How do you add diversity?

[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.

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! 

[Malthus]

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.

I was always of the opinion that the higher you go up the professional ladder, the less sense "affirmative action" makes.

The problem of insufficent numbers of visible minorities in the higer tiers of a profession is generally not caused by "racism" against those in the profession, so much as by lack of entrants lower down; that has multiple root causes, one of which being a lack of what you might call unearned privileges on the part of the visible minority group on average (such as lack of access to certain types of educational enrichment as children). A solution that aims at making life easier for those few members of the visible minority group who *do* manage to get so far as to enter the profession does not address the problem; worse, it rewards those who, by and large, have proved they do not need the reward; and last (and worst), it has the perverse unintended consequence of devaluing their achievements and abilities. A person seeing a visible minority person in a responsible professional role cannot know whether they actually achieved the same level as a non-visible minority person. It makes racism on the part of clients rational. 

[Fate]

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.

First it presumes the Blacks and Hispanics are poor but there are not poor whites.

...

Fate would have us believe that poverty or lack of insurance hit all minorities and no one else.

...

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.

Onward, Don Quixote! You are absolutely ravaging those strawmans good sir! 

[Fate]

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.

I was always of the opinion that the higher you go up the professional ladder, the less sense "affirmative action" makes.

The problem of insufficent numbers of visible minorities in the higer tiers of a profession is generally not caused by "racism" against those in the profession, so much as by lack of entrants lower down; that has multiple root causes, one of which being a lack of what you might call unearned privileges on the part of the visible minority group on average (such as lack of access to certain types of educational enrichment as children). A solution that aims at making life easier for those few members of the visible minority group who *do* manage to get so far as to enter the profession does not address the problem; worse, it rewards those who, by and large, have proved they do not need the reward; and last (and worst), it has the perverse unintended consequence of devaluing their achievements and abilities. A person seeing a visible minority person in a responsible professional role cannot know whether they actually achieved the same level as a non-visible minority person. It makes racism on the part of clients rational.

So let's hand wave away a real solution (Title VII) that is currently increasing minority representation in professional fields for your fantasy that relies on the good will of Southern Republican and Southern Democrat state legislatures who are beholden to the racist white majority/plurality? These entities aren't going to better fund poor black school districts in an effort to equalize "unearned privileges" vis-à-vis the white man.

[Malthus]

So let's hand wave away a real solution (Title VII) that is currently increasing minority representation in professional fields for your fantasy that relies on the good will of Southern Republican and Southern Democrat state legislatures who are beholden to the racist white majority/plurality? These entities aren't going to better fund poor black school districts in an effort to equalize "unearned privileges" vis-à-vis the white man.

Once again, I'm not American. I have not become American during the course of this thread. I do not know what "Title VII" is, nor how this relates to a discussion about publishing papers in a law review.

I would nevertheless suggest that a society in which there exists a major class division created by deliberately underfunding schools for poor minortities (if such is the case), a system of rewarding middle class minorities who succeed in obtaining professional certification is nothing more than a concience-salving band-aid, with more unintended negative consequences than positive outcomes likely. Of course, that said, I don't know the details of "Title VII".

[derspiess]

Once again, I'm not American. I have not become American during the course of this thread.

Dang, I was starting to think you had moved to the US and registered Republican

[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.

First it presumes the Blacks and Hispanics are poor but there are not poor whites.

...

Fate would have us believe that poverty or lack of insurance hit all minorities and no one else.

...

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.

Onward, Don Quixote! You are absolutely ravaging those strawmans good sir! 

I clearly owe good twin fate an apology because it must have been evil twin fate who posted the following a couple pages back:

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.