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The political decision by the UC Board of Regents to suspend ACT and SAT test requirements despite their faculty taskforce recommending they keep them makes little sense. Unless you look at the history of efforts to overcome group disparities education. *Thread* https://twitter.com/UofCalifornia/status/1263600620616871943">https://twitter.com/UofCalifo...
Professor Linda Gottfredson observes most policy makers subscribe to social privilege theory. They believe SAT outcomes reflect socioeconomic background. That ethnic disparities reflect these and systematic discrimination.
However, if you control for income and parental education group disparities persist. Also, discrimination does not prevent Asians outperforming other groups.
Gottfredson notes siblings who grow up in the same home are much less alike than social privilege theory would predict. On average siblings differ by 12 IQ points. Identical twins raised apart have similar IQ scores. Adoptive siblings are no more alike than strangers.
The US has made various steps to overcome these gaps. This initially started with efforts to provide equal resources and assigning students to schools evenly by race.
However, disparities still arose. For example, the @usedgov under Obama and @ACLU pressured districts to address racial disparities in advanced placement classes and the use of tracking. https://qz.com/289843/60-years-late-the-us-is-finally-trying-to-desegregate-its-classrooms/">https://qz.com/289843/60...
Policy makers also responded to the theory by John Ogbu that equal resources are not enough. Black and Hispanic students need the emotional support that Whites and Asians must be getting to feel welcome. Multicultural education, cultural centres, speech codes implemented.
Affirmative action policies began in the 1960& #39;s. In 2003, Supreme Court Justice Sandra
Day O& #39;Connor stated: "We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest [in student body diversity] approved today.
Day O& #39;Connor stated: "We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest [in student body diversity] approved today.
However, Proposition 209 banned the use of racial preferences in admissions at public colleges in California in 1996. These charts highlight the drop in Black and Latino representation.
This is despite various efforts to increase student "diversity" via outreach, holistic admissions, changes to the SAT, in 2013 UCLA freshman class was 43% Asian American, 26% White, 21% Latino and 3.5% African American.
In contrast, the NBA where black players were banned until 1950, in 2015 the ethnic composition is 74.4% Black, 23.8% White, 1.8% Latino and .02% Asian.
Gottfredson points out there is a parallel issue in employment. According to social privilege theory ethnic imbalances are seen as prima facie evidence of illegal discrimination.
This has led to efforts to eliminate hiring criteria that results in disparate impact. However, criteria that are most predictive for cognitively demanding roles produce greater ethnic disparities (Wax 2011 Disparate Impact Realism)
Wax proposes abolishing the disparate impact law as the data shows pronounced differences in the distribution of skill and human capital, not arbitrary tests, are the reason for ethnic imbalances. Efforts should be directed at the root causes. But what are the root causes?
Gottfredson also points out that social privilege neglects the reality of average differences in skills, human capital or more particularly g which she refers to here as learning ability. In denying this overrepresented groups will be blamed for something they can& #39;t help.
Social privilege theory also dictates that testing criteria will be watered down to achieve arbitrary diversity targets. Lee Kuan Yew is one leader who has been honest about this dilemma.
But maybe @UofCalifornia could recognise there is value in respecting the rights of each individual, including those of Asian and White students not to be discriminated against in admissions 
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