If you oppose DEI consider the following:
Student 1’s GPA is 3.9 but has rich parents, world class schooling & tutors
Student 2’s GPA is 3.8 but is poor & his neighborhood is filled w/ crime & bad schools
Should 2’s circumstances at least be considered in admission decisions?

https://x.com/RedmondBarry7/status/2111283548397195698

This does not exist anywhere on the planet. The whole situation is completely invented. However, I still want to answer the question as a matter of principle.

No, the “circumstances” should not be considered. When you sit down at a restaurant table, go into a hospital for surgery, take a seat in an airplane, or engage in any professional encounter with other people, you do not consider their “circumstances.” You don’t read everybody’s life story before buying tomatoes, renting an apartment, picking up a book, or scheduling a dental exam with, by or from them. It doesn’t matter how hard anybody tried. Only the result matters.

This is actually a great thing. It’s very liberating. It liberates us from the hubris of believing we can judge people’s lives on the basis of a couple of superficial characteristics. It liberates us from using other people as screens onto which we project our ego concerns. Having a boundary between the public and the private, the process and the result, is a great thing.

5 responses to “The Process vs the Result”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    The idea is that student 2 is much smarter than student 1, but because of his hard situation his grades are a little lower.

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  2. el Avatar
    el

    You would want student 2 as your doctor or pilot, but w/o DEI would get the mediocrity of student 1 instead of student 2’s excellence.

    // This does not exist anywhere on the planet.

    Why?

    Re DEI, it does exist in Israel, which results in many Arab students being admitted to study medicine in Israeli universities.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      The talented student in a crime ridden neighborhood is a fantasy. Also, grades at a crappy school are worth less than grades at a good school. It’s possible to be completely illiterate and graduate with Honors from a crappy school. I can link to real cases of this:

      https://www.fox10tv.com/2025/02/28/former-high-school-honors-student-who-says-she-cant-read-write-sues-district-where-she-graduated/?outputType=amp

      Liked by 1 person

  3.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    The problem with the quoted example is that the difference between 3.9 and 3.8 GPA is essentially meaningless. What kind of admission are we talking about, graduate or undergraduate? Is that GPA from the same school/program? The 0.1 different in GPA simply does not determine admission decisions, there is more that goes into it and the example is disingenuous.
    random reader

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  4. blackbeard2391 Avatar
    blackbeard2391

    Exactly right.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor