The Ending of Affirmative Action and Enrollment

[Langue_doc]

There have been a series of articles on the impact of the ending of affirmative action. Disclaimer: I didn't read most of these, so can't comment on them.

Affirmative Action Was Banned. What Happened Next Was Confusing.
Here is what we know about the effects of the Supreme Court's decision curtailing race-based admissions at selective universities. And why many experts and administrators are baffled.

Harvard's Black Student Enrollment Dips After Affirmative Action Ends
Defying expectations, a Supreme Court decision curtailing race-based admissions still had a relatively small impact at some highly selective schools like Harvard, even as other schools saw big changes.

Yale, Princeton and Duke Are Questioned Over Decline in Asian Students
The legal group that won a Supreme Court case that ended race-based college admissions suggested it might sue schools where the percentage of Asian students fell.

At 2 Elite Colleges, Shifts in Racial Makeup After Affirmative Action Ban
Amherst College and Tufts University saw drops in the number of Black students after a Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action. At other schools, the picture is murkier.

U.N.C. Reports Declines in Black and Hispanic Enrollment
Along with Harvard University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was one of two schools defending affirmative action in Supreme Court cases last year.

[dismalist]

Peter Arcidiacono, the Duke University economist who acted as statistician for Students for Fair Admissions, has said that one must be careful drawing conclusions with the new data because some questions are no longer asked in admissions -- what race are you? So any outcome may be random, gamed, or ungamed. The cited articles show all kinds of outcomes. What has stuck in my mind is that Asian enrollment at MIT went up substantially, and Black and Hispanic enrollment went down, whereas White enrollment stayed the same.

The fact of preferential admissions never bothered me much because there is competition among colleges and if you are smart but don't get into MIT you get into a close substitute, and if you're not smart, you can still go to college, if that's what you want.

What bugged me was that on the face of it was illegal, not on some 14th Amendment grounds, or that the Supreme Court gave a pass because diversity was a value in itself [Bakke], but on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as stated in one of the concurring opinions [Gorsuch] in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

If one liked Affirmative Action, one should repeal the Civil Rights Act and let colleges do whatever they please. Alas, this route is now closed.

Many points can be made. My favorite non-made point is that preferring by low income is perfectly legal and highly correlated with race.

[secundem_artem]

Yet another tempest in a teapot discussion that affects sooooooo few people.  There are probably no more than a few dozen schools where AA makes much difference.  So if Hahvahd  & others of their ilk are privileging one group over another, ye gawds, it's a national crisis.  Because if you don't go to an Ivy, everybody knows you will die penniless, while living under a bridge.

C'mon people. Those top 50 schools  are taken to represent the academy as a whole.  But let's face it, If Tufts doesn't want you, Bridgewater State will give you a totally fine education without all the attitude.  I'm sick of all the discussion being shaped around what a couple of dozen privilege factories do.  Except for Stanford.  That's not a privilege factory, it's a sociopath academy for all the tech bros currently "working to make the world a better place".

Put me in charge and affirmative action would be a function of an applicant's economic status, not their skin color or native language.

[Hegemony]

Secundem_Artem, if Affirmative Action doesn't really change a student's prospects, why not just leave it in place?

[spork]

Yet another tempest in a teapot discussion that affects sooooooo few people.  There are probably no more than a few dozen schools where AA makes much difference.  So if Hahvahd  & others of their ilk are privileging one group over another, ye gawds, it's a national crisis. 

[...]

Harvard wants students from rich families, because those are the students that help it maintain its brand. Admission of a few non-white, non-wealthy students is just virtue signaling. Which is why I am now glad that I attended the trade school down the river.

[Ruralguy]

Most schools that are "competitive" (anything not open admission) are begging for students. So, for a school like mine AA doesn't really matter for admissions, though it probably did matter, say 30-50 years ago. Also, it still matters for hiring.

I'm not saying we're "post racial" by any kind of long shot. I am just saying that if we could get permanently to 1200 students by a large increase annually in all minorities, we'd take that in a heartbeat. Some ancient alums might finally die of a heart attack when they see that, but screw them.

But...if you get into the "highly selective" category, then there could be (and apparently are) some issues in maintaining the previous level of admitted talented minority students.

Maybe Harvard is "virtue signaling" with their policies on admitting minority students over the years, but the actual numbers of graduated minority students do add up over time.