Ah, Princeton

There was always some proportion of campus journalists acting as if they were auditioning for the Dartmouth Review.

you got me there. Maybe the old counterintuitive thing, so a Slate/TNR audition? I give up.

As a recent Dartmouth alum I will testify that the Review will do or write anything simply to illicit a response. Take, for example, their recent front-page article “The Natives are Getting Restless” which was accompanied by a picture of a Native American warrior holding a scalp. I wouldn’t put mocking Asians past them; they actively antagonize every other minority group on campus even when doing so contradicts their “traditional” conservative values.

2400 SATs and can’t codeswitch between Chinglish and Standard English? Gimme a frigging break.

Oi! Have a care, matey. Broken English is the international language of science.

What I like about these cases is the Kabuki-like quality of it all … here come the angry protests, there are the inevitable anti-PC people, here is the Dean late at night with a stiff drink, here’s the Asian guy who says he thinks it’s just hilarious and what’s the big deal, and so on. Let the fun begin.

Kieran, the point of your post is shrouded in several layers of irony, so I’m a bit leery of assuming that I understand what you’re actually trying to say. But it appears to me, for all the world, that your ridicule is provoked by, not

1) The fact that Princeton, like most elite colleges, engages in flagrant racial discrimination against Asian-Americans; nor

2) The fact that when an Asian-American applicant to Princeton takes legal action against this discrimination, he’s the subject of a shockingly offensive racist mockery in the Daily Princetonian; nor

3) The fact that were the mockery directed against, say, one of the groups that is currently being massively discriminated in favor of in college admissions–in Princeton as elsewhere–the perpetrators might well have faced severe academic sanctions for their poor taste.

Instead, you seem to be making fun of the three bright spots in the story:

4) The fact that racial discrimination is–well, technically, anyway–still illegal in America, and therefore something whose victims can sue to win redress for;

5) The fact that there are still plenty of people with the good sense and decency to condemn the offensive racism of the Princetonian‘s “joke”; and

6) The fact that unlike so many students whose mistake was to engage in sophomoric racist mockery of a politically incorrect variety, the authors and publishers of this particular bit of disgusting racism will almost certainly face no sanction more onerous than justly-deserved condemnation. (Hence the “kabuki-like quality” of the reaction–all elaborate, affected poses, without real-world consequences.)

Now, I’d like to think that I’ve completely misinterpreted your post, and that you are in fact as outraged at points 1 through 3, and as relieved at points 4 through 6, as any decent person would be–rather than vice versa, as your post seems to suggest. But perhaps you could offer readers a bit of clarification on that score?

Interesting, according to the Daily Princetonian news article
The complaint, which was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Oct. 25, alleges that the University’s admissions procedures are biased because they advantage other minority groups, namely African-Americans and Hispanics, legacy applicants and athletes at the expense of Asian-American applicants.

Yet not a single person, including Li in the phone interview, seems interested in discussing legacy applicants and athletes.

Okay, as much as I hate to admit it, reading some of Kieran’s old Daily Princeton columns now (albeit ones he has self selected with hindsight) I find myself much more amused by them than I was as an undergrad. (Not that I actually read it more than once or twice back then.) That being said, however, in college I was (and still am, to some extent) a social retard, and was pretty much sleep-walking through the expected social hoops, eating clubs, Abercrombie and Fitch, etc, in a desperate attempt to just fit in a little bit better than I did in high school. So, the satire seems right on, in retrospect.

Princeton was probably not the best social fit for me. But, in terms of the physics education, I still don’t think there was a better place I could have gone (the requirement for four semesters of independent work has incredible benefits), and I don’t regret it. I just wish I had hung out with different people, and maybe got laid once or twice.

Yet not a single person, including Li in the phone interview, seems interested in discussing legacy applicants and athletes.

Well, for the record, I’ve long been quite explicit in my condemnation of “legacy” preferences and the travesty that is the American college athletic system. The former, in fact–along with “geographic preferences”–were most probably instituted for the purpose of favoring Protestant Americans of Northern European descent over the Southern and Eastern Europeans (and particularly Jews) who had begun, by the early part of the twentieth century, earning a large share of undergraduate slots at elite US colleges on the basis of their academic merit.

I’m rather inclined to believe that “affirmative action” and “legacy preferences” are simply two sides of the same coin, often implemented by the same people, in the name of the same essential value: making sure that privileges are handed out to “the right sort of people”, rather than to those who earn them. It’s therefore not really surprising that advocates of each cite the existence of the other as a justification.

you seem to have this compulsion to post comments on Crooked Timber, a site where you are most profoundly not liked.

I’ve been quite scrupulous about avoiding commenting on posts by CTites who have stated that I’m not welcome. If either you or Kieran would like to add your name to that list, then I will respect that decision.

Personally, I prefer to post my arguments in fora where they will actually face hostile scrutiny and blunt criticism–which, when intelligently conceived and carefully considered, helps sharpen my thinking–rather than, say, adding my voice to a chorus of the like-minded, more interested in reinforcing their own beliefs than in having them challenged. But I understand that not everyone shares my preference.

Highly classy response, D^2.

Re #10, from the daily P thing:

“…defended the paper’s decision to publish the column, noting that its authors’ intent was not to insult Asians, but rather to mock the very stereotypes racism employs. ‘The column in question was penned by a diverse group of students — including several Asians on our senior editorial staff — who had no malicious intent,’ Sethi said. ‘Given our purpose, we are deeply troubled by and reject the allegation of racism.'”

Three standard defenses: (1) Look! one person who can be ascribed to group X doesn’t mind! (2) It wasn’t racist, it was a clever parody of racism (3) We looked into our hearts and discovered we’re not racists, so don’t criticize us and make us feel bad.

All part of the Kabuki, and there’s something in the genes of College newspapers that makes them do this stuff. At the same time folks who take this as an instance of a larger pattern of anti-Asian and in particular anti-Chinese bigotry have a point.

As a newcomer here, I haven’t followed the Dan Simon vs. Dsquared squabble and I may be missing an important context, but, on their face, Dan’s questions seem well posed. The racism in the Princetonian piece is pretty low level but why should we find it any less offensive than a joke about ‘ebonics’? What would be Kabuki-like about an ‘affirmative action bake sale’?

And yet, for some strange reason, the first generates a veritable industry of right-wing resentment, rage, and anguished cries of persecution, while the second only gets the occasional muttered “Well yeah, that’s bad too.”

Actually, most of the controversy surrounding racial discrimination in US college admissions has focused on public schools such as the UC, UMich and UT systems, where legacy preferences aren’t an issue because they don’t exist. Racial discrimination at elite private colleges is also an outrage, of course–but given that private colleges aren’t directly subsidized by the state and hence aren’t as accountable to the state for their policy choices, their sins are of somewhat less concern to the average taxpayer.

It’s entirely possible that many of the opponents of racial discrimination at private colleges are indifferent regarding legacy preferences at those same colleges. I can’t speak for them, since I obviously disagree with them. But I have this sneaking suspicion that if a student were to sue Princeton–even on a dubious legal pretext–to stop the university from granting legacy preferences, the Daily Princetonian‘s reaction would be a lot less offensively hostile. Do you disagree?

To attempt a serious answer to Dan S.’s and ohenry’s questions (and of course I can’t speak for Kieran):

Racial inequality and discrimination remain a huge blot on American society. What this means, specifically, is the exclusion of African-Americans from full participation in American life. Native Americans are equally excluded, in somehwat different ways, aproblem that is less glaring (and arguably less urgent) only because of their smaller numebrs, and latinos are to a lesser extent but arguably are simply following the same trajectory as earlier groups of immigrants. But it remains the case that genuine concern about race in thsi country must be first and foremost a concern about the disadvatgaes faced by blacks.

Elite universities are one of the routes to positions of privilege in American life, and so a locus of discrimination. Even more importantly, though, they are central to the myth of meritocracy. So while their racial policies amtter, they attract disproportionate attention, especially when there is less serious enaggement with race in the rest of the society.

What happens is what Kieran correctly calls a kabuki dance — an insistence on abstract principles of race-neutrality and on a code of racial etiquette instead of substantive discussion (or action!)

So on the one hand we have mock-outrage over affirmative action, even though real equality would mean far more blacks at elite schools, and fewer whites and Asians. (Or better, a society in which elite degrees did not much affect life chances — but we’re not even at the point of the liberal dream here, let alone the socialist one.) On the other, the liberal response that focuses on public behavior and people’s intentions. because if the racism is simply a bad feeling, and not embodied in actual structures, then all people have to do to avoid it is look in their hearts. There was a very good articel about this side of the equation — focused on class rather than race, and looking at the elite-school novel — in N+1 recently.

And as for Dan S., it is a plain statement of fact that someone who thinks affirmative action is a moral offense just doesn’t care about racial equality.

“Chinglish”
I think the word you were looking for there was “Engrish.”

I forgot to add, right-wing responses to affirmative action are a great example of one of dsquared’s favorite Galbraith quotes: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” Race neutrality is purely a fig leaf, what they want is fewer blacks on campus.

Well, yes, obviously. Results are what the actual world is composed of.

My recollection as to legacy preferences was that the Ivies justified them on the supposition that the possibility of getting one’s son or daughter into one’s same University functions as a carrot to keep alumni donating into the endowment, which then funds need-blind admission for others. No idea whether any of that is true, of course.

As I was saying: the notion that the folks out there making hay by decrying affirmative action have no problem with it when private universities do it, and limit their criticisms to public universities, is simply bunk.

It’s is indeed bunk–and it also has nothing to do with what I said. The vast majority of opponents of racial discrimination in university admissions (and elsewhere) oppose it in both private and public institutions. I don’t know what fraction of them also oppose legacy preferences, but even if every single one of them did, one would still expect their combined outrage over racial discrimination to dwarf their outrage over legacy preferences. After all, the latter phenomenon is limited to private institutions, and the former is even more hated for its being perpetrated at the taxpayer’s expense.

As I said, though, there are probably some opponents of racial discrimination who consider legacy preferences to be just fine. Then again, there are no doubt some proponents of racial discrimination (including the kind often referred to as “affirmative action”) who also defend legacy preferences, often as a backdoor justification for their favorite form of discrimination. (Here’s an example: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20A11FD3D5D0C778EDDA80894DB404482 )

In any event, if you could remind me why I should care that some people on both sides of a particular debate hold morally questionable views on a related debate, I would be most grateful.

And as for Dan S., it is a plain statement of fact that someone who thinks affirmative action is a moral offense just doesn’t care about racial equality.

Not true–I simply have complete confidence that the current statistical disparities in academic achievement are temporary, and will decline steadily over time on their own–“simply following the same trajectory as earlier groups of immigrants”. (There’s nothing magic about immigration as a starting point to integration–the end of racial segregation will do as well.)

Of course, if I didn’t believe this–if I suspected, deep down, that one particular group was congenitally incapable of matching the academic performance of other groups, then my support for racial equality might just cause me to single out that group (say, by identifying them in boldface), and advocate special treatment for them to help them overcome their innate inferiority. I’ve speculated before that such well-meaning racism might be behind at least some support for affirmative action.

That said, I’d never, ever present such a purely speculative hypothesis about some people’s possible thought processes as a “plain statement of fact” about the underlying motivations of a particular person about whom I know absolutely nothing. One would really have to be a monumentally arrogant, offensive jerk to do something as ignorant as that.

True story: some years ago I knew a kid who applied to Princeton and didn’t get in, despite being, on every criteria (academic, extra curricular etc), super-qualified.

The story has a happy ending. He got into Harvard with financial assitance and graduated summa cum laude.

The point of the story is this: there are always more qualified applicants than there are places at Ivy League colleges, especially if the definition of “qualified” includes legatees, affirmative action places etc. So people like Mr Li, with his perfect SAT scores, may well miss out at Princeton or one or two other elite colleges. But, almost certainly, they will be admitted somewhere else equally as good.

In Mr Li’s case, he missed out on Princeton, but got into Yale, which in some people’s estimation is an even better university.

At Yale, Mr Li will get just as good an education an as he would have got at Princeton, he is just as likely to get admitted to the best law or medical or business schools, and so on. Unless he really, really had his heart set on going to Princeton as such, he hasn’t been disadvantaged in the least.

one would still expect their combined outrage over racial discrimination to dwarf their outrage over legacy preferences. After all, the latter phenomenon is limited to private institutions

No, Dan, it isn’t. I provided two links above that show clearly that this isn’t the case. You’ve ignored them.

And you wonder why you get so little respect around here.

That’s right, Brett – there’s a limited resource and it’s distributed by certain criteria. No matter how you set the criteria some will always lose – and some of them certainly will be able to find a way to link it to their racial background.

So, Princeton managers included this ‘diversity’ criterion into their admission and – let’s suppose – Mr. Li didn’t make it because of the particular composition of the pool of applicants. Too bad, but how can you argue that it was an act of discrimination against the Asians? You know, water fluoridation is not a conspiracy against the dentists.

I’m curious. Is no one sympathetic to the claim, made by Asian-Americans and observers of how they do in the admissions process, that they are the “new Jews” in the admissions process.

From the ’20s through the ’50s, elite universities got many applications from extraordinarily bright Jewish students. If admission had been done on the basis of academic merit, they’d make up a very large chunk of the classes. So their numbers were capped.

Then the goal was keeping the campuses Waspy. (Those quotas have ended and the proportion of Jews at some elite schools is close to 30 percent. Suspiciously, Princeton’s figure is still quite low.)

Now come Asian Americans, also with extraordinary grades and test scores. They threaten to ruin the well-wrought plans of 1. affirmative action advocates, who want to be sure a decent-sized slice of the class goes to Latinos and African Americans and 2. the old-boy network, which wants to be sure the white alumni kids get in, and squash players, and crew guys, etc., and moguls’ kids from Silicon Valley and Manhattan. So again — or so it is claimed — there’s an implicit cap on their numbers.

No one is sympathetic to the Asian kids here? They’re all just a bunch of whiners?

I don’t see any discrimination against Asians at all – people are not rejected for being Asians. If you read the link, the basis for the lawsuit is a bunch of studies that conclude that statistically Asian applicants are at a disadvantage. But correlation is not causation.

Every time there is a decision to cut the pie in a different way, statistically some group will lose and another win. Take political asylum for example: Cubans get it automatically and Haitians don’t; as a result I’m sure the Haitians (and others) get fewer visas. Is this anti-Haitian bigotry? No, not necessarily; more likely it’s just a side-effect of something else. Just like the Asian thing at Princeton.

Daniel Golden is the author. The Publishers Weekly review begins:

“…Ivy League admissions offices do not practice meritocracy. Instead, top-drawer schools reward donor-happy alums and the ‘legacy establishment,’ which Golden defines as ‘elites mastering the art of perpetuating themselves.’ Moreover, the ‘preference of privilege’ enables wealthy candidates to nose out more deserving working- and middle-class students, especially new immigrants and Asian-Americans.”

From another review further down that page, by Jerome Karabel in the Washington Post, says:

“The Price of Admission estimates that the end of affirmative action for the privileged would open up roughly 25 percent of the places in the freshman class at elite colleges and, in so doing, free up spaces for aspiring students of modest origins. Based on my own research, I would estimate a figure of 10 to 15 percent — still a considerable number.”

So your claim that
the boost that legacy admits get is nowhere near the boost black applicants get
even if true, isn’t on point to my argument, which is that abolishing legacy admits and athletic preferences would free up a lot more spaces for Asian-Americans (and other qualified candidates) than abolishing affirmative action. It’s not the size of the boost that matters, but the number of people admitted because of it.

That said, I agree with your first three paragraphs, and thanks for pointing to this interesting book.

Cthomas, if, as you say, applicants in the 50s were indeed rejected for not being athletic enough and coming all from the same town, then it wasn’t racially motivated either, then it wasn’t racial or ethnic discrimination – that’s all there is to it.

But you will probably claim and present some evidence indicating that “not being athletic” was only a pretext and they were actually trying to reduce the admission of some particular ethnic minority, because they despised it and felt it’s inherently less worthy than some other ethnicities.

And if your evidence is convincing enough, then we all will agree that it was indeed an instance of racial or ethnic discrimination. Fair enough?

Now, Cthomas, if you want to claim that today’s Princeton administration is involved in racial discrimination against the Asians, you have to go thru the same exercise: make the allegation that Princeton administration despises the Asians and present some evidence of it. Go ahead.

Um, Matt, anything is possible; sure it is possible that they are animated by some latent bias, but I’d like to see some evidence of it, some indication, halfway credible allegation, hint of evidence – something.

Absent any of that, don’t we have to assume that they are acting in good faith?

OK, here’s a thought experiment: suppose there is a small ethnocentric country somewhere (say in the middle-east) that builds ethnically pure towns and roads on occupied territories and segregates seriously aggravated ethnically-undesirable local population behind walls and checkpoints, making their lives miserable. Obviously we would have ample reasons to view this as a case of blatant racial discrimination, right? And yet – I betcha – many of the same people who brand affirmative action as “flagrant racial discrimination against Asian-Americans” will tell you that this is the case of reasonable security measures with unfortunate side-effects. Flagrant hypocrisy, you see.

The discussion is groundless as the topic is at
best transparent and false. So much ado about nothing. Any admission to any school with the
historic backround of Princeton or such is to be
celebrated. Kudos to all. Silly people.