President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

But isn't "Colorblind" really another way of saying "let's let bygones be bygones and let's not address the shit that's already baked in and just move on from here, with all the built-up inequities squarely in place"? Besides, if you're a poor white kid from Appalachia or 5th generation working on a farm or ranch west of the Mississippi -- and you've still managed to do reasonably well in school -- truth is, you will benefit from "geographic diversity" in the admissions pool. Maybe they want to be able to tell prospective students at info sessions that "we have students from all 50 states" and you're the applicant from South Dakota or West Virginia or Montana. You will get in over the possibly more qualified kid from the Boston, NY or Chicago suburb with better SAT scores and similar grades in tougher classes at more competitive high schools and sports or arts or leadership or volunteering -- the kids they can fill their class with dozens times over. Why is that OK but it's not OK to throw a point or two in favor of a Black kid who's as qualified as Joe Appalachia? (where I do get a little bound up is when the minority affirmative action admit is themself from a highly advantaged background, but again, I'm not sure how much that's really happening versus how much people believe it's happening).

Not to mention that at least as interpreted by Supreme Court, 14th Amendment equal protection doesn't mean that the law treats every person the same in all circumstances. It means that if a law or policy treats a particular racial, ethnic or religious group differently on its face, the government has to show that it has a "compelling government interest" that can't be furthered in any other way and that the law/policy is narrowly tailored to achieve the desired result. That's what's known as the "strict scrutiny" standard. Racial quotas in public college admissions flunked that standard in Bakke but the court said that preferences (in other words considering someone's racial minority status as one factor in their favor among numerous other factors to be considered) were OK. I doubt, however, that will survive a challenge with this Supreme Court. And then the Abby Fishers of the world will have to look to someone else to blame when they still end up at their safety school.

 

Was talking to a couple high school students recently and asked them what they thought about the debt forgiveness deal and they said "Well it doesn't help us.." Which made me realize that forgiveness without a solution or plan going forward in managing college costs is kind of pointless.And I'm guessing some of you saw Begala yesterday.

‘What is My Party Doing?!’ Longtime Democratic Strategist Paul Begala Trashes Biden Forgiving Student Debt,

Unrelated thought - who had the more challenging "entry" into the White House, Obama with the economic meltdown - or Biden with COVID et. al?

 

Great question. I'm going to say Obama because the knives were out in a historic way, the crisis was deep but hadn't yet bottomed out and because by the time Biden came in, the vaccines were getting rolled out and we had already had a summertime lull and the government had already provided economic relief. And when Biden cam in, there was a short window of complete utter national disgust over 1/6 and Trump's disgraceful exit (which the Democrats then, in classic form, failed to take advantage of while letting the Republicans set the narrative that because Biden calls himself a "unifier," any attempt to push his agenda over the objection of Republicans is "divisive.")

 

I'm going to take the Smallpotatoes role today... today I learned that I'm a "beta" because I don't support that manly man with the small hands and baggy suits. Apparently that means passive and effeminate. It's funny how they're always projecting and insisting TFG is some sort of Adonis who would rip a cougar in two and shove its meat, dripping with blood, into his mouth.

 

In olden days Noo Yawk, a guy like Fatfuck would have been called a rich Bundle of Flaming Sticks.

Fun Fact, in 1962, as a high school junior something around 6-0, 175, Fatfuck quit HS football in order to play soccer. Laaaah deee dahh.

 

You're doing that thing -- assuming that Miss Fisher et al. really didn't deserve to be admitted anyway -- that you seemed to agree earlier was wrong. Perhaps I am misreading. Nevertheless ...

People get it in their heads they wanna do X for all sorts of reasons, some good, some bad, some awful. Maybe Miss Fisher (and those like her) had always dreamed of going to UT-Austin for something absolutely stupid like "People in my family, that's where they go" or "I was inspired by my 3rd grade teacher, who'd gone to UT." I met a couple Saturday whose child is going out of state to major in nursing. This child will pass by at least two perfectly acceptable in-state schools offering the nursing major. I'm pretty sure there's no way in hell a reason I'd personally consider "good" is behind that, but then again I ain't the one footin' the bill (at least not yet, anyway).

To me, the best criticism of Miss Fisher et al. is that they actually were admitted to UT-Austin. She and her (for a time) fellow plaintiff were offered a spot in UT-Austin's Coordinated Admissions Program (CAP), in which students spend one year at a system school and then, on acceptable academic performance on a strictly specified curriculum, are guaranteed a spot as sophomores. My oldest, the older daughter, matriculated onto the Forty Acres just that way. She'd set her heart on going there but finished somewhere around the 85th percentile at her big suburban high school. Perfectly acceptable performance (and better SAT numbers than Miss Fisher) ... but them's the breaks. (My son was accepted straightaway with a similar class ranking and even better SAT numbers, but he was heading into the music school and I don't think it works quite like the rest of the school admissions-wise.) On being offered "just" the CAP (and even getting that's not trivial) my daughter began making noises about just going elsewhere. My message to her was, "Look, this is where you said all along you really wanted to go. If you really want to go there, then get on the path they're offering you and go."

Also, I have seen the Top 10% (and, again, it's the Top 6% or 7% for Austin) rule play out in a pretty unfair manner, however. A few years ago, for example, it was decided that a districtwide STEM academy (open to students from all high schools) would be bureaucratically housed at my kids' high school. Suddenly, a year before they'd be applying for college, dozens of kids saw their class rankings drop precipitously (as in, they were cruising along in the top 40, and on a moment's notice they fell to 70th or 80th ... on the wrong side of the automatic-admit cut line). Fortunately, it didn't affect my youngest (she dropped four or five spots), but had she got caught up in that I would have been screaming bloody murder.

Still, I find the dishonesty underpinning these "holistic review" schemes to be galling. There is no way "diversity" as an educational benefit is being driven by it. UT-Austin classes are too big and these admits are too few -- are we really to believe that a class of 80 students will be different if there are 6 Black students rather than 4? -- for that to matter. They're affirmative action programs, plain and simple. And that's not even taking into account that such admission pathways open their beneficiaries up to the potential for very real harm (by putting them in academic circumstances they're simply not prepared for).

 

How big is the UT freshman class this year?

 

About 9,000 ...

 

Donald Trump, the Most Unmanly President

 

Oh no doubt she DESERVED to get admitted. That’s it right there. They have many more deserving applicants than spots.

 

Lock him Up!