If someone appears to be repeatedly personal, lean towards patience as they might not mean offense. If you are sure, however, then do not deepen the problem by being negative; instead, simply place them on ignore by clicking the unhappy yellow face to the right of their name.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 3
The once venerable, and semi woke, Texas A&M University System has announced a revised policy...
"No university or agency in the A&M system will admit any student, nor hire any employee based on any factor other than merit"..... John Sharp, Chancellor, Texas A&M University System.
Clearly Sharp is a white supremisist who needs to be cancelled. Activists, you know what to do. Get Busy...
No. of Recommendations: 3
While it sounds good in theory, the reality will be much different. Resume bias has been studied for quite some time, and shows a dramatic bias against minority candidates that are equally qualified to white males. This has been steadily improving, but I don't think there are any recent studies that show it has finally been eliminated. It is somewhat fundamental that we would prefer to be with people that are more similar to ourselves, and given the current make up of many institutions do not reflect the community they are in, this bias will be propagated.
Here is one more recent article I found:
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/t...Alan
No. of Recommendations: 8
"Clearly Sharp is a white supremisist who needs to be cancelled. Activists, you know what to do. Get Busy..."
Why the sarcasm?
You were bringing up a good point for discussion but then you ruined it by pretending that the only criticism of this will be calling it racist.
Of course, nutters are always trying to pretend that any criticism of their views must be absurd racist calls, that way they can avoid having to face the fact that they proudly stand with racists taking prominent positions in their party.
No. of Recommendations: 3
bighairymike:
The once venerable, and semi woke, Texas A&M University System has announced a revised policy...Once venerable? Semi woke?
Umm, okay... but Texas A&M had no choice.
The university was threatened with prosecution by governor Abbott (in a letter from Abbott's chief of staff, Gardner Pate) who warned state agency and public university leaders in February that the use of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is illegal. And state Rep. Carl Tepper filed a bill prohibiting state funding toward 'any office of diversity, equity, and inclusion,' or an office that supports DEI goals.
Pate said in his letter that DEI policies illegally discriminate against certain demographic groups but did not name those groups.
Any guesses?
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/14/texas-dive...
No. of Recommendations: 2
Pate said in his letter that DEI policies illegally discriminate against certain demographic groups but did not name those groups.
Any guesses?
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Asians.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Given the stated goal of:
No university or agency in the A&M system will admit any student, nor hire any employee based on any factor other than merit
Will the state implement a program to measure compliance with this objective? If not, why not? ( I suspect they would not like the result)
What would be the consequence for noncompliant organizations?
Of course there is also the confounding factor of how you measure "merit". For example, does a student who receives thousands of dollars worth of coaching on the board exams have more merit than a student who scores slightly lower, but gets no assistance? How do you measure and calculate in these factors?
While this is a noble goal, it is just policy and words whipping up the base at the expense of discriminated against groups.
Alan
No. of Recommendations: 2
Of course there is also the confounding factor of how you measure "merit". For example, does a student who receives thousands of dollars worth of coaching on the board exams have more merit than a student who scores slightly lower, but gets no assistance? How do you measure and calculate in these factors?
_______________________
With a backward looking perspective, is it possible to ever achieve a meritocracy? Not saying their shouldn't be allowances now and for the next 50 years, but can it ever end? How do you determine when enough is enough? Can there ever be enough? If that can't be answered, then why not take the thumb off the scale right now and let the Asians, and their admirable work ethic, prevail?
No. of Recommendations: 4
bighairymike:
Asians8.21% of Texas A&M students are Asian while 2.84% are Blacks/African Americans.
To paraphrase the Grail Knight, it seems you chose poorly.
In addition, another group likely underrepresented at Texas A&M are lower socioeconomic status students, a group that falls within the scope of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/texas-a-an...
No. of Recommendations: 1
is it possible to ever achieve a meritocracy? I think we agree it is a reasonable goal. There are some things that move us closer, and some things that move us further away.
why not take the thumb off the scale right nowThe reality is there is a thumb on the scale. You just don't seem to be willing to admit which direction it is pushing things.
There are many ways to measure our progress toward a fair system, and when bias is discovered it can be compensated for.
Regarding your specific claim regarding Asian Americans, here is one study on that issue:
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/selectivebi...Alan
No. of Recommendations: 2
Regarding your specific claim regarding Asian Americans, here is one study on that issue: ... Alan
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An interesting set of statistics and observations.
Curiously missing is the number of students turned down despite having higher test scores than others who were admitted. I wonder what the demographic of that population looks like.
Anyway, my thought is omit race from the application and let the chips fall where they may. I seem to recall some element of the military did that with respect to OCS applicants but had to back off because merit didn't produce the desired demographic outcome.
No. of Recommendations: 1
I know I've talked to Asian students who felt they didn't get in despite having higher scores. Some were upset with me for agreeing with affirmative action, but I couldn't reconcile Aff/Act with the fact that Asians are a discriminated against minority here in the USA. Remember Judge Roy Bean, Law West of the Pecos? Ruled that you can kill Chinamen because they aren't human beings? At the same time Asians are legendary for being willing to study and have no life.
No. of Recommendations: 2
"No university or agency in the A&M system will admit any student, nor hire any employee based on any factor other than merit",/i>
That's not a great policy.
Just one example: There are people who score off the charts on tests but have the humanity of rocks. They make lousy physicians.
My Dad was a UCLA physician/professor. When affirmative action was instituted he was, initially, bothered that some medical students weren't as mathematically capable as others. He felt 'put upon' that he had to take time to explain what, to him, was remedial material.
Eventually he came to realize that, while they might not become top flight researchers (his passion was nuclear metabolism), they make fine, empathetic diagnosticians...and god knows we need a few tens of thousands more of those right now in many many underserved communities.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Oh, for a :10 second reprieve to edit a formatting glitch.
No. of Recommendations: 3
Oh, for a :10 second reprieve to edit a formatting glitch. - sano
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Finally, something we agree on.
The programmer in me makes me think there must be some technical limitation in the base software to easily providing an edit capability. Otherwise, TMF would have did it a long time ago giving the constant clamoring for such a feature.
But here is a workable alternative that perhaps Manlobbi could consider. Give each poster the limited authority to delete there own posts. Then, if you spot an an error, you simply copy the offending post, fix it, and post the repair as a new post, then go back and simply delete the offending one.
No. of Recommendations: 2
delete there own posts. - bhm
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There is something I would fix right there if I could.
No. of Recommendations: 1
The programmer in me makes me think there must be some technical limitation in the base software to easily providing an edit capability. Otherwise, TMF would have did it a long time ago giving the constant clamoring for such a feature.
The Fool did eventually offer that function on the paid side, and they also allowed charts (and perhaps pics, I don't know.) I doubt they did a full rewrite of their base code (but again, I don't know) so it seemed to me at the time it was just a way of differentiating between 'the poor slobs' and 'our elegant customers.' ;)
People who wandered in from the paid side had little incentive to stay on the free boards, so in today's vernacular, it was 'premiumizing' before that word became fashionable.
I wish Manlobbi would add some features here as well, but allowing graphics would likely eat far more server space, and I have no idea how he's paying for any of this in the first place. Correcting posts, I don't think, would be such a big deal but (all together now) 'I don't know.'
No. of Recommendations: 3
Merit assumes equality of circumstance and opportunity. The reality is that circumstances of birth, upbringing, and social and economic condition are not equal, hence opportunity is not equal.
Personally, I believe addressing economic inequality, especially as it is manifest in the lives of children, would go a long way toward improving equality of opportunity for economically disadvantaged children of all races. Unfortunately, racism is a demonstrably independent variable contributing to inequality in our society.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Merit assumes equality of circumstance and opportunity. - PhooloishPhillip
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Wow. Absolutely wrong. Merit is the ability to skillfully, competently and reliably complete the duties at hand, be they sinking a lay up in the NBA, performing surgery on a heart or brain, or piloting a jet aircraft. Merit cares not how you got your skills, or the obstacles you faced obtaining them. All that matters to merit is that you do in fact possess the required skills and knowledge that others who depend on you to execute.
No. of Recommendations: 6
'Wow. Absolutely wrong. Merit is the ability to skillfully, competently and reliably complete the duties at hand, be they sinking a lay up in the NBA, performing surgery on a heart or brain, or piloting a jet aircraft. Merit cares not how you got your skills, or the obstacles you faced obtaining them.'
Merit absolutely cares about how you got your skills. In order or an outcome to be meritorious it has to be earned, and if the outcome is a function of some unearned advantage then it is not meritorious. It is privilege.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Thank you for the correction! I certainly oversimplified assuming "Merit" and "skill" are the same. According to the dictionary merit has the additional requirement of being deserving of reward or praise, which I interpret to mean the path as well as the endpoint.
I am now wondering to what extent Governor Abbott understands his own policy request. Unfortunately, this also makes "merit" a very subjective criterion, which means local prejudice will be a factor.
Alan
No. of Recommendations: 2
No. of Recommendations: 24
I wish Manlobbi would add some features here as well, but allowing graphics would likely eat far more server space, and I have no idea how he's paying for any of this in the first place.
From my own pocket.
If anyone wants to help me, you can click the "Contact or support Shrewd'm" at the bottom of the page.
Thus far I have received one small piece of help from that link, that as grateful as I was, to be frank covered 0.5 hours of my 500 hours thus far, and counting, to develop and reliably maintain this service. The server costs are far smaller than my labor. I'm a full-time classical composer and it is hard enough to maintain that career in today's world.
I'm not just happy but more than happy to continue doing the tech part to bring people together here regardlessly. But it hurts me to see people dividing unnecessarily. Please everyone be kind to each other.
- Manlobbi
No. of Recommendations: 2
Manlobbi, as I found already after your new boards became active this Atheist board is not for me. But as I look at your "Top 10 posts of the day" several times I had a peek here when a post of this board made it into that list.
My impression from outside America (I am European (German)) is that it simply is a mirror of the "Big American Divide", a micro universe of what I read and what American friends told me about the deeply divided cultural wars going on in the US, especially between Republicans vs. Democrats, with as I was told dividing everything and everyone, even with bitter enemies within families. That divide seems to be an inescapable fact of life in the US, and as such it might be a good thing that those wars have a valve to let steam off on this board instead of polluting the Berkshire and other boards.
Just impressions from an outsider who is not really familiar with the US and therefore maybe very wrong. Unfortunately I think I am not too far off with my impression about this divide as I see this more and more creeping into Germany too.
