Still Free

Yeah, Mr. Smiley. Made it through the entire Trump presidency without being enslaved. Imagine that.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Vox Uses Anti-Affirmative Action Arguments to Defend Women

One sign that a group that has previously been discriminated against has arrived and is feeling themselves is when they don't even realize they are using the same arguments that they have previously considered [insert ism of choice]. Here's Vox with one Lets start with the title:

Discrimination against women is a real problem in college admissions
Now anyone who has been paying attention knows full well that women generally outnumber men in college. Generally speaking when not talking about traffic stops, drug arrests and things like stop and frisk, being over-represented in a setting is taken as a sign of discrimination. There's even an entire concept called "disparate impact" used to determine discrimination exists in the absence of anyone doing anything to discriminate. So lets follow Vox.
Two generations ago, women were in the minority in higher education. Now they're dominating it.
Seems like a case of non-discrimination to me.
Women now make up 59 percent of all college students. In 2011, they earned 62 percent of all associate degrees, 57 percent of all bachelor's degrees, and 60 percent of all master's degrees. They now even earn the majority of doctorates — the last bastion of male domination in higher education.
Bastion commentary aside, I would think that anyone quoting something like this shouldn't be writing an article about discrimination against women in college admissions. But I'm sure there is something coming to make the point.
Women are so dominant, in fact, that some colleges — particularly private colleges — overtly or covertly give men a boost in the admissions process. If you're hoping to be admitted to a prestigious private college that doesn't specialize in engineering, it helps to be male.
Wait. Wait. I've seen this before. You...you..you were standing right there....yeah...and I. I'm supposed to stand right here and...and I say...Everything that has a beginning Neo, has an end. Oh sorry wrong subject matter. No seriously. I have seen this before It goes like this:
Whites are so dominant in fact, that colleges -including private colleges- overtly give Blacks a boost in the admissions process. If you're hoping to be admitted into a prestigious private college, it helps to be Black
Yup, this is a total re-hash of the anti-Affirmative-Action argument where Black is substituted with male. In liberal circles this argument is considered totally racist. Yet here is Vox fronting the very same argument in order to argue for women.
Evidence has mounted in recent years: at some colleges, although not all, men can get in with less impressive credentials. A push for gender balance on campus means accomplished young women end up competing with each other rather than crowding out less accomplished young men.
Yet another take on the Affirmative Action argument:
Evidence has mounted...at colleges, Blacks can get in with less impressive credentials. A push for racial balance on campus means accomplished young white people end up competing with each other rather than crowding out less accomplished blacks
I mean really. Nobody at Vox noticed this?
About 25 percent of admissions directors surveyed by Inside Higher Ed in 2014 said colleges should admit men with lower grades and test scores than other applicants to create a gender balance.
May as well write:
Admissions directors....said colleges should admit blacks with lower grades and test scores than white applicants to create racial balance
This article is chock full of nuggets. I've been looking for a "satire" tag somewhere because I simply cannot believe that this was written and published with a straight face.
In 2006, Jennifer Delahunty Britz, then the dean of admissions and financial aid at Kenyon College, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times headlined "To All the Girls I've Rejected." In the opaque world of college admissions, Britz's op-ed laid out the situation candidly: talented female applicants at Kenyon were a dime a dozen, and highly qualified male applicants were rarer. It was simply harder to get in as a young woman than a young man.
Wowwwwwww. How long has there been complaints about Affirmative Action on this very thing?
"The elephant that looms large in the middle of the room is the importance of gender balance," Britz wrote. "Should it trump the qualifications of talented young female applicants?"
Rewritten:
"The elephant that looms large in the middle of the room is the importance of racial balance," Britz wrote. "Should it trump the qualifications of talented young white applicants?"
And here we have the racial angle:
The Supreme Court allows affirmative action based on race to achieve a critical mass of students of color at a university. The idea is that a college should be diverse enough that students experience the diversity of thoughts and life experiences within different races as well as among them. It's meant to avoid a situation where students of color are so rare that they become tokens who must represent an entire race or ethnicity on their own.
No actually the Supreme Court did not rule the way they have so that tokenism wouldn't happen. The Supreme Court ruled the way they have for a variety of reasons one of which is that the institution may have as it's own interest a diverse student body as well as the idea that some racial groups may have had disproportionate difficulties in education and therefore "tipping the scales" in their favor would overcome such disadvantages. And lets not forget that Affirmative Action was intended to be a remedy to past discrimination of blacks until it was watered down to include anyone not white, heterosexual and male. So no points for using the "but the blacks" argument to prop this piece of shit article.
So colleges aren't restricting women's opportunities to achieve critical mass with an underrepresented group. They're just putting a ceiling on the number of women they admit.
Once again, substitute black or white in this piece and you have another classic anti Affirmative Action argument.

Again, I looked to see if "satire" was anywhere on the page in case this was one huge joke:

Nowhere to be seen.