Most favorable URM for affirmative action? Forum

[Wart]

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[vanwinkle]

I suspect I'll need to keep the hammer handy.

No debating AA. You can discuss how it works, but not why or whether it's "right". Just keep that in mind.

[admisionquestion]

AA NA MEX LAT

[Wart]

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[PDaddy]

I suspect I'll need to keep the hammer handy.

No debating AA. You can discuss how it works, but not why or whether it's "right". Just keep that in mind.

Not sure how you thought my question was inducing debate. to be clear, that's not my goal. So, your thoughts Van?

This thread just reeks of a covert attempt - a bad one at that - to get an AA debate going without being held accountable for it.

My question to OP would be "What difference does it make to you?" If you are a non-URM, my suspicions are confirmed. What noble reason would you have for discussing any theoretical "pecking order" in AA admissions?

If you are a URM, knowing and understanding the pecking order - if one even exists - for URM's in law admissions will do absolutely nothing but provide an incentive for certain URM's and non-URM's to spill their venom. It's a lose-lose. We have worn this topic to death.

Please shut this thread down. I am really sick of anti-AA threads on this board, and feel that TLS should ban or call a moratorium on them for a few years.

As a collective, we all have bigger problems to worry about, such as how to get the law schools that have been scamming us (Villanova, Illinois, and virtually every other accredited law school, I suspect) to behave. That affects all of us and our futures. If you are looking for something to get upset about, get upset about THAT.

[kahechsof]

Just curious, what order would you put native american, African American, Mexican, Latino, pacific islander in as far as biggest boost in chances of acceptance? Include any other URMs I'm missing.

Why, do you have the ability to claim all 5?

[admisionquestion]

I don't understand. What is everyone freaking out about. Genuinely not familiar. seems odd that everyone is freaking out about the possibility of a debate...clearly there is some history here...

[mrloblaw]

Wouldn't NA get a huge boost? I've been in two law schools, and I've never seen one.

[kahechsof]

I don't understand. What is everyone freaking out about. Genuinely not familiar. seems odd that everyone is freaking out about the possibility of a debate...clearly there is some history here...

In this forum, we don't talk about AA. We only talk about talking about it. Then we freak out.

[PDaddy]

I don't understand. What is everyone freaking out about. Genuinely not familiar. seems odd that everyone is freaking out about the possibility of a debate...clearly there is some history here...

In this forum, we don't talk about AA. We only talk about talking about it. Then we freak out.

Your naïveté is somewhat insulting, even if you are not a longtime/experienced TLSer. For all we know, you and OP are probably "alts" who were once banned for starting conflicts and getting way out of line.

If you're smart enough to even apply to law school, you're smart enough to figure out why we don't want this topic raised. If not, do a little research and you'll find out why everyone is "freaking out".

As far as URM/AA debates, we have been there and done that. If you really want one, I'll give you one...but I promise you, you'll go to bed pissed off and re-evaluating your life. No AA debates, please.

And quit asking "why". It reads like a kid asking his mom and dad why he can't do something, when his parents know it will only end in disaster.

[admisionquestion]

You literally just said that I am not smart enough to go to law school. Please apologize.

I really honestly do not understand why you could possibly not want "this" topic raised. Especially since I do not even know what "this topic" is.

I can imagine two possible things "this" could be:

1. Trolls or racists talking shit about black people.
2. An endless and unproductive discussion on the fairness of the URM boost system.


1. Is obviously bad news, but not a reason to censure a topic. In person I would say its a reason to bring up a topic, so that the racist idiots will expose themselves...and then can be either educated or avoided.

2. Seems annoying but not worthy of all this hurrah.

[bdubs]

This is tough to answer because the only clearly identifiable group of any size is African Americans.

Native American applicants are a very small group, and generally are a small portion of the US population.

Mexican and Puerto Rican applicants are a large group, but they are frequently hard to distinguish (on LSN at least) from all others of Hispanic origin who may not get the same affirmative action treatment.

LSN provides a poor gauge to see how disparately affirmative action impacts any one group relative to another. Since LSN is essentially the only freely available source of information on applicants admissions statistics and outcomes, you will probably never know the true answer to this question.

There are a few studies on LSAC that relate to minority applicants, but they are frequently unhelpful for those on this site who are actually looking to go to "top law schools" because they look at all applicants to all schools.

[lsatisevil]

I suspect I'll need to keep the hammer handy.



Please shut this thread down. I am really sick of anti-AA threads on this board, and feel that TLS should ban or call a moratorium on them for a few years.

hmm. You can choose to read a debate in cyberspace about affirmative action. Stop acting like a victim. The marketplace of ideas kinda loses its purpose if we close down threads like this.

[mrloblaw]

You literally just said that I am not smart enough to go to law school. Please apologize.

I really honestly do not understand why you could possibly not want "this" topic raised. Especially since I do not even know what "this topic" is.

I can imagine two possible things "this" could be:

1. Trolls or racists talking shit about black people.
2. An endless and unproductive discussion on the fairness of the URM boost system.


1. Is obviously bad news, but not a reason to censure a topic. In person I would say its a reason to bring up a topic, so that the racist idiots will expose themselves...and then can be either educated or avoided.

2. Seems annoying but not worthy of all this hurrah.

The short answer is that the powers that be have deemed AA debates off topic, I'd imagine because they tend to be incredibly incisive and ugly, even when people are not purposefully projecting prejudice (try saying that ten times fast . . .).

While I'm not one to skirt controversy, we're rather left with no choice but to abide, this being a private interweb site and all (i.e. it isn't a "free marketplace of ideas").

With that said, even as a non-URM, I am curious as to which students do, in fact, get the biggest bump. I just don't know any way to get legitimate data, as the above-poster mentioned.

[admisionquestion]

Can someone please link me to the policy regarding this. I don't want to break any TLS rools...

[bk1]

Can someone please link me to the policy regarding this. I don't want to break any TLS rools...

http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 0&t=146657

[tehrocstar]

I think the concern is that we can only speculate, and the thread will like end with a discussion of whether such policies are right/wrong. There's a reason why there's a ban on these topics, people are very bold online. There are going to be people who have strong opinions about URM and AA.

[bk1]

Conventional wisdom is that AA > NA >> MX/PR >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Everything Else.

Pacific Islander is not a URM.

[birdlaw117]

Please shut this thread down. I am really sick of anti-AA threads on this board, and feel that TLS should ban or call a moratorium on them for a few years.

I feel like this is pretty unnecessary. While debating the merits of Affirmative Action is clearly off-topic for this entire forum, discussing URMs in the context of law school admissions is very necessary. Anti-AA comments are simply an inevitable evil that comes along with that discussion. But that's why we have mods who can deal with the situation when it comes up. We don't need to preemptively shut down a thread for fear of an anti-AA comment.

[KremeCheez]

I know it is NOT smokers (g'damn it) and I know it is NOT "to-be" 30 year old 1Ls (g'damn it).
Other than that - I don't know and I don't care. Sorry.

[PDaddy]

You literally just said that I am not smart enough to go to law school.

Please apologize.

I really honestly do not understand why you could possibly not want "this" topic raised. Especially since I do not even know what "this topic" is.

I just said the opposite: that you are smart enough to both go to law school and figure out why people don't want AA debates. No apology warranted for that.

[20121109]

Please shut this thread down. I am really sick of anti-AA threads on this board, and feel that TLS should ban or call a moratorium on them for a few years.

I feel like this is pretty unnecessary. While debating the merits of Affirmative Action is clearly off-topic for this entire forum, discussing URMs in the context of law school admissions is very necessary. Anti-AA comments are simply an inevitable evil that comes along with that discussion. But that's why we have mods who can deal with the situation when it comes up. We don't need to preemptively shut down a thread for fear of an anti-AA comment.

Yeah...if the thread gets out of control the mods will handle it. Someone making a request in bold type will not induce any mod to lock a thread, or make any other moderation decision.

Also, if anyone still has any questions, please see below:

Below is the relevant information for this thread.

A (non-exclusive) list of highly bannable offenses:

(1-7)
8. Anything that incites AA debates in on-topic forums. Ban length varies by intent, but obvious things can prompt very long bans.

Reasons for having a strict AA policy:

On-topic forums are for people to seek help, and constant flamewars about whether AA/diversity boosts are politically or morally right don't help anybody. The OP would end up never getting help, so this is strictly prohibited now. This includes comments that you find AA disgusting, offensive, etc. The on-topic forums are not the right place to share these political views. How long a ban you get will depend on how intentionally flaming your comment is, but even borderline/unintentional statements might still get a short ban in order to halt any potential debate.

Not good enough for you?

People have complained about this before and frankly, the mods have decided that although we hear your concerns, this is not community moderation. We make the final decisions and our policy has not changed. Sorry. Below are some thoughts that I think sum it up quite nicely.

Speaking only for myself here:

I tend to be far on the free speech side of things, but there is no TLS Constitution, and there are no fundamental rights here that people can wave around to combat mod team decisions with. Also I take issue with acting like this is the mods punishing the intellectually curious. We treat racial topics differently because we've seen this happen consistently, over several years, and frankly we're sick of dealing with the bullshit and fallout. If that means sacrificing some marginal bit of freedom for poster x to detail how reverse racism is the worst thing evar, so be it, but we have community standards/dynamics to worry about, and we've decided that that's worth more than letting these kinds of threads degenerate into the inevitably fruitless flamewar in the name of some phantom intellectual freedom.

Posting a thread that will probably devolve into an aa debate used to get your thread kicked to the lounge, but years ago the mods got sick of reading the same tired arguments and just started locking. It's hardly thought policing; we all have very different views on aa, the only thing we have in common is that we don't care about any of your views on aa.

If you still have an issue with it, feel free to complain using the link provided earlier in the thread.

[PDaddy]

I suspect I'll need to keep the hammer handy.

Please shut this thread down. I am really sick of anti-AA threads on this board, and feel that TLS should ban or call a moratorium on them for a few years.

hmm. You can choose to read a debate in cyberspace about affirmative action. Stop acting like a victim. The marketplace of ideas kinda loses its purpose if we close down threads like this.

I don't play the victim, and I am all for the "marketplace of ideas". I just don't like old, stale, "spoiled" ideas. The AA debate is played out.

Also, I see the tactic: bait, bait, and bait again. If you cannot bait people into an AA discussion, bait them into discussing why they won't debate AA, thereby indirectly baiting them into an AA debate.

Goodbye...

[kahechsof]

I don't play the victim, and I am all for the "marketplace of ideas". I just don't like old, stale, "spoiled" ideas. The AA debate is played out.

Also, I see the tactic: bait, bait, and bait again. If you cannot bait people into an AA discussion, bait them into discussing why they won't debate AA, thereby baiting thewm into a discussion about AA.

Goodbye...

Yes, you sound exactly like someone who is bored a discussion. Not at all like someone who is offended by a line of reasoning.

[Wart]

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