How do you add diversity?

[Malthus]

.....

First, before getting to our success, I think there are two things that we can all agree on: we are a group of conscientious, equality-minded people, and we face an uphill battle in a professional world that has only recently opened its doors to women and minorities.  The majority of tenured faculty are white men; the majority of our submissions are by white men.  We, and all of our peer journals, face the extremely difficult task of balancing our fundamental missions for promoting scholarship with our strong desire to change the demographics of the legal world we are entering.

Now, on to our success.  On our own, we have very limited tools for addressing this problem, but there is one extremely important way in which we can effect real change.  Law school hiring decisions are based in large part on the publications of candidates.  By publishing the work of young, untenured women and minorities, we shape the future legal world (I'll also include tenured at lower ranking schools where they are likely to be paid less and have higher course loads, making publication more difficult).

Heh, that's hilarious. a perfect example.

'There's a nice, shiny brass ring associated with professional success. Why not just hand it out to groups we wish to support and make them successful? What possible problem can there be?'

[alfred russel]

Heh, that's hilarious. a perfect example.

'There's a nice, shiny brass ring associated with professional success. Why not just hand it out to groups we wish to support and make them successful? What possible problem can there be?'

There is a flip side to that though.

I don't have the statistics in front of me, but if you look at the higher scoring groups on college entrance exams in the US, the problem isn't that certain groups are moderately less likely to be represented than other groups, but that certain groups are virtually absent altogether.

If we want to ignore race as a consideration, then we are going to be left with a society where some groups are almost entirely excluded from higher education and certain professions.

[Malthus]

Heh, that's hilarious. a perfect example.

'There's a nice, shiny brass ring associated with professional success. Why not just hand it out to groups we wish to support and make them successful? What possible problem can there be?'

There is a flip side to that though.

I don't have the statistics in front of me, but if you look at the higher scoring groups on college entrance exams in the US, the problem isn't that certain groups are moderately less likely to be represented than other groups, but that certain groups are virtually absent altogether.

If we want to ignore race as a consideration, then we are going to be left with a society where some groups are almost entirely excluded from higher education and certain professions.

The topic is a journal's submission criteria for papers for publication. The folks under consideration are already "inside' the profession.

The problem here is that the very difficulty of being accepted is what gives such papers the cachet that is being sought. Publication is a good "predictor of success" because only the best get published. Hand that "prize" out to someone based on who they are, rather than on how well they write, and the "cachet" will be eroded; it will no longer be a "prize" worth seeking to the same extent; and the more you simply hand it out based on identity, the less worth it has as a "prize".

[Admiral Yi]

Fate, do you have any documentation on that blacks and Hispanics docs in underserved areas thing?

[Fate]

If you and other GOPtards like derspiess had their way and eliminated affirmative action, those poor Blacks and Hispanics be hurting even more for primary care physicians.

GOPtard. I like it.

I got three words for you: Canadian socialized medicare.

What about it? GOPtards defend socialized medicine all the time so as long as it scares up elderly votes.

[Fate]

Fate, do you have any documentation on that blacks and Hispanics docs in underserved areas thing?

I'll see what I can find.


AAMC Title VII Reauthorization Committee Recommendations. AAMC stands for the Association of American  Medical Colleges.

...

A. Diversity (Sections 736-739)
In the 1998 reauthorization, Congress emphasized its concern about the under representation of
minorities in the health professions compared to their proportion in the general population. The
continuation of these programs was described as part of an overall strategy to increase the
availability of health care providers to populations that have difficulty accessing health care. The
AAMC is deeply committed to increasing diversity in the health professions and eliminating
health disparities relative to race and ethnicity, and considers the Minority and Disadvantaged
Health Professions Programs (Sections 736-739) key components in pursuing these goals....

AAMC: Minorities in Medical Education: Facts & Figures 2005

...
3. Black physicians were found to practice in areas where the proportion of Black residents was nearly five times as high as where other physicians practice. Likewise, Hispanic physicians worked in communities with twice the proportion of Hispanic residents when compared to their non-Hispanic colleagues.*
...

...
Diversity in the physician workforce can affect health care. For example, studies show that minority physicians are more likely to treat minority patients and indigent patients and to practice in underserved communities. According to their responses on the AAMC's Medical School Graduation Questionnaire (GQ), about one-fifth of all medical students graduating in 2004 indicated they planned to locate their practice in underserved areas. Responses differed by race and ethnicity, however.

Nearly 51% of Black, 41% of Native American/Alaska Native, and 33% of Hispanic graduating medical students reported intentions to practice in underserved areas, whereas only 18.4% of Whites reported such plans. Studies also indicate that when minority patients have the opportunity to select a health care professional they are more likely to choose someone of their own racial and ethnic background and generally are more satisfied with the care they receive from minority health care professionals.
...

[Rasputin]

I believe the diversity advocates (this is also the official line of our firm when it comes to promoting diversity) argue that a more diverse working environment promotes both better working relations (both inside and outside, towards clients etc. - this is in essence a "daily diversity training" so to speak - and since our clients come from different backgrounds this is useful) but also can help coming up with more creative solutions to problems (and contrary to what some of you may believe, certain areas of law especially are not resistant to stuff like creativity and innovation). Essentially the argument goes that a room full of 10 white straight males is less likely to come up with something new or creative than a room of 10 people from diverse backgrounds.

Yep, that's pretty much the core philosophy of the Cult of Diversity.  It makes you feel warm inside to imagine Diversity magically making a business run better.  Too bad it's all complete bunk.

It's not bunk for all fields. Who really wants to go serve as a doctor to primarily Blacks or Hispanic patients? History shows that this is most likely a lesser preforming Black or Hispanic student. This market place dogma Malthus is describing doesn't well serve the needs of many US citizens. However I'm sure it'd be a great system if you were a rich white Jew.

The great thing about being stupid is you can blame every one else and not worry about whether you created your own misery.

[Rasputin]

Fate, do you have any documentation on that blacks and Hispanics docs in underserved areas thing?

Fate said it was so, so it must be so.

[Admiral Yi]

Fate said it was so, so it must be so.

You're awesome.

[DGuller]

The great thing about being stupid is you can blame every one else and not worry about whether you created your own misery.

For what it's worth, I respect you for not taking the easy way out.

[Rasputin]

The great thing about being stupid is you can blame every one else and not worry about whether you created your own misery.

For what it's worth, I respect you for not taking the easy way out.

What is the point of trying to have a discussion with someone who writes:

If you and other GOPtards like derspiess had their way and eliminated affirmative action, those poor Blacks and Hispanics be hurting even more for primary care physicians.

First it presumes the Blacks and Hispanics are poor but there are not poor whites. Then we must assume that white doctors do not target poor black neighborhoods (a premise I know to be false) and that Black Doctors universally return to Black neighborhoods (another false premise) to cure a problem that does not exist at least as fate describes it. That is, if the community is underserved, why is it underserved?

The problem is not one of situs of the physicians but one of resources to pay for healthcare. Fate would have us believe that poverty or lack of insurance hit all minorities and no one else.

Under Fate's Weltanschaung, we cure this problem by training an unqualified minority over whoever would've gotten that spot in medical school and hope that the unqualified minority Doctor forgoes the big bucks elswehere to "return" to a minority neighborhood where he/she won't get paid reasonably for his/her services and meanwhile the poor white trash goes without primary care physicians.

In short, it is assinign to discuss class problems with someone who sees econiomics as inexoriably linked to race.

After all, according to Fate, we can dismiss Malthus' ideas completely, because he is a rich Jewish lawyer and as a Jew he cannot have any concept of poverty or what it's like to be a minority. I submit that Fate is the racist here.



As an aside, I still think you're a moron too (even if a sophomore), but that's been true for a while.

Where is seedy?

[DGuller]

As an aside, I still think you're a moron too (even if a sophomore), but that's been true for a while.

Where did this come from? Did we even debate each other at any point?

[grumbler]

The great thing about being stupid is you can blame every one else and not worry about whether you created your own misery.

For what it's worth, I respect you for not taking the easy way out.

I love how this went right over his head!  I guess he will next announce that another great thing bout being stupid is that no one ever zings him! 

[alfred russel]

As an aside, I still think you're a moron too (even if a sophomore), but that's been true for a while.

Where did this come from? Did we even debate each other at any point?

Probably when he was logged in as OvB.

[alfred russel]

The topic is a journal's submission criteria for papers for publication. The folks under consideration are already "inside' the profession.

The problem here is that the very difficulty of being accepted is what gives such papers the cachet that is being sought. Publication is a good "predictor of success" because only the best get published. Hand that "prize" out to someone based on who they are, rather than on how well they write, and the "cachet" will be eroded; it will no longer be a "prize" worth seeking to the same extent; and the more you simply hand it out based on identity, the less worth it has as a "prize".

You are right, I'm just saying that there is a point to affirmative action. And it doesn't necessarily follow that just giving a foot in the door of the profession is where it should stop: you could then end up with the upper tier of the profession excluding some groups, even if the lower tiers still have them.