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Showing posts with label AffirmativeAction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AffirmativeAction. Show all posts
Liberals say that it has been OK to classify yourselves as a minority if you have "one-drop" of minority blood

Liberals say that it has been OK to classify yourselves as a minority if you have "one-drop" of minority blood

I guess that I missed the memo that it was OK to classify oneself as a minority with "one-drop" of minority blood.  I really get the impression that this is just trying to cover liberal's tracks on Elizabeth Warren and give her cover.  It seems that if I had done that (and I am 1/32nd American Indian), there were be few claiming that was the right rule to use.  Here is a piece that refers to the "one-drop" rule.  Had I heard of the "one-drop" rule?  Sure, but I thought that this rule was surely objectionable to liberals.  Apparently, I was completely wrong.


Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren used to be listed as white, but changed it to native American after she became an academic

Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren used to be listed as white, but changed it to native American after she became an academic

Why would she classify herself as white through law school and starting at the University of Texas and then classify herself as Native American after that?  Could it be that she learned how to play the affirmative action game?  From the WSJ:


Democratic Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren listed herself as white in personnel records at the University of Texas and declined to apply to Rutgers School of Law through a minority program, records show.
Ms. Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, is in a tight race with Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who has criticized her for listing herself as a minority in a professional directory from 1986 to 1995 and this week called for her to produce employment records.
. . . . a genealogy expert has said she is at least 1/32 Cherokee [ERROR: he said that she was 1/32nd, but this assumes that the Cherokee was 100% Native American].
The Brown campaign and GOP operatives have raised questions over whether she claimed to be a minority to boost her career.
The University of Texas at Austin, where Ms. Warren worked from 1983 to 1987, released documents showing Ms. Warren listed herself as white on employment records.
In her application to Rutgers Law School, she marked "no" when asked if she was applying as a minority, according to documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal. . . .
Harvard University had touted Ms. Warren as a minority in 1996 when the school came under fire from critics who accused it of being too white and too male. The university has declined to say why it designated Ms. Warren a minority.
Meanwhile, a second school, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where Ms. Warren taught from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, designated her as a minority in a 2005 diversity report that is available online. . . . .

Is Elizabeth Warren serious about her explanation for why she classified herself as an American Indian in Law School Directories?

The reporter's question here is such a softball.  I have a hard time believing that the reporter is at all serious.  How does someone with 1/32nd American Indian ancestry really list enroll as being a member of a tribe?  How do they list themselves as being an Indian?  Warren's claim that she didn't expected any affirmative action gain from her listing and that she just did it to meet other people with tribal roots is bizarre.  Again, I am 1/32nd American Indian and it has never crossed my mind to list myself down as American Indian.

In the youtube videos below a couple of points have come out.  1) That she is 1/32nd Indian may be questionable because the ancestor was apparently not in the Cherokee census. 2) Warren used to claim that she was a descendant from the Delaware tribe, not Cherokee.



From the Boston Herald:
Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, fending off questions about whether she used her Native American heritage to advance her career, said today she enrolled herself as a minority in law school directories for nearly a decade because she hoped to meet other people with tribal roots.
“I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group something that might happen with people who are like I am. Nothing like that ever happened, that was clearly not the use for it and so I stopped checking it off,” said Warren.
The Harvard Law professor argued she didn’t use her minority status to get her teaching jobs, and slammed her Republican rival U.S. Sen.Scott Brown for suggesting otherwise. . . .
As to her attacks on Scott Brown, all he has done is say that he isn't going to get involved in all this.

Some other videos
James Taranto on the issue.

High cheek bones?

This is her answer after 5 days?

Apparently it isn't clear that she is 1/32nd Indian.  Apparently, Warren originally claimed that she was part of the Delaware tribe, not Cherokee.

An analysis of the situation.

Ignoring a reporter's questions
More on Elizabeth Warren claiming to me a Native American Minority

More on Elizabeth Warren claiming to me a Native American Minority



The claim is that new research claims that she is 1/32nd American Indian.  In fact, I am 1/32nd American Indian, but I never, ever thought for a second of putting it down that I was a minority American Indian because of that.  With her listing herself as a minority in the law professor directory and having listed that at the University of Texas, University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard, does anyone possibly believe that she didn't know that universities were making a big deal about having a very rare American Indian on their faculty?
Why are there different strength tests for men and women at the FBI?

Why are there different strength tests for men and women at the FBI?

From ABC News:
A male employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is suing the agency for gender discrimination, claiming that a physical fitness test to become an FBI agent is biased against men. Jay Bauer, a Ph.D. graduate of Northwestern University from Mount Prospect, Ill., said he missed the fitness test by one-push up, completing only 29 push-ups instead of the minimum 30 required for male trainees, which disqualified him from becoming a special agent. The test, administered at the FBI academy in Quantico, Va., has different physical minimum requirements for female and male trainees. Bauer argues in the complaint that the FBI violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He also alleges a trainee who failed to pass the female standards of the physical test was given a second chance. . . .
Baylor Law admissions data leaked

Baylor Law admissions data leaked

See Ted Frank's discussion here.
But Baylor itself does see a big disparity in another metric. I sorted the 431 students with "LSAT Index" scores. (An LSAT Index adds the LSAT to 10 times the GPA.) The top quartile is above 202 (e.g., 3.9/163 or 3.5/167); the median in 199 (e.g., 3.3/166 or 3.8/161), the bottom quartile is below 197 (e.g. 3.6/161 or 3.3/164). Baylor did not vary from the LSAT index often, only 2% of the class was below 193 and the lowest index was 189. In the top quartile (and stretching down to the top 128 admittees), there was a single African-American. So it's not accurate to say affirmative action makes little difference. The 4.0/170 white with a 210 Index gets a full scholarship to Baylor Law. The 4.0/170 black with a 210 Index might get the same offer, but doesn't accept the full scholarship to Baylor Law: she presumably has better options available to her. One would expect a 4.0/170 African-American to end up at a top-14 law school. Moreover, the 3.7/167 African-American generally isn't accepting the offers to attend Baylor Law, either. If we expect the top 10% of the class and the editorial board of the Baylor Law Review to be much more likely to come from the top quartile of applicants, African-Americans are going to be even more underrepresented than that 3%. If nothing else, larger bumps of affirmative action are having an effect on Baylor Law's diversity. But the real difference was in the scholarship money. Though non-Asian minorities had slightly lower Index scores on average, they averaged $24,231 in scholarship money; whites and Asians averaged under $20,000. It's unclear to what extent Baylor Law considers financial need in scholarship money, but it's clear that merit makes a big difference. Over 90% of students with Index scores above 206 got full scholarships (the three who didn't were white); less than 3% of students with Index scores below 202 got full scholarships, and all seven were African-American or Hispanic. . . .
By two-to-one Americans oppose affirmative action for college admissions

By two-to-one Americans oppose affirmative action for college admissions

From Rasmussen Reports:


The U.S. Supreme Court last week agreed to hear a case involving the use of race as a factor in college admissions. Most voters oppose the use of so-called affirmative action policies at colleges and universities and continue to believe those policies have not been successful despite being in place for 50 years.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 24% of Likely U.S. Voters favor applying affirmative action policies to college admissions. Fifty-five percent (55%) oppose the use of such policies to determine who is admitted to colleges and universities. Twenty-one percent (21%) are undecided.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)
A real cost of female employees (in at least one area?)?

A real cost of female employees (in at least one area?)?

Should women who are just as good as men get the same wage if they are more costly to employ? I would assume not. In the UK they are having to recognize a real cost of female employees. If you need to give workers more flexibility for sudden changes in their schedules, you have to hire more employees to cover possible gap times that might arise. Of course, government is the last place that would actually recognize different costs from hiring different types of employees. From the BBC:

The NHS should make flexible working more available in order to respond to the increasing number of female doctors, a medical group has said.

The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) said the move was necessary to maintain patient care.

It said the number of female doctors in the UK had risen by 37% since 2001.

But the RCPE warned there was a "real threat" that women may be unable to continue in their chosen career once they had young children.

The Royal College said 42% of all doctors were women - 28% of hospital consultants and 47% of GPs.

It said that traditionally a higher percentage of women doctors had worked as GPs, due to the more flexible working arrangements available.

But there were now 46% more female doctors registered in their foundation year training in 2010 than males.

The RCPE said this could have significant implications for the NHS if greater emphasis was not placed on adjusting working patterns and career structures. . . .
Obama administration forces Dayton Police Department to lower its testing standard for police recruits

Obama administration forces Dayton Police Department to lower its testing standard for police recruits

Even the NAACP thinks that the Obama administration is going to far in pushing affirmative action policies.

The Dayton Police Department is lowering its testing standards for recruits.

It's a move required by the U.S. Department of Justice after it says not enough African-Americans passed the exam.

Dayton is in desperate need of officers to replace dozens of retirees. The hiring process was postponed for months because the D.O.J. rejected the original scores provided by the Dayton Civil Service Board, which administers the test.

Under the previous requirements, candidates had to get a 66% on part one of the exam and a 72% on part two.

The D.O.J. approved new scoring policy only requires potential police officers to get a 58% and a 63%. That's the equivalent of an ‘F’ and a ‘D’.

“It becomes a safety issue for the people of our community,” said Dayton Fraternal Order of Police President, Randy Beane. “It becomes a safety issue to have an incompetent officer next to you in a life and death situation."

“The NAACP does not support individuals failing a test and then having the opportunity to be gainfully employed,” agreed Dayton NAACP President Derrick Foward.

The D.O.J. and Civil Service Board declined Dayton’s News Source’s repeat requests for interviews. The lower standards mean 258 more people passed the test. The city won't say how many were minorities.

“If you lower the score for any group of people, you're not getting the best qualified people for the job,” Foward said. . . .
One third of Atlanta's new police have criminal records

One third of Atlanta's new police have criminal records

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has this:

Keovongsa Siharath was arrested in Henry County on charges he punched his stepfather.

Jeffrey Churchill was charged with assault in an altercation with a woman in a mall parking lot.

Calvin Thomas was taken into custody in DeKalb County on a concealed weapons charge.

All three are now officers with the Atlanta Police Department.

More than one-third of recent Atlanta Police Academy graduates have been arrested or cited for a crime, according to a review of their job applications. The arrests ranged from minor offenses such as shoplifting to violent charges including assault. More than one-third of the officers had been rejected by other law enforcement agencies, and more than half of the recruits admitted using marijuana.

“On its face, it’s troubling and disturbing,” said Vincent Fort, a state senator from Atlanta. “It would be very troubling that people might be hitting the streets to serve and protect and they have histories that have made them unqualified to serve on other departments.”

But Atlanta police say it’s not so simple. Officials have been trying without success for more than a decade to grow the department

to 2,000 officers, an effort hurt by this year’s budget crisis. With competition for recruits intense among law enforcement agencies, Atlanta has had to make concessions. . . .
University of Colorado at Boulder setting aside money specifically to hire a conservative academic

University of Colorado at Boulder setting aside money specifically to hire a conservative academic

The Denver Post has the article here:

Mr. Peterson's quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too — well, radical.

"Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?" asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. "I'd rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective." Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America" includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and "global gender justice." While he approves of efforts to bolster a conservative presence on campus, Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person as a curiosity, like "an animal in the zoo." We "fully expect this person to be integrated into the fabric of life on campus," replies Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Boulder is far from the only campus to recognize a leftward tilt to the ivory tower. National surveys have repeatedly shown that liberals dominate faculties at most four-year colleges.


Anne Neal at NRO notes:

Universities should never hire faculty members on the basis of their beliefs. They should always make hiring decisions on the basis of candidates’ professional qualifications.


That is a fine thought, but that is in fact what universities do all the time. How do you get schools away from this bad equilibrium that they are in? I don't think that was is proposed for Colorado would do that because you need to hire people who are in a department, that is where other hiring will be occurring.
Stunningly bad results for African-Americans on state bar exams

Stunningly bad results for African-Americans on state bar exams

Empirical results questioning some benefits from Affirmative Action in Law Schools

Empirical results questioning some benefits from Affirmative Action in Law Schools

O’Connor on the possible end of Affirmative Action

O’Connor on the possible end of Affirmative Action

Justice Clarence Thomas on the harm from affirmative action in schooling

Justice Clarence Thomas on the harm from affirmative action in schooling

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