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c wilmot
climber
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Fritz- that makes zero sense.
If your wife had refused the Asian doctor and asked for a white doctor with a "familiar face" then yes I would say that would be racist
Your example however backs up my assertion- that race should not be a factor when seeking medical care
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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that race should not be a factor when seeking medical care
I agree, but culture can be. There is a high degree of cultural diversity in the expression of pain and symptoms. Kleinman among others has done research and written about this.
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SC seagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, Moab, A sailboat, or some time zone
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Just a story.....
that race should not be a factor when seeking medical care
When I was very little I got a nasty cut above my eye requiring stitches.
I was taken to the ER in my little Pa town (where the discrimated against were the "I talians. There were two black families and he was a minister so he kinda got a pass.
Yet here was this Philippino doctor in the ER. My dad told me the doctor was Phillpino (probably the first time I had even seen an Asian in person.).
As I was still very young and multisyllabic words just forming, I ended up referring to the Doctor as the "Peanut" doctor telling all my playmates the Peanut Doctor fixed my eye.
Susan
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cleo
Social climber
wherever you go, there you are
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And if you're parents aren't rich, and you don't get massive scholarships? The debt ain't worth it
What debt? Look up the financial assistance packages at the Ivies. Many of them have No-Loan financial aid, which means it's ALL grants and scholarships. I'm serious- it's way cheaper than the local state university unless your parents are really rich.
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monolith
climber
state of being
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When I took my mother to the ER recently, one of Reilly's feared many-syllable named doctor treated her in an excellent manner.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Then there's Muhammad University of Islam in Chicago that effectively admits only black students. Nobody's wringing their hands about this!
apparently a private educational institution that does not obtain federal, state or local support (a private institution) which is characterized as a private religious institution...
While many colleges and universities are "private" they accept funds from the nation, the state and local governments and because of that, agree to the conditions of that funding. Because all of us pay taxes that raise the revenue that is used to fund those activities. Minimally, it seems fair that all those paying have "equal access."
There are many implicit issues that seem to be underlying the idea that many of the policies are "unfair" to various populations.
1) that there is no bias in admissions,
2) that the applicants be considered solely on their merits without considering other factors related to their meritorious accomplishments,
3) that going to a competitive institution and succeeding is correlated to those meritorious accomplishments.
First I have to say that it is ironic that many voices here decry what they see as "biased admissions" with evidence they claim shows that one applicant had more merit than another but was denied admission based on some arbitrary "intrinsic" attribute (race, gender, "having the right stuff"); the irony being that many of these same voices decry the idea that someone who has achieved meritorious accomplishment should have any more weight in public policy discussion than "the regular Joe/Josephine on the street."
Take, for instance, the "debate" on climate change where opinion of scientists, who have distinguished themselves in demonstrating excellence in the practice of science, is dismissed, Certainly based on "merit" those opinions should hold a higher weight.
However, the arguments goes that "there is more to the discussion" then just science... which completes the irony, since there is more to admissions then "just grades."
The first point above is that the admissions to most educational institutions is biased, though not particularly in nefarious ways, there is no "right" to gain access to a private educational institution, and those institutions consider the composition of their student body as a part of their "branding." The admissions policies may be discriminatory based on all sorts of ideas regarding this, in the "bad old days" it was difficult to gain acceptance and many of the Ivies if you were Jewish man, women of all backgrounds were excluded outright.
The huge increase in public funds going to private institutions required, eventually, that a condition for receiving those funds were that the admittance policies change. Since taxation is only about the "money" it seems fair to require that funds so raised to not favor one taxpayer over another.
Institutions not accepting public funding are free to do whatever they want.
But bias in institutions of higher education is still pervasive, given that there is no reason that the representation of the population of this country should not be reflected in the makeup of those institutions' student body, faculty and administration, as you would expect if achieving those positions were "only" a matter of meritorious accomplishment.
One can provide a twisted explanation for why this is not so, all such explanations defy common sense.
The second point is interesting to consider because we recognize that not all preparations for higher education are equal, that is, a grade point average from one school system is not equivalent to that from another. There are certainly socio-economic disparities among the nation's public school systems, which produce the bulk of the applicants for higher education. Not taking that into account when assessing applicants would seem to (and has) excluded many excellent students from admission. More, each admission committee would be able to explain why each student is admitted (at least in institutions I have been associated with), the practice of admissions is not a blind application of scoring, but a deliberate attempt to select the most appropriate applicants. Of course, subjectivity enters in to that selection process. The point is that it is a deliberative process, a lot of the discussion seems not to recognize this.
Finally, I would say that the majority of students entering a highly competitive institution of higher education have to deal with the fact that their selection and those of their class, were due at least in part to their excellence, but within that class you might find that you are not "above average," in fact, you might find yourself at the lower end of the distribution. Dealing with this can be a major personal issue for students, and result in dropping out of the institution. Many colleges and universities have implemented policies to be more helpful when issuing warnings regarding failing efforts, in an attempt to increase student success.
When teaching at a "less" competitive institution all these factor come into play, but generally with a student body with a larger variance in preparation, and class levels etc are geared towards that broader population. But there are many of the same issues present in the student body, financial, family, expectations, capabilities.
It is a hugely complex discussion which cannot be simplified to the simple minded politics that has been offered.
Whether or not a minority has been aggrieved is the role of the courts to decide, and an essential mechanism to our representative democracy. One can look at the court's findings, and the trends, to see whether or not such claims have been found in favor, and which have not, and to the subsequent response of the legislature and executive branches regarding those findings.
Cheering or jeering from the bleachers is expected... but being a sore looser one way or another always meets with the same, justifiably derisive comments.
full disclosure: I went to public high school in Claremont CA, a college town in SoCal which was essentially entirely white middle class, put myself through college at UC Berkeley (though with support from many people, not the least the good people of California who once supported those institutions) and later graduate school through Columbia U., (with the support of you, the US Taxpayer via NSF student scholarships), and later taught at UMass.
I have learned that my particular experience of education and being in educational institutions is probably not generalizable, and doubt that anyone's is, but that a more complete picture comes from considering all of our experiences, and resisting the urge to stereotype, that is, reality is much more complex (and interesting) than our simple scenarios used as political rhetoric.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Monolith, was she fortunate enough to have an un-diagnosed MRSA infection?
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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I call b.s. on underplaying the advantages of name brand universities. You are assuming this is about education, when it is really about paying the bribe or the toll for admission to a different socio-economic strata. It is the buying and selling of prestige, and the name pedigree matters if you want to achieve at elite levels. It is the context in which people evaluate you- how much respect and value they assign to you and the words you say and the promises you make, before they have other data with which to evaluate you. If you just want a non-intellectual job, you probably don't need to make these distinctions as much, but a brand name pedigree is always an advantage for intellectually competitive environments.
Specific cases where the name makes a difference:
 venture capital funding
research grants
academic paper publications
jobs that require thinking
Is there a rational merit or performance based argument for aggregating benefits to a name-brand, using prestige as a short-cut for judging future performance? Yes. It is a brand promise.
There is a positive feedback loop of prestige and performance and access to resources for future success. An academic researcher whose performance depends on having highly motivated students working for them will do MUCH better at a name-brand competitive university because the students on average will be more competitive and motivated. So quality and volume of work and published results will be better for these researchers compared to those at no-name schools, and this will reinforce the idea that the researcher at the name-brand place is better than the one at the no-name place, even if they both work just as hard and have similarly good ideas. This concentration of results and benefits will continue to happen in many disciplines and over a long period of time, and is why so many people around the world get the idea of working hard to be on the right side of the growing divide.
Those that don't get it, their children will pay.
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monolith
climber
state of being
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Monolith, was she fortunate enough to have an un-diagnosed MRSA infection?
huh?
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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The number one predictor of success was a willingness to work hard
..
the poor levels of preparation for .. my students was the killer .. for them.
So is it an unwillingness to work hard that's the problem behind racial disparities in wealth and academic achievement, or is it the poor preparation that's the problem?
13 times less wealth seems like a pretty steep structural poor preparation, whether what you're preparing for is being a student, or parenting a student. And, IMHO, that structural poor preparation was created based on race, not on an unwillingness to work hard.
Or is the 13 times less wealth, as a measure of success, also a reflection of an unwillingness to work hard? That idea seems to be gaining ground under Trump.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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I have also read two or three other "saved-by-education" biographies, including "A Hope in the Unseen." They all seem to be the same: it is possible but very hard to escape being poor and ill prepared. It is hard not to look back in wonder, and, apparently, want to write a book. My conclusion is that trying to apply lessons from individual experiences to national politics is a fools errand.
That's a good conclusion.
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Where we are in our society with respect to racial imbalances and racial justice is in part due to the intentional racial injustices of the past. Those injustices were intentionally perpetrated in order to advantage one race over the other. They weren't perpetrated in order to create racial justice.
What some people like to believe is that the only way to correct racial injustices of the past is to have racial justice in the present, not by trying to fix those past injustices.
And believing that racial justice is the cure is not IMHO unreasonable.
But it may not be quite by coincidence that the way that belief and scheme is implemented continues to advantage the people who are already advantaged by the racial injustices of the past.
Yea, it's a tough problem to understand and to fix.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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My conclusion is that trying to apply lessons from individual experiences to national politics is a fools errand.
Good thought, but it sure won't stop politicians from trying to appear relevant.
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c wilmot
climber
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first I have to say that it is ironic that many voices here decry what they see as "biased admissions" with evidence they claim shows that one applicant had more merit than another but was denied admission based on some arbitrary "intrinsic" attribute (race, gender, "having the right stuff"); the irony being that many of these same voices decry the idea that someone who has achieved meritorious accomplishment should have any more weight in public policy discussion than "the regular Joe/Josephine on the street."
Ed- many people who are white or Asian have been passed over in favor of an applicant of less academic merit with "minority" status. It's not a "claim" - it's the reality of affirmative action. Using skin color as a measure of merit when deciding who gets in - IS a form of biased admissions. And your skin color IS an arbitrary factor that should have no bearing on admissions.
While yes- there is many factors to admissions- the color of you skin should not be one of them
as for irony- I really don't see what the debate on climate change has to do with affirmative action.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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of course you don't...
and you didn't seem to have read the rest of what I wrote (with any comprehension)
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c wilmot
climber
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Your response is nothing more than an insult- a reoccurring theme here
It's pretty lame to try and have a debate with people who want to argue with insults
And from an academic no less- how ironic
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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It's pretty lame to try and have a debate with people who want to argue with facts
That's what you really meant, isn't it? After all it was Ronald Raygun who said:
Facts are stupid things.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Your response is nothing more than an insult- a reoccurring theme here
c wilmont advocating for a safe space? that's ironic
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Good old somebody with his "disingenuous" dig (that's what he hit with me with when I suggested that justifying race discrimination just because you think there might be some vague benefit to the discrimination could be something of a slippery slope).
He also got all hot under the collar when I noted that some societies (e.g. Japan) seem to do a pretty good job of educating their citizens notwithstanding a lack of "diversity" (as defined by skin color, I suppose)--I think I was being "ridiculous" for noting that.
As "disingenuous" and "ridiculous" as I may be, at least many millions of my fellow citizens seem to agree that our governments shouldn't discriminate against people based on their race and in fact many (but not all) of our governments have outlawed that discrimination.
With some new blood on the SCOTUS, maybe things will finally get resolved nationally.
Edit: looks like "somebody" deleted his post . . . probably for the best
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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your skin color is an arbitrary factor that should have no bearing on admissions
Sure. And your skin color is an arbitrary factor that should have no bearing on your wealth.
But we live in the real world, where your skin color does have a significant affect on your wealth, as it has continued to do for 150 years since slavery ended. And the reason it does is because of racial injustice.
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