> created a system so fair

I think that's really begging one of the important questions here. _Is_ the system fair now?

The system clearly wasn't originally fair (when elite schools excluded women, people of color, etc).

They became more open after decades of struggle driven in large part from the outside, and helped along by the GI bill, as well as a broader shift towards getting more public funds.

The demographics have changed, but to the degree that it's more fair, is that because WASPs created them that way, or because women and other racial groups changed society more broadly?

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eli_gottlieb 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

>I think that's really begging one of the important questions here. _Is_ the system fair now?

Define "fair" for a system designed not only to filter an elite out of the rest of society, but in fact to have that elite's size remain detached from larger demographic trends. Is it fair for Zoomers to have an easier time in college admissions than Millennials, while being subject to what are supposedly stronger DEI measures?

What, in fact, do we think this system ought to be aiming for, and how is that fair?

For the moment it seems to me that the system is arbitrary and we're being fooled, in a way, into imposing conceptions of fairness and/or merit onto it that it really aimed at and which always served more as happy-face masks for the arbitrary organizational shoggoth underneath.

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rayiner 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s critical to distinguish between being open to outsiders when you have the power to exclude them, versus advocating in your own interest to be included. Everyone advocates for their own inclusion when they have no power—that’s just human self interest. But such advocacy can’t create a fair system, by definition. Minorities and immigrants exist everywhere and advocate for themselves. But most societies don’t allow them to advance. Uyghurs in China can say whatever they want, but it won’t make a difference.

WASPs were unusual in creating systems that saw openness to outsiders as a virtue, and then actually giving up their own power to allow others into the institutions they built. The first black Harvard student was admitted in 1847. Two Japanese students got a degree from Harvard law school in 1874. But if you look at societies where African and Asian people have the power to exclude, those places aren’t very open to outsiders.

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abeppu 6 days ago | parent [-]

> WASPs were unusual in creating systems that saw openness to outsiders as a virtue

In your view, did that view of openness to outsiders as a virtue manifest in other ways? It's been a while since I had to study the period but the colonial northeast was perennially at war with the native population and French Canadian colonists. E.g. it seems Harvard was founded during the Pequot war. In that same year of 1636, Roger Williams set up Rhode Island because he had been banished from Massachusetts after being convicted of heresy. So in general, it seems like WASPs were founding schools in an environment where being native, French, or indeed the wrong kind of Anglo-Puritan was worth attacking. I'm not seeing the openness to outsiders.

> The first black Harvard student was admitted in 1847.

Harvard was founded in 1636, so it seems like they went a full two centuries with total segregation before it finally admitted _one guy_. Again, not so much a culturally inculcated openness to outsiders so much as a slightly imperfect execution of exclusion.

> But if you look at societies where African and Asian people have the power to exclude, those places aren’t very open to outsiders.

I'm trying to think of what a fair comparison would be. I do think there's a meaningful difference between a dominant/imperial power that (begrudgingly, slowly) allows room for its own citizens of diverse racial backgrounds, vs a previously colonized or dominated country making space for foreign powers.

So e.g. the oldest university in Asia is University of Santo Tomas, which was founded by the Spanish colonizers and is a Catholic university, and I think was under Spanish governance until the Philippine Revolution. Should the new fledgling country have made sure that it saved space for white students? I'm not sure whether they actually did, but I think that's a very different ethical question than, "should Harvard/Yale/Brown in New England built on native land with wealth substantially built off the triangle trade, admit BIPOC students?". The oldest "university" in the modern sense in China is Tainjin University, founded in 1895; i.e. they didn't have a university until a couple generations after the 2nd opium war. Should it have saved space for foreign students? The first "universities" in India were founded during British rule. Etc etc.

But where there _isn't_ a strong power imbalance, I would be curious to see historical examples of any group having an especially better or worse record on inclusion.

	▲	rayiner 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I'm trying to think of what a fair comparison would be. You should be able to think of a dozen examples off the top of your head. Virtually every society has minorities and immigrant groups (which have nothing to do with colonial history). > I do think there's a meaningful difference between a dominant/imperial power that (begrudgingly, slowly) allows room for its own citizens of diverse racial backgrounds Why would a dominant power ever make room for people outside their in-group? Where does that notion even come from? That's not how most societies work. Some multi-ethnic empires in history showed various degrees of tolerance for outgroups (e.g. Muslims that ruled over the Indian subcontinent imposed jizya on non-Muslims only some of the time). But you have to go back to the Romans to find a major power that allowed outside ethnicities to rise to the uppermost reaches of society (without being conquered by outside groups). You can't explain the unusual inclusiveness of American society by pointing to anything minorities did. Minorities always advocate in their own interest--that's commonplace, but almost never works. The Uyghurs can tell the Chinese "we don't want to be oppressed" all they want, but that's not persuasive to the Chinese because that's just an expression of self-interest. It's not contrary to the self interest of the Chinese for the Uyghurs to be oppressed. The unusual thing is the dominant group actually giving up power voluntarily. For that to happen, there must be something in the dominant culture to which minorities can appeal, something that can be used to persuade the dominant group to give up its own self interest.