科学与数学arxiv.org
“犹太问题”：一组用于歧视的数学题
Jewish problems
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导读
这是一篇 arXiv 论文，整理并讨论苏联时期犹太学生在申请大学数学系时被问到的特殊数学难题：这些题往往有简单解法却极难想到，被用作面试中拒绝犹太考生的手段。评论还把它与大学招生配额、标准化考试和族裔歧视等更广泛的选拔公平问题联系起来。
为什么经久不衰：它经久不衰，是因为既暴露了选拔机制如何被用来歧视，又包含有数学趣味的难题；今天读它仍能让人反思招生与面试中的公平性。
HN 评论精选
用约翰斯·霍普金斯对犹太人设配额的例子说明，精英机构可能为维持声誉而隐性限制某些族裔。
这让我想起《Not In My Neighborhood》里一个关于巴尔的摩居住与机构隔离的故事。巴尔的摩在很多方面存在黑人、白人、犹太人三方隔离，三个社群的房地产经纪人都拒绝带客户看“错误”街区的房子；但公立学校只有黑白两方隔离，犹太人上白人学校。约翰斯·霍普金斯大学鼓励本地孩子申请，且很早实现整合。它对黑人学生人数没有限制，却对犹太人设配额，因为黑人学校差且黑人经济弱势，黑人比例最多约5%，足以显示开明而不改变学生构成；但如果录取所有合格的犹太人，学校会有一半是犹太人，这是不可接受的。
jfruh查看英文原文
This reminds me of an interesting story from Not In My Neighborhood, a history of residential and institutional segregation in Baltimore. Baltimore in many ways had three-way segregation -- black, white, and Jewish -- with Realtors for all three communities refusing to show houses in the "wrong" neighborhood to anyone. However, the public school system only had two-way segregation -- black and white, with Jews attending white schools. Johns Hopkins, then as now an elite institution located in Baltimore, encouraged local kids to apply, and was integrated long before the public schools were. Hopkins never had any kind of restriction on the number of black students, but they did have quotas on the number of Jews. That's because the black school system was bad enough (and blacks generally financially disadvantaged enough) that they knew they'd never have more than about 5 percent or so of their student body being black -- enough to show that they were liberal and enlightened, but not enough to change the character of the student body. But if they let in all the Jews who qualified, the school would be half Jewish, which would be unacceptable, as they'd get a reputation as a "Jewish" school. This is also one of the reasons for the long-ago heyday of City College in New York: as a public college, they didn't discriminate, and so a lot of Jewish kids who would have otherwise qualified to go to the Ivy League ended up there.
指出论文标题容易误导，核心事实是犹太考生被问了更难的题。
换个标题也许更准确：犹太学生被给予了比俄罗斯非犹太学生更难的数学题。否则原标题会隐含地暗示犹太和非犹太学生收到的是同样的题目——那样反而会很有意思！
aluminussoma查看英文原文
An alternate title would be: Jewish students were given more difficult math problems than their Russian non-Jewish counterparts Otherwise, the title implicitly implies that Jewish and non-Jewish students received the same questions. That would be interesting!
把苏联犹太人的遭遇类比为当代美国大学对亚裔的差异化录取标准。
今天美国大学对亚裔学生也几乎发生同样的事——录取标准因族裔/种族而差异很大。犹太人当时占人口2%，却占大学生10%到20%以上。逆向歧视过去存在，现在也存在。
smm2000查看英文原文
Pretty much exactly the same thing happens with Asian students in US universities today - admission standards vary widely by ethnicity/race. Jews were 2% of population but 10-20%+ of university students. Reverse discrimination was a thing then and is a thing now.
说明苏联歧视有地域差异，犹太人仍可通过去明斯克等地求学进入高等教育。
我父亲是苏联机械工程师，70年代末受的教育。某些领域的歧视更严重。莫斯科就别想了。我父亲在白俄罗斯明斯克拿学位，很多来自其他“加盟共和国”的犹太人搬过去，就是为了能进大学。这就是为什么有那么多知名的苏联数学家是犹太姓氏。他们仍有接受高等教育的路径，只是不在莫斯科等理想地区。
akras14查看英文原文
My dad was a mechanical engineer in USSR who got his education in late 70s. The discrimination was worse in some areas. Moscow - forget about it. My dad got his degree in Minsk, and had many jews from other "states" move there just so they can get into college. That is why there are somany known Soviet mathematicians with Jewish names. They still had paths to persue higher education, just not in Moscow and other desirable areas.
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