Would those children identify themselves as caucasian? Obviously not. [ETA: And there are a few assumptions in your question. Does being wealthy and raised by Brad and Angelina preclude one from identifying with MA/PR/AA culture? These things are not mutually exclusive. In the example I gave, I spoke about Barack who was raised by a single white mom and white grandparents in Hawaii and clearly identifies with the black culture. Despite that, I definitely agree that the issue at hand is ethnicity and not culture in the traditional sense. Culture is a word that can be taken many ways as this thread shows.]howlery wrote:And, as someone else just said, the culture one identifies with is irrelevant. Do wealthy MA, PR, and AA applicants not count if they were raised by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt? Obviously not.
I figured everyone would know what I meant, but I guess saying "identify with" (I said ethnicity and culture, but culture was just used additionally to differentiate BO with Ortiz & Ramirez) may be worded better as "identify as". What I mean is this: If I ask you if you're black what would you tell me? If I ask you if you're Dominican what would you tell me? And so on, and so on. It's that simple. If in a casual conversation, a Dominican would tell me that they are black, that's perfectly fine. But if they wouldn't and then all of a sudden they're applying to law school and want to check the black box, that's disgustingly immoral and as DaRascal said is "a blatant subversion of the intent of the URM boost." An AA URM boost is intended to get more AAs into the legal profession. Having a Hispanic check that box does not accomplish that objective. By the same logic used in some of this thread, half of Brazil should be checking the Black/African-American box as well. It's been a long time since Philosophy class, but I believe Kant's Categorical Imperative applies here.
TL;DR If you even for a split second have to think about whether you should check a certain ethnicity box, the answer is no. That box is not meant for you. This is not something anyone should have to think about. Tell them what you would tell them you are if you were not applying to law school.