UOFM ECO Discrimination Guaranteeing All Californians Equal Opportunities Essay

Purpose: In this assignment, you will critically analyze California’s Proposition 16, a ballotinitiative to permit affirmative action (the consideration of race and gender) in publicemployment and education. You should answer these questions using the economic conceptslearned in class.

Steps:

1. Read over the ballot initiative provided on Ballotpedia. Provide two argumentssupporting the proposition and two arguments against the proposition. (We will not givepoints if you copy/paste from the article or include direct quotes; read over the argumentsprovided and rephrase them in your own words.)

2. Assume that without Proposition 16 there is no way for college admissions officers todetermine the race of applicants (assume they cannot figure out race by name, country oforigin etc.). Suppose that college admissions officers have taste-based discriminationagainst Asian students. How would you have expected Proposition 16 to affect theadmission of Asian students at UCSD, if it had passed? Answer the same question underthe assumption that instead college admissions officers statistically discriminate in favorof Asian students (that is, they assume that the expected GPA for Asian students is higherthan for students of other races). Explain your answers.

3. Suppose that UCSD mechanizes the admissions process by designing an algorithm thatpredicts which students will have high GPAs using four observable characteristics: SATscore, high school GPA, parents’ highest educational attainment, and native Englishspeaker status. Suppose that each of these factors has a positive impact on expected GPA(i.e. native English speakers have higher average GPAs than non-native speakers,students with parents who have PhDs have higher average GPAs than students withparents who didn’t graduate high school, etc.) Under this system colleges will only admitstudents who are predicted to have a GPA above a certain threshold. Would you expectthe racial composition of UCSD to be like that of California?1 Why or why not? Doalgorithms always remove racial bias in decision-making processes? Refer to anotherarticle you read for class in making your argument.2

Format:

You need to write using the APA general guidelines for racial and ethnic identity(posted as APA_Racial and Ethnic Identity.pdf in the assignment instructions on Canvas). Weencourage you to read the guidelines, but most pertinently to this assignment, do not use“whites” and “blacks”, but rather White people (or workers, Americans, etc.) or Black people.You have 650 words to say everything you want to say. Write freely and then revise to expressyour ideas clearly and concisely. Note that Turnitin can give us a slightly different page countthan Word or .pdf files, so you should aim for a 650 word count maximum to be safe (we willtake off points if Turnitin has you listed as more than 700 words regardless of what your Worddoc count says! Sorry, there is no way for you to check this or for us to do it beforehand.). Thereis no need to include your name, PID, headers, titles – stick to the economics.You must submit a .pdf or .doc file. We are unable to read any other file extension and you willreceive no points for the assignment.