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This explains the refusal to set aside some Ivy League admissions for non-Jewish whites - Asian and Jewish students misperceive that they would be harmed, and so they prevent it. For reference, the non-international student body of the Ivy League, circa 2019 (source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30338742):

                          Ivy League   US      ratio  mean SAT*
  Jewish                  17.2%         2.4%   7.16    n/a
  Asian                   19.6%         5.3%   3.71   1216
  White (incl. Jewish)    50.3%        61.5%   0.82   1148
  Hispanic                11.4%        17.6%   0.65   1043
  Black                    7.8%        12.7%   0.61    966
  White (non-Jewish)      33.1%        59.1%   0.56  ~1141
On the other hand, the study defined "advantaged group" very differently. I wonder if this would affect their results? They should do a follow-up study and compare.

*Source: https://www.ednc.org/eraceing-inequities-the-influence-of-ra... - estimate for non-Jewish white SAT calculated by assuming the Jewish score is a generous 200 points higher, and adjusting that they are only ~4% of all white students. I.e. the true value is likely closer to 1148.

While Asian students benefit greatly from their 173- and 250-point leads over Hispanic and Black students, non-Jewish whites are, bizarrely, not helped at all by 98- and 175-point leads over those groups.




It isn't "misperceived", they are actually harmed when adjusting for their SAT scores and academic records.


How on earth are they "misperceiving" anything? If Jews were considered Jews and not white they wouldn't be 17.2% of the Ivy League. They'd go back to being discriminated against as in the past and as Asians are currently.

The solution to this is so simple. If you must institute affirmative action, stop considering "advantaged groups". Only consider ethnicity when it helps the application. So consider ethnicity for black, Hispanic, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, etc. Don't consider it for Asians, whites, Jews, and so on.

This strategy will still hurt non-disadvantaged people but the impact will be spread across all ethnicities that are doing fine rather than focused almost entirely on Asians.


> Don't consider it for [..] whites

Given that something like 6-7 of the 8 Ivy League presidents are Jewish (according to their wikipedia pages), and how underrepresented non-Jewish whites are at the Ivies - why not? Or, let me ask another way: how much fewer non-Jewish whites would the Ivies have to have, before you would consider them disadvantaged (for Ivy attendance)? They are 33% now, so.. maybe when they're just 20%, one in five? Or 10%? Would that be low enough?


I don't consider white Americans disadvantaged for reasons that are not empirical. I similarly consider black Americans and Native Americans (and to a lesser extent Hispanic Americans) disadvantaged for reasons that are not empirical.

In my perfect world there would be no affirmative action. All this stuff would be race and gender blind. But if we have to have affirmative action, we should only consider ethnicity when it helps the applicant.


What inequality would you be adjusting for by reserving spots for non-Jewish whites?

Especially if it means taking away spots from Asians and Jewish kids, given that both of those groups have historically dealt with biases their entire lives (Asians much more-so than Jewish kids)?




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