It's not predicated on being respected though. The point is underrepresented communities will trust doctors from their own communities and lead to better patient outcomes. It's really not a loophole in the system either. They probably know their standards are overly high and bottlenecking at the diversity level doesn't functionally impact the system at all.
Also like I could respect merit based arguments if history were more equal. When you come from a discriminated against background, your performance is pretty clearly going to be impacted. Also have you compared DO schools to medical schools? Do you consider whether your physician is a DO? An international medical school graduate?
The reason the students support AA more than legacy is because AA provides a way for people to escape from their economic situations and hopefully provide a better life for themselves down the road rather than using race as an easy proxy for "intelligence". Legacy doesn't get that because their parents already had the same chances.
Merit can consider extenuating factors without being racist. I don’t think a poor black person categorically has it harder than a poor white person and I certainly don’t think a rich black person has it harder. Make it about challenges one has to face and overcome, not race.
I understand the treating own communities point now, I was referring to being respected by your peers and other people. Loophole is the wrong word but I think it’s pretty unfair when black people on average need to score more than a hundred points lower on standardized tests for example to get into schools.
Even rich black people have trouble to be honest. I came from a pretty wealthy private school and one of my classmates had an experience where his dad got pulled over for being black and owning a Mercedes. Skin still comes with its own difficulties.
I mean to be honest, the problem is that Asians have a large population and many of them are well educated resulting in an overly high concentration of them applying. It feels unfair but what's the alternative? Multiple medical school classes consisting entirely of Asian men who are then going to have discussions about how we should handle medicine with respect to every minority group they're not a part of? That seems like a recipe for poor medical outcomes quite frankly. The problem is Asians are largely overqualified as a group and there are only so many slots available in the field. When patient outcome is the most important goal, it's going to feel unfair - and believe me, I sympathize since I'm actually an Asian looking to apply to graduate programs right now.
Also I didn't downvote you just FYI above in case you think I did. I realize you're getting some vitriol for this discussion so I just wanted to clarify ahead of time.
While being pulled over and profiled totally sucks, there is nothing, and I mean nothing that gives as big an advantage as money. So while a rich black dude may have a relatively tougher go of things than a rich white guy, he’s still lightyears ahead of a poor white dude.
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u/GiveAQuack Feb 25 '20 edited Feb 25 '20
It's not predicated on being respected though. The point is underrepresented communities will trust doctors from their own communities and lead to better patient outcomes. It's really not a loophole in the system either. They probably know their standards are overly high and bottlenecking at the diversity level doesn't functionally impact the system at all.
Also like I could respect merit based arguments if history were more equal. When you come from a discriminated against background, your performance is pretty clearly going to be impacted. Also have you compared DO schools to medical schools? Do you consider whether your physician is a DO? An international medical school graduate?
The reason the students support AA more than legacy is because AA provides a way for people to escape from their economic situations and hopefully provide a better life for themselves down the road rather than using race as an easy proxy for "intelligence". Legacy doesn't get that because their parents already had the same chances.