Perfect. Congratulations. I love the term" visual diversity". It would have been amusing if Justice Thomas, after commenting on his puzzlement about what diversity is, had asked what members of the Supreme Court were examples of diversity--Kagan and Barrett or Thomas and Alito? If "affirmative action" goes down at the college level, then maybe our miserable public schools will have to challenge Black kids to their highest potential, instead of pushing them along, knowing some college will admit them even if they are not qualified. Our Black American children deserve far better education than they have been receiving for decades. it is a scandal and a tragedy.
Another point that could be made: if "diversity" were a compelling state interest, wouldn't *ideological* diversity be more important a place that exists to generate ideas than visual diversity? And yet, nobody - including conservatives, I would hope - thinks that you should be making people check a "who do you vote for?" box.
There has never been a qualified study that shows education is enhanced by having different-colored people present. When I studied engineering in college my focus was on knowing the math and science that would help me graduate. Whether or not various races were present was a complete non-issue.
2. You likely are correct (in a vote counting way) that the Supreme Court is about to overturn Grutter.
3. Treating admissions as an achievement contest, rather than a potential assessment, is part of what makes high school such a miserable experience for hundreds of thousands of students who are interested in attending a highly competitive university. The numbers game is at its worst at flagship state universities, where the admissions staff do not have the bandwidth to do a deep dive on the applications that must read to fill 10,000 seats each year.
4. Schools that have done innovative things to improve diversity in a race-blind way, such as the University of Texas guaranteeing admission to UT-Austin to all Texas high school seniors who graduate in the top 6% of their class (which creates diversity at the University level by leveraging high schools that are de facto segregated), have found themselves under attack.
5. There is such a thing as "white skin privilege". That does not mean that the impoverished Appalachian teen has a leg up on the son of a Nigerian oil magnate. It does mean that, all things being equal, there is still a bias in our society based solely on skin color.
On point #3, I’d be open to an argument from UNC that they have to use the box as a proxy because they’re overwhelmed by application volume. But both UNC and Harvard tout how great and thorough their processes are at giving in-depth, individualized attention to applicants—which is why I argued that they were hoisted by their own petard.
1. “[A]ffjrmative action programs are invalid when they impose quotas, use race as a determinative factor in making admissions decisions, or act in a manner that assigns persons to categories based on their race.”
But here’s the key thing, as I wrote in my post:
“Even acknowledging that a plethora of factors are considered under ‘holistic’ admissions, the racial plus or minus will be dispositive in some number of cases—i.e., a candidate who wouldn’t have been admitted but for their race will get accepted, and a candidate who would have been admitted but for their race will get rejected.”
For some unknown number of Asian kids, race WAS THE DETERMINING FACTOR. But race is IRRELEVANT to your character, your qualities, what you can bring to the university—except to the extent that you can talk about in an essay or an interview or a recommendation. The check box itself is irrelevant.
2. The rest of their brief is basically “it’s not as bad as quotas.” Okay, thanks.
Here’s the thing: some poor Asian kids got screwed because they checked the wrong box, because of the assumption that because we look the same, we have the same experiences and same worldview. Which is BS.
As a college applicant in 1991, I had less in common with a poor Asian kid from San Francisco’s Chinatown than the Black son of two doctors from the NYC suburbs. But guess who got the “bump” in admissions?
At the end of the day, class trumps race in America—BIG TIME. Which is why we should ignore race and transfer all that weight to socioeconomics.
So what if someone touches Harlan’s hair—which they’re already doing—or calls Harlan the n-word? His feelings might be hurt for a day or two. But then he’ll go on another all-expenses-paid, overseas trip with his grandparents, and he’ll feel better.
A descendant of American enslaved persons who’s raised by a single parent in poverty should get a bump—a BIG bump. A Black kid who grows up in Harlan’s circumstances in the U.S.—or in obscene wealth in Africa (I don’t have that stats handy, but a shocking number of Harvard’s Black admits are rich Africans or West Indians)—not so much.
Re 3, too many people are viewing college admissions as a big huge contest of winners and losers. Yes, it is that in one sense.
But the largest sense of college, is that each student is trying to find a place to go where they can learn what they want to learn, and thrive.
The simple truth of it, whether people realize it or not, is that their lives are probably going to be reasonably satisfying no matter which college they go to. It's not all about prestige or status or whatever. And while colleges are not simply clones of each other, the reality is you're probably going to be able to learn what you want to learn at *some* college, even if it's not your first choice. It's just not the end of the world to not get your absolute top choice. You'll most likely have a fine life at whatever other college you attend.
Everyone's working on imperfect information here. Sometimes colleges whiff on you. (Or, they're right and you really *should* be somewhere else, in which case, all the better for you.) Just don't sweat it that much! Apply to several or so places, if you've been reasonably diligent you'll get admitted to at least one of them, and your life will be fine.
If you really really really want to view it all as a contest, knock yourself out, I guess. But most people necessarily can't "win" all the contests. And so, most people who view these things primarily as "contests" where the point is to win (and not, say, to attempt a challenge and then see how the ball bounces) are setting themselves up for unhappiness.
(None of which, to be sure, excuses colleges using inappropriate characteristics to evaluate candidates. But we could at least be a little clearer-headed about the potential consequences: having a life that's still probably going to be pretty fulfilling.)
A huge part of the problem many have with affirmative action is not necessarily discrimination but rather a fear that someone, usually themselves or someone they know, would have otherwise gotten in without the system. Harvard showed at trial approximately how many students for whom race is a determinative factor in admissions, so a progressive donor could have just built a huge dorm with enough rooms where the % of admissions goes up for all groups with that condition that it would be demolished or have its usage changed the year after affirmative action is ended. (Example: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/nightmare-of-the-windowless-dorm-room) I had this thought for a while, and I guess it’s too late for it to do any good. But I think that would’ve probably ameliorated most opponents of affirmative action (although not the Justices).
Fantastic article, David! I suppose I have some lingering mixed feelings about affirmative action, but wow... Harvard (where I attended law school) comes out looking pretty terrible here. And "Visual Diversity?" Yikes. There has to be a better way.
Good arguments. However, in terms of the OIR research that showed a higher percentage of Asian acceptance if admissions were based solely on academics (which I imagine are SAT and ACT scores), the question that remains is whether or not the level would be reduced with the elimination of the tests, I suspect that it might. Several top universities made the test optional last year. That the admissions are "holistic" and not based solely on academics--is a good thing, because at that level the difference between top students is negligible.
A student body should be reflective of a broad worldview, and the society that it constitutes. Students need to bring more to the table than just academics, and student athletes should be given preferential entrance since they have simply done more while achieving top grades. Elite academic-athletes are in the top 1% of the top 10% in terms of intelligence testing done in a study, plus according to my daughter they enhance campus life.
I agree with giving athletes a plus if they are otherwise strong contenders. Athletic prowess reflects hard work, discipline, teamwork (in team sports), and other admirable qualities.
But that’s not how athletic recruitment works at elite colleges. It’s not like the Rhodes Scholarship, where it’s a plus factor. It’s more of a binary: are you a recruit, or are you not?
We learned from the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal that if you make “the list” as a recruited athlete, you’re pretty much guaranteed admission, notwithstanding the weaknesses of the rest of your application. That’s not how athletic participation should be used.
I agree with everything in the article except for this point. I'll start by saying that as a former recruited athlete at an ivy league school (Cornell track and field), I'm probably a bit biased (but I also have some firsthand insight). That being said, I respectfully disagree for two reasons:
First, athletic based admission is a form of race-blind admissions that results in high admission rates for underrepresented minorities and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds (of any race). My team, for example, was made up of ~65% under-represented minorities, and the overwhelming majority of us came from lower socioeconomic classes than the average student. Athletics gave us a chance for admission. There are a few "rich" sports, however, those teams tend to be much smaller in comparison, and take up a very small percentage of the amount of "recruiting spots" set aside for athletes; more than half of the students on those teams (at least at Cornell) are walk-ons as opposed to recruited athletes.
Second, the binary recruiting procedures are actually necessary, especially at ivy league universities (which don't offer athletic or merit-based scholarships). Many of the student athletes (myself included) at ivy league universities got full athletic scholarships at other schools and turned them down, instead choosing to plunge ourselves into debt because we recognized the massive opportunity and value the education and take academics more seriously than student athletes at other schools. Without the guarantee of admission student athletes could be giving up scholarship opportunities at other schools only to be rejected by a school that was recruiting them. And while there is a binary recruiting system, the ivy leagues still set a relatively high minimum academic bar that must be met regardless of how good the athlete is. The overwhelming majority of my teammates were in the top 10% of their high school class, and about1/3 of us were in the top 10 of our high school class.
Athletic preference in the case of students (URM and non-URM both) who will actually do the work, certainly does seem to help them.
There's certainly some practice, however, of student-athletes being put into...well, student-athlete sorts of classes, that are not terribly rigorous, that give considerable appearance of existing merely so that it can be said the athletes *are* filling the student role. At least on paper. (And sometimes even their performance in those classes is lacking.) This is plainly corrupting of the academic mission.
Ultimately, I think we need to view ALDC preference as basically a form of long-term advertising. Every business (whether for-profit or not) has to balance advertising against pursuing whatever it is they actually do. I don't think some level of ALDC preference is intrinsically evil or anything.
Still, the degree to which it has corrupted college admissions in too many places (perhaps not the Ivies? and at least some other places too) means I would shed no tears if it disappeared.
And to be clear, I have no problem with holistic admissions; I support them. Asians scored better on extracurriculars too—we’re not just academic machines. But in the holistic process, race qua race should be off-limits.
I agree that legacy admission are not right. However, I view athletic admission much like admission for music or art majors. It really reflect a merit based admission based on talent and the effort the student as put in honing that talent
It’s not just a “plus factor,” though. I learned from the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal that if you make the list as a recruited athlete, you’re pretty much guaranteed admission. That struck me as too much—especially since sports are just not that important at schools like Harvard (compared to schools where, say, football and basketball are huge draws and revenue sources).
At schools like Harvard (and other highly selective private colleges), there is a huge premium (for alumni fundraising) on having winning teams in certain sports, such as football, soccer, track & field, men's & women's basketball and men's & women's hockey. Ironically, the recruited athletes in these sports, on average, increase the diversity of the student body.
There are other sports niche sports (such as golf, crew, fencing, squash and tennis) that do not have a major impact on fundraising, but the recruited student-athletes tend to be richer and whiter than the general population. Some schools have done away with these programs (or ceased recruiting for these programs).
Interesting—thanks Mitch! It sounds like we should at least get rid of recruiting for the niche sports, if the recruiting involves lowering admissions standards and is regressive as to diversity too.
The Peter Westbrook Foundation (https://www.peterwestbrook.org/) tries to take advantage of the outsized power of fencing coaches to get one or two students in each year by training Harlem residents to become Olympic-level fencers.
That’s a good point. I was referring primarily too football and basketball. These sports either don’t have or have a very minor development league. So if your going to improve your craft for better or worse college is the place you have to do it.
I think most players fing they struggle even in non competitive sports schools. If their smart take advantage of the educational offerings.
The basic problem is Black underperformance in education, crime, etc., when the main argument during the Civil Rights debates was that Blacks would perform equally with Whites in just a few years. Whites are no more responsible for Blacks' underperformance than Whites are responsible for Asian-Americans' overperformance ... so we need to address that underperformance in as practical a way as possible. Pretending it's not there has not and will not work.
We will see pigs fly before we see Harvard not give preferred admissions to legacy and donor applicants. It would be a step in the right direction for a University that cares oh so much about diversity, but we all know it will never happen.
Perfect. Congratulations. I love the term" visual diversity". It would have been amusing if Justice Thomas, after commenting on his puzzlement about what diversity is, had asked what members of the Supreme Court were examples of diversity--Kagan and Barrett or Thomas and Alito? If "affirmative action" goes down at the college level, then maybe our miserable public schools will have to challenge Black kids to their highest potential, instead of pushing them along, knowing some college will admit them even if they are not qualified. Our Black American children deserve far better education than they have been receiving for decades. it is a scandal and a tragedy.
This is fantastic.
Another point that could be made: if "diversity" were a compelling state interest, wouldn't *ideological* diversity be more important a place that exists to generate ideas than visual diversity? And yet, nobody - including conservatives, I would hope - thinks that you should be making people check a "who do you vote for?" box.
There has never been a qualified study that shows education is enhanced by having different-colored people present. When I studied engineering in college my focus was on knowing the math and science that would help me graduate. Whether or not various races were present was a complete non-issue.
This is a point that Justice Thomas emphasized at oral argument (and which he has made repeatedly in the past, including in Grutter).
Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Thank you
1. The ADL (which has a deep understanding of the dynamics of Jewish exclusion from Harvard in earlier generations) submitted a highly persuasive (to me, at least) amicus brief in support of Harvard's admissions policy. https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/2022-08/ab-2022-students-for-fair-admissions-inc-petitioner-v-president-and-fellows-of-harvard-college-respondent-us-supreme-court-2-final.pdf
2. You likely are correct (in a vote counting way) that the Supreme Court is about to overturn Grutter.
3. Treating admissions as an achievement contest, rather than a potential assessment, is part of what makes high school such a miserable experience for hundreds of thousands of students who are interested in attending a highly competitive university. The numbers game is at its worst at flagship state universities, where the admissions staff do not have the bandwidth to do a deep dive on the applications that must read to fill 10,000 seats each year.
4. Schools that have done innovative things to improve diversity in a race-blind way, such as the University of Texas guaranteeing admission to UT-Austin to all Texas high school seniors who graduate in the top 6% of their class (which creates diversity at the University level by leveraging high schools that are de facto segregated), have found themselves under attack.
5. There is such a thing as "white skin privilege". That does not mean that the impoverished Appalachian teen has a leg up on the son of a Nigerian oil magnate. It does mean that, all things being equal, there is still a bias in our society based solely on skin color.
On point #3, I’d be open to an argument from UNC that they have to use the box as a proxy because they’re overwhelmed by application volume. But both UNC and Harvard tout how great and thorough their processes are at giving in-depth, individualized attention to applicants—which is why I argued that they were hoisted by their own petard.
On the ADF brief, I was not persuaded. My points:
1. “[A]ffjrmative action programs are invalid when they impose quotas, use race as a determinative factor in making admissions decisions, or act in a manner that assigns persons to categories based on their race.”
But here’s the key thing, as I wrote in my post:
“Even acknowledging that a plethora of factors are considered under ‘holistic’ admissions, the racial plus or minus will be dispositive in some number of cases—i.e., a candidate who wouldn’t have been admitted but for their race will get accepted, and a candidate who would have been admitted but for their race will get rejected.”
For some unknown number of Asian kids, race WAS THE DETERMINING FACTOR. But race is IRRELEVANT to your character, your qualities, what you can bring to the university—except to the extent that you can talk about in an essay or an interview or a recommendation. The check box itself is irrelevant.
2. The rest of their brief is basically “it’s not as bad as quotas.” Okay, thanks.
Here’s the thing: some poor Asian kids got screwed because they checked the wrong box, because of the assumption that because we look the same, we have the same experiences and same worldview. Which is BS.
As a college applicant in 1991, I had less in common with a poor Asian kid from San Francisco’s Chinatown than the Black son of two doctors from the NYC suburbs. But guess who got the “bump” in admissions?
At the end of the day, class trumps race in America—BIG TIME. Which is why we should ignore race and transfer all that weight to socioeconomics.
So what if someone touches Harlan’s hair—which they’re already doing—or calls Harlan the n-word? His feelings might be hurt for a day or two. But then he’ll go on another all-expenses-paid, overseas trip with his grandparents, and he’ll feel better.
A descendant of American enslaved persons who’s raised by a single parent in poverty should get a bump—a BIG bump. A Black kid who grows up in Harlan’s circumstances in the U.S.—or in obscene wealth in Africa (I don’t have that stats handy, but a shocking number of Harvard’s Black admits are rich Africans or West Indians)—not so much.
Re 3, too many people are viewing college admissions as a big huge contest of winners and losers. Yes, it is that in one sense.
But the largest sense of college, is that each student is trying to find a place to go where they can learn what they want to learn, and thrive.
The simple truth of it, whether people realize it or not, is that their lives are probably going to be reasonably satisfying no matter which college they go to. It's not all about prestige or status or whatever. And while colleges are not simply clones of each other, the reality is you're probably going to be able to learn what you want to learn at *some* college, even if it's not your first choice. It's just not the end of the world to not get your absolute top choice. You'll most likely have a fine life at whatever other college you attend.
Everyone's working on imperfect information here. Sometimes colleges whiff on you. (Or, they're right and you really *should* be somewhere else, in which case, all the better for you.) Just don't sweat it that much! Apply to several or so places, if you've been reasonably diligent you'll get admitted to at least one of them, and your life will be fine.
If you really really really want to view it all as a contest, knock yourself out, I guess. But most people necessarily can't "win" all the contests. And so, most people who view these things primarily as "contests" where the point is to win (and not, say, to attempt a challenge and then see how the ball bounces) are setting themselves up for unhappiness.
(None of which, to be sure, excuses colleges using inappropriate characteristics to evaluate candidates. But we could at least be a little clearer-headed about the potential consequences: having a life that's still probably going to be pretty fulfilling.)
Thanks for sharing the ADL's brief. It was nuanced and very interesting.
A huge part of the problem many have with affirmative action is not necessarily discrimination but rather a fear that someone, usually themselves or someone they know, would have otherwise gotten in without the system. Harvard showed at trial approximately how many students for whom race is a determinative factor in admissions, so a progressive donor could have just built a huge dorm with enough rooms where the % of admissions goes up for all groups with that condition that it would be demolished or have its usage changed the year after affirmative action is ended. (Example: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/nightmare-of-the-windowless-dorm-room) I had this thought for a while, and I guess it’s too late for it to do any good. But I think that would’ve probably ameliorated most opponents of affirmative action (although not the Justices).
Beyond that flight of fancy, I think that a lot of the changes you want will come *because* affirmative action will end soon. The University of Michigan, for instance, banned legacy admissions to increase non-Asian minority enrollment. https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/03/25/u-michigan-says-it-doesnt-consider-legacy-status-admissions-some. Similarly, “[t]he University of California system, the University of Georgia and Texas A&M all ended legacy preferences when they were pressured by lawsuits and ballot initiatives to stop using affirmative action, according to a Century Foundation analysis. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/us/legacy-admissions-colleges-universities.html.
Fantastic article, David! I suppose I have some lingering mixed feelings about affirmative action, but wow... Harvard (where I attended law school) comes out looking pretty terrible here. And "Visual Diversity?" Yikes. There has to be a better way.
Good arguments. However, in terms of the OIR research that showed a higher percentage of Asian acceptance if admissions were based solely on academics (which I imagine are SAT and ACT scores), the question that remains is whether or not the level would be reduced with the elimination of the tests, I suspect that it might. Several top universities made the test optional last year. That the admissions are "holistic" and not based solely on academics--is a good thing, because at that level the difference between top students is negligible.
A student body should be reflective of a broad worldview, and the society that it constitutes. Students need to bring more to the table than just academics, and student athletes should be given preferential entrance since they have simply done more while achieving top grades. Elite academic-athletes are in the top 1% of the top 10% in terms of intelligence testing done in a study, plus according to my daughter they enhance campus life.
I agree with giving athletes a plus if they are otherwise strong contenders. Athletic prowess reflects hard work, discipline, teamwork (in team sports), and other admirable qualities.
But that’s not how athletic recruitment works at elite colleges. It’s not like the Rhodes Scholarship, where it’s a plus factor. It’s more of a binary: are you a recruit, or are you not?
We learned from the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal that if you make “the list” as a recruited athlete, you’re pretty much guaranteed admission, notwithstanding the weaknesses of the rest of your application. That’s not how athletic participation should be used.
I agree with everything in the article except for this point. I'll start by saying that as a former recruited athlete at an ivy league school (Cornell track and field), I'm probably a bit biased (but I also have some firsthand insight). That being said, I respectfully disagree for two reasons:
First, athletic based admission is a form of race-blind admissions that results in high admission rates for underrepresented minorities and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds (of any race). My team, for example, was made up of ~65% under-represented minorities, and the overwhelming majority of us came from lower socioeconomic classes than the average student. Athletics gave us a chance for admission. There are a few "rich" sports, however, those teams tend to be much smaller in comparison, and take up a very small percentage of the amount of "recruiting spots" set aside for athletes; more than half of the students on those teams (at least at Cornell) are walk-ons as opposed to recruited athletes.
Second, the binary recruiting procedures are actually necessary, especially at ivy league universities (which don't offer athletic or merit-based scholarships). Many of the student athletes (myself included) at ivy league universities got full athletic scholarships at other schools and turned them down, instead choosing to plunge ourselves into debt because we recognized the massive opportunity and value the education and take academics more seriously than student athletes at other schools. Without the guarantee of admission student athletes could be giving up scholarship opportunities at other schools only to be rejected by a school that was recruiting them. And while there is a binary recruiting system, the ivy leagues still set a relatively high minimum academic bar that must be met regardless of how good the athlete is. The overwhelming majority of my teammates were in the top 10% of their high school class, and about1/3 of us were in the top 10 of our high school class.
Athletic preference in the case of students (URM and non-URM both) who will actually do the work, certainly does seem to help them.
There's certainly some practice, however, of student-athletes being put into...well, student-athlete sorts of classes, that are not terribly rigorous, that give considerable appearance of existing merely so that it can be said the athletes *are* filling the student role. At least on paper. (And sometimes even their performance in those classes is lacking.) This is plainly corrupting of the academic mission.
Ultimately, I think we need to view ALDC preference as basically a form of long-term advertising. Every business (whether for-profit or not) has to balance advertising against pursuing whatever it is they actually do. I don't think some level of ALDC preference is intrinsically evil or anything.
Still, the degree to which it has corrupted college admissions in too many places (perhaps not the Ivies? and at least some other places too) means I would shed no tears if it disappeared.
And to be clear, I have no problem with holistic admissions; I support them. Asians scored better on extracurriculars too—we’re not just academic machines. But in the holistic process, race qua race should be off-limits.
Yes, brilliant. And fair.
Somebody fixed your wikipedia page so that it now reads that you were born in Queens, New York.
I was hoping that would happen!
I agree that legacy admission are not right. However, I view athletic admission much like admission for music or art majors. It really reflect a merit based admission based on talent and the effort the student as put in honing that talent
It’s not just a “plus factor,” though. I learned from the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal that if you make the list as a recruited athlete, you’re pretty much guaranteed admission. That struck me as too much—especially since sports are just not that important at schools like Harvard (compared to schools where, say, football and basketball are huge draws and revenue sources).
At schools like Harvard (and other highly selective private colleges), there is a huge premium (for alumni fundraising) on having winning teams in certain sports, such as football, soccer, track & field, men's & women's basketball and men's & women's hockey. Ironically, the recruited athletes in these sports, on average, increase the diversity of the student body.
There are other sports niche sports (such as golf, crew, fencing, squash and tennis) that do not have a major impact on fundraising, but the recruited student-athletes tend to be richer and whiter than the general population. Some schools have done away with these programs (or ceased recruiting for these programs).
Interesting—thanks Mitch! It sounds like we should at least get rid of recruiting for the niche sports, if the recruiting involves lowering admissions standards and is regressive as to diversity too.
The Peter Westbrook Foundation (https://www.peterwestbrook.org/) tries to take advantage of the outsized power of fencing coaches to get one or two students in each year by training Harlem residents to become Olympic-level fencers.
That’s a good point. I was referring primarily too football and basketball. These sports either don’t have or have a very minor development league. So if your going to improve your craft for better or worse college is the place you have to do it.
I think most players fing they struggle even in non competitive sports schools. If their smart take advantage of the educational offerings.
The basic problem is Black underperformance in education, crime, etc., when the main argument during the Civil Rights debates was that Blacks would perform equally with Whites in just a few years. Whites are no more responsible for Blacks' underperformance than Whites are responsible for Asian-Americans' overperformance ... so we need to address that underperformance in as practical a way as possible. Pretending it's not there has not and will not work.
We will see pigs fly before we see Harvard not give preferred admissions to legacy and donor applicants. It would be a step in the right direction for a University that cares oh so much about diversity, but we all know it will never happen.
Excellent analysis and in footnote 2 you provide what strikes me as a pragmatic and workable approach to approaching the issue.