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Would help if the abstract didn’t uses phrasing like “benefits whites.”

It doesn’t benefit whites, it benefits kids with rich parents. Similarly, Affirmative Action benefits kids with lesser academics, but explicitly based on their race.

Perhaps if they want to draw apples-to-oranges comparisons they would do well to point this out.



> Would help if the abstract didn’t uses phrasing like “benefits whites.”

You have made two factual misrepresentations about the content of the paper in this thread so far. That doesn't seem like discussing in good faith.

For reference, the abstract of the paper is:

> The lawsuit Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard University provided an un- precedented look at how an elite school makes admissions decisions. Using publicly released reports, we examine the preferences Harvard gives for recruited athletes, legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs). Among white admits, over 43% are ALDC. Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each. Our model of admissions shows that roughly three quarters of white ALDC admits would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs. Removing preferences for athletes and legacies would significantly alter the racial distribution of admitted students, with the share of white admits falling and all other groups rising or remaining unchanged.


The paper does not use the phrase “benefits whites.” Interpreting the paper as such is a racist interpretation. You would do well to read the paper.


pg 2: "legacy preferences will tend to benefit white applicants relative to other racial groups.

pg 34: "Each of the ALDC preferences primarily benefit white students."


I'm sort of troubled by the fast & loose nature of mieseratte's statements; in such a simple matter one might as well be accurate about the location of the statements referenced, and WillPostForFood is correct that the statements that contain "benefit white" students/applicants are not in the abstract but later. I also think that there's a bit of subtle misrepresentation when this discussion is being framed as "benefiting whites". There are many white people in the US who do not have access to college, do not have access to good public education, do not have the financial means to become legacy students, etc. In the sentences from the article, there's some set theory going on: among admitted students, a larger fraction of white students were benefited by ALDC preferences. Among applicants, a larger fraction of white students got the benefit of these admissions. This is a race thing, sure, among people already applying for college -- which is already a substantial filter with its own complexity.

Many colleges care about legacy admissions because they cement a family (and their donations and alumni networks and job help and etc) to a college more securely than anything else. It is also true that this perpetuates the patterns of the past. One of those patterns in the US is that white people got to go to college and others did not. White people should not get too sensitive about this. It's just true.




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