Thomas Sowell: affirmative action creates academic failure & resentment
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it in threads on college admissions and affirmative action as Sowell's argument about unintended consequences.
What it is
An excerpt of a C-SPAN interview in which Thomas Sowell argues that preferential admission policies produce mismatch, dropouts and resentment.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2018 to 2020.
What Hacker News said
Recommends ericdykstra · 2018-07 · on “Why Asian-Americans feel powerless in New York’s elite high schools”
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]
Cites risto1 · 2018-08 · on “Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support”
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
Cites asabjorn · 2019-01 · on “IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle”
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]
Cites sebmellen · 2020-10 · on “Justice Department sues Yale for illegal practices in admissions”
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] .