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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32032 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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Looks like the Supreme Court is finally getting around to challenging affirmative action. Of course we don't know what the ruling will be, but with the decisions so far I'm hopeful they strike down AA, or at least put a dent in it.

I'm surprised this isn't a bigger deal as I haven't heard much buzz about it from my liberal friends. According to the article, 74% of Americans don't believe in using race as a factor in college admissions (although that question and whether or not Affirmative Action should be struck down likely have far different approval rates.) It may be a Roe situation where they really don't care until one of the sacred cows is gored because they believe in their own invincibility. I'm curious if AA does get struck down, will we have the same reaction as Roe?

I'm sure some people will be upset, but do you think liberal states will start changing their constitutions to allow race filtering for college admissions? Or is the political will for AA just gone on both sides of the aisle?

The electoral problem for the pro-AA side is that this doesn’t cut neatly across two-party divisions. White and Asian-Americans are both over represented relative to the general population in college admissions, and don’t want their kids’ chances dinged because of their census categorization. A lot of Asian Americans who were Clinton/Biden voters strongly oppose any quotas that will impact their kids.

White and Asian-Americans are both over represented relative to the general population in college admissions

IIRC non-legacy non-athletic non-jewish whites are a fair bit underrepresented relative to the general population at top colleges, but I don't have the exact numbers.

Could well be but that’s moot relative to the politics of this, in that there isn’t going to be a noticeable pro-affirmative action push for non-legacy, non-athletic, non-Jewish whites from any quarter.

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