Gravitahn
1 HN recommender · recommended in 4 months, 2018–2020
13:41 · 182K views · Mar 7, 2017
An excerpt of a C-SPAN interview in which Thomas Sowell argues that preferential admission policies produce mismatch, dropouts and resentment.
HN cites it in threads on college admissions and affirmative action as Sowell's argument about unintended consequences.
4 comments from Hacker News
The entire doctrine of Disparate Impact, and Affirmative Action which is borne from it, is one of the most illiberal policies in America. I really hope a constitutionalist Supreme Court can reverse this madness. On Affirmative Action in specific, here's a great interview from Sowell about the unintended consequences that arise from the awful policy: this video
Why do people think affirmative action is a good idea? It's not meritocratic. People should be judged based on their skill, not based on their gender, race, or ethnicity. We should be striving for a fair society, not equality of outcome It's insulting to those minorities, it implies that they can't be smart enough to make it without this kind of leg up, and they will never know the extent to which this played a role in their success even if they're absolutely solid at what they do. And I think there's definitely a negative psychological effect to minorities by doing these kinds of things If a student gets into a school which is above their skill level or general academic interest, they could burn out and loose interest in a profession that otherwise would've been a good fit for them. A similar lack of motivation can also happen for someone who can only get into a school that's below their true skill level because they don't feel that their being valued fairly It isn't all encompassing -- it's not just gender and race, there are ethnicities that are widely discriminated against and they don't get a similar leg up. I don't think AA should be applied at all, just pointing this out There are problems in some minority communities struggle with for sure, but this isn't the right way to solve it at all One of big reasons why asian and jewish communities do better here is just culture -- their cultures highly value intellectual pursuits. I knew an asian guy that went to Harvard and t
If the SAT test wasn't selective in some meaningful way then people admitted through affirmative action should be expected to do approximately as well as the people that was admitted purely through merit. The outcome says otherwise [1], or if prefer a video [2]. Mismatching people to schools based upon an ideal hurts those people when they come unprepared relative to their peers. Many diverse people admitted through affirmative action with a dream to do the sciences abandon them for other less rigorous disciplines, and it doesn't have to be so if they were matched with a school without the social engineering attempts of ideologues. [1] [LINK] [2] this video
No, I'm not moving the goalposts! Sowell's point is exactly that - being the worst in your class, and sharing that with all your peers of the same race, is tantamount to constant demoralization and disenfranchisement. This dynamic leads to higher drop out rates. Either way, it's really not my theory. It's something Thomas Sowell documented in one of his books. Here he is talking about it: "Thomas Sowell: affirmative action creates academic failure & resentment" - this video . Sowell is black, if it matters. [LINK] .