Progressives Sneak Race Quotas Into Privacy Rights Act of 2024

[psk836]

https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/04/a ... uota-bill/

"The bill, called the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024 (APRA), does have a lot to say about privacy. It’s the result of hard negotiation between companies who make money from personal data and their Congressional critics. But when it comes to quotas, there was no one negotiating for the proposition that Americans should be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Instead, the drafters seized on the fear of biased algorithms to adopt a provision essentially banning the use of an algorithm that causes harm. And harm is defined as “disparate impact” on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, or disability,” (plus, weirdly, “political party registration status”). Those modest-sounding words are a magical incantation to summon quotas, because avoiding disparate impact means ensuring that benefits are divided up by identity — racial minorities and women must be more or less proportionally represented.

So, in the name of preventing bias, APRA imposes quotas. And it imposes them everywhere. The mandate applies whenever a human being uses a computer and personal data to help make a decision. It covers practically all businesses and nonprofits. So if Harvard wants to get its old quota system back, it just needs to enter applicants’ data in a computer, rank the applicants using GPA and SAT scores, then look to see if that algorithm has a “disparate impact” on some groups. The law says that’s a harm that must be mitigated – and it provides immunity from claims of race discrimination to any mitigation aimed at “diversifying” a pool of participants, such as Harvard’s freshman class.

And there you have it. Harvard’s old admissions policy is legal again – maybe even mandatory. And, not satisfied with that result, the drafters decided to apply identity politics to decisions that affect access to practically every scarce product or service in the country — “housing, education, employment, healthcare, insurance, or credit.”

This wasn’t a mistake. I’ve written about similar language in a similar bill in the last Congress, when Democratic and Republican members of the House commerce committee approved it by an overwhelming 53-2 vote. I can only conclude that the Democrats wanted the quota mandate and the Republicans didn’t think that their business constituents would care as long as they couldn’t be sued for obeying it.

Nobody was negotiating for the roughly three-quarters of Americans who think that it’s wrong to make decisions based on race or religion or gender."

[Chester Cheesewright]

negotiating for the proposition that Americans should be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

► We can’t put corporations on the honor system, or they’ll soon have no honor

[psk836]

You mean like our government, and our colleges, universities, and public school systems?

I’ll take the merit system every time, and even force it on our public schools so that in another generation brown kids might actually have a chance to earn their way off the plantation (the opportunity for which they have been denied for 150 years).

[nolaxride]

You mean like our government, and our colleges, universities, and public school systems?

I’ll take the merit system every time, and even force it on our public schools so that in another generation brown kids might actually have a chance to earn their way off the plantation (the opportunity for which they have been denied for 150 years).

Equality in education would provide equality of opportunity. And until then, I don't see an issue with Harvard's policy.

The average SAT score at Harvard is 1520 out of 1600, with the 25th percentile at 1460 and the 75th percentile at 1570. The average score for the class of 2025 was 1523 for legacy students and 1491 for non-legacy students. The average SAT score of students with family income under $40,000 was 1443, while those with a family income of more than $500,000 averaged 1520.

Today's educational system is not providing equality of opportunity.

[Chester Cheesewright]

You mean like our government, and our colleges, universities, and public school systems?

I’ll take the merit system every time, and even force it on our public schools so that in another generation brown kids might actually have a chance to earn their way off the plantation (the opportunity for which they have been denied for 150 years).

► The money system is the main problem facing our minority students