It’s pretty straightforward. If you’re an elite, Ivy institution whose brand is all about mingling with “future leaders” and the ruling class of tomorrow, the rise of poor and working-class Asian children of immigrants who’ve been absolutely crushing the SATs presents a big problem. If something like half of an incoming class is composed of these students, it makes it difficult for admissions offices to include enough children of the current (largely white) elite, who will go on to be in influential positions in politics, media, finance, etc. in the next generation (and will be donors, influential alumni, etc.). This is not only *not* about admitting more poor black and brown kids, it’s about keeping the “merely” bright kids of laundromat and bodega owners from diluting the social capital of the Ivy league “experience.” It is deeply classist on an axis that is also, alas, racist. It is also about keeping elite college presidents from having to testify in front of the Supreme Court (reputation management – like stock price – being the obsessive goal of any executive board or body).
yeah…. like it just occurred to me, harvard discriminates against asians seems true because of how asians seem to disproportionately get rejected for “bad personality” or whatever… but President Xi’s daughter went to harvard, and I’m sure her chances of admission were better than others with similar test scores. So maybe the admisions ppl were using asian names as a heuristic, which would be racial discrimination, but it does seem plausible, as the comment suggests, that the purpose of this is as a proxy for wealth/influence of the family
I wonder how these considerations figure into the long-standing Republican project to end racial preferences in university admissions. Like on the one hand, the Republicans is the party of the elite (captains of industry etc), but on the other hand I guess they are generally unhappy with the current institutions of elite production. Maybe it’s a winning move to just wreck some random havoc, and hope that whatever state things settle down in afterwards will be more favorable?
this is basically exactly what Jewish quotas were about back in the day
just remembered a fic on AO3 (or more likely LJ because it had that distinct 00’s experimental vibe) that appeared double-spaced oddly, in that some paragraphs would be spaced normally and others would have double or even triple spaces in between. it was about one half of the otp getting over the other’s death (or coma, can’t remember which), so all the comments were about how poignant the use of visual spacing was as a means to convey all the emotional holes in the character’s life.
and then the author replied like… *giggle* guys it’s NOT double spaced. try selecting the whole text
and we were all like “no WAY”
but we selected the text, and yes!!!
the “holes” in the story? they were actually lines and actions from the dead/coma character’s ghost, rendered invisible to the eye by the simple trick of coloring the text the exact same as the background, revealed by nothing more than a click and a drag of the mouse
a story about the profound loneliness of losing your the partner of your life and having to make do without them, without anything to fill the holes they’d left behind, suddenly became a story about the profound helplessness of seeing someone you love suffer from your absence while you are right there, unable to do anything about it, unable to communicate that you love them enough to suffer unseen and unheard with them, just to keep them company they’ll never know about
it was then that I truly realized how *superior* the digital medium is to plain printed paper, how the medium and the format can add to a story.
I think about that fic about once a year. I wish I could find it again
Shadow of Memory, on the PlayStation 1. That’s the best time travel complex-web-of-timelines story I’ve ever seen, and it could only be done as a video game, because the different timelines were created between save files. Playing multiple games to make all the different choices was the only way to uncover the full story.
The first few games I played of it, I grew to depend on one part where you have to go to the town square at one point, and shake off your would-be assassin by drumming up a crowd to watch a musician. Except it was weird, because firstly, you’re lying when you tell people there will be a musician - he comes out of nowhere. And secondly, at the end of the set, the mysterious musician throws you a plot-relevant object. There’s no explanation for this.
On my third or fourth play through, I made a different earlier choice, found the plot-relevant object earlier, and then became the musician. I had to throw the object to myself across the square. In this playthrough, I was never standing on the other side of the square. I was reaching across game files.
Don’t get me wrong, WW2 was a tragedy. But we have gotten some truly epic games and movies out of it, and for that I will always salute my fallen brothers.
Anti-abortion Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert has said that her 17-year-old son will make her a grandmother in April. She also gave her thoughts on abortion rights and praised the “rural conservative communities” that “value life.”
Boebert was talking at an event hosted by conservative non-profit Moms for America, as per a video shared by Twitter account PatriotTakes. She said that one of her four sons, 17-year-old Tyler, and his girlfriend are expecting a baby boy.
“Now, any of you who have young children who are giving life, there’s some questions that pop up. There’s some fear that arises,” the 36-year-old Colorado congresswoman said.
“There’s something special about rural conservative communities,” Boebert continued. “They value life. If you look at teen pregnancy rates throughout the nation, well, they’re the same, [in] rural and urban areas. However, abortion rates are higher in urban areas. Teen moms’ rates are higher in rural conservative areas, because they understand the preciousness of a life that it’s about to be born.”
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), teen birth rates (births per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19 years) have been declining since 1991. However, the U.S. remains one of the countries with the highest rates in the developing world. The CDC recognizes that there are geographical differences in teen birth rates but it finds social determinants such as low education and low income levels of a teen’s family to have the greater impact on these numbers.
A 2012 study by Physical Review B (PRB) found that teen girls of lower socioeconomic status in regions of high-income inequality were more likely to get on with the pregnancy rather than seeking an abortion.
A 2019 study published in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) suggested that teen birth rates in rural areas might be higher than in urban areas because teens might be vulnerable to “local conditions that limit unintended pregnancy management options.” Teens living in rural areas often face large geographical barriers to access abortion providers—a difficulty that’s been exacerbated by a proliferation of abortion bans in Republican-led states.
The CDC also reports the impact that teen pregnancies have on the girls’ lives: only 50 percent of teen mothers receive a high school diploma before the age of 22. Among women who don’t give birth in their teens, this number goes up to 90 percent.
A 2008 study mentioned by the CDC also studied the impact of teen pregnancies on the children. The offspring of teen moms are more likely to have lower school achievement or drop out of school; have more health problems; be incarcerated in their teens; and give birth as teenagers themselves.
Boebert was a teen mom herself and had to drop out of high school because of her pregnancy.
Ick, there’s some weird motion and social stuff springing off in my brain, but it’s not enough to totally break through, which makes it pretty uncomfortable to soldier through actually.
Yeah okay woah, I thought the mental stuff was through this echo already but apparently there were whole areas it hadn’t got to yet. Sorry, readers, I fear I’m gonna be a little off for a bit.
*says a fact in a conversation and a wikipedia citation appears next to my head*
*clicks the citation*
*text pops up saying “this is not true. He saw this in a youtube video once in 2014 and took it as fact”. the words “youtube video” are underlined and in blue”
