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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   31446 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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Thanks I enjoyed reading this but I think that you miss the real significance of the ruling: I agree that that elite institutions are not being egalitarian enough (I think this is what you are arguing by comparing harvards graduation rate to the seals?) and that this is resulting in too many incompetents running the countries institutions. They are also hard to change because they are mostly privately run an have huge endowments along with influential alumni networks. The ruling alone doesn’t rectify this (as trace points out university admins will try to circumvent it), but gives a future republican president enormous leverage to massively change elite universities simply by enforcing the law.

Congress could pass a law enforcing the SAT as the sole criterion for entry into colleges that receive any government funding, I suppose, but otherwise what leverage does a "future Republican president have"? He can direct the Department of Education to do whatever he wants, but Harvard can challenge all of that and drag things out for a very long time. Trump's DoE accomplished little itself and was, unlike much of his administration, led by an assured culture warrior.

This would be silly, because the College Board is part of the problem. They are already changing the SAT to try an make BIPOC do better. If you did that we'd end up in a full bore Goodhart's law situation.

The College Board is desperately trying to keep itself relevant in an age where increasing numbers of colleges want to stop using the SAT. They’re not the ones who started this.

I still can’t believe that UC has actually dropped sat/act requirements, I don’t see how this can possibly be sustainable for them.

I'm not sure those that would be in favor of using the SAT would really be comfortable enshrining the College Board with sole authority in ranking college admissions. Witness Florida battling over AP course curricula.

I don't have a deep-felt opinion on whether Harvard should be egalitarian. I prefer egalitarian entry criteria for elite institutions both for self-interested reasons and because I prioritize academic excellence over things like wealth, but there's something honest about an unabashedly elitist finishing school for the rich and powerful that I have to respect. I do think it's trying to awkwardly staple a facade of egalitarianism over a core of elitism, though, and that leaves it in a precarious and self-contradictory position.

You could be right about the amount of leverage it gives, but I think the way the ruling explicitly set California schools as a good example gives a lot of reason to be skeptical that the leverage will amount to a great deal in practice. I'll be watching with interest, and I expect mountains of litigation to come out of the ruling, but I have trouble anticipating serious changes as a result.

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