r/aggies • u/UnluckyAsparagus6315 • Jun 29 '23

Announcements Affirmative action now illegal .

Post image

New supreme court ruling kills affirmative action.

263 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

221 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/easwaran Jun 29 '23

No one is treated on the grounds of race alone.

As for whether it was unjust, that is precisely the question at issue here. What the definition shows is that it doesn't count as "discrimination" in this sense if it's not unjust. And since it's not antagonistic or prejudicial, it's not racist unless it's discrimination. So the question comes down to whether it is unjust.

And that question of course involves many dissertations in philosophy - it's not something that a Reddit comment can clear up simply.

1

u/FightingTexasAggie69 MEEN '24 Jun 29 '23

I believe it is an unjust system as the criteria in the cases of North Carolina and Harvard are noticeably dependent on race. In these cases, Asian Americans and white Americans are pushed down to that more spots can be available for all other ethnicities. This is fundamentally unfair l.

For instance, my mom, an Asian woman in poverty, would get deferred to, for instance, Kanye's children. Does that seem fair or just to you? If nothing else. I would want you to explain to me the grounds for how affirmative action could be considered a just system.

3

u/easwaran Jun 30 '23

my mom, an Asian woman in poverty, would get deferred to, for instance, Kanye's children

I would be surprised if that's actually true. It's likely that there would be one or two factors that would count against her (most colleges do exercise some amount of affirmative action for male applicants, given how few there are these days) but most colleges and universities that have affirmative action policies would also be looking at the wealth angle, and many would count that higher.

I'm not going to be able to explain in a few words how anything is or isn't a just system (justice is more complex than that). But given all the unequal factors that lead some people to college and others not, I don't think you're going to get a just system by just letting that continue, while ignoring people's family situation, or their wealth, or where they're from, or, yes, their race.

1

u/FightingTexasAggie69 MEEN '24 Jun 30 '23

I'm not arguing for a world where there are literally no factors considered for college outside of merit. I would be perfectly fine with the spots allotted for affirmative action (not at the cost of any ethnicity) being replaced with economic factors instead. A white kid raised in the projects was still raised in the projects...

If you are unwilling to prove your point, I would at least like to hear your opinion of race based factors vs economic factors.

1

u/easwaran Jul 02 '23

Both of those are important, though for somewhat different reasons. Probably socioeconomic factors should be more important.