
>>
>> Now, you may (or may not) think it too narrow and/or out-of-date, but I
>> maintain that it's what people still think of first when they hear
>> "Racist!". And it's something that quotas etc. have nothing to do with.
>
> Quota systems distinguish White people (and only White people) as inferior
> due to their supposed inherent racism. That's racism.

Afaik, a 'quota' says nothing at all about inferiority or superiority.

On Sat, 12 Nov 2022 11:01:03 -0500, moviePig <pwallace@moviepig.com>
wrote:

>On 11/12/2022 3:30 AM, The Horny Goat wrote:
>> On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 10:23:42 -0500, moviePig <pwallace@moviepig.com>
>> wrote:
>Here, for practical purposes, is the sort of pejorative definition that,
>afaics, people intend when they fling accusations of 'racism':
>
> the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics,
>abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as
>inferior or superior to one another.
>
>And "equity" policies, ill-advised or not, embody none of that.

No "equity" is the track race where some of the runners get a head
start on the others to "insure" they end at the starting line at the
same time.

Presumably if the Indy 500 adopted an "equity" policy my 2016 Ford
Escape would get one helluva starting position compared to the other
cars in the race!

On 11/17/2022 2:44 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Nov 2022 11:01:03 -0500, moviePig <pwallace@moviepig.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 11/12/2022 3:30 AM, The Horny Goat wrote:
>>> On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 10:23:42 -0500, moviePig <pwallace@moviepig.com>
>>> wrote:
>> Here, for practical purposes, is the sort of pejorative definition that,
>> afaics, people intend when they fling accusations of 'racism':
>>
>> the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics,
>> abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as
>> inferior or superior to one another.
>>
>> And "equity" policies, ill-advised or not, embody none of that.
>
> No "equity" is the track race where some of the runners get a head
> start on the others to "insure" they end at the starting line at the
> same time.
>
> Presumably if the Indy 500 adopted an "equity" policy my 2016 Ford
> Escape would get one helluva starting position compared to the other
> cars in the race!

'Equity' is the Oscar for Best Foreign Film... the WNBA... the super
bantamweight division...

The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> writes:

> On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 14:51:10 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
> <ahk@chinet.com> wrote [to The Horny Goat]:

>> Harvard didn't admit students who didn't succeed in high school.

A lot of the problem predates high-school graduation, though. Harvard
also doesn't admit students whose school systems failed them, because to
the best of my knowledge, Harvard is not in the business of remedial
education, not even for bright students (and I'm not saying that a
private college should be).

>> The discrimination is alleged to be against Asian ethnics [...]

According to the Harvard Magazine, the entering Class of 2026 will be
27.8% Asian American (up .6% from the previous year), whereas the
percentage of Asian Americans in the general population is 6%. If
Harvard is denying spots to more qualified Asian Americans, but is
ordered by the courts to stop doing so, it won't be long before the
whites start complaining that that's too many.

<https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/03/harvard-college-class-2026-admissions>

>> [...] but it's factually shown that they aren't admitting any
>> significant number of students who aren't from wealthy families.

From the same article:

"With today’s announcement, the College also increased financial
aid, eliminating all tuition, room, board, and fee costs for
students from families with annual incomes below $75,000—an
increase from the previous threshold of $65,000. [....] Nearly
one-quarter of Harvard College students come from families who
will qualify for a no-cost undergraduate education under the
new standard. Median household income in the United States is
about $70,000 to $75,000.)"

[....]

"[...] an estimated 20.5 percent of the class qualified for
federal Pell grants (generally awarded to those from
lower-income backgrounds)—up fractionally from 20.4 percent
last year."

Are there more students from wealthy families than from working- or
middle-class families? Yes. But you make it sound like one-fifth of a
class is the same as virtually zero.

>>> If things like entrance examinations are found to be biased one way
>>> or another we can deal with that -

Does any university have their own entrance exam these days? All I'm
familiar with is the standardized tests -- SAT and ACT -- and some
colleges, including Harvard, are moving away from requiring them.

>>> - but skills in language or mathematics or any other academic
>>> discipline are not intrinsically discriminatory. 2 + 2 = 4 no matter
>>> what color you are.

This is a better case in math than it is in language, which seems to be
the main reason why MIT has reinstated the standardized test
requirement now that the pandemic is being treated as merely endemic.
Unlike Harvard, MIT does have a remedial education program (or at least
it used to have) where kids who scored well on their standardized tests,
but who lack some prerequisite high-school courses, can attend intensive
make-up classes in the summer between their high-school senior year and
their freshman year at MIT.

>> This isn't about bias in entrance exams but Harvard's selection
>> process.
>
> Essentially a college can use whatever admission procedure they want
> including whether or not to make use of standardized entrance exams.
> Harvard's not the only school that has their own procedure and thus
> makes it fair game for others to second guess how they do admisisons.

I would think that all the self-professed libertarians out there would
be defending a private college's right to set whatever policies it
wanted. How do you weight extracurricular activities -- sports, clubs,
whatever -- so that admissions are maximally fair? If a lot of weight
is given to sports, would that make the process biased in favor of black
applicants, who are stereotypically believed to be more athletic than
whites or Asians? How do you weight the admissions interview, which
might be biased in favor of extroverts?

Out of curiosity, though, whatever your argument is for Harvard College,
would you make the same argument for public colleges that use taxpayer
money?

> While I never applied there I doubt I could have gotten in being
> white, male, a reasonable but not outstanding service resume and
> undoubted ability in the area I applied for both at the graduate and
> undergraduate levels.

You think the only things that would have denied you admission to
Harvard are your gender and your race? The single most disqualifying
characteristic seems to be one's parents. Unless your mother or father
went to Harvard, your chances would have been very slim, and they're
getting slimmer all the time. The abstract of the landmark Duke study
that the other studies seem to be quoting from:

"Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard"

"The lawsuit _Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard University_
provided an unprecedented look at how an elite school makes
admissions decisions. Using publicly released reports, we
examine the preferences Harvard gives for recruited athletes,
legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of
faculty and staff (ALDCs). Among white admits, over 43% are
ALDC. Among admits who are African American, Asian American,
and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each. Our model of
admissions shows that roughly three-quarters of white ALDC
admits would have been rejected if they had been treated as
typical white applicants. Removing preferences for athletes and
legacies would significantly alter the racial distribution of
admitted students, with the share of white admits falling and
all other groups rising or remaining unchanged."

<https://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf>

And:

"At Harvard, the acceptance rate for legacy students was 33
percent between 2014 and 2019 even though the overall
acceptance rate during the same period was less than 6
percent."

<https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/10/26/timalsina-harvard-must-abolish-legacy-admissions/>

Why does any Ivy League college need affirmative action for those who
already have the advantage of being raised by Ivy League parents?

-Micky

The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> writes:

> On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 10:23:42 -0500, moviePig <pwallace@moviepig.com>
> wrote:

>> The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> writes:

>>> It's the difference between assuring all competitors start at the
>>> same starting line (me) vs you and the "equity" advocates who want
>>> to ensure all finish at the same finish line at the same time.
>>>
>>> That's the road to quotas and "no _____ people need apply"
>>
>> No, I believe that people who abhor racism and try to fix it
>> shouldn't be called, with giggling irony, 'racist'. Find another
>> word.
>
> On the contrary - people who believe in 'equality of results' rather
> than 'equality of opportunity' (and often call it 'equity' which in
> itself if quite offensive) COMMONLY use racist methodology to achieve
> their goals.

How can you possibly believe that everyone in Canada or the U.S. starts
at the same starting line?

-Micky

The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> writes:

> On Sat, 12 Nov 2022 11:01:03 -0500, moviePig <pwallace@moviepig.com>
> wrote:

>> Here, for practical purposes, is the sort of pejorative definition
>> that, afaics, people intend when they fling accusations of 'racism':
>>
>> the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics,
>> abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as
>> inferior or superior to one another.
>>
>> And "equity" policies, ill-advised or not, embody none of that.
>
> No "equity" is the track race where some of the runners get a head
> start on the others to "insure" they end at the starting line at the
> same time.

No, whether you agree with it or not, equity policies work on the
premise that not all people start at the same point. Some people are
much more likely to start ahead of others, whether by dint of their
parents, their schools, their teachers, their colleges' admissions
policies, or whatever helping them and making resources available, so
they get infusions of nitrous in their engines. Not everyone gets those
resources/infusions. The equity theory is that by adding nitrous later
on in life, the engines of those who started out behind have a chance to
catch up (or if they're really good, pass the pack).

Or to stick with the foot race analogy, we can visibly see that the
runners who are going to go around a curved track are not all assigned
the same starting position. The runner in the outside lane gets to
start ahead of all the other runners. But that just acknowledges that
the curvature of the track gives the runner in the inside-most lane an
advantage over everyone else. It's not a perfect analogy, but the fact
that we use the phrase "inside track" to denote advantage can also be
applied to various forms of privilege (such as legacy admisions to
Harvard, or getting offered an athletic scholarship in squash, which
most middle-class white kids never get an opportunity to play when
they're growing up, let alone working-class kids of color).

> Presumably if the Indy 500 adopted an "equity" policy my 2016 Ford
> Escape would get one helluva starting position compared to the other
> cars in the race!

Imagine instead that you also have an Indy car, but you were assigned a
starting position behind everyone else in the race simply because your
parents never owned an Indy car.

-Micky

Micky DuPree <MDuPree@theworld.com.snip.to.reply> wrote:
>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> writes:
>>Mon, 7 Nov 2022 14:51:10 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>:

Oh, look. Micky DuPree is reviving a dead thread from weeks ago and
addressing me by piggybacking on H.G.'s followup. Once again, she's
failing to ignore me despite having me in her kill file, and reading
absolutely everything I write.

How unusual that Micky acts totally immature on Usenet, just like the
rest of us lower life forms.

>>>Harvard didn't admit students who didn't succeed in high school.

>A lot of the problem predates high-school graduation, though.

Yes, Micky. The academic problems would likely exist throughout high
school. I just wrote that.

>Harvard also doesn't admit students whose school systems failed them,
>because to the best of my knowledge, Harvard is not in the business of
>remedial education, not even for bright students (and I'm not saying
>that a private college should be).

Thank you for explaining the obvious and repeating the point I just
made. Harvard is elite. It DOES NOT reflect American society. It doesn't
want to reflect American society, so diversity that truly relects
American society isn't what Harvard wants.

I could have sworn that was so obvious that we had all started this
discussion from the same premise and it really was entirely unnecessary
to state what's utterly obvious to absolutely everybody.

>>>The discrimination is alleged to be against Asian ethnics [...]

>According to the Harvard Magazine, the entering Class of 2026 will be
>27.8% Asian American (up .6% from the previous year), whereas the
>percentage of Asian Americans in the general population is 6%. If
>Harvard is denying spots to more qualified Asian Americans, but is
>ordered by the courts to stop doing so, it won't be long before the
>whites start complaining that that's too many.

Yes, Micky. They are known to work their asses off academically, working
harder than certain white students do, so why shouldn't this hard work
be reflected in college admissions?

Why do you have a problem with this?

><https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/03/harvard-college-class-2026-admissions>

>>>[...] but it's factually shown that they aren't admitting any
>>>significant number of students who aren't from wealthy families.

>From the same article:

> "With today's announcement, the College also increased financial
> aid, eliminating all tuition, room, board, and fee costs for
> students from families with annual incomes below $75,000—an
> increase from the previous threshold of $65,000. [....] Nearly
> one-quarter of Harvard College students come from families who
> will qualify for a no-cost undergraduate education under the
> new standard. Median household income in the United States is
> about $70,000 to $75,000.)"

> [....]

> "[...] an estimated 20.5 percent of the class qualified for
> federal Pell grants (generally awarded to those from
> lower-income backgrounds)—up fractionally from 20.4 percent
> last year."

Yes, Micky. We know all this.

>Are there more students from wealthy families than from working- or
>middle-class families? Yes. But you make it sound like one-fifth of a
>class is the same as virtually zero.

No, Micky. Please don't explain what I'm saying. I'm saying that a class
that's close to 4/5 students from wealthy families isn't diverse.

Again: We're all supposed to be starting from the same premise, that
Harvard is an elite school and not a diverse school, that it doesn't
reflect American society, and that it tends to admit students from
wealthy families, the prior generations of which had also attended
Harvard.

Why is any of this news to you?

>>. . .

>I would think that all the self-professed libertarians out there would
>be defending a private college's right to set whatever policies it
>wanted. How do you weight extracurricular activities -- sports, clubs,
>whatever -- so that admissions are maximally fair? If a lot of weight
>is given to sports, would that make the process biased in favor of black
>applicants, who are stereotypically believed to be more athletic than
>whites or Asians? How do you weight the admissions interview, which
>might be biased in favor of extroverts?

No, Micky, because those admitted to Harvard based on athletic prowess
are rowing, playing lacrosse, even polo, and not basketball nor soccer,
sports that aren't generally emphasized in high schools that serve students
from poor and working class families. A few years ago, Harvard had an
excellent wrestling program, a sport that can be taught to anyone given
nearly no equipment.

With regard to Asians, they were given negative points based on
personality traits because they had to have some subjective criteria to
avoid admitting even more potentially successful Asian students.

I'm just repeating stuff here from the articles I'd cited that you
clearly couldn't be bothered to read.

>Out of curiosity, though, whatever your argument is for Harvard College,
>would you make the same argument for public colleges that use taxpayer
>money?

I'm not required to defend nor condemn any college's admissions
policies to comment on arguments being made before the Supreme Court. I
am, however, obliged to laugh at Harvard for absurd claims of having an
admissions policy that creates a truly diverse class of students instead
of the obvious, in which even the black kids are from wealthy families.

>>. . .

> "Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard"

>. . .

Unbelievable. Now you're quoting an article with quotes that were very
similar to the quotes I used because you are that desperate to pretend
that you don't read everything I write. You really do make friends every
where you go, don't you.

Micky DuPree <MDuPree@theworld.com.snip.to.reply> wrote:
>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> writes:
>>On Sat, 12 Nov 2022 11:01:03 -0500, moviePig <pwallace@moviepig.com> wrote:

>>>Here, for practical purposes, is the sort of pejorative definition
>>>that, afaics, people intend when they fling accusations of 'racism':

>>> the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics,
>>>abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as
>>>inferior or superior to one another.

>>>And "equity" policies, ill-advised or not, embody none of that.

>>No "equity" is the track race where some of the runners get a head
>>start on the others to "insure" they end at the starting line at the
>>same time.

>No, whether you agree with it or not, equity policies work on the
>premise that not all people start at the same point. . . .

I've deleted your analogies 'cuz they're not terribly good arguments.

And there it is yet again.

I want you to listen to what you've said very very carefully, and I want
you to think about how very similar it is to all those civil rights
cases the Supreme Court considered in the post-Civil War 19th century in
which the majority opinions were counter-Reconstruction opinions. You
know, or maybe you don't:

1) The Thirteenth Amendment made slavery illegal but was not general
civil rights legislation. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was not
necessarily a constitutional statute intending to broaden the scope of
the Thirteenth Amendment.

2) The Fourteenth Amendment was passed to codify certain provisions of
the Civil Rights Act in the Constitution. Nevertheless, there were a
series of Supreme Court rulings narrowing the application of the
amendment's provisions. The Privileges or Immunities clause wasn't
applied against the states (despite the amendment's clear language).
Certain Court rulings just knew that the Fourteenth Amendment wasn't
general civil rights legislation and protected only the civil rights of
the freedmen. That meant that it wasn't applicable to Negroes not
emancipated during the Civil War or by the Thirteenth Amendment and it
wasn't applicable to the next generation born of the freedmen. In other
words, the Fourteenth Amendment would sunset in a generation.

3) Civil rights laws didn't guarantee voting rights, hence the 15th
Amendment.

What could have possibly gone wrong with these interpretations of civil
rights law and the Constitution? Surely you heard of the Jim Crow era,
which lasted decades.

We need civil rights legislation to make provision for equal opportunity
because that makes it broadly applicable and not narrowly focused to
reversing a small set of issues in circumstances that don't even
necessarily apply to the current generation.

>>. . .

Micky DuPree <MDuPree@theworld.com.snip.to.reply> wrote:
>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> writes:
>>On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 10:23:42 -0500, moviePig <pwallace@moviepig.com> wrote:
>>>The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca> writes:

>>>>It's the difference between assuring all competitors start at the
>>>>same starting line (me) vs you and the "equity" advocates who want
>>>>to ensure all finish at the same finish line at the same time.

>>>>That's the road to quotas and "no _____ people need apply"

>>>No, I believe that people who abhor racism and try to fix it
>>>shouldn't be called, with giggling irony, 'racist'. Find another
>>>word.

>>On the contrary - people who believe in 'equality of results' rather
>>than 'equality of opportunity' (and often call it 'equity' which in
>>itself if quite offensive) COMMONLY use racist methodology to achieve
>>their goals.

>How can you possibly believe that everyone in Canada or the U.S. starts
>at the same starting line?

Doncha love DuPree-splaining? In this case, it's been used to set up a
straw man.

Equality of opportunity doesn't presume equality, just that certain types
of discrimination are undesireable and should be illegal. H.G. made his
position quite clear on that in the quote. You might have read it for
understanding and not pretended he meant something else.