The Quiet Scandal of Affirmative Action for Men

Posted22 days agoActive22 days ago

flail

5 points

1 comments

yaschamounk.substack.comNewsstory

controversialnegative

Debate

80/100

Affirmative ActionGender EqualitySocial Justice

Key topics

Affirmative Action

Gender Equality

Social Justice

Discussion Activity

Light discussion

First comment

27m

Peak period

0-1h

Avg / period

2.7

Key moments

01Story posted
Dec 12, 2025 at 8:48 AM EST
22 days ago
Step 01
02First comment
Dec 12, 2025 at 9:14 AM EST
27m after posting
Step 02
03Peak activity
5 comments in 0-1h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03
04Latest activity
Dec 12, 2025 at 12:07 PM EST
22 days ago
Step 04

Generating AI Summary...

Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns

Discussion (1 comments)

Showing 8 comments

ta9000

22 days ago

3 replies

> If they were to admit applicants without considering their sex, the best schools in the country would end up with incoming classes that have an even greater predominance of women than they already do. So, largely unnoticed by the public, they have started to embrace a solution to this supposed problem that is simple, effective, and manifestly unjust: affirmative action for men.

If the situation were reversed, I’m sure the author wouldn’t care. For instance, look at nursing, where there doesn’t seem to be any rush to get more men into the field.

techblueberry

22 days ago

1 reply

> For instance, look at nursing, where there doesn’t seem to be any rush to get more men into the field.

Why we need more men in nursing: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/schools/school-of-nursing-and-mid...

The nursing workforce needs more men: https://www.arizonacollege.edu/blog/nursing-workforce-needs-...

The benefits of increasing the number of men in nursing: https://www.nurse.com/blog/benefits-of-increasing-number-of-...

Why male nursing shouldn’t be a rarity: https://www.intelycare.com/career-advice/why-we-need-more-ma...

Men wanted: new efforts to attract male nurses: https://www.arizonacollege.edu/blog/men-wanted-new-efforts-t...

People talk all the time about needing more male nurses, teachers, guidance counselors, etc.

ta9000

22 days ago

Great, I applaud Arizona College. But anecdotes won’t move the needle on getting more men into fields where they are massively underrepresented.

emih

22 days ago

1 reply

You can't just put words in the author's mouth.

It's also not true at all. For instance, teaching in primary school is a field that is dominated by women where I live, and I (and I agree with the points described in the article) think it would be great to have more male teachers, so that girls and boys can both have rolemodels when growing up. This would also actually help to solve one of the problems that is described in the article, that boys feel unmotivated in school and fall behind.

ta9000

22 days ago

Just because you think it is a good idea to have more male teachers doesn’t mean there is a push to have more male teachers. If there were, we would probably have more male teachers.

flailAuthor

22 days ago

There's a huge difference between nurses or teachers and Ivy League students. Namely, the former are not remotely as prestigious roles. I highly doubt there are 20 candidates for each nurse or teacher job.

Affirmative action happens when we discuss privileged positions. Spots at Ivy League colleges definitely are positions of privilege.

So if the situation under consideration were nursing, there wouldn't be such a discussion because there wouldn't be affirmative action in place.

kankerlijer

22 days ago

Oh God this is more of an indictment of what a pathetically arbitrary and boring grind the US approach to education has become.

mapt

22 days ago

Either you endorse making demographic facts part of admissions to aim at some kind of social justice target, or don't. An disturbingly large fraction of people who discuss this are hypocrites or willful idiots who can't or who refuse to see the conflict. The people who implemented affirmative action in the 60's/70's were not; They were just swinging around a crude tool to try to redress very obvious and profound institutional ills by forcing a bunch of known bigots to act as if they were not bigots.

"Discrimination" originates in a neutral term.

View full discussion on Hacker News

ID: 46244096Type: storyLast synced: 12/12/2025, 2:20:30 PM

Want the full context?

Jump to the original sources

Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.

Open link View on HN