So I got into an argument with a guy today about discrimination and segregation, especially with regards to schooling. The crux of my argument is that schools should discriminate based on merit and ability, not race or any other factor.
But this led me to a curious contradiction that I can't work out. I argued that there is no benefit to sticking Tyrone and all his dumbfuck dindu buddies in the same classroom as a bunch of high achieving Asian magnet students. In this case, I advocate for treating different people differently (which, some would agree, is more or less the definition of social justice).
However, when we got around to university admissions process, I took up the position that admissions should be completely blind (no race, sex or socioeconomic factors should be involved in the process, just scores and aptitude). This means treating everyone the same, which is the reverse of discrimination. (Some would argue that this is in line with traditional justice).
Why does a policy that makes sense at one level suddenly not make sense at another? Clearly the public schools should use ability grouping and segregate their students, it's better for everyone that way. But it seems to me that universities should not be allowed to discriminate in admissions, because it inevitably leads to less qualified applicants taking seats away from more qualified ones. So what gives?
I hope someone else can resolve this apparent contradiction.
>>1377285
Not sure I see a contradiction. Public schools should serve a particular area near the school. Bussing in a bunch of low-income students from across the city is pretty pointless. Universities have an admissions process that's not completely geographical in nature, so they have to have criteria for admission. Academic merit would seem to be the most logical criteria for an academic instiution to consider.
>>1377285
The first part of The Bell Curve (Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, 1994) makes a scholarly argument showing the correlation between IQ and crime (and other behaviors) regardless of race. Then they development an argument showing IQ vs. race. It is a quick and compelling read. It was and still is highly controversial. I highly recommend it. It changed the nature of the Affirmative Action discussion when it came out.
Concerning the controversy Howard Gardner of Harvard wrote in his work "Scholarly Brinksmanship":
>"The Bell Curve, near its closing tail, contains two chapters concerned with affirmative action, in higher education and in the workplace. To read those chapters is to hear the second shoe drop. The rest of the book, I believe, was written merely as a prelude to its assault on affirmative action. The vigor of the attack is astonishing."
>"Now, at long last, Herrnstein and Murray let it all hang out: "affirmative action, in education and the workplace alike, is leaking a poison into the American soul."
In a New York Times review Bob Herbert wrote regarding the last two chapters of the Bell Curve:
>"the book is just a genteel way of calling somebody a nigger."
What surprised me when I read it in '94 was that the book is about 250 pages of argument supported by about 450 pages of appendices showing their data. The first part really is a fast read.
The basic conclusion:
Asians are smarter than Caucasians who are smarter than Negroes.
Asians make better cultural decisions (crime, child birth and more) than Caucasians who make better cultural decisions than Negroes.
Controversial
>>1378025
The Bell Curve is an interesting book; it produces highly polarizing reactions to different people. /pol/-types react with glee along the lines of "hurt see blacks are stupid!" Left-ish people react along the lines of that Bob Hebert quote, or are at least unsettled by it.
The book gets a lot of flak for many of its cited studies being funded by the Pioneer Fund, an organization which definitely has a white supremacist bent, even if not explicitly so. It certainly raises the question of bias in the studies, but that doesn't automatically invalidate them; funding has to come from somewhere. Thomas Sowell, who is no racist or white nationalist, made a good point about this: he said studies of race and IQ are so politically radioactive since the late 1960s that it is impossible to get them funded by mainstream sources, so researchers are forced to turn to groups like the Pioneer Fund. He also said there are valid reasons to study race and IQ, pointing out that it is unclear why black girls do so much better than black boys on academic performance tests; this trend does not occur in other racial or ethnic groups. However, no potentially worthwhile research can be done here because of the political situation. Sowell doesn't subscribe to the strict genetic theory of IQ (and to be fair to Murray and Herrnstein, neither does the Bell Curve), but he does believe it is "real" in the sense that it can predict how you will do in life and that it is heritable in the sense that if your parents had a low IQ, then there's a stronger chance you will too.
