One of the frustrating aspects of current discourse on merit is the widespread presumption that an individual’s potential for success can be identified based on some transparent measure of past performance.
I think you may have strawmanned the opponents of DEI to some extent. I doubt there are many people who oppose taking into account individual struggle along with test scores and GPAs. What DEI opponents called out was the use of race by itself as a factor in the selection process, ostensibly with the aim of a visibly diverse class or with the aim of providing a visibly diverse group of potential future leaders.
What is missing in the current DEI conversation is a an admission that simply using race for the purpose visibly diversifying classrooms provided no educational benefit (because most beneficiaries had similar lives despite being from a different race than other students) and that there was therefore no moral reason to discriminate against White/Asian students in this way.
A highly polarized political climate makes this difficult but it is necessary for colleges and other institutions that are left leaning to vocally distance themselves from this unjustified systemic discrimination.
In the absence of such an admission or at least a declaration of a future policy, people are right to be suspicious of DEI and the potential that these institutions will try to get around the SCOTUS decision to still get an arbitrary racial breakup in their classrooms instead of trying to assess merit on an individual basis which includes an assessment of personal struggles that someone has been through.
What DEI opponents miss, in my opinion, is that the use of demographic characteristics can be useful even if the goal is performance maximization and not diversification. See for instance the distinction between profiling and preferential treatment in the work of Cestau et al discussed here:
I am interested in the design of efficient and fair selection practices, this is a complex issue that is treated as simple in public discourse. I don't see my post as straw-manning but there isn't much point in arguing about this.
I didn't mean to argue that you were intentionally strawmanning DEI opponents. Sorry if that's what came across. I only meant to say there is a need for transparency on this because it is a matter of public interest.
Demographic characteristics, particularly income level, should in my opinion certainly be taken into account for the goal of performance optimization.
However, an opaque system like that of Harvard and UNC does not and should not inspire confidence.
Why should the opponents of DEI take them or anyone else at their word that their use of race in the selection process is in the service of performanced maximization?
Based on the decision, they were not able to bring any convincing evidence that their affirmative action policies yielded any gains in group performance.
I guess my main point is that a transparent policy that takes into account personal circumstances would likely be widely accepted, but that is not what was happening. The experience of Harvard and UNC in using race as a proxy for disadvantage shows that allowing institutions to rely on demographics will lead to admissions teams and hiring managers prioritizing visible diversity instead of optimizing for viewpoint diversity and group performance.
Also, with respect to your point about gender composition affecting performance, I wonder if that would apply equally to racial composition. I ask because it seems to me intuitive that men and women are more different (which would lead to more different perspectives, interpretations etc) than white women and asian women etc.
If you look at my post on Penn (linked above) you'll see that I favor a top percent policy like the Texas rule, combined with lotteries if too many qualify. Totally transparent. I understand that this is far from what we have today (except in a few state university systems). Holistic admission is better in principle but suffers from lack of transparency, maybe it could be made more transparent. What I don't want is pure test-based admissions like the NYC specialized high schools, Korean universities, and the Indian civil service. This would be a disaster for the universities and would not be meritocratic either, for reasons Fryer discusses.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to me again. I have read your post on Penn but as you point out the Texas rule is subject to gaming. And one can well imagine that more affluent households would be more capable of moving to ensure their child enters the right class and comes out at the top.
If the stakes were high enough, say for example admission to Harvard and Stanford, I could well imagine parents doing whatever they could to get thier children into these schools which can be a ticket to a lot of future opportunities.
What are your thoughts on a process that takes into account where a majority of a student's schooling was done as a proxy for income, wealth and overall resources?? Might that not be better than a top per cent policy under which it is possible that an exceptional studen from a poor school district misses out on their preferred college because there were just one too many exceptional students from that district in that year.
With respect to a lottery in the case of too many applicants I have a philosphical difference. I believe a policy like that may have too much of a negative imapct on competitive culture. I think test scores are a fairer tiebreaker or atleast perceived as such at least for for similarly similarly situated students.
We all know that a the outcome of the finals of a 100m dash in the Olympics or another athletic event may not perfectly reflect the hard work of each of the athletes. The best sprinter may not even win. However, we accept that as in life, your performance in key moments can have an outsized impact on your future. This provides us with an element of control or a the illusion fo having it and encourages us to compete. A lottery system could depress motivation to excel.
Particularly in the case of insitutions that reject as many as 90 per cent of applicants, you can imagine lotteries beoming far too important and hurting the competitive streak among students.
As a final point, I think a pure test based admissions system is still fairer than an opaque holistic system in which admissions officers dole out personality scores to ensure a certain visible diverstiy in a class which is likley more homogenous than the ordinary state university in terms of its class background and political views.
Thank you for your always thoughtful and reasonable perspective on these matters.
Affirmative action began as a well intentioned attempt to redress past wrongs in 1965, but a half century later, it’s ossified into the foundation of today’s problems. Both Guinier and Fryer are telling—Guinier because she brings up 1968 (stuck in a time warp), and Fryer because he talks about 95th percentile vs 99th percentile when the preferential gaps in college admission are now much larger. At Harvard, which gets the pick of applicants, it’s about 93 v 99. What people see in their daily lives is systemic discrimination against whites and asians in the pursuit of equality of outcome (equity). The political formula doesn’t work any more and liberals pining to return to 1990 will have as much luck as conservatives pining for 1950.
I am curious what you think will move us forward given the motte-and-bailey of DEI being about merit has collapsed?
I think too many people have experienced DIE firsthand—through workplace discrimination or ESG etc.—and so reject
I think what will move us forward is basically what Fryer is proposing, a focus on talent optimization, along with a recognition that mechanical reliance on past performance is not going to achieve his goal, honest discussion and debate about how to achieve it, and transparent communication about the policies in place and their justification. Not an easy lift but I don't see any other way.
I think you may have strawmanned the opponents of DEI to some extent. I doubt there are many people who oppose taking into account individual struggle along with test scores and GPAs. What DEI opponents called out was the use of race by itself as a factor in the selection process, ostensibly with the aim of a visibly diverse class or with the aim of providing a visibly diverse group of potential future leaders.
What is missing in the current DEI conversation is a an admission that simply using race for the purpose visibly diversifying classrooms provided no educational benefit (because most beneficiaries had similar lives despite being from a different race than other students) and that there was therefore no moral reason to discriminate against White/Asian students in this way.
A highly polarized political climate makes this difficult but it is necessary for colleges and other institutions that are left leaning to vocally distance themselves from this unjustified systemic discrimination.
In the absence of such an admission or at least a declaration of a future policy, people are right to be suspicious of DEI and the potential that these institutions will try to get around the SCOTUS decision to still get an arbitrary racial breakup in their classrooms instead of trying to assess merit on an individual basis which includes an assessment of personal struggles that someone has been through.
What DEI opponents miss, in my opinion, is that the use of demographic characteristics can be useful even if the goal is performance maximization and not diversification. See for instance the distinction between profiling and preferential treatment in the work of Cestau et al discussed here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/rajivsethi/p/the-pennsylvania-proposal-and-the
I am interested in the design of efficient and fair selection practices, this is a complex issue that is treated as simple in public discourse. I don't see my post as straw-manning but there isn't much point in arguing about this.
I didn't mean to argue that you were intentionally strawmanning DEI opponents. Sorry if that's what came across. I only meant to say there is a need for transparency on this because it is a matter of public interest.
Demographic characteristics, particularly income level, should in my opinion certainly be taken into account for the goal of performance optimization.
However, an opaque system like that of Harvard and UNC does not and should not inspire confidence.
Why should the opponents of DEI take them or anyone else at their word that their use of race in the selection process is in the service of performanced maximization?
Based on the decision, they were not able to bring any convincing evidence that their affirmative action policies yielded any gains in group performance.
I guess my main point is that a transparent policy that takes into account personal circumstances would likely be widely accepted, but that is not what was happening. The experience of Harvard and UNC in using race as a proxy for disadvantage shows that allowing institutions to rely on demographics will lead to admissions teams and hiring managers prioritizing visible diversity instead of optimizing for viewpoint diversity and group performance.
Also, with respect to your point about gender composition affecting performance, I wonder if that would apply equally to racial composition. I ask because it seems to me intuitive that men and women are more different (which would lead to more different perspectives, interpretations etc) than white women and asian women etc.
If you look at my post on Penn (linked above) you'll see that I favor a top percent policy like the Texas rule, combined with lotteries if too many qualify. Totally transparent. I understand that this is far from what we have today (except in a few state university systems). Holistic admission is better in principle but suffers from lack of transparency, maybe it could be made more transparent. What I don't want is pure test-based admissions like the NYC specialized high schools, Korean universities, and the Indian civil service. This would be a disaster for the universities and would not be meritocratic either, for reasons Fryer discusses.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to me again. I have read your post on Penn but as you point out the Texas rule is subject to gaming. And one can well imagine that more affluent households would be more capable of moving to ensure their child enters the right class and comes out at the top.
If the stakes were high enough, say for example admission to Harvard and Stanford, I could well imagine parents doing whatever they could to get thier children into these schools which can be a ticket to a lot of future opportunities.
What are your thoughts on a process that takes into account where a majority of a student's schooling was done as a proxy for income, wealth and overall resources?? Might that not be better than a top per cent policy under which it is possible that an exceptional studen from a poor school district misses out on their preferred college because there were just one too many exceptional students from that district in that year.
With respect to a lottery in the case of too many applicants I have a philosphical difference. I believe a policy like that may have too much of a negative imapct on competitive culture. I think test scores are a fairer tiebreaker or atleast perceived as such at least for for similarly similarly situated students.
We all know that a the outcome of the finals of a 100m dash in the Olympics or another athletic event may not perfectly reflect the hard work of each of the athletes. The best sprinter may not even win. However, we accept that as in life, your performance in key moments can have an outsized impact on your future. This provides us with an element of control or a the illusion fo having it and encourages us to compete. A lottery system could depress motivation to excel.
Particularly in the case of insitutions that reject as many as 90 per cent of applicants, you can imagine lotteries beoming far too important and hurting the competitive streak among students.
As a final point, I think a pure test based admissions system is still fairer than an opaque holistic system in which admissions officers dole out personality scores to ensure a certain visible diverstiy in a class which is likley more homogenous than the ordinary state university in terms of its class background and political views.
Thank you for your always thoughtful and reasonable perspective on these matters.
Affirmative action began as a well intentioned attempt to redress past wrongs in 1965, but a half century later, it’s ossified into the foundation of today’s problems. Both Guinier and Fryer are telling—Guinier because she brings up 1968 (stuck in a time warp), and Fryer because he talks about 95th percentile vs 99th percentile when the preferential gaps in college admission are now much larger. At Harvard, which gets the pick of applicants, it’s about 93 v 99. What people see in their daily lives is systemic discrimination against whites and asians in the pursuit of equality of outcome (equity). The political formula doesn’t work any more and liberals pining to return to 1990 will have as much luck as conservatives pining for 1950.
I am curious what you think will move us forward given the motte-and-bailey of DEI being about merit has collapsed?
I think too many people have experienced DIE firsthand—through workplace discrimination or ESG etc.—and so reject
I think what will move us forward is basically what Fryer is proposing, a focus on talent optimization, along with a recognition that mechanical reliance on past performance is not going to achieve his goal, honest discussion and debate about how to achieve it, and transparent communication about the policies in place and their justification. Not an easy lift but I don't see any other way.