Majorityrights News > Category: Free Speech

Why The Asian American Students Lost Their Case Against Harvard (But Should Have Won)

Forbes, 1 Oct 2019:

On Tuesday a federal judge ruled against a group of Asian American students who claimed that Harvard discriminated against them in their admissions policy. The full decision is here. There is no question that Asian American students face a disadvantage in gaining admission to Harvard. The question is why and whether Harvard is responsible for it.

The reason that it is harder for Asian Americans to get into Harvard is that their “personal ratings” (a subjective evaluation of personal qualities) are, on average, significantly lower than for white applicants. The federal judge, Allison D. Burroughs, wrote: “the Court therefore concludes that the data demonstrates a statistically significant and negative relationship between Asian American identity and the personal rating assigned by Harvard admissions officers, holding constant any reasonable set of observable characteristics.”

However, the Judge also held that the plaintiffs could not prove that the lower personal ratings are the result of “animus” or ill-motivated racial hostility towards Asian Americans by Harvard admissions officials.

This leaves the question of why Asian American applicants were being deemed to have, on average, poorer personal qualities than white applicants. The court entertained two theories. Judge Burroughs wrote that: “It is possible that the self-selected group of Asian Americans that applied to Harvard during the years included in the data set used in this case did not possess the personal qualities that Harvard is looking for at the same rate as white applicants . . .”

It is disappointing that a federal judge would indulge in that sort of conjecture. Surely the burden should be on Harvard to prove that its lower evaluation of the personal characteristics of Asian Americans is not the result of racial bias rather than vice versa. The court must be aware of various stereotypes of Asian Americans as “grinds” and math geeks who lack personality. The burden should be on Harvard to prove that such stereotypes are not at play here.

The judge wrote that the racial gap between the evaluation of Asian Americans and whites was small, but they are statistically significant. By definition, that means that it is very unlikely the gap is the result of chance. The court should be demanding that Harvard explain the gap or change their approach. Asian Americans cannot be expected to prove that they have personalities that are as admirable as whites. Given the racial gap, Harvard should have to prove that its evaluation system is fair.

The court’s second explanation for the racial “personal rating” gap is that there is racial bias in the evaluations by teachers and counselors. The judge wrote: “teacher and guidance counselor recommendations seemingly presented Asian Americans as having less favorable personal characteristics than similarly situated non-Asian American applicants . . . Because teacher and guidance counselor recommendation letters are among the most significant inputs for the personal rating, the apparent race-related or race-correlated difference in the strength of guidance counselor and teacher recommendations is significant.” This seems like a smoking gun showing that Asian American applicants are victims of discrimination. Nonetheless, the court ruled in favor of Harvard because she reasoned that: “Harvard’s admissions officers are not responsible for any race-related or race-correlated impact that those letters may have.”

Judge Burroughs should have ruled the other way here. If Harvard is knowingly using instruments that are racially biased (the counselor and teacher recommendations) and does not compensate for that bias, then Harvard’s process is biased. If Harvard didn’t already know the letters were biased, it knows it now.

To be fair to Harvard, it is between a rock and a hard place in some ways. When it relies on objective tests like the SAT’s it is often accused of using an instrument that is biased against African Americans. When it uses a subjective tool such as counselor and teacher letters, it must now contend with the fact that they are biased against Asian Americans. So the Harvard admissions officers are hardly a group of villains. But the judge is wrong to suggest that Harvard can take a “not our fault” approach to demonstrable anti-Asian bias in the letters that it relies upon. Difficult though it may be, Harvard must do better.

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by Evan Gerstmann

I’ve always been interested in how we should balance individual and minority rights with majority rule. After several years practicing law in New York city, I found my true calling as a college professor and researcher. I’ve written about campus free speech, same-sex equality and racial justice for Cambridge University, The University of Chicago, and Harvard University. My latest book is “Campus Sexual Assault: Constitutional Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”.

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Reflecting on his decision to go public with classified information, Snowden says, “The likeliest outcome for me, hands down, was that I’d spend the rest of my life in an orange jumpsuit, but that was a risk that I had to take.” Courtesy of Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden Speaks Out: ‘I Haven’t And I Won’t’ Cooperate With Russia

19 Sept 2019, Dave Davies interviews Edward Snowden for Fresh Air (Audio)

In 2013, Snowden was an IT systems expert working under contract for the National Security Agency when he traveled to Hong Kong to provide three journalists with thousands of top-secret documents about U.S. intelligence agencies’ surveillance of American citizens.

To Snowden, the classified information he shared with the journalists exposed privacy abuses by government intelligence agencies. He saw himself as a whistleblower. But the U.S. government considered him a traitor in violation of the Espionage Act.

After meeting with the journalists, Snowden intended to leave Hong Kong and travel — via Russia — to Ecuador, where he would seek asylum. But when his plane landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, things didn’t go according to plan.

“What I wasn’t expecting was that the United States government itself ... would cancel my passport,” he says.

Archived Author Interview

Edward Snowden Tells NPR: The Executive Branch ‘Sort Of Hacked The Constitution’

Snowden was directed to a room where Russian intelligence agents offered to assist him — in return for access to any secrets he harbored. Snowden says he refused.

“I didn’t cooperate with the Russian intelligence services. I haven’t and I won’t,” he says. “I destroyed my access to the archive. I had no material with me before I left Hong Kong, because I knew I was going to have to go through this complex multi-jurisdictional route.”

Snowden spent 40 days in the Moscow airport, trying to negotiate asylum in various countries. After being denied asylum by 27 nations, he settled in Russia, where he remains today.

“People look at me now and they think I’m this crazy guy, I’m this extremist or whatever. Some people have a misconception that I set out to burn down the NSA,” he says. “But that’s not what this was about. In many ways, 2013 wasn’t about surveillance at all. What it was about was a violation of the Constitution.”

NATIONAL SECURITY

Justice Department Sues Edward Snowden, Seeking Profits From His Book

Snowden’s 2013 revelations led to changes in the laws and standards governing American intelligence agencies and the practices of U.S. technology companies, which now encrypt much of their Web traffic for security. He reflects on his life and his experience in the intelligence community in the memoir Permanent Record.

On Sept. 17, the U.S. Justice Department filed suit to recover all proceeds from the book, alleging that Snowden violated nondisclosure agreements by not letting the government review the manuscript before publication; Snowden’s attorney, Ben Wizner, said in a statement that the book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news organizations, and that the government’s prepublication review system is under court challenge.

Interview Highlights

On how researching China’s surveillance capabilities for a CIA presentation got him thinking about the potential for domestic surveillance within the U.S.

I’m invited to give a presentation about how China is hacking the United States intelligence services, defense contractors, anything that we have available in the network, which I know a little bit about but not that much about, because they have the person who is supposed to be giving the presentation drop out. So I go looking ... seeing what exactly is it that China is doing? What are their capabilities? Are they hacking? Are they doing domestic surveillance? Are they doing international surveillance? What is occurring?

And I’m just shocked by the extent of their capabilities. I’m appalled by the aggression with which they use them. But also, in a strange way, surprised by the openness with which they use them. They’re not hiding it. They’re just open and out there, saying, “Yeah, we’re doing this. Yeah, we’re hacking you. What are you going to do about it?”

And I think this is a distinction: I think, yes, the NSA is spying — of course they’re spying — but we’re only spying overseas, we’re not spying on our guys at home. We wouldn’t do that. We have firewalls, we have trip wires for people to hit. But surely these are only affecting terrorists, because we’re not like China. But this plants the first seeds of doubt where I see if the capability is there.

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Source of quotes, Laura Towler for Defend Europa, 14 Sept 2019.

Mosley addresses the White Post Modern concern in the following quote.

It is an interesting question as to how to manage White post modernity, and one that is eminently worth commentary, would have commentary feedback if White Nationalism could muster a modicum of intellectual pragmatism.

For particular reasons (falling for deceptive language games profusely slathered over the public, stupidity perhaps), the struggle can’t get past reactionary mode yet..

Perhaps an age, a period, would not decide entirely what to maintain and what to leave behind, but clearly Mosley meant that there are times for a people to band together in defense, to drastically curtail the more experimental ventures in order to protect their inherited forms, and those ways which remain conducive.

READ MORE...

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The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching Of A Guilty Man reviewed by Alexander Baron

       
  PewDiePie, with one of the largest YouTube audiences, gave $50,000 to the ADL, Youtube’s largest censor.

Mark Collett makes the case well in the recent [episode 19] Patriotic Weekly Podcast (58:04):

‘Dodo The Greatest Viking’ gave $10 Superchat: “Hey, what are your opinions on PewDiePie getting blackmailed by the ADL? ..stories just get more and more weird.”

Collett: “What do I think of PewDiePie giving fifty thousand dollars to the ADL? Now there are lots of people who are going to be very angry with what I say here, because no one wants to counter-signal the ‘great’ PewDiePie, because he was seen as the great White hope, the guy who was going to white-pill all these kids. The guy with a hundred million YouTube subs who could save us, could say what he wants because he was too big to fail; and he was ‘never going to cuck.’

But he did cuck.

He gave $50,000 to the primary source of censorship on the internet.

He gave $50,000 to the people taking away free speech for all the smaller YouTubers that can’t defend themselves - all the smaller YouTubers who haven’t got millions in the bank; or model wives, or giant, palatial homes. He gave money to the people trying to ruin them. So, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t care how big he is. I don’t care how important he is, I don’t care how many subs he has.. anyone who donates to the ADL is a rat. He is a rat and he has sold-out. He has spat on the smaller YouTubers that he used to proclaim that he wanted to protect. He has basically… they always say, ‘when you are at the top of the ladder, be kind to those beneath you. Don’t send rubbish back down the ladder on all those who are beneath you’, and he has done.

He just funded the group that want to take down people like E. Michael Jones, Nick Fuentes, Adam Green, myself, Jason, Patrick, Millennial Woes..

...and personally, I find it despicable. And I find it despicable as I said, for two reasons.

Firstly, anyone that funds them is our enemy.

Secondly, of all people on YouTube, of all of the people on YouTube, he did not have to give those people funding. He didn’t need to. He’s a multimillionaire. He has more money than anyone on this show, in this chat, will ever see in a life-time. He probably makes more money a year, than we’ll all see in a life-time. Yet he still cucked. Which just goes to show the size of his balls. How pathetic. And I’m certainly not going to sit here and be all nice because its PewDiePie. and if I saw him in real life, I’d say exactly the same thing to his face but probably in a much more amusing manner.

‘DL’, who gave $5 in the ‘superchat’ said (1:26:10): “you guys need to stop thinking in this low I.Q. manner; you have to remember that 50k is nothing compared to having a hundred million in audience; and that having access to that audience is worth far more than 50k.

Collett: “Well number one, I’m just going to answer this because that’s nonsense. Number one, when you have a hundred million people, subscribing to you, YouTube aren’t kicking you off; and if you did go to another platform, it wouldn’t affect your income at all, because you would run your own platform just as Ninja did. Ninja left Twitch, he was the biggest streamer on Twitch. He went to Mixer and all of a sudden, Mixer was his income. It doesn’t make any difference, the guy also has so much money in the bank, it doesn’t really make any difference. If he got kicked-off tomorrow and never earned another penny, he’d have more money than any of us put together ever. It makes no difference.

He did this because he’s a coward.

When you’re that big, you don’t need to cuck. I find it absurd. I’m very forgiving. I’m very kind to people. I help people out. He’s done nothing except for help the enemy; and tell everybody that the ADL is boss. Absolutely pointless and ridiculous.