数学2011arxiv.org
Jewish Problems（犹太问题）
Jewish problems
进阶 · 约 45 分钟读完前置知识：中学代数与几何、数学竞赛解题经验、苏联高等教育史背景
导读
这篇论文收集并分析了苏联时期莫斯科大学等高校口试中所谓「犹太问题」（Jewish problems）的数学题——这类题外表平常，但解法简洁却极难想到，被专门用来在入学考试中刷掉犹太申请者。作者整理题目并讨论了这种以题目难度为手段的隐性歧视机制。
HN 关注点：焦点在于历史上的招生歧视如何通过技术手段实现，以及它与今天美国大学按族裔差别录取、科技公司面试出难题的类比。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：补充 3 亲历 1
补充标题易被误读，核心事实是犹太考生被分配了更难的题。
换个标题也许更准确：犹太学生被问了比俄罗斯非犹太同学更难的数学题。否则原标题会让人误以为犹太人和非犹太人拿到的是同一套题——那样才更有意思！
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!
亲历亲历补充：歧视有地域差异，犹太人通过迁往明斯克等地绕开限制。
我父亲是苏联的机械工程师，70年代末受的教育。某些地区歧视更严重：莫斯科想都别想。他在明斯克拿的学位，很多其他「加盟共和国」的犹太人搬过去就是为了能考上大学。这就是为什么有那么多犹太姓氏的苏联知名数学家——他们仍有接受高等教育的路径，只是不在莫斯科等热门地区。
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.
补充以巴尔的摩与霍普金斯配额史类比：限额往往是为了维持机构「形象」而非能力判断。
这让我想起《Not In My Neighborhood》里讲巴尔的摩居住与机构隔离史的故事：巴尔的摩在居住上近乎黑、白、犹太三方隔离，但在公立学校只有黑白两方隔离，犹太人上白人学校。约翰霍普金斯大学鼓励本地孩子申请，废除种族隔离远早于公立学校；它对黑人学生从未设人数上限，却对犹太学生设配额。因为黑人学校差、黑人经济弱势，校方知道黑人比例不会超过约5%——足以显示开明，又不改变学生构成；但若录取所有合格的犹太人，学校会有一半是犹太人，会被视为「犹太学校」，这不可接受。这也是纽约 City College 早年辉煌的原因之一：作为公立学院它不歧视，许多本可上常春藤的犹太孩子去了那里。
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.
补充把历史配额与当代亚裔录取争议直接类比。
今天美国大学里的亚裔学生几乎是同样的处境——录取标准按族裔/种族大幅浮动。犹太人当时占人口2%，却占大学生的10–20%以上。当年的「逆向歧视」和现在是一回事。
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.
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