The firing of Rajastan state police on the initial Gujjar raly which caused a few fatalities were likened to "Jalianwala Baug massacre" by Sachin Pilot a parliamentarian from Dausa, Rajasthan. It may have to do with the fact that Sachin Pilot is the son of Rajesh Pilot the powerful politician, who was a Gujjar and a good freind of Rajiv Gandhi.

The TRUE Schedule Tribes are in my opinion the MOST in-need group for affirmative action. Schedule Tribe includes groups who until quite recently were completely cut off from main stream society and were living in the woods. BJP and RSS came up with a name "vanvasi" for them which literally means, "those who live in the jungle".
The Gujjar BTW cant be called ST in any stretch of imagination. IMO.

SCs and STs were original beneficiaries of reservations as both are considered "outside" the Hindu caste system rather than at the bottom of it, though of course reformists and politicians have been trying to claim them as Hindu for census and political purposes for over a century.

Whatever the politics of the matter, the fact that people were fired on and died for protesting is a disgrace, as is the Rajasthan govt more generally. You might remember that a couple of years ago they fired on poor farmers who had no water and were protesting a sweetheart deal given to cola manufacturing plants for regular supplies. Whasserface the PM, Rajmata Scindia, is too busy having temples built in her honour and posters depicting her as a goddess made by party functionaries trying to suck up to her to actually bother with things like governing and looking out for the interests of her constituents.

This is not a new leaf in Indian caste politics. There were always some caste asking to be downgraded. Everyone wants a piece of that anti-discrimination pie. SCs want to be ST, OBC to SC, FC to BC..., I dont think this would ever end. I was wondering why there was violence in Rajastan, thanks for filling us in.

One of the Gujjar peeves is that Jats were able to downgrade themselves to OBC. This intensified the competition within the OBC. The Gujjars want to get some relief from this competition by downgrading themselves to SC. The Gujjar effort is being resisted by the Meenas, who are already SC.

A similar kind of turf war is going on with Dalit Christians. Being Christians, they are eligible for a relgious minority quota. But the competition in that quota is severe. So the Dalit Christians want to be eligible for the SC quota as well, which has less competition.

A Supreme Court bench said "nowhere in the world Castes queue to be branded as backward. Nowhere is there a competition to become backward".

SCs and STs were original beneficiaries of reservations as both are considered "outside" the Hindu caste system

These are people who tried to rid the country of British Rule in 1857. They should be upgraded and given a special affirmative action program of their own that would start a run on affirmative action programs...prolly more effective than Chinese style forcible redistribution of wealth, and empower folks with a history of resisting foreign domination.

You see Anna, India has the best black humour.

Indianoguy - the definition of Dalits was that they were supposed to be too low for the caste system (below shudras). There was a 19C reformist movement that campaigned to have them recognised as "within" the Hindu caste order, for census purposes.

P.G. Wodehouse, do Christians get a quota in govt institutions too? I'm surprised, this is the first I'm hearing of it - I thought that quota only applied to missionary schools and historically Christian institutions.

i find it so interestong that desi christians have developed their own form of caste system. the first time i had even heard of this was in god of small things. i assume this is only prevalent in indian christianity, and that, too, because of hindu influences - can anybody enlighten on how/when this came about?

Rajasthan's 5.5 Million Gujjars Want a Downgrade

Ah, I was waiting for this Friday's 55.

Ah, I was waiting for this Friday's 55.

i never knew how all u could come up with such nice poetry so fast. would take me ages to think of that kind of thing.

I have heard of Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes, but I hadn’t heard of Scheduled Tribes. I await your scathing declarations of how I am a stupid ABCD who knows nothing about India and should therefore shut up.

Well, in my experience many (upper caste) Indians don't know this either---though their ignorance is that they know the term SC/ST but not necessarily what it stands for; and they don't know exactly what other backward classes are. So in a sense you know more than them.

Anna,

All you had to do was read the comments especially this one, on your previous blog on Why does caste matter to US to know about Dalit, SC, ST and the list from the Indian Census. Because of the incentives given everybody in India want's to become backward. I linked this in a comment on the other thread, Without quota, every caste would be a forward caste.

4 · Prasad on June 1, 2007 12:30 PM · Direct link

"Everyone wants a piece of that anti-discrimination pie."

You will be surprised how many desi owned businesses right here in the US are getting a piece of the American pie because of the set-asides for minority and female owned businesses. Any desi business that has anything to sell to any government agency is an ideal candidate. A female desi owned business is an even stronger candidate. These programs, I have heard, are not handouts. The female or minority owned businesses have to meet the standards and they do compete among themselves for the allocations set aside for minority owned businesses.

Wouldn't it be great if all desi owned businesses in the US contributed a portion of the profits earned from minority contracts to SC's and ST's in India?

I have zero knowledge of caste politics so someone please humor me.
I fail to understand this about affirmative action - shouldn't everyone who is a OBC/SC/ST/etc have an equal quota? Lets say there are a total 20 ethnic groups identified for affirmative action, why shouldn't they be treated equally (5% each group). Isn't equality the ultimate aim?

SP:

"do Christians get a quota in govt institutions too? I'm surprised, this is the first I'm hearing of it - I thought that quota only applied to missionary schools and historically Christian institutions."

I agree that my post was not clear. Dalit Christians have to compete with non-Dalit Christians in missionary schools; that competition is quite strong. Suppose now that Dalit Christians can be eligible for the SC quota. Then a wider range of possibilities open up for them. However, some Dalits are apprehensive of a turf war. Here's a quote from The Times of India: "But another line of thought says that new entrants will encroach upon their welfare pie. The fear is that well-placed Dalits among Christians will eat into the 15% job and educational quota available to SCs".

Please note that the "affirmative action" use here is NOT the same as affirmative action in the US. In the US (simple version), those that use affirmative action do not reserve spaces, rather, when two people are merit-based identical, the minority applicant gets the position over the majority applicant.

I think that the current scheduled tribes were classified as "criminal tribes" by the British system as they had shown some resistance to British rule, whatever that might be. Anybody have more information?

15 - Floridian:

"Wouldn't it be great if all desi owned businesses in the US contributed a portion of the profits earned from minority contracts to SC's and ST's in India?"

Once their business gets into act, they have to deal with providing benefits and such for the affirmative section :) I know quite a few people who run businessess and they dont want to grow beyond 11 employees, lest they have to prove that they are EOE.

Christians do not get reservations in any Government jobs or colleges. We get no piece of the reservation pie. (too small a community to have any electoral impact in today’s India where demography and the size of your votebank largely determines your clout in society)

Christians do have reservations/ quota in some private Christian run educational institutions. They are by no means the only minority to get this benefit. For example in Mumbai, even linguistic minorities like Sindhi Hindus and Gujarati Hindus ( 2 of the richest communities in Bombay) run private educational institutes and reserve seats for their community.

The issue is that Dalits who convert to Christianity LOSE all reservation benefits. This is what the struggle for reservations for Dalit Christians is about. A Dalit who converts to Sikhism or Buddhism DOES NOT lose reservation benefits. (Even though like Christianity, Sikhism and Buddhism are supposed to be casteless).

Wouldn't it be great if all desi owned businesses in the US contributed a portion of the profits earned from minority contracts to SC's and ST's in India?

Christians do have reservations/ quota in some private Christian run educational institutions. They are by no means the only minority to get this benefit. For example in Mumbai, even linguistic minorities like Sindhi Hindus and Gujarati Hindus ( 2 of the richest communities in Bombay) run private educational institutes and reserve seats for their community.

Just to clarify... private minority religious educational institutions receive money from the government regardless of language of instruction.

For linguistic minorities (eg gujaratis, sindhis etc), they only get public funding if their language is the language of instruction (religion is irrelevant).

'Hindu' educational institutions do not receive any funding.

Private institutions are, for the most part, free to let in whoever they want and set up quotas as they wish.

Just to clarify... private minority religious educational institutions receive money from the government regardless of language of instruction.

I believe you are correct if they come under the aided category (and most do)

For linguistic minorities (eg gujaratis, sindhis etc), they only get public funding if their language is the language of instruction (religion is irrelevant).

There are well known engineering and professional colleges in Mumbai that have reservations for communities like Sindhis/ Gujaratis where the medium of instuction is English. But I think at primary school level you may be correct about the language of instructions provision.

Private institutions are, for the most part, free to let in whoever they want and set up quotas as they wish.

Private aided colleges still have to obey the reservation quota for SC/ ST/ OBC.

Private aided colleges still have to obey the reservation quota for SC/ ST/ OBC.

Even if the colleges doesn't take monetary support from government, they have to obey the reservation quota for SC/ST. Some of them need not obey the OBC quota - that is, if they want Indian govt recognition.

An example in higher education, ISB (Hyd) doesnt obey and our world class coveted AICTE doesnt accredit their programs...what shame, what loss, really? :))

GoanDude:
"The issue is that Dalits who convert to Christianity LOSE all reservation benefits. "

On the other hand, Dalits who convert to Christianity are eligible for quota in convent schools. The problem is that the gain an op-ed on the subject, and readers responded.

Not sure why Dalits who convert to Sikhism or to Buddhism get to retain SC benefits. Are Dalit Sikhs eligible for two quotas---as Dalits (caste-based quota) and as Sikhs (religion-based quota)? What about Dalit Buddhists?

I realize that I'm causing the thread to deviate a little from its main course. SM Intern, please feel free to delete if you think it is a thread-jack.

>>I await your scathing declarations of how I am a stupid ABCD who knows nothing about India and should therefore shut up.

I, for one, am not so concerned when 2-Gen desis do not know the intricacies of socio-politics in India related to reservation. However, I am concerned that most 2-Gen desis whom I personally encounter in the US have been sold lock-stock-and-barrel on the benefits of affirmative action, even though it hurts desis!

A snippet from a conversation from some time ago (A=2Gen, D=1Gen):

D1: Did you know that they are increasing reservation in India for OBC's?
D2: Yeah. Boy that country is going down the tubes day by day.
D1: Tell me about it. I'm so glad I got out of there.
D3: The only hope is private enterprise. Increased reservation in a diminishing public-sector scenario will not help anyone, but hurt everyone.
D2: Now they're asking for reservation in private sector also.
D3: What do these people smoke?
D1: Well, even here you have Affirmative action.
A1: Affirmative action is not that bad, uncle.
D1: Did you know that they denied a seat to an Asian student in Princeton simply because there were too many Asians?
D2: What? They should sue!
D3: He is suiing. He got into Yale, but he is still going ahead with the lawsuit. Hope he wins.
A2: No... the lawsuit is wrong.
D3: Why? He was discriminated solely because of his race.
A1: Well, diversity is a good thing.
D1: Nobody is denying that. But forced diversity causes worse long-term problems, much like forced integration caused flight-to-suburbs with all the inner-city problems we are seeing to this day.
A2: College admins work very hard and need the freedom to choose their student body.
D3: Sure. Let them choose. But not based on race. Base it on merit.
A2: What qualifies as merit? Why is a middle-class Asian student with perfect SAT scores and 4.0 GPA better than a student from Harlem, with a broken family, with 3.9GPA and almost-perfect SAT scores? Shouldn't he deserve a chance?
D1: Sure. At Rutgers. Not Princeton.
A1: Why not at Princeton? Can't the admins make that choice?
D3: Sure. But then they have to make it transparent. They have to say that if your skin pigment is above this shade, then you have to have a GPA of...

A2, A1: No no no no...
A3: There is a better reason why AA is good.
D3: Why?
A3: Administraters say that America is a diverse country. If there is no AA, then students of particular color/background will never be represented in many colleges, and these colleges will be entirely White/Indian/Asian. Indeed, there are probably enough Desi/Asian students right now in the tri-state area alone who can fill into every Ivy-league in America.
D3: And the problem with that is...?
A3: My life has been enriched by studying/interacting with people from various races/religions...
D3: And the relevance to the subject is...?
A3: Colleges need to enforce diversity, so that the students get to interact and work with others from various races, backgrounds etc. This is essential to them in their career, and will make the workforce healthier for everyone. Without this, they will be unable to perform their jobs well.
D3: I want to make sure I understand this before responding - are you saying that studying in college with diverse people is a must-have for a successful career?
A1/A2/A3: Yes.
D3: There are about forty examples in this very gathering who refute that theory. Look at me. Look at your parents. Look at all the Engineer uncles and Doctor aunties around you. They all studied only with people from the same race, religion, ethnicity and language. Most of them probably had very little interaction outside their caste. Yet, they came here, and now work well with whites, blacks, muslims, jews, hispanics and Indians from other languages, regions. What does work have to do with all this? There's a job. Money is exchanged hands. What does it have anything to do with diversity?
A1: Are you saying there should be no interaction between various peoples?
D3: Did I say that? I am saying that the Market forces you to have this interaction if you want to make money. It need not be formally stipulated.
A2: I disagree. What will happen to people from certain races who are under-represented?
D1: It's for them to worry about it. Not you. You are the loser in all this.
A1: I don't mind the sacrifice.
D1: So go ahead, Give up your Wharton seat to someone else. Just don't ask others to do it.
A3: The administrators will do the right thing. They are hard working and have empathy. They have to be given the freedom.
D3: They want the freedom to play God, sometimes at taxpayer's expense. Don't you see a problem with that?
A2: Administrators know this better than anyone else. They need to be allowed to make these decisions.

At this point, you wonder if they have been brainwashed beyond hope, and walk off to get another helping of samosas.

M. Nam

Post 25 failed to give the link to the Hindu op-ed article.

is it possible to convert to a lower caste? that would be a sweet way to get into college.

is it possible to convert to a lower caste? that would be a sweet way to get into college.

I have personally known people who have bribed their way there. I have also heard of people who plan on doing this as soon as they have a kid, just in case the kid does not do well in school, they could always pull the caste card.

It's ironic that the same folk who treat the lower castes like s*it want to be included in the same SC/ST category as them.

I have personally known people who have bribed their way there. I have also heard of people who plan on doing this as soon as they have a kid, just in case the kid does not do well in school, they could always pull the caste card.

how do you prove your caste? IF you lie about it whose to say your not a low caste guy?

how do you prove your caste? IF you lie about it whose to say your not a low caste guy?

You present a caste certificate.

On Goandude's note....
In Goa "Kunbis" fight a constant battle for reservations since many of them are converts to Christianity...

In Tamil Nadu, Dalit Christians are placed in the OBC pool, so they are in a reserved category, just not the one they'd like to be in.

The Hindu caste system, which enforces a strict social hierarchy from brahmins at the top to dalits at the bottom, was outlawed after India became independent in 1947.

There have been many 'tribal' communities that have modernised on their own terms. The most interesting example is of Birsa Munda - aka Birsa Bhagawan - who went all the way in adopting a more popular form of Hinduism with the many of the more commonly known rites of passage. No designated tribe or caste lies outside Hinduism. There is no side to it.

The Gujjars are like most other communities; some rich, some poor; some well educated, some who aren't. One of the leaders of the current agitation is a retired colonel from the Indian Army. Crikey! Sachin Pilot another Gujjar, went to Wharton; dash it!

The present crisis has been brewing for quite some time. Before the last state assembly elections (late 2003) a number of communities petitioned the government for some form of economic and educational set aside. The way reservations wok in India is interesting. Instead of watering down merit, it only accentuates it. Now say you are ranking the candidates in an academic entrance test. There are usually 4 groups of them - the open competition/general category where all candidates are rank ordered by marks scored; and then the backward class category; where BC candidates are rank ordered; and then the SC and finally the ST. Now since there is really no significant difference in capabilities between candidates in each of the three reserved classes and the "forward class", a fair number of non-FC candidates have been making it into the general class merit list. Now this crowds out the FC candidates; but worse, it crowds out candidates from other BC/SC/ST communities.

How? In India as a rule it has taken about three generations for the candidates of a community to hit the high notes in entrance tests. But there is a curve here and some communities have been ahead of others - only just though! So when say BC-A candidates have ended up taking 20-30% of the general class and then by virtue of being ahead of the curve, take about 25% of the BC class as well, other BC communities, say BC-A, BC-B, and BC-C become frustrated and then angry as the number of seats is stagnant and BC-A students are now not only taking up 30% of the general class, but almost 50% of the BC quota! What do you do then? Huff and puff and blow the house down!

That's what happened in Tamizh Naadu 20 years ago when the Vanniar Sangam led by Dr. Ramdoss laid waste to 1000s of trees on the Grand Southern Trunk Road blocked highways, burnt down court houses and railway stations and held the whole state to ransom. Ultimately the Vanniars walked out of the DMK and the ADMK and formed their own party - the PMK. In Tamizh Naadu there has been a creeping increase in the quotas, and so while the SC and ST quota has remained constant (it is a Central decision) the BC quota has increased and is now 47%; and added to the SC/ST quota brings it up to a grand total of 69%! As long as a community has remained behind the curve it doesn't care. But once the younger generation starts to forge ahead and hits the quota wall things hot up.

Now in Rajasthan over the last few years the Meenas and the Jats have been dominating the quota game; the Meenas as ST and the Jats as BC. The Gujjars are finding it hard to muscle in to the BC quota as the Jats dominate; so they reasoned they could get reclassified as ST but the Meenas don't want that. And they most certainly don't want to be classified as SC because that would probably be beneath their dignity; and worse still provoke an even bigger fight with the Sc communities of Rajasthan where already some sort of trouble is brewing.

Before the last state elections in Rajasthan the brahmans also announced an agitation for set asides! Over in UP Mayawati took notice of the movement and quickly went ahead building a brahman-dalit coalition! This may happen even in Rajasthan before the next elections in late 2008. Or maybe the Gujjars and brahmans may band together. Since every Rajasthani community is well represented in the Indian armed forces; there is a lot of back channel diplomacy going on between the retired officers and Gujjar representatives. There is no Gujjar regiment; but Gujjars soldiers are usually to be found in both the Rajputs and the RajRif; and a few in the Jat regiment. BTW you don't want to meet any one of them on anything but friendly terms on a dark night unarmed!

Who is to blame? If that were the decider question in Jeopardy I would double my bets and simply say - Kaaangress! During the last three years the Kaangress has simply become the B-team of every half-baked idea infested mad house political party. Its ministers are more lefty loon than the lefty/commie loons themselves. Its babalog are trying to outdo the IU Muslim League in rank communalistic pandering (Rahul Gandhi wore a skull cp and paid a visit to the Dar-ul-Uloom Deobandi madrassa, a place where women may enter only if veiled); and then the next day sported a tikka and visited three mandirs! Its ministers are more casteist than the the casteistic parties themselves; reveale when a hacker outed the party candidate list (in which the candidates' caste affiliation was prominently bolded!). The Kaangress will now try to try to get te Gujjars to break away from the BJP and pitch at a few oterh communities as well to fracture the BJP's pan-Hindu votebank. Next it will ramp up similar efforts in Gujarat (thru Gujjars) and a few other groups and try to upset the BJP's applecart there.

If it wins the next time (Gujarat in 2007) and Rajasthan in 2008; it will appoint a lot junior ministers from the communities that broke away; announce a few sops; and shelve the problem for the next few years until the next agitation breaks out. To the Kaangress, being the feudal party it is, individuals have no identity; only communities exist; and at best families. So Scindia will succeed Scindia, Prasada succeed Prasada, and Pilot succeed Pilot; and all will turn towards the Nehru/Gandhi/Vadra family and perform a shashtanga namaskaram and behave like jellyfish.

Please note: the comment above was edited slightly. Paragraphs were created, but otherwise, nothing was altered.

Thanks, jyotsna, it was getting a bit depressing reading the uninformed ramblings about jati (from both ABDs and IBDs).

Here is another analysis from a left-wing intellectual. My only criticism is that she underplays the damage done by the statist sarkar is mai-baap model popularized by Nehru and then firmly cemented into local politics by Indira-ji. The real issue is lack of economic expansion w.r.t. the exploding population but she only discusses that in the last lines of her article.

Caste, tribe, and the politics of reservation

The Gujjar protest has many lessons. There is, first, the question of backwardness. The Gujjars, estimated to number 1.6 crore nationwide, are internally differentiated in terms of religion, occupation, and socio-economic status. Historically, they have comprised a hugely heterogeneous group ranging from the Gurjar-Pratihara rulers of north India to the Gujjar and Bakarwal nomads of Jammu and the Kashmir valley who are today mostly Sunni Muslim. There is said to have been a migration from Gujarat, Kathiawad, and Rajasthan to Kashmir in the 6th-7th century and an earlier one from Georgia via Central Asia, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. In Uttarakhand, they comprise forest communities called Van Gujjars and in Rajasthan Gujjar villages are in the Aravalli forests and they have been sought to be "rehabilitated" (read displaced) from the National Parks of Sariska and Ranthambhor.

MoorNam @26 - Good one :-)

Jyotsana @35, That was a detailed analysis. Btw, do you frequent bharatrakshak?

To the preachers of Affirmative Action, Indian system is an example of how things can go wrong. AA is no different to taking drugs... the addiction is quite difficult to break AND you have all these politicians ensuring a constant supply.

The best analogy to the uni-directional (it can only go up) reservations policy is the childhood story of a girl named Pandora :)

Jyotsana,
You forget that it was the BJP government that declared Jats an OBC in Rajasthan in 1999 for purely electoral purposes - this after coming to power in many states by railing against Mandal and the extension of reservations to OBCs. And the idea that no tribe or caste lies outside hinduism might come as a bit of a surprise to some of the beef-eating tribes.

Can we not have a discussion about Affirmative Action in the U.S. unless people will at least pretend to make relevant and insightful comments? I know that's a tall order, but the reservation system in India is NOT AT ALL like the system in the U.S. Further, both the mention and analysis of the Princeton case point to a general failing in understanding the bigger picture of college admissions, rankings, race, and socioeconomics.

FYI, in case you want to sign this

http://petitions.aidindia.org/Rajasthan/

I know that's a tall order, but the reservation system in India is NOT AT ALL like the system in the U.S.

Further, both the mention and analysis of the Princeton case point to a general failing in understanding the bigger picture of college admissions, rankings, race, and socioeconomics.

MoorNam - Bloody good one.

Why is it so unfair to compare US version of AA and the Indian version of AA.
As someone who got shafted on both versions of AA I am convinced both suck but in varying degrees.
AA and Reservations have the same end goal - a more equal society. Whether that is a goal that is compatible with market economics is a moot point.

Have met very few ABDs who have not been convinced that AA is good for them despite it being self defeating. I guess it is similar to the many Southern voters who vote against their economic interest when they choose Republicans over Democrats. Triumph of values over hunger!!!

I wonder why the same folks who so strongly advocate AA in the academic arena almost never advocate the same in the Sporting or Musical Arena.
If AA is so good, why not make it applicable in all realms of human endeavour not just getting into Harvard. I certainly deserve preferential treatment in the NBA draft (i am 170 cms)

Latin Christians from Kerala would fall under the Central OBC quota. Have been since the 50's if I am not mistaken. Other Christian communities in Kerala are not OBC's. The strange thing is that intermarriage between various Christian rites in Kerala is not uncommon - very common between the Latin and Syrian communities. So it does not make sense to have the Latins - OBC and the Syrian - FC.

In response to Camille @ #40 and MoorNam @ #25: I concur, Camille, with the last sentence of your comment, but it seems useless to expect any insight from MoorNam (Now, Mr. MoorNam, I am going to be rather blunt, so apologies in advance if I am hurtful.) nowadays. MoorNam sounds more and more like one of those puffed-up arseholes who call in on talk-radio shows with content-free utterances -- peppered with references to the Battle of Thermopylae, or to Marcus Aurelius, or occasionally to Max Weber, to lend an appearance of learning to the said utterances.

MoorNam, I am not calling you a puffed-up arsehole, so please don't be offended, but I am saying that your rhetorical technique is one that's most favoured by bigots. Let's examine why your comment @26 would appear on the blotter as a shit 'n' run incident:

a) Irrelevance : Your "views" have, at best, a tenuous relation to the crux of this discussion, yet you choose to ram them in -- and this isn't the first time you've done this -- unabashedly.

b) The absence of evidence : You "reproduce" an alleged conversation you eavesdropped upon -- which features some unbelievably caricatured dialogues -- and we're expected to accept this hearsay evidence as substantiating something socially significant!?!

c) The absence of nuance : After this snippet

A2: What qualifies as merit? Why is a middle-class Asian student with perfect SAT scores and 4.0 GPA better than a student from Harlem, with a broken family, with 3.9GPA and almost-perfect SAT scores? Shouldn't he deserve a chance?

D1: Sure. At Rutgers. Not Princeton.

you go on to present D1 -- who, to some of us who work in academia and have to make tough calls on issues of merit vs background, would appear like a close-minded, socially-insensitive prick -- as the fount of all wisdom. This is utterly lacking in nuance. There is much work on social policy -- some of it even finding favour among free-marketeers -- that opines that, given the relative fluidity of the term "merit" at college-entrance age, and given that the Asian kid would make it into Penn anyhow, allowing the kid from Harlem, even if she had just a 3.7, into Princeton would be a better investment than letting her go to Rutgers. Try out "Distributive Justice: Some Addenda." Natural Law Forum (1968) 13: 51-71, for instance.

(d) Intellectual dishonesty : Reading some of what you write, I refuse to believe that you are so unintelligent as to be completely aware of the nuances alluded to in (c). If so, your pig-headed lack of balance can only be classified as intellectual dishonesty.

If you expect any respect, you should at least avoid the shit 'n' run tactics that #26 exemplifies. At the very least, to lend some credibility to that looong conversation that, you claim, substantiates your point, you could tell us when/where it happened. Notice: I am not even demanding nuance from you -- just basic journalistic contextualisation!! If you don't do that, you'll not get much respect. On the other hand, you could be a disrespect-junkie, in which case it is all good :-)

In response to Camille @ #40 and MoorNam @ #25: I concur... OOPS; should be "MoorNam @ #26!

SP

You forget that it was the BJP government that declared Jats an OBC in Rajasthan in 1999 for purely electoral purposes - this after coming to power in many states by railing against Mandal and the extension of reservations to OBCs.

SP

And the idea that no tribe or caste lies outside hinduism might come as a bit of a surprise to some of the beef-eating tribes.

Moornam: I would like to see empirical evidence of affirmative action being a net loss for Indians in the US.

The BJP came round to the idea of supporting OBC reservations in the mid-1990s, rather reluctantly. Was fairly opposed earlier, and the ABVP, its student wing, was at the forefront of anti-Mandal protests. As for declaring that adivasis have always been "hindu," that's an extremely controversial idea and there's lots of historical evidence against it, particularly when you look at the social structures and worship practices of adivasis historically. But then again, the concept of "hindu" is itself something of a construct. But I don't think it's particularly useful to get into a discussion with someone with strong ideological convictions on the matter. The crikeys and dash-its are amusing, though.

I agree the caste-based reservations are different enough from US-style affirmative action that they shouldn't be conflated to either bash or defend.

On a recent visit to India, I was in Gurgaon (a satellite city of Delhi, full of new malls, restaurants, apartment buildings, hotels, clubs, etc. i.e. a very flashy, modern place by Indian standards). Amidst all the modernity, one day I saw a group of Gujjars, all traditionally dressed in their turbans and desi clothes, heavy jewelry even on the men, big mustaches, herding their animals down a street lined with brand new apartment buildings. It was a beautiful sight...but also poignant and sad, as you saw one relic of a vanishing lifestyle, being swamped by an invasion of the new. Talk about culture clash. The whole scene just moved me for some reason. They looked GREAT but I'm sure to most people living there, they were "low-caste" pains in the ass, especially when their animals block traffic.

More on Gujjars.

In the past, they were a more powerful and influential people. Pakistani districts like Gujarat (yes, Gujarat) and Gujranwala, as well as the Indian state of Gujarat, along with a whole host of other place names, are testimony to former glory.

Another example of downgrading.

The BJP came round to the idea of supporting OBC reservations in the mid-1990s, rather reluctantly. Was fairly opposed earlier, and the ABVP, its student wing, was at the forefront of anti-Mandal protests.

As for declaring that adivasis have always been "hindu," that's an extremely controversial idea and there's lots of historical evidence against it, particularly when you look at the social structures and worship practices of adivasis historically.

But I don't think it's particularly useful to get into a discussion with someone with strong ideological convictions on the matter.

What makes the case of the Gujjars interesting are its implications:

1. When the British started their caste censuses and hopeless attempts to classify jatis all over India in terms of a fixed caste hierarchy, they faced a similar phenomenon: all kinds of jati groups wrote letters and started petitions to argue that they belonged to a higher echelon of the hierarchy. The many jatis of which it was totally unclear whether they were 'Kshatriyas' or 'Shudras' or whatever were indignant when they were classified at a low level. Today, we see the reverse phenomenon: because it has become economically and politically more interesting to belong to the SCs, STs and OBCs, leaders from the same jatis argue that they are way down in the caste hierarchy.

2. This shows how the caste system is not an empirical structure in Indian society, but just a classificatory system that can be used for all kinds of pragmatic economic and political goals. That is, there is no fixed caste hierarchy in society, but it is an image that plays an important role in political discourse. Hence, according to the goals one intends to reach, one can easily switch from arguing that one's group belongs to the so-called 'upper castes' to insisting that it is really a 'lower or backward caste'. One can go from 'Kshatriya' to 'Dalit-Bahujan' if this helps one get reservations or scholarships. There are no social criteria to decide to which echelon a jati belongs in the 'caste system' (except, of course, average income and such like, but that just tells us the current socio-economic status of a particular jati, rather than its location in the 'caste hierarchy').

3. Therefore, it becomes very weird when people speak of 'Dalits' today as though this designates a social group or a unit of a social structure in India. There are hundreds of jatis that belong to the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order.
These do not together make up a clearly delineated unit in the Indian society. They are a group only in so far as the Indian Constitution makes them one and in so far as certain political leaders and movements intend to create a sense of shared interests among all jatis in the constitutional schedule.

Yours,

Jakob

GB, thanks :)

THe point was, albeit selfish, that desis should not support AA as it would never help them.

Look, I didn't bring this up to get into a huge conversation about Affirmative Action in the U.S. I took objection to the rhetorical device of presenting the two as analogous. Such an analysis is completely specious. Whether or not they are "similar in principle and spirit" (also debatable), they are not nearly similar enough to warrant comparison or analysis by analogy. Not only is affirmative action (in the U.S.) designed differently in its policy, effect, and implementation, it is treated in a legally different manner than it is in India. Furthermore, it extends much higher than higher education. If you're going to look at the net effect on desis, then you're going to have to look at the effect for desi women, low-income desis, desis in advanced degree programs, desi businesses who gain contracts, etc. The same argument or analysis doesn't work for the Indian (desi) reservation system.

Why is it so unfair to compare US version of AA and the Indian version of AA. As someone who got shafted on both versions of AA I am convinced both suck but in varying degrees.

The Hindu caste system, which enforces a strict social hierarchy from brahmins at the top to dalits at the bottom, was outlawed after India became independent in 1947.

But if you listen to the utterly duplicitous defenders of casteism, well-represented here, the well known and much maligned hindu caste system either: 1. doesn't exist at all (!) or; 2. it exists but is not at all hierarchical (despite its very definition as such!) or; 3. that it is the very epitome of freedom, dignity, opportunity and social security (despite being the exact opposite!).

Check out their atrocious and obscene lies here:

Caste defenders

As Jakob says, caste is not an empirical entity in the Indian context. Makes sense when you consider that caste is classification scheme used by the Portuguese to describe jati and varna - themselves very different from each other. In Tamizh Naadu I know of two v.large and powerful jatis that have an elaborate internal hierarchy most closely corresponding to varnashrama. This is apart from the other communities in UP/Bihar and the South that have an unclear although noticeable internal hierarchy. At this point there is no reason to conclude that there was a common thread linking the development of these hierarchies across regions. Ambedkar himself, although he bought into the Western idea of the Indian caste system, found it so bizarre that he wanted no one to profit from it in any way. Unfortunately Ambedkar was so much in the grip of the poor scholarship of our times that the theoretical failings of the caste system did not make him criticise western scholarship - although he did criticise many other notions of western scholarship that were then being thoughtlessly applied to the study of India - nationalism, race, language and cultural development etc., And needless to say he rejected doctrinaire belief systems completely and believed they went against Indian culture. In recent times the Mahars in Maharashtra have become the Uber scheduled castes much to the resentment of others in the group. The Meenas and the North Eastern communities dominate the ST category in the IAS selections. Again an example of the ahead of the curve dynamics I earlier explained. I hope all parties concerned stop trying to play politics and do a rethink on this disastrous policy of reservations.

BTW AA in the US is very sharply focused on the individual although it starts by looking at the group. This is why you find the top universities and corporate leaders selecting v.high numbers from the minorities. In the US AA is about leveling opportunities rather than outcomes. Even in India where they have tried to level outcomes, it is opportunities that have been getting leveled. In TN for instance, it is common in some households to hear, "You must study like the children of community". Read about this inspiring example The lorry driver's son who topped the civil services exam in Tamil Nadu

A2: What qualifies as merit? Why is a middle-class Asian student with perfect SAT scores and 4.0 GPA better than a student from Harlem, with a broken family, with 3.9GPA and almost-perfect SAT scores? Shouldn't he deserve a chance? D1: Sure. At Rutgers. Not Princeton.

What nonsense. Admission to college in America is not based on test scores alone (true even before the era of Affirmative Action). Nor should it be. A well-rounded individual who scores above a certain level in the SATs is a better prospect than a nose-picking nerd who spent inordinate amounts of his/her time, energy and family money preparing for the SATs. There should be no affirmative action for rote learning or test-taking skills. Just look at the thoroughly incompetent and corrupt Indian Civil Service which rewards such skills.

Its worth pointing out that these same people who demand meritocracy based on tests are often the same hypocritical individuals who tenaciously defend casteism, which is the very opposite of a meritocracy! The sudra, untouchable and tribal majority of India should demand qualifying tests before caste is assigned. Seriously. Almost all these "brahmins" will then be found to be impostors :)

India under the domination of these so-called "upper castes" has been a total disaster. That alone is reason enough for Reservations.

On one hand I'm tempted to respond to GB's ...ah, comment...
And on the other hand I wonder if there's some truth to Camille's point that AA is off topic.

I initially responded only to Anna's pre-emptive defence on lack of knowledge on the Indian reservation system. But on this, I shall await SM Intern's go ahead. If I hear nothing for a day, silence is consent.

M. Nam

Prema,

What nonsense. Admission to college in America is not based on test scores alone (true even before the era of Affirmative Action). Nor should it be.

Admission to colleges in the US is very substantially based on test scores. All other things being equal, a candidate with better test scores prevails.

There should be no affirmative action for rote learning or test-taking skills.

nose-picking nerd(s) who spent inordinate amounts of his/her time, energy and family money preparing for the SATs

Its worth pointing out that these same people who demand meritocracy based on tests are often the same hypocritical individuals who tenaciously defend casteism, which is the very opposite of a meritocracy!

The sudra, untouchable and tribal majority of India should demand qualifying tests before caste is assigned. Seriously. Almost all these "brahmins" will then be found to be impostors

Prema, you shd simply pipe down and listen.

Camille (Post 54:
"Furthermore, it extends much higher than higher education. "

In Tamil Nadu, reservations are not only for college admissions, but also for jobs in government undertakings, and for promotions in jobs in government undertakings.

#54 Camille "Whether or not they are "similar in principle and spirit" (also debatable), they are not nearly similar enough to warrant comparison or analysis by analogy."

Camille, you have stated several times that the two are different or not similar enough. Can you be specific and give three or four reasons why they are essentially different? The few characteristics of the AA program cited in #54 seem to be merely operational and logistical in nature, and those obviously will not be identical to the AA program of another society. By the way, I am not posing a trick question. I am truly curious and interested in hearing your opinion.

As an aside, American AA may not be completely off topic. It is the only analogous experience the commenters here have to India's SC/ST programs.

Whatevs, yo? Its always amazing how Indians suddenly think they are black. Whats funny is while African Americans are busy taking advantage of society Indians are too busy fighting amongst eachother and working too hard to care.

Do you know why India is still in such a bad condition? Blame your parents ABCD's. I am one too so get off my back.

Its called brain drain. All your parents left instead of actually trying to create a strong independent India. They became posers in other countries. And now they all sit down at dinner and complain about it.

As for the Gujjar problem, it was always there but until we get a real leader, not a waif like Manmohan Singh, maybe someone like Prithviraj Chauhan, Shivaji or Ranjit Singh, these caste problems will still come up. People need a strong righteous leader to look up too.

If you can't make your point without resorting to personal attacks, don't make one at all.

Personal attacks? Where? Is this your way to silence actual intelligent dissent. Dissent of those who have actually been around India? Maybe the author should actually spend some time India and learn about India instead of shooting her mouth off? Thats my point.

Maybe the author should actually spend some time India and learn about India instead of shooting her mouth off?

Thanks for proving my point, exquisitely. There's a way to dissent intelligently which doesn't require being rude. How about discussing the issue, instead of the person who blogged it?

Its called brain drain. All your parents left instead of actually trying to create a strong independent India. They became posers in other countries. And now they all sit down at dinner and complain about it.

That's called survival. The beauracracy in India even today still makes it hard for nurse to earn good money or for a scientist to get a project off the ground.

PG, almost every other country in Asia has had the ssme problems, but even the ones without the advantages that India had - Excellent English speaking, strong literary history, European features in the Northwest Deccan and Northwest India; have done better. Look at Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore or even China and Pakistan. Indians just don't have pride when they leave India, they are all about money.

A well-rounded individual who scores above a certain level in the SATs is a better prospect than a nose-picking nerd who spent inordinate amounts of his/her time, energy and family money preparing for the SATs

interestingly, the concept of "well-roundedness" (ie, sports, music,etc) originated as a way/justification for keeping jews out, since it favored the cultural predispositions of wasps. in fact the ivy presidents were very blatant about these reasons at the time (read it in nymag a few years back, if you want to try to get the original source)

Jyotsna

Our friend Prema is a well-known quasi-troll, so I wouldn't get too excited with her gibberish. The clever thing about her(?) act is that she slips in a few sensible sentences and then begins the nonsense about fascist brahmins, racist indians, caste-obsessed nri's etc. etc.

Nick

European features in the Northwest Deccan and Northwest India;

Huh? Prema may be a sophisticated troll but methinks you are the real thing....

Look at Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore or even China and Pakistan.

How the heck has Pakistan done better???

I was going to comment on Prema's crap comments, but seeing as they've been addressed...

Amitabh #49,

They looked GREAT but I'm sure to most people living there, they were "low-caste" pains in the ass, especially when their animals block traffic.

I'm not sure if imagining that desis in desh instantly identify people/peoples with some caste is a uniformly ABD thing or not, but it sure seems like that (Amitabh, I don't know if you're ABD. If not, then my inference about ABD's maybe incorrect, though there remains a predisposition on this forum)

Desis in desh as far as I have observed, identify/try to guess/assign castes when it's to do with worship (though not always), food, rituals, matrimony, education/reservation, and such things. A bunch of herders going vernacular in New India is rather uniformly taken as pain-in-the-ass-village-bumpkin-morons, and not with castes.

In fact, urban environments in India pretty much universally create non-caste identifiers for people, or at least identifiers with caste as a nominal component, until you hit upon any of the above situations. As a kid growing up, and as a youth in college etc., there were many times when I was aware that a person was baniya, or kayasth, brahmin etc. but didn't have precedent to guide me in differentiating my behavior for each. If anything, the precedent was to NOT differentiate. This also applied to people of other religions. Heck I didn't have 'life-learning' for interacting with non-reservation castes etc. differently either. Given the city, its economic and physical reality, ensured we all interacted with each other largely as peers, no matter what our parents brought to the cities from their smaller rural areas. The difference was mostly class, not caste.

All of this to say that caste is not a dominant identifying characteristic in civic situations in urban environments.

I was going to comment on Prema's crap comments, but seeing as they've been addressed...

What's with many of you people on this thread? Trying to actually address Prema's comments with seriousness? Please, wake up and smell the troll.

Admission to colleges in the US is very substantially based on test scores.

What part of my statement: "Admission to college in America is not based on test scores alone" couldn't you understand, that made you so foolishly attempt to "correct" me with a similar statement?

What you have jumped in to defend is Moornam's asinine insinuation that minute differences in GPA and SAT scores trump any other considerations. In other words a strict meritocracy based only on test scores is the ideal. That is not how Princeton etc choose their freshmen class. If they did they would simply use a machine. Instead, all the top colleges have large admissions staff. Why? Because they decide not just on GPA or SAT scores, but also on recommendations, essays, extracurricular achievements, underprivileged minority status etc.

All other things being equal, a candidate with better test scores prevails.

Thats a dumb statement. You obviously have no idea how the process works. The other things considered are usually intangibles that cannot be equated numerically to each other.

In India merit as I explained earlier (you can read and understand right?) is what counts. You sound silly, no stupid

Very funny. India is the perfect example of how a strict meritocracy of dedicated rote learners and test-takers can have disastrous consequences. Just look at the Indian Civil Service. Is that something to be proud of? At least in America the SATs measure IQ, and the results are far, far better. Anyone who boasts of Indian meritocracy has to be a delusional idiot. What the hell has this system accomplished? Its record is shamefully pathetic.

Spelling bee, the Putnam, the Science Olympiads, Latin exams etc. The student who scores best comes out on top.

An ignorant comparison. The Spelling Bees etc test specific skills and there is no nuance involved in judging the winners. A glowing recommendation by your spelling coach; or your musical or athletic talents etc will have exactly zero influence on whether you win or not. That is obviously not the case in college admissions, especially in the top colleges.

More bakwas! TN Seshan - a Palakkad Iyer - who revolutionised elections in India and put politicians in their place, is an IAS topper who supports reservations. The current Chief Election Commissioner T.Gopalaswamy is an Iyengar and an IAS topper, and Mayavati paid him a courtesy visit in his offices in delhi last week for conducting a well managed election in UP!

Thanks for the laugh. You now stand exposed as a silly, irrational, tambram bumpkin. What the hell does any of that prove? An "untouchable" lady pays a "courtesy visit" to some "brahmin" and you are nutty enough to triumphantly claim that it proves that I am wrong for saying that: Its worth pointing out that these same people who demand meritocracy based on tests are often the same hypocritical individuals who tenaciously defend casteism, which is the very opposite of a meritocracy! Get real pal, and grow up already.

The meritorious don't defend casteism, they are simply saying that standards shd not be lowered. That is not defending casteism, it is simply rejecting mediocrity.

What standards are you boasting about? The "high standards" that led to upper caste domination in India for so long has had worse than mediocre results. It has been a frickin disaster. Pragmatism teaches us that when something is an abject failure its time for a change.

Interesting! Many a brahman would endorse the idea.

Where did these brahmins pop out of? Didnt you claim that there is no such thing as the caste system? Get your story straight, you confused liar.

Prema,

Actually glowing recommendations and extracurricular activities of every sort cannot get you anywhere unless you have good test scores. You are simply screaming. Try not to look stupid, it's enough if you sound stupid. The reason Princeton or any school employs armies of admissions officers is because they get huge numbers of applications clustered around a score. You are simply blabbering. Cut offs are set by test scores, and GPA (where they know about the school district concerned).

Thats a dumb statement.

At least in America the SATs measure IQ

An ignorant comparison.

You now stand exposed as a silly, irrational, tambram bumpkin.

An "untouchable" lady pays a "courtesy visit" to some "brahmin"

The "high standards" that led to upper caste domination in India for so long has had worse than mediocre results.

It has been a frickin disaster.

Get your story straight, you confused liar.

Floridian - I'm a little rushed now, but I will definitely follow up later to your question. Copacetic? :)

jyotsana, while you're generally right (that applicants tend to cluster around a test score/GPA bracket), Prema is also right in saying that a test score alone is not the prevailing factor in whether or not you get into college. This is especially true of colleges/universities who recognize that one's SAT score means nothing more than whether or not that person is good at (or took classes to become good at) taking the SAT. It is especially relevant for traditionally underrepresented students (both socioeconomically, regionally, racially/ethnically) who do not always have what we think of as "super high" SAT scores, but are incredibly qualified when assessed along other metrics.

Manju's also right in saying the "holistic" approach to admissions was originally intended to keep out Jewish applicants, who apparently were "too qualified." All that said, I think we need to reassess when we think that the SAT -- or any admissions-oriented standardized test racket, for that matter -- is an objective measure of "merit." The admissions system is so fucked up, even with all their attempts to make it "more open" or "more accessible." It absolutely is biased towards elites, i.e. people whose parents have a college education, people in the upper middle/upper tax brackets, etc. Given that the U.S. is all about buying into the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" myth, it is amazing that inherently unmeritocratic admissions are cloaked in the language of "equal judgment before your SAT score."

Sorry to totally divert the thread. I got caught up in the politics of U.S. college admissions and forgot that I was the one arguing to keep this on topic re: Gujjars. I'm sure we can all take this offline/onto email if it is too off topic.

>>You "reproduce" an alleged conversation you eavesdropped upon -- ...-- and we're expected to accept this hearsay evidence as substantiating something socially significant!?!

Fair enough. There is no way for me to prove that the conversation took place - such is the nature of anecdotal evidence. But there's one place where you can find proof of my observation that 2-gen desis by and large have been sold on AA. The place is....right here! Apart from Manju, I've yet to come across a single 2-gen poster who debates against AA. Now this too is anecdotal evidence of another scale, but I'm assuming it has a lot more weight in this debate.

>>you go on to present D1 -- who, to some of us who work in academia and have to make tough calls on issues of merit vs background, would appear like a close-minded, socially-insensitive prick -- as the fount of all wisdom. This is utterly lacking in nuance.

Actually, the conversation continued for a long time after I got another helping of samosas, and centered around this very issue. Don't worry - I won't retype the whole thing! Here's the jist of my argument.

If someone says that AA is not as bad as reservation in India - my answer is Yes - in implementation and intent, but No, in spirit. AA is not state-mandated quotas unlike in India, and is very small in quantity - less than 5-10%, unlike 70-80% in India. So the effects are not largely noticable, much like the effects of Social Security or Medicare in the 1950's. But as everything else, any entitlement starts growing exponentially after a while, and once granted can never be taken away.

You say that those who work in academia are not close-minded, socially insensitive pricks. I agree. And that is the double-edged sword that I'm afraid of: AA is a system that's largely dependant on the integrity and good intentions of a select few people.

The school administrative folks in America are presently composed mostly of liberal whites and Jews, both of these groups being well disposed to Desis and Asians. Hence, these incidents like the one in Princeton are just small pin-pricks that don't matter in the long run since smart Desis and Asians will kick ass no matter where they go. Unless...

Unless of course, in time, the school admin is replaced by a group of people that are largely hostile to Desis and Asians. Then, my friend GB/Camille, the shit will hit the fan verrry quickly. It is a well known fact that most African Americans and Hispanics are, quite sadly, resentful of Asians and Desis( and Jews) - in matters of immigration, jobs, wealth, college admissions and the like. And these two groups are also the fastest growing segment of the American population (may together be 30-40%). Do want to bet that for your children's generation (20-25 years from now), a large percentage of college admins will be individuals from these two hostile groups? What do you think will happen then? The subjective criteria stipulated in the present by a select few gatekeepers can be easily manipulated to keep Desis and Asians out. For a very long time. Like two or three generations.

That's why the criteria for admissions should be as objective as possible. GPA, SAT scores and essays are a pretty good indicator of a person's abilities to excel in college. The person's subjective emotional intelligence (friendliness, non-confrontational, co-operativeness, risk taking ability etc) are the indicators of excelling at work. The flaw is that colleges are using the subjective pretext of emotional intelligence to underplay the objective merit to deny admission to individuals from successful groups. This is Social Engineering. This is playing God with people's lives.

This will end in pain and tears for everyone. AA was originally intended to bring Blacks into the mainstream - good intentions. But now it's being used to keep an Asian out solely because of his race. It's one person now, but within a couple of decades the trickle could turn into a torrent. Distributive Justice will end up as selective injustice.

And it's happening slowly. There are at least five schools districts in New Jersey alone where high schools have started putting down Desis and Asians on one pretext or another. Alarmed by the near dominance of these two groups in academics, they are putting up walls (or shall I say glass ceilings) based on subjective criteria invented on a daily basis. They are obviously getting severe heat from parents of , ah, non-Desi/non-Asian kids, to "level the playing field". Asians and Desis are slowly and steadily selling their houses and moving into other school districts.

>>MoorNam sounds more and more like one of those puffed-up arseholes ...your pig-headed lack of balance

M. Nam

Firstly, MoorNam, there is absolutely zero empirical evidence for all of the claims you've made. Just a fear that if Latin@s and African Americans are in power that they will continue to propagate anti-desi/Asian racism. Maybe we see in others characteristics that reflect how we behave?

Secondly, there is little to no empirical evidence that your SAT score is a good predictor of academic performance in college beyond the first semester. You can continue to repeat what you think, but it doesn't make it objectively true. The funny thing about "objective" measures is that they are not really objective at all, but they give us metrics that we can say are objective so that we can ignore all the inherent inequalities in the process itself.

Whining or Whinging ( as the aussies call it) is the first step in changing public policy. When enough people whinge enough time to the right persons, policy begins to change. Not that a change in public policy in either USA or India will make a difference to me or my offspring. So far, AA in Australia is almost non-existent. I hope it stays that way for the next few decades.

The reservation quota system in India is a fairer way than the ambiguous diversity criteria. Simply, it takes away subjective criteria. After all, everyone in the sub group competes on an equal footing. And it is an objective selection within that subgroup. So if you are a ST, you are competing with other ST candidates and you need to only outscore the other ST candidates. If you are an ST, it is relatively easy to gain admission / find a government job. Several government jobs go unfilled each year due to lack of ST candidates. This happens despite entry cutoffs being lowered to the bare minimum possible.

A key question from many in India has been - Should the son of a top government bureaucrat be entitled to reservation. How many generations of reservations are necessary? A similar question in USA would be "Should the children of Obama be entitled to AA". I dont think anyone would claim that they are disadvantaged.

The irony that many FOBs are anti- reservation but their children are pro-AA.

Hey, I am all for AA in every sphere. Let me take the same argument that AA advocates use for Law / Medicine and apply it to Sport.

Sport needs to be representative of the overall community. Why is basketball dominated by one community. A small framed ABD kid who has grown up in a non-sport loving family and plays high school basketball deserves to be selected for a top NCAA basketball college with a full scholarship on the basis of his background. Sport is to be inclusive rather than exclusive the way it is currently now. We should not discriminate on physical ability or background. Dont we need AA in Sport as well?

How is that strong AA advocates consciously ignore such blatant violations of AA in the public space.

Btw, the Indian cricket team has AA. It is based on a regional quota selection. It is certainly a more national game with the addition of players from outside the traditional strongholds. Whether it is a stronger team is a different matter.

Btw, the Indian cricket team has AA. It is based on a regional quota selection. It is certainly a more national game with the addition of players from outside the traditional strongholds.

hmmmm n i was wondering why a billion cricket crazy fan nation can't produce and maintain world class cricket players

To MoorNam at @76, who said this

Here's the jist of my argument

'Attaboy MoorNam! So you can formulate arguments after all. If so, why don't you do so in the first place, rather than posting, as is your style, either: i) Cryptic three-line comments which sound more like soundbytes; or ii) Vague allegorical pieces such as #26. They make you appear (they make you sound like SpoorLam ;-) ) as though you're not sufficiently invested in your viewpoint to express it categorically. (Why should it require someone to knee you in the groin like this, metaphorically speaking, before you favour us with a deliberative argument ?)

Moving on to the crux of the matter: I won't attempt to echo Camille's rejoinder to your claim of the SAT's objectivity. I will, however, add a sidenote to this:

The flaw is that colleges are using the subjective pretext of emotional intelligence to underplay the objective merit to deny admission to individuals from successful groups.

which is somewhat nonsensical. Can you honestly say to me that you've worked with college-admissions admins ? If not, then please lay off. I was once a part of a departmental committee that worked with college admins, and was surprised at all the parameters -- many of them having nothing to do with "emotional intelligence" -- that went into admission decisions. The process by which your insurance premiums are assessed would be a partial analogy for how the undergrad-admissions process works.

To be honest, the reason why admissions officials sometimes want to delve beyond the "objective indicators" is because applications sometimes seem too good to be true -- the college applicant who fences almost like Lamour, plays the 'cello alomost like Yo-Yo Ma, and already has a book deal. In my one-off experience, these shenanigans cut accross racial lines, and the only commonality was that the applicants were kids whose parents could afford spin doctors.

Going back to my comment @ #44, you conveniently choose to evade this:

a) Irrelevance : Your "views" have, at best, a tenuous relation to the crux of this discussion, yet you choose to ram them in -- and this isn't the first time you've done this -- unabashedly.

The only key-phrases that establish a link between your comment @ #26 and Anna's post are "have no knowledge" and "affirmative action". But that's a bit like wanting to talk about toilet paper on a thread discussing sandpaper because of the link provided by the word "paper". I fear that you brought this topic up merely to peddle these sorts of views:

Do want to bet that for your children's generation (20-25 years from now), a large percentage of college admins will be individuals from these two hostile groups? . . . There are at least five schools districts in New Jersey alone where high schools have started putting down Desis and Asians on one pretext or another.

This is out-and-out fearmongering of the crassest kind that even many self-respecting wingnuts wouldn't stoop to. I am surprised that, except for Camille @ #77, none of the alleged liberals on this board has called you out on the lack of scientificity -- and on the Fahrenheit-911-ish quality -- of the above assertion!! Which five school districts, for pity's sake!?! Can you name a few of them, with op-ed references to the "putting down" that you allude to ?

Secondly, there is little to no empirical evidence that your SAT score is a good predictor of academic performance in college beyond the first semester.

In summary, a combination of SAT scores and high school grades are consistently the best predictor.

To Manju @ #81: Sorry to poke the reference that you provide. It is authored by people who work(ed) for the same outfit that administers the SAT and, vide Social Sciences Citation Index, it doesn't seem to have appeared in a peer-reviewed periodical. So I'm afraid it is not very credible. (Furthermore, I recall seeing an article in The Chronicles of Higher Education -- I'll try to hunt down the reference -- in 2002 that questions the objectivity of the SAT on several counts.)

On a recent visit to India, I was in Gurgaon (a satellite city of Delhi, full of new malls, restaurants, apartment buildings, hotels, clubs, etc. i.e. a very flashy, modern place by Indian standards). Amidst all the modernity, one day I saw a group of Gujjars, all traditionally dressed in their turbans and desi clothes, heavy jewelry even on the men, big mustaches, herding their animals down a street lined with brand new apartment buildings. It was a beautiful sight...but also poignant and sad, as you saw one relic of a vanishing lifestyle, being swamped by an invasion of the new. Talk about culture clash.

That's one of the images I am going to remember from my stay here forever... same thing, only I wouldn't know if they were Gujjars or any other villagers. All of them, sarees draped over heads, men dressed traditionally, one with a baby on his shoulder chewing some flower blossom, and three or four cows, all walking past the flashy, blue-glass building I work in (also in Gurgaon).

Can't get there today though, because all the roads in and out of Delhi are blocked. I called our transport services a few minutes ago, and they said the situation is clear now but they can't be sure minute to minute, so most cabs have been cancelled and they have recommended me to stay home. I hope the protests stay just that - protests - and don't get violent like they already have in Rajasthan.

The last time I read of the Gujjars, they were a tribe of thieves who were one of the reasons for the failure of the 1857 mutiny.They looted food supplies to the mutineers in Delhi and simliarly lynched and looted anyone trying to enter or leave Delhi including Indians and Europeans...
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2006/10/29/stories/2006102900030100.htm

Here's something from an interview with William Dalrymple in the HINDU paper.
It's clear from the book that the Mutiny papers acquaint us with certain people through their petitions, tell you stories about their lives, provide material to spin some interesting yarns. How much do they contain that actually demand a fresh look at the events of 1857?

Well, if you look at the time when things are beginning to fall apart in Delhi, they provide one with very detailed evidence of why the Uprising failed. And the answer was they [the sepoys in Delhi] were all starving. It was a major logistical failure. It wasn't because of the British siege of the city. It was because of the Gujar and the Mewati tribes on the outskirts who were lynching everyone coming into the city. So no food was coming in, there was no liberated area as such. The city was under siege only partially by the British, but largely by the people on the outskirts, who had their own agenda. In late July, there were about 1,00,000 sepoys in the city. By the time the city fell in September, there were probably fewer than 30,000 or 35,000 left. The rest had gone off because they were not being paid or fed.

>>Attaboy MoorNam! So you can formulate arguments after all...fearmongering of the crassest kind !

Looks like you want a pissing contest, not a debate.

Let's try this differently...

Do you agree that AA is a form of collectivism? Do you agree that AA is a system by which an individual is boxed into a particular group-category, regardless of his/her proclivity?

Do you agree that what Princeton did to one person, ie to deny him admission because "there's too many of your kind around" is stark injustice?

Whether college admissions' committee are honest, or have integrity or look at applications from all angles etc etc are tangential to the debate. I am debating the system, not individuals.

>>Which five school districts, for pity's sake!?! Can you name a few of them, with op-ed references to the "putting down" that you allude to ?

I'm not sure about libel laws and how they can be applied to comments on blogs. Sorry, I'm not sticking my neck out. Suffice to say that this trend began just a year or so ago after WSJ article on "The new white flight" was published (I think it was blogged on SM as well).

M. Nam

Delhite,

It's not proper to tarnish an entire community based on the writings of a colonialist.

The present conflict is to do more with elections and how the percentage of districts are reserved for SC/ST candidates. Rajesh Pilot, who is a Gujjar, wants to stand for elections from this district, which is now reserved for SC/ST candidates as per the Election Commission. Hence, he has instigated his people to demand inclusion of Gujjars into SC category so that he can qualify. The Meena leaders don't want him to qualify because he is the one most likely to win. Hence, they are opposing this.

It's collectivism in its stark, ugly stage.

M. Nam

I demand special treatment!

Manju, your link was to a link published by the very same test racket that creates, grades, and profits off the SAT. Please, exercise some discretion when you cite "research." But, if we pretend that this is a more scientific study, their outcome predictor of success was graduation, not "academic achievement" or "academic success." Their correlation was minimal (0.2-0.24) with an R2=0.43, which is not nearly as strong as whether or not your parents attended college, your socioeconomics, or your race when it comes to predicting your likelihood of graduating. I maintain, beyond the first semester of college, the SAT has little to no predictive strength re: performance (academically) in school. My measure of performance is GPA, etc., relative to the mean. That is, a higher SAT does not result in a higher deviation from the mean GPA.

MoorNam @ #85 wrote:

Whether college admissions' committee are honest, or have integrity or look at applications from all angles etc etc are tangential to the debate. I am debating the system, not individuals.

I too am debating the system, not any individual(s). You are perhaps debating Affirmative Action, in which case we will just debate past one another because you are ideologically opposed to AA, while I am ideologically neutral towards it. But one wants to keep this honest; which is why I have to point out your grave misconceptions about the college admissions process. That is the system I refer to and wish to debate about when offering the following comment (pray where, if anywhere, does the following comment at all refer to individuals ?).

Can you honestly say to me that you've worked with college-admissions admins ? If not, then please lay off. I was once a part of a departmental committee that worked with college admins, and was surprised at all the parameters -- many of them having nothing to do with "emotional intelligence" -- that went into admission decisions. The process by which your insurance premiums are assessed would be a partial analogy for how the undergrad-admissions process works.

My measure of performance is GPA, etc., relative to the mean.

i always thought the sat was supposed to be used in conjunction with gpa, as a way of evening out different grading policies in different schools. in other words, i agree with you that gpa is primary.

but in a racist world, it is possible that gpa may reflect the racial prejudices of teachers, in which case a standardized test may smoke this bias out. intuitively, standardization would seem to benefit the disenfranchised, since it gives no opportunity for the establishment to impose their subconscious racism via subjective criteria. the math part of the sat in particular, which would be hard to rig (unlike verbal), would seem to be the best friend of the disenfranchised.

i'm a simple unnuanced man, but this seems almost commonsensical. i recall learning in high school that the Chinese invented standardization as a way of choosing students by virtue of ability rather than family.

if you believe racism is so prevalent in the US, wouldn't you advocate as much standardization as possible...so at least you know in advance what the rules are?

yet somehow, in our upside down world, advocates for the dispossessed want institutions, who presumably suffer from institutional racism, to use subjective criteria. what gives?

Manju - I dont agree with many of your comments but on this one I completely concur.

AA or Reservation is created to help the weak, it has now been subverted by the bleeding heart liberals to punish the "strong". Quite a big difference. With regard to reservation, lots of Indians vote with their feet - they go overseas.

The backlash against AA has started - the movement will just get stronger. If college admissions committees are such paragons of virtue, why dont they make the minutes of their discussions public. Quite unlikely that this would ever happen because it would totally defeat their desire to play God.

Legacy in admissions is probably the crassest form of nepotism. Strangely, the ones that rail against AA never argue against Legacy.
GW Bush is a classic case of the effects of nepotism is a factor in admissions.

Camille - You said that "they will 'continue' to propagate racism against Asians/ Desis". Does this mean that they are racist today?

i'm a simple unnuanced man, but this seems almost commonsensical.

You're not as unnuanced as you claim, Manju (@ #90). It is truly almost commonsensical... but not quite ;-) The non-trivial fact is that the SAT is vulnerable to the effects of focused coaching. And most of the highly "effective" coaching programmes available today are sufficiently highly priced that access to these programmes shows an upper-income bias. I'm not quite sure, however, if correlations with race have been published.

Most of the critiques of the SAT that I've seen do not -- as you appear to infer -- resemble the earlier critiques (and very valid ones too) of IQ-testing. Today's critiques are mostly about the SAT's susceptibilities to intensive coaching. The racial/social dimensions are discussed as a corollary to the cost and availability of such coaching.

I owe you a reference to the Chronicles of Higher Education from my comment yesterday -- as well as to some of the studies alluded to above. But I no longer live in the U.S., and am having some trouble accessing the usual social-sciences bibliographic databases.

It is truly almost commonsensical... but not quite ;-) The non-trivial fact is that the SAT is vulnerable to the effects of focused coaching. And most of the highly "effective" coaching programmes available today are sufficiently highly priced that access to these programmes shows an upper-income bias

yes, personally i've found studying for standardized tests makes all the differnce. i hope students are not going in cold. but a few questions if anyone knows...

1. are the best prep courses really out of the price range of the poor? either way, this should not be a difficult problem to solve.
2. how do foreign indian students fare on the sat?

i always thought the sat was supposed to be used in conjunction with gpa, as a way of evening out different grading policies in different schools. in other words, i agree with you that gpa is primary.

If the SAT were some holy grail measure, then the University of California would not have considered dumping it from the admissions process altogether six years ago. Three years ago Berkeley was one vote shy of rejecting the SAT I altogether. Why? Because the test does not measure your intelligence, it largely reflects your socioeconomics. A lot of research has come out showing that for every additional $10,000 a family earns/year, all else equal, a child's SAT score will go up, on average, 50-100 points. 50-100 points! That is considerable! There are a lot of factors that get conflated a bit with income, of course -- folks with higher incomes tend to go to better financed schools and get better "traditional" college preparation. That said, a HUGE part of the "income effect" is that the SAT is a coachable test. Those with more money/resources to afford test preparation, etc., are able to do better on the test. At the end of the day, the SAT tests nothing except how good you are at taking the SAT. It does not help a person demonstrate the multitude of skills that are useful for success (academically or otherwise) in college. I'll try to look for cites for this between today and tomorrow.

if you believe racism is so prevalent in the US, wouldn't you advocate as much standardization as possible...so at least you know in advance what the rules are?

AA or Reservation is created to help the weak, it has now been subverted by the bleeding heart liberals to punish the "strong".

Legacy in admissions is probably the crassest form of nepotism. Strangely, the ones that rail against AA never argue against Legacy.

Camille - You said that "they will 'continue' to propagate racism against Asians/ Desis". Does this mean that they are racist today?
melbournedesi,
1. Where, in any mission or description of AA (in the U.S.), does it say that it exists to "punish the strong"? The underlying problem here, in my opinion, is that by virtue of one's socioeconomic or racial privilege there is a mistaken belief that you are ENTITLED to certain jobs, places in college, etc. Equality of opportunity presumes that all have an equal chance to compete for these jobs. I feel like "the strong" (a problematic and inaccurate characterization) are not willing to actually compete in a system that does not already favor them as current systems and institutions do.

2. I'm pretty sure I covered legacy in my critique. I'm also pretty sure that a lot of proponents of AA address legacy in their critiques. Perhaps this is a regional difference?

3. By "continue to propagate" I'm referring to the anti-desi/Asian racism that already exists in the U.S., both in admissions, but along other planes as well. I don't deny that there is racism between communities of color in the U.S., but I was not trying to imply that Blacks/Latin@s are somehow more racist than current (European-American dominated) institutions.

1. are the best prep courses really out of the price range of the poor? either way, this should not be a difficult problem to solve. 2. how do foreign indian students fare on the sat?

Also, the premise of the SAT is that it is supposed to measure your intelligence and is supposed to be an equalizer. Everyone is NOT supposed to do super well at it. However, with the advent of test prep companies (who are hand in hand with testmakers), it has become a business, and the outcome is a child's score. In theory, everyone should be able to go into the SAT cold and do well. The test has shifted from "great equalizer" (which it never really was) to a complete racket. If anyone can buy their test score, then what does the test really measure?

I can't answer #2. I'm inclined to say fairly well, though.

Camille
My comment re: legacy was not that you did not address legacy. It was directed against those who opppose AA but are in favour of Legacy. Both are forms of discrimination.

The initial objective of AA was help the 'weak'. Now, it is designed to punish the 'strong'. Do you seriously expect that any policy will explicitly be designed in such a manner. It is just implemented in such a fashion. I am sure all those wonderful admission officers never bring any of their biases to their jobs.

How come universities never use AA for sports / music scholarships ? After all the payoffs from sport / music are huge. Try selling that idea to the football / basketball coach. If diversity is such a great idea then it behoves its presence in every walk of human endeavour. Your statement "Equality of opportunity presumes that all have an equal chance to compete for these jobs" is correct. Would the same not apply in the fields of music / sport? The silence from the pro AA brigade when the need to bring about AA in every walk of life is raised makes me very wary of their true intention.

With regard to Indian students on SAT - anecodatal evidence shows that it is mostly a good score. But then Desis are outstanding test takers.
But I can talk about Indian students on the GMAT. Many score well over 700. Nearly everyone I have known has averaged over 650. n=150.
Incidentally, one of the few perfect 800 scores in the paper based era was from India (1992).

I dont buy the argument that SATs favour the economically advantaged. But then I have never taken the SATs only GMAT. SATs test two core areas - both of which are relatively easy for a native born American.

1) English - not exactly a dead language in the USA is it ? In this day and age when folks want to learn english in interior China, choosing not to learn english in the USA is unbelievable.
2) Mathematics - how does background play a part. It is a universal language except that the questions are asked in English.

ABDs work hard to get to the right college. Why should someone who prefers to play basketball and not study hard enough be given admission? I agree training helps. But that is the case in every field of life. If you play basketball every day, you are more than likely to be better than someone who plays but twice a week.

We are both on different ends of the spectrum with regard to AA and unlikely to agree.

I now live in a country with no AA. The Asians and Indians pick up a lot of the seats and so far no complaints from the anglo saxon population.

How the heck has Pakistan done better???

melbournedesi, perhaps regionality comes to play in our differing understandings of AA and the SAT. The SAT is an exam that, on its face, looks like it is "neutral." When you introduce the test prep industry, it no longer becomes neutral, and it is no longer an accessible test across socioeconomics. It's up to you whether to believe that or not. When kids are graduating high school with 5th grade reading levels in some places and college level reading places in others, it's clear that equality of education is not a levelling factor as well.

How come universities never use AA for sports / music scholarships ? After all the payoffs from sport / music are huge.

Camille writes:

>>and SAT is no longer an accessible test across socioeconomics

I think this is crux of the disagreement. I think that socioeconomics should not be a factor in these decisions (neither should athletics etc - more on that below...), because it distorts the process, evetually to the point where anyone with a vested interest can game the system to favor a section of people over another.

Consider this example: A middle class suburbian student where both parents are professionals and equally involved in the student's studies: (S)he scores 98% in SAT and 3.95 GPA. Another inner-city student in a failed violent school district with a single-alcoholic parent scores 92% in SAT and 3.4GPA.

A common knee-jerk reaction is that the latter is more deserving of the two because he scored pretty well despite accentuating circumstances. This is a flawed process, and will eventually make the process extremely subjective. How does the admin define "accentuating" circumstances? What if the latter had 88% in SAT and 3.2 GPA? 84%-2.9? 83%-2.5? It's a slippery slope, and minorities who are individualistic in nature and don't form a voting block (Asians/Desis) will get shafted in the long run.

I undestand the latest fad is "community/social service". How has the student "given back" to the community? How many hours has she volunteered at the local homeless shelter? Not sure how this helps in one's career, but currently there's a racket going on to get false Certificates from shady support orgs to help in college admissions. This is not too unlike the false Caste certificate racket that's growing in India that upper caste students use to certify themselves lower caste.

M. Nam

MoorNam, I hear you, but often the kid with college educated parents also got to take test prep and the inner city kid didn't. What would their scores be like if you controlled for all the other factors? It's hard to say. I think the underlying issue that is disagreed upon is whether attending college ought to serve the public good. As a public university graduate, I firmly believe that there is an economic, moral, and social responsibility for public universities to reflect the diversity of their communities. It helps that this is also explicitly written down as a function of the university in our state Constitution. :) However, it doesn't seem like that's a huge consideration for you, so naturally we would disagree on all the things that may relate back to that underlying principle.

Also, this is again a generational issue, but desis/Asians are not shafted by the issue as you describe. Desis and APIs who are the children of ELITES may feel shafted, but these policies are incredibly relevant (and helpful) for APIs and APIAs who grew up in rural, poor, and inner city communities. Not all desis in the U.S. are the children of professionals, after all :)

>>As a public university graduate, I firmly believe that there is an economic, moral, and social responsibility for public universities to reflect the diversity of their communities

Good intentions don't necessarily translate to good policy.

Public universities may tamper with merit and skew the numbers at entry-point - but when it comes to exit-point, the true colors of the system are visible. Most of those who benefited from a leg-up by the administration (and that goes for rich "endowment" kids at ivy leagues) end up dropping out because they can't take the workload.

Moreover, we're not talking about Public university - we're talking about Princeton/Yale etc.

>>Not all desis in the U.S. are the children of professionals, after all :)

But an overwhelming majority are.

M. Nam

Camille, yes test-prep definitely helps a lot, and yes one's socioeconomic status makes a huge difference...but at a certain level, the SAT IS a math and english test..i.e. you need to know some math and english to do well. People with higher scores know math and english better than people with lower scores, in general. Test-prep courses can help, but not fake you through it.

As for desis from underprivileged backgrounds benefitting from AA, that's true if the admissions teams know about a particular student's background (which to some extent depends on how aware that student makes them of it)...but without that specific knowlege, a lot of those desis probably still get inadvertently lumped in with other desis who are in fact elite.

MoorNam, your dropout statement is totally untrue, and it assumes a causation that is just not there. Also, I went to a public university WITHOUT AA, and it has had, in my opinion, disastrous consequences for the institution itself and for the state, including economic consequences. I also went to the best damn public university in the country, so excuse me if I chafe a bit when you assume that Princeton/Yale kids do well because they're private and consequently somehow "more qualified." :)

Also, I wonder if the "overwhelming" majority of desi youth today are the children of professionals. I could buy this argument 15, 20 years ago, but not sure I buy it today. Oh, and aside from (undergrad) college admissions, desis do benefit from AA, both in business licensing and at the grad school level.

Amitabh, that's what diversity statements and personal statements, in addition to socioeconomic questionnaires, are for. Admissions officers cannot read what folks don't include. :)

Also, it really isn't until the last 10 years that we've seen this "oh no Asians get hurt from AA" argument come around.

People with higher scores know math and english better than people with lower scores, in general.

#103: the following article clearly demonstrates a link between dropout rates and preadmission qualifications.. it uses the data that was the basis of the report by Bok and Bowen (ex presidents of harvard and princeton) and points out that it was flawed. Moornam's hypothetical less qualified student would do much better in Rutgers than Princeton (on average) and so AA actually works against these students (in the long run). Same thing happens routinely at IITs where beneficiaries of reservation often fail to graduate (as opposed to similar or even less well qualified peers at less elite places).

ETHNIC AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SCIENCE GRADUATION AT SELECTIVE COLLEGES WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR ADMISSION POLICY AND COLLEGE CHOICE
Frederick L. Smyth*,** and John J. McArdle*
Research in Higher Education, Vol. 45, No. 4, June 2004

Abstract

Using Bowen and Bok’s data from 23 selective colleges, we fit multilevel logit models to test two hypotheses with implications for affirmative action and group differences in attainment of science, math, or engineering (SME) degrees. Hypothesis 1, that differences in precollege academic preparation will explain later SME graduation disparities, was fully supported with respect to the outcome gap between Whites and
underrepresented minorities, partially supported for that between Asians and underrepresented minorities, and between men and women. Hypothesis 2, that college selectivity, after accounting for student characteristics, will be positively associated with SME persistence, was not supported. We demonstrate that the significance of the selectivity effect is overestimated when unilevel models are used. Admission officials are advised to carefully consider the relative academic preparedness of science-interested students, and such students choosing among colleges are advised
to compare their academic qualifications to those of successful science students at each institution.

and later from the conclusion

The focus of our analysis, however, has been to clarify to what extent information readily available to admission officials can account for the disproportionate attrition from science majors of the initially interested underrepresented minority and female students at these selective colleges. Our findings suggest that if the standardized mathematics test scores or high school grades of any group of enrolling students—regardless of ethnicity or gender—are systematically lower than others’, then the SME graduation rate of that group is also likely to
be lower. These often-replicated findings suggest a conundrum for selective college admission officials. At the individual level, offering a relatively educationally disadvantaged applicant the chance to benefit and graduate from a more selective institution may put at increased risk his or her goal of a career in science. The same potential trade-off is suggested for group-level equity goals; faster increase in representation at elite colleges, but slower in scientific fields vs. slower increase at elite colleges, but faster in scientific fields. Each of these
sets of individual and group equity goals is widely agreed to be of critical importance, and how best to achieve them ought to be a matter of well-informed discussion and further national inquiry.

Camille :
I agree with you in that a lot of social and cultural capital is essential - both for college education and to succeed in life. However punishing someone who through an accident of birth has got that social and cultural capital is insane.

I dont think my point about Athletics/ Music scholarship was clear. It is probably better illustrated with an example

Sunil is a smallish desi kid from the Midwest with parents who are teachers. His parents like most desis harp on studying and actively discourage him from spending time on sport. He plays basketball with a passion and is selected to the high school team. He is not a star but an average player. He applys for a basketball scholarship on the basis of his non- sporting background. What do you reckon are the chances that Sunil will be given a sports scholarship.

English was my second language growing up - and I managed to score 740 in the GMAT!!! So, when you say that native born Americans cant read or write, my reaction is one of "well they are lazy and cant be bothered". Hundreds of black folks went to college during the post Civil War period. No AA during that period.

As a volunteer, I tutored a few black kids in Tampa and my pedagogical method was to use NBA scores to teach them elementary Statistics. I guess it worked because their school scores improved. But, if they preferred to play ball all day and night to studying, I dont see why AA is needed. I also told a few of them that their lot in life would improve if they got rid of their victim mentality. Coming from a small brown immigrant man, initially it did not go down too well. But, I could say it because their situation was certainly much better mine was at that a similar stage.

One way to prove that SATs are a fair way to test for English and Maths is to pick up a few dozen high school kids for whom English is a second / third language and give them the test cold. Then compare the scores with the so called disadvantaged kids. I am willing to bet that the native born American disadvantaged kids will score less in English than the ones for whom English is a second language. Hypothetical but I am ready to be proven wrong.

Anyways - interesting to learn that there are good public universities that dont have AA.

That's why the criteria for admissions should be as objective as possible. GPA, SAT scores and essays are a pretty good indicator of a person's abilities to excel in college.

So now you have included essays along with your earlier insistence on admissions being strictly determined by GPA and SATs alone. The problems remain: essays submitted with applications can be written by parents or someone else; there is grade inflation; and the SATs can be gamed. Test prep academies see an increase of over a hundred points on average, in some cases over 300 points, in students who take their courses. Is it fair to reward those who have spent time and money in learning the tricks of taking SATs?

You should spend some time at this site and educate yourself:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/bok.html

Interview with Derek Bok, Harvard President:

Can you talk about this notion that the blacks that are admitted to these selective schools were not qualified.

I think there's a lot of evidence in our book that we haven't just tried to meet quotas or in some rigid formulaic way get a certain number of blacks and Hispanics into our student body. I think people don't realize that not only are a number of black students being admitted with lower board scores than white and grades than whites who were rejected, a lot of whites are being admitted with lower board scores and grades than blacks who were excluded.

43% of all the black applicants in our sample who finished in the top 5% of their high school class were denied admission. 25% of black students with 1400 board scores were denied admission. Now, why was that? Because the admissions officers were not just looking at grades and scores, as they have never looked just at grades and scores for white students or anyone else. They were picking and choosing based on a variety of attributes and qualifications and considerations to put together a really outstanding interesting diverse class.

And that has never been something that you can do by the numbers. These tests are helpful. I'm not one of those who believe that the SAT should be abandoned. I think they have limited usefulness, but it's only limited.

It tells you very, very little about what you're going to contribute to the education of your class-mates. It tells you very little about what you're going to be able to contribute to society, once you leave the college and those are very important considerations and have been for more than 100 years to universities.

So, sure, there may be some differences in grades and scores, but they work both ways and they're not really as important in the overall determination of who should be admitted to college as many people outside universities seem to think they are."

We have in this country the Black/White test score gap...

I don't regard the fact that there's a disparity in test scores nearly as importantly as I do the need for diversity, because I know from long experience that test scores, though useful, are a very limited measure of things that matter in choosing students. So, clearly you pay attention to test scores, but the fact that someone's SAT is 100 points less means by the figures and statistics we have, a difference of five percentage points in the rank in class. That's not very important. Especially since the rank in class, though it has some impact, I don't know how you do in later life, a difference of five percent points in rank and class, has very, very, modest difference indeed. So that's not very important in the overall scheme of things.

What is the myth of pure merit? What do you mean that we have to unpack merit?

I think the thread that connects them all is that merit means the people who are best qualified to achieve the purposes of the organization that is doing the choosing. If you look from that standpoint, you see that grades and scores of course are not an indication of merit. They haven't been used to the exclusion of other factors by any self-respecting selective university in a hundred years because they are simply not an adequate way of identifying those students who will most fulfill the legitimate purposes of the institution. To do that you've got to look at a wide range of other factors.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/bowen.html

Interview with William Bowen, Princeton President:

Is there a problem with looking at average SAT scores to determine the reliability of how much preference is given?

There are so many problems with the SAT emphasis that one hardly knows where to begin in answering the question. Let me just say first, to make the most basic point. The schools in our study have never believed that test scores are the end all and the be all for anybody. And there are large numbers of students of every race and every background who are being turned down, who have higher test scores than those who are being admitted. Because the people doing the admitting realize that there is much more to potential and promise and ability to contribute both on campus and after campus than ever can be captured in a test score measure.

So this obsession with test scores is, I think, contrary to the way these institutions function and have ever functioned. I think that is what people sometimes lose sight of.

Can you talk about merit, and the mission of the university?

I think merit has to be thought about not as some abstract thing, handed down from on high that anyone who can count can ascertain. If only that were that simple. I believe profoundly in admitting on the merit. Absolutely. Which means there should not be favoritism, that you should be looking at what individuals can contribute to the school and afterwards.

But does that mean that there is a simple numerical measure of merit? Of course not. Adlai Stevenson, one of the distinguished graduates of one of the institutions in the study used to be fond of saying that he was never threatened by Phi Beta Kappa. No he wasn't? Was he a contributing citizen in this country? Certainly I think so.

One of the important statistical findings in our study is, while SATs along with high school grades are helpful in determining who is over threshold, that is who can do the work and you don't want to admit anyone who can't. But once you get above some level, let's say about 1100 before the SATs were recentered, small differences, incremental differences in test scores make surprisingly little difference in terms of prediction of either success in college or even more fundamentally, success after college. There is just too much else going on.

So much depends on personal qualities. On the ability to get up off the floor and start over. The ability to accept correction and the benefit from it. Those are traits of character, those are not things that any test scores are going to measure very well.

Would eliminating the SAT be harmful?

Yes. I think the data in our study and other data indicates that it is useful as one factor, again, among a host of factors in helping schools decide especially who is over threshold. It is a helpful measure. It is not perfect and there are other things to look at, but would I want to through away a useful piece of information? Certainly not.

Let's talk about the test score gap.

The black/white test score gap, in terms of the test scores that applicants present is, of course, very important, because in any system in which test scores play a role, it affects the numbers of students who will be admitted from difference groups if one looks only at test scores. And so from that perspective it is inescapable and consequential.

I think that the factors that create the test score gap are still less well understood than they should be, though much more is being learned about all of that. And, of course, I agree with those who say, shouldn't we be working to improve elementary and secondary education so that the preparation of minority students as well as other students will be stronger and better, that there will be a bigger pool, if you will.

And the answer to that is, of course we should be doing that. But we should be doing that, in my view, with our left arm but with our right arm we are doing the best we can with the pools that we have at present. And what I think the evidence in our study shows is that knowledgeable admissions offices can choose among students with somewhat lower test scores, very effectively. They can choose from within the pools of students with still very good scores by a national standard, but lower scores for these schools. Those individuals are likely to do well.

I think one of the more troubling findings in our study is that this gap in performance is, if anything, greater at the high SAT levels than it is at the low SAT levels. Contrary to what a lot of the critics seem to assume.

Put another way, removing from the applicant pool or from the accepted group, those African American students with the lower SAT scores, which I presume is what some people want us to do, would not address the problem of the performance gap. The performance gap problems, which is a serious problem, which we need to work on is more pronounced, if anything at the higher SAT levels and when we...well, I don't know why that is.

I do agree that there are risks in consideration of race and that consideration of race can be abused as can consideration of anything else. And so that is why, at least for me, it is important to combine the flexibility and the freedom to exercise judgment and to consider race along with other factors with a clear obligation to be accountable. To look at the results of what you have done and see if there are results that you can defend and are satisfied with. And if there are not, then you ought to change your policy.

And if the results of our study had shown, for example, the African American student admitted to the most selective schools with SATs in, let's say, the 1100 range were doing poorly, after school especially, in life and in contributing to society, then I would have said wait a minute. Maybe we are not following good practices. Let's look again. But that is not what the data show.

What would you say to someone like Sheryl Hopwood when she turns and says, "Look, I was poor and I worked hard all my life and here I get a certain score and someone who gets a lower score was admitted."

What I say to Sheryl Hopwood or to any disappointed white applicant is that I understand your disappointment. I really do, and if there were more places for a well-qualified candidate, we would have been happy to have you as many of the minority candidates who were also disappointed and turned away.

But the fact is, very hard choices have to be made in the admission process. And they have to be made not on the basis of who has achieved a certain test score result at this point in their lives, but on the basis of which set of applicants will really contribute most to the quality of education at this institution and to the larger purposes for American society, to the need of the society for diverse leadership that have got to be taken into account.

The purpose of admissions is not to confer rewards, not to distribute goodies. It is, rather, to advance broad social objectives. The very objectives that have been used since the beginning to justify public support for these schools. To justify tax exemption because they are thought to serve purposes that are important in a democracy. I believe that they do.

With regard to Indian students on SAT - anecodatal evidence shows that it is mostly a good score. But then Desis are outstanding test takers.

Anecdotal evidence proves nothing; too many posters here rely on anecdotes to feed their delusions. Secondly, comparing the scores of a small sub-section of desis, the largely well-educated desi immigrants and their children in America or Australia to the general population there, does not prove that "Desis are outstanding test takers". Actually desis in general score well below the global average in IQ tests. Below hispanics and african-americans. And thirdly, as the Princeton President quoted above said: "The performance gap problems, which is a serious problem, which we need to work on is more pronounced, if anything at the higher SAT levels". In other words there are performance issues among those who score the highest. Like I said in the beginning, above a certain level the well rounded individual is a better prospect than a nose-picking nerd who scored very high. If you want an elite of bookworms, rote learners and test takers you could very well end up with a gigantic failure such as the Indian Civil Service.

I forgot to mention that people of color who are considered at Yale/Princeton generally DO NOT have lower test scores than anyone else. They generally cluster around the same area. Really, I would like to see someone do a comprehensive study of the kinds of legacy kids, athletic scholars, etc., who are admitted, analyze by race, average their test scores and then tell me that the system is somehow geared to "merit." A narrow definition is inherently binding, inflexible, and unuseful.

melbournedesi, I honestly don't see how your hypothetical on the "fairness" of the SAT would work. I don't understand why it is impossible to believe that the SAT, as it exists today, is NOT a fair test. Also, I wasn't trying to imply that kids are stupid or that they cannot read. I was speaking to the fact that the educational system is NOT meeting the needs of all the children it serves (for a variety of reasons), and consequently the SAT could not possibly determine someone's capacity for learning.

Also, like I said, I went to the top public university in the country (which is banned from using AA - a proposition passed in '96 and took effect for the class of '97), but the lack of AA has had HUGE economic consequences for the state. I can guarantee you that if AA were legalized it would be reinstated as policy -- it already has been voted to be reinstated in the event that voters decide to repeal the ban on affirmative action. Here is my (only) gripe with AA in college admissions -- it generally continues to benefit "elites," just people of color elites. So when the enrollment of people of color dropped significantly, we weren't just losing those folks because they were going to schools that were "less prestigious" (please excuse the elitism, I'm just using it for illustration). They were going to Stanford, Harvard, Yale -- schools that were ponying up both the financial aid and the support to encourage minority enrollment. There is something to be said about the "critical mass" presumption.

And please, let me remind you that AA in this country exists largely because the U.S. Military testified to its necessity when it came up for reexamination in 2003.

Camille : Thank you for the responses. Let us agree to disagree. Peace :)

Prema : I meant desi in the sense of migrant desi.

The Gujjars in Pakistan get treated really badly too. They have been mostly pushed into the remote mountains. Not sure if Indians realize that there is Gujjars in pakistan too.

Camille : Thank you for the responses. Let us agree to disagree. Peace :)