Too Many Asian Americans: Affirmative Discrimination in Elite College Admissions. (Harvard, MIT, Caltech)

Roger CleggDocuments, Education

Last Friday, Students for Fair Admissions filed its motion for summary judgment against Harvard for its admissions discrimination against Asian-American applicants on the basis of race. You can read the motion and the various supporting documents here. Edward Blum, president of the organization, said, “Today’s court filing exposes the startling magnitude of Harvard’s discrimination against Asian-American applicants,” adding that it “definitively proves that Harvard engages in racial balancing, uses race as far more than a ‘plus’ factor, and has no interest in exploring race-neutral alternatives.” He also said, “We believe that the rest of the evidence will be released in the next …

Affirmative Discrimination in Elite College Admissions

Terry EastlandEducation

It’s against Asian American applicants Last week’s news brought the story that New York City mayor Bill de Blasio wants to scrap admissions policies for three public high schools in the city that are among the best in the country. Apparently, too many Asian Americans get in while too few blacks and Latinos do. De Blasio speaks favorably about new policies based on “new definitions of merit.” Let’s hope that the mayor recovers his wits before he imposes a cap or ceiling on the number of Asian Americans the schools accept. Our research fellow Althea Nagai discusses below in a …

The Nitty Gritty of Diversity

Terry EastlandEducation

How many minority students = a critical mass? That’s a good exam question, but not one that advocates of race preferences in admissions have been able to answer, as I explained below in this article for The Weekly Standard. In 2003 Justice O’Connor said that schools may seek to enroll a “critical mass” of minority students. But she didn’t say what that term required, nor has any other Justice since then. Justice Scalia, ever the great wordsmith, used a dissenting opinion to refer to critical mass as “the mystical critical mass” and “the fabled critical mass.” Good adjectives for a …

Waiting for the ‘Termination Point’

Terry EastlandEducation

Is the end in sight for race-conscious college admissions? I wrote this piece three years ago for The Weekly Standard. It was basically a “backgrounder” on what were then new challenges to admissions preferences–one brought against Harvard and the other against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There has been some “discovery” in the cases, and seven months ago the Justice Department confirmed that it is considering whether it might enter the Harvard case. We hope that the department decides to get involved—and that it will argue for non-discrimination in admissions. In Grutter v. Bollinger, decided in 2003, Justice Sandra Day …

DOJ Investigating Harvard’s Racial Preferences

Roger CleggEducation

Over the summer, it was reported that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division was taking steps to investigate Harvard University’s use of racial preferences in admissions, especially insofar as they discriminate against Asian-American applicants. You may recall that the Center for Equal Opportunity was mentioned prominently as encouraging the investigation (see the statement we issued here) when the story was first reported in the New York Times.  Well, news stories are now confirming that this investigation is, indeed, under way. Good. As I explain here, such an investigation is entirely appropriate. What’s more, such discrimination should be stopped …

“Diversity” and Other Euphemisms

Roger CleggEducation

Last week, the Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed complaining that the word “diversity” is a euphemism, since its proponents really want nothing more than nondiscrimination.  My published rejoinder to this dubious claim: I wish it were true that those asking for “diversity” were asking only for nondiscrimination, as Noah Berlatsky writes. But in many contexts the opposite is true: The last thing they want is nondiscrimination, and what they are asking for is precisely discrimination, albeit of the politically correct sort. (“‘Diversity’ is a euphemism. We should be careful how we use it,” Opinion, July 10) Thus, when universities …

“Cultural Flavor” and University Admissions

Roger CleggEducation

Some documents recently uncovered at Princeton show that, when awarding a preference on the basis of race or ethnicity, the admissions office wants to make sure that the student being considered has a strong “cultural flavor.” That is, for example, you can’t just be Hispanic, you have to act Hispanic, whatever that means for the admissions office. Offensive, of course, but unsurprising. After all, the “diversity” rationale for such racial and ethnic discrimination is premised on such stereotyping. That is, there are supposed to be “educational benefits” to exposing students to people with different backgrounds and perspectives; if the recipient …

Skin Color Determines “Who Gets In”

Roger CleggEducation

A new book by Rebecca Zwick, Who Gets In?, has some interesting data on, among other things, the effect of racial preferences on university admissions.  According to the discussion this week in Inside Higher Ed: What she found is that an admissions system based solely on grades and test scores would result in significant increases in Asian [and white] enrollments and declines in enrollments of underrepresented minority [i.e., black and Latino, and sometimes American Indian] students. … Model for Impact of Different Admissions Models at Colleges That Admit Less Than 10% of Applicants Race/Ethnicity Current If Decisions Based Only on …

Keeping an Eye on College Admission Officers

Roger CleggEducation

Ashley Thorne, executive director of the National Association of Scholars, recently posted an essay on Minding the Campus (“Dismissing the Reality of Affirmative Action”) that was both kind and accurate regarding the word of the Center for Equal Opportunity. The Gallup Organization and Inside Higher Ed co-hosted a conference in Washington on September 15, “Not out of the Woods:  Colleges, Diversity and Affirmative Action after a Year of Protest and Court Battles.”  Most of those in attendance were university officials of one kind or another.  Ms. Thorne, who attended the whole conference (I did not), said those officials were determined …

We’re Watching You, College Officials

Roger CleggEducation

The Pope Center for Higher Education Policy asked me to write about my recent appearance at a conference in Washington, D.C., at which I warned college officials that the Center for Equal Opportunity was watching their use of racial and ethnic preferences in admissions.  Here’s the essay that I sent the Pope Center and that it published (there’s also a link here): The Gallup Organization and Inside Higher Ed co-hosted a conference in Washington on September 15. They called it “Not Out of the Woods: Colleges, Diversity and Affirmative Action after a Year of Protest and Court Battles.” Most of …