Affirmative action in college admissions likely to be struck down by Supremes

[Admiral Yi]

There are 5 blacks and 6 Hispanics in my medical school class of 155. I think Texas (or maybe just West Texas) still needs affirmative action.

Have you considered the possibility that motivation and ability are not evenly distributed?

[grumbler]

There are 5 blacks and 6 Hispanics in my medical school class of 155. I think Texas (or maybe just West Texas) still needs affirmative action.

True.  Someone needs to take in ethnically (but not otherwise) qualified candidates even if it causes them to more create crappy doctors who allow more patients to die, in order to make sure that quotas are met.  Kinda shitty for the better-qualified candidates (especially those who will be tarred with the incompetence of the ethnically-only-qualified doctors) and the patients who needlessly die, but the alternative is to not meet quotas.

Too bad no one in Texas is clever enough to think of a way to increase the pool of qualified Hispanics and "blacks" so that quotas can be met without lowering standards.

[CountDeMoney]

If I were black or Hispanic, I wouldn't want to stop in Texas to use the restroom on my way through the state, let alone attend school.*






*Without a football scholarship, of course.  Then it's OK.

[Fate]

There are 5 blacks and 6 Hispanics in my medical school class of 155. I think Texas (or maybe just West Texas) still needs affirmative action.

Have you considered the possibility that motivation and ability are not evenly distributed?

Sure. Also being born into a upper middle class suburban neighborhood is not evenly distributed or being a child of a doctor (which a good chunk of the class always is) is not evenly distributed.

[Fate]

There are 5 blacks and 6 Hispanics in my medical school class of 155. I think Texas (or maybe just West Texas) still needs affirmative action.

True.  Someone needs to take in ethnically (but not otherwise) qualified candidates even if it causes them to more create crappy doctors who allow more patients to die, in order to make sure that quotas are met.  Kinda shitty for the better-qualified candidates (especially those who will be tarred with the incompetence of the ethnically-only-qualified doctors) and the patients who needlessly die, but the alternative is to not meet quotas.

Too bad no one in Texas is clever enough to think of a way to increase the pool of qualified Hispanics and "blacks" so that quotas can be met without lowering standards.

I don't see the connection between admitting more blacks and Hispanics and creating more shitty doctors. Beyond a basic cutoff, there isn't conclusive evidence that higher MCAT scores or higher GPAs upon admission correlate to how well or poorly you will perform as a physician 10 years later.

Also, minority doctors are much more likely to practice in areas that we considered medically underserved (aka black and Hispanic neighborhoods). Receiving competent medical treatment from a "ethnic-quota" doctor is better than having too few doctors to serve an area because whites don't like to work there.

[DGuller]

Little has changed on that over the last 150 years.

Yes, very little.

[Ideologue]

Well, Texas has gotten more electoral votes.

[Admiral Yi]

Sure. Also being born into a upper middle class suburban neighborhood is not evenly distributed or being a child of a doctor (which a good chunk of the class always is) is not evenly distributed.

That's an argument for socioeconomic AA, not ethnic AA.

[PDH]

I hate that map.  My part of Wyoming used to be in Nebraska

[DGuller]

It's pretty scary, actually, to see how close of a mirror image these two maps are.  It has been 150 years, and the voting blocks are still pretty much the same, only their parties flip-flopped.

[CountDeMoney]

It's pretty scary, actually, to see how close of a mirror image these two maps are.  It has been 150 years, and the voting blocks are still pretty much the same, only their parties flip-flopped.

Don't tell that to Hansy;  the GOP of 2012 is still the same as the GOP of 1864.

[OttoVonBismarck]

They have flipped to a degree but on some issues they haven't. The GOP of 1864 had some radical abolitionists in it but they were the fringe of the party. Lincoln was not himself abolitionist nor were the party mainstream, but they were happy to receive their votes. The Whigs and the GOP that succeeded them were very much about commercial interests and international trade, which is still a core part of being a Republican versus being a Democrat. Very little else has remained the same, though.

[DGuller]

It's pretty scary, actually, to see how close of a mirror image these two maps are.  It has been 150 years, and the voting blocks are still pretty much the same, only their parties flip-flopped.

Don't tell that to Hansy;  the GOP of 2012 is still the same as the GOP of 1864.

I'll give Hansy some credit.  He may have the intelligence of a brain damaged flea, and sanity of the old cat lady, but even he knows that you don't want to be associated with the GOP of 2012. 

[grumbler]

I don't see the connection between admitting more blacks and Hispanics and creating more shitty doctors. Beyond a basic cutoff, there isn't conclusive evidence that higher MCAT scores or higher GPAs upon admission correlate to how well or poorly you will perform as a physician 10 years later.

But, if you need to create more doctors of type X, then you have to lower standards.  A highly-qualified argument that standards don't necessarily predict (though it is certainly possible that they predict) isn't much of a counter.

Also, minority doctors are much more likely to practice in areas that we considered medically underserved (aka black and Hispanic neighborhoods). Receiving competent medical treatment from a "ethnic-quota" doctor is better than having too few doctors to serve an area because whites don't like to work there.

This would be a convincing argument if (a) it were true that minority (but otherwise fully competitive) doctors are much more likely to stay in undeserved areas, and (b) under-served areas actually were mostly Hispanic and "black" neighborhoods, but neither of these assertions appears to be true.   In fact, less qualified (i.e. further from Golden Boy" status, even if not inferior in knowledge or technique) doctors of whatever ethnicity seem to practice in areas we call under-served, and those under-served areas are more likely to be rural than urban.

[Fate]

I don't see the connection between admitting more blacks and Hispanics and creating more shitty doctors. Beyond a basic cutoff, there isn't conclusive evidence that higher MCAT scores or higher GPAs upon admission correlate to how well or poorly you will perform as a physician 10 years later.

But, if you need to create more doctors of type X, then you have to lower standards.  A highly-qualified argument that standards don't necessarily predict (though it is certainly possible that they predict) isn't much of a counter.

You're totally right. From now on medical school student bodies should primarily consist of whites and Asian upper middle class kids whose families can afford $5000 MCAT preparation courses to inflate their MCAT score and don't have to work during college so they can inflate their GPAs. This creates better doctors and doesn't simply select for better test takers.