Running racism in America thread

That article -- on the word of supposed whistle blowers -- alleged that UCLA med school has been discriminating on the basis of race in violation of California law by holding black and latino applicants to lower standards than white and Asian applicants. People can dispute the cherry-picked facts in the story about how the school's performance -- for example, the failure rate on the Step 1 boards -- has slipped.

But the anecdote the article began with about a black applicant in 2021 whose grades and tests scores were "far below the UCLA average," and when members of the admissions committee wanted to reject the applicant, an assistant dean argued that the person's tests scores shouldn't matter because "we need people like this in the medical school" because "African-American women are dying at a higher rate than everybody else."

If that anecdote is true -- even if everything else in the article is complete bullshit -- that would violate Prop 209, which prohibits that assistant dean from explicitly talking about the race of an applicant, let alone arguing for their candidacy on the basis of their race. I have no more idea than you do if the anecdote is true, partially true, exaggerated or outright false. But telling me that that kind of thing is illegal doesn't tell me if it happened or didn't happen, or if similar things are happening with a great deal of frequency.

 

I am personally not looking to prove anything about UCLA medical school's admissions office in a court of law. I'm too busy living my own life, and I have no plans (and have never had any) to apply to med school there. If it was a private university, I'd personally even take the stance that they should be able to admit whoever they want. ... only black, lesbian martians allowed if they think that makes for the med school they want. And I'd personally call them racist and idiotic and tell anyone who will listen to me that I think they are discriminatory and a joke. I'd try to marginalize them in any way I can, as a personal matter.

If I personally wanted to go to medical school, and I knew that they use discriminatory criteria, I'd instead try to find one whose admissions standards are merit based, and not so focused on things like a person's race (which is racist by definition). UCLA isn't a private school, so if they are using discriminatory criteria in their admissions decisions -- again, something you personally can't possibly know any more than I can, because you have not been in the room when it allegedly is happening -- I suppose someone in California could argue that they don't want to be coerced by the state of California to have to fund the place, and try to sue. But I don't live in California, and even if I did, that's not the kind of fight I'd really choose to take on. I'm being forced to fund all kinds of wrong things, and trying to fight it would be like fighting a windmill.

If "Where is the lawsuit?" is your way of dismissing the allegation. ... it's kind of silly to me. So everytime whistle blowers that you want to believe are telling the truth come forward before the wider world knows about what they are alleging, you dismiss it with, "Where is the lawsuit?"

I personally suspect that some level of what the story alleged actually happens (even though I also suspect they are exagerating it, even if in just the way they presented it. ... the assistant dean "exploded in anger" in the story). ... not just when UCLA med school's admissions committee sits around discussing applicants, but in virtually every high level academic institution. It's what "DEI" has wrought, and because of the social agendas that pervade academia, they are largely only hiring people for those roles who pass ideological purity tests. THAT, I can document in a number of schools. ... how they have been doing it, and how it swung the pendulum from "fairness" rhetoric to "preferred" policies that are now coming back to bite them in the ass. It's why I have no idea with any certainty what UCLA med school is doing in those admissions meetings (same as you don't), and I don't take that article as gospel, because it is anecdotal and was clearly written with an agenda. But it also wouldn't be that surprising to me if I found out for sure that some level of that anecdote happens with frequency (not just with regard to that particular assistant dean).

 

I didn't say all racial quotas and preferences ever started with DEI initiatives. Come on.

What the more recent proliferation of DEI initatives have done is make race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. a focus of all aspects of how most universities are being run. At most large universities you now have sprawling bureaucracies with dozens of employees (in the hundreds at some places like University of Michigan) at costs of tens of millions of dollars a year whose job is "DEI." They put an inordinate amount of focus on this.

The "current movement of white DEI grievance" that @Azrael posted about stems from what that has done to life at universities -- across all aspects from what happens in the classrooms, to research initiatives to admissions. Although, it's not just a generic "whites are getting a taste of discrimination" thing, the "white DEI greivance" characterization suggests. The perversion of what DEI became is that it uses mealy inclusion language, but in practice those initiatives have treated groups more along "oppressor and oppressed" lines, and have tried to indoctrinate all aspects of the universities into narratives around that. For example, Asians who for years were being discriminated against by Harvard admissions (and proved it), have never been a focus of "DEI," and in fact they aren't even included in the greivance rhetoric a lot of DEI offices put out. When jews on campuses recently complained in droves that they felt threatened, I can give countless of examples of DEI workers in different administrations who not only didn't see themselves as advocates for those minority students, they took public stances against them on their own ideological grounds.

There is a reason why so much of this getting attention CURRENTLY.

 

Sorry, you ain't gonna shout me down with your tired "How dare you!" BS. But it was actually a pretty good DEI-in-practice imitation. ... Call someone a racist, actually make sure you shout it. ... and you can cow them.

To continue the actual conversation... here is an example of what I was talking about with regard DEI offices and the unfair treatment it has all but instutionalized on college campuses making unpreferred groups feel aggreived. It's a Jewish publication.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-dei-complex-will-never-protect-jews