Careful what you wish for
It its quest to eliminate diversity in America, the Trump Administration is demanding admissions data from colleges and universities to hunt for evidence of discrimination against white kids and kids from red states. In fact, there’s a history of affirmative action for white kids in admissions that goes back a century:
In the early 20th century, Harvard and other Ivy League schools saw an increase in the enrollment of Jewish immigrant students. To address these changing demographics, Harvard’s President, Lawrence Lowell, proposed limiting the number of Jewish students. Harvard introduced policies like legacy preferences, favoring applicants with family connections to alumni in an attempt to limit Jewish enrollment and maintain a predominantly white, Protestant student body. The practice of using legacy admissions to restrict Jewish students spread to other Ivy League schools.
We’ve been here before. If university admissions are blind to ethnicity and rely only on grades and test scores, we know what will happen: the vast majority of kids going to elite colleges and universities will be Jewish or Asian, and a large proportion will be female. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Trump and MAGA are planning.
In the early 20th century, Harvard and other Ivy League schools saw an increase in the enrollment of Jewish immigrant students. To address these changing demographics, Harvard’s President, Lawrence Lowell, proposed limiting the number of Jewish students. Harvard introduced policies like legacy preferences, favoring applicants with family connections to alumni in an attempt to limit Jewish enrollment and maintain a predominantly white, Protestant student body. The practice of using legacy admissions to restrict Jewish students spread to other Ivy League schools.
We’ve been here before. If university admissions are blind to ethnicity and rely only on grades and test scores, we know what will happen: the vast majority of kids going to elite colleges and universities will be Jewish or Asian, and a large proportion will be female. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Trump and MAGA are planning.
I have forgotten the guy and it may be an urban legend, but there was a dark skinned east Indian, who claimed he got into Harvard by claiming to be black. The point being that in a merit based system all the elite institutions would be filled with Asians. What I do not get is what MAGA folks have actually suffered discrimination at elite academic institutions because they are white. If you are sufficiently bright to have the grades and test scores to realistically have a shot at getting into Harvard, whether you get into Harvard or not, you will be admitted to an excellent college and have a great opportunity to get an excellent education and it is more likely that you got bumped from Harvard by a legacy white guy than a black kid from the inner city. True anecdote–when I blew the top off the LSAT–I applied to several top tier law schools including Harvard. Previously, I had only directed that my LSAT score be sent to several second tier law schools based on my grades which were quite good but not exceptional. I did not get into Harvard, was wait listed at Berkely but did get accepted at Michigan. I never for a moment thought that I would have been accepted at Harvard if I was not a white guy. To bring the issue full circle, one of my classmates at Michigan was Larry Elder–yes that Larry Elder. Larry was somewhere between an acquaintance and friend, but was very opposed to affirmative action feeling that everyone thought he got into Michigan because he was black. I do not know of anyone who thought that way but feelings are not always rational and Larry has proved over the years that he is not always rational. Anyway, does anybody believe that Obama went to Harvard for any reason other than merit? Does anybody believe Trump got into Wharton based on merit? Trumps anti DEI initiatives are only to satisfy his cult who have never really suffered from DEI. Sort of like the attack on transgender athletes.
Terry:
I lived near Brighton and just north of Ann Arbor. U of M was hot and heavy trying to recruit Craig for its soccer team. I just was not open for it. Instead, he went to OWU a smaller university with good credentials and a soccer team. The older son went to Lake Forest. Both smaller colleges with good credentials.
Me? I went to Catholic schools. First Lewis and then Loyola of Chicago. I was frsh out of the military with a wife and not making much money. She made more than I did as a paralegal. It took three years to get a BA in Business with a minor in math going all year around. I was working part time as a maintenance man at an old age home.
A few years later after we had a house, I started on my Masters at night in downtown Chicago. Take the train in and out. Once and a while drive. Three years at doing that also. Both paid off in the end. I could always find a job and I was good at what I did in Manufacturing and Global Supply Chain. I traveled everywhere globally in Europe and Asia. The experience of doing such left me with many memories.
What is really critical for younger people is the exposure to different cultures, people, and cultural. The world is changing, shrinking in size, and one has to learn to adapt. You never know who you will be working for at one time or another.
That exposure could and should come in college as a start.
Where were the hot Jewish Asian girls when I was in college?
Oh, I know. Not at my engineering school in 1970.
Honestly not thinking MAGA is going to care very much about the composition of the of the Yale class of 2031. Yale alumni might care more, but they aren’t MAGA for the most part. But I bet even they won’t care that much. To me it could be more interesting to understand what people “in the industry” think about it. Do they say to themselves ‘our institution is elite and if we concentrate on only the highest prepared students, we will be even more elite’ or do they think something else about the nature of being perceived as elite? I suspect that some version of this post is being closely considered at many colleges, just not with the MAGA slant to it. It’s kind of a new world where not supporting DEI as it has been practiced isn’t the threat to professional success as it was even a couple years ago. Maybe it’s not MAGA-types most uneasy at the prospect of lots of Asians and Jews and women.
@Eric,
As someone who has been a university professor for over 38 years, I think I qualify as someone “in the industry.” What I and most of my colleagues realize is that grades and test scores are (a) just two and (b) imperfect metrics of what makes an “elite” student body. I’ll take an intellectually restless, creative and ambitious B student over an unimaginative, plodding A student any day. What really matters is what you do with your education, not where you got it.
Joel, appreciate the input. As a professor, I presume your contact is with those students admitted and not those rejected. The admissions team has to figure out that before you begin teaching them. It seems though that this “unimaginative, plodding” characteristic was pretty obviously applied to Asian heritage students, in particular, to a far greater degree than seems statistically possible. Additionally, the data is clear that this label never reaches the students with the very highest grades and scores, who you might argue could be the epitome of “unimaginative, plodding” reputed “Asian” study habits.
My own opinion is that decades ago the country decided that more “success” for Black Americans would be good for the country and education was a prime element of efforts to achieve that. So they instituted racial discrimination in admissions. This did not ruin the lives of non-Black people, but it stung to be on the wrong end of it. Court challenges ensue and Supreme Court says “well okay, so long as you can give it a nice gloss that makes its fundamental incompatibility with the Constitution less obvious, but hey, like maybe in 25 years can it be over?” Well, 25 or so years later it’s over. So what do schools do?
Probably many approaches, but I think some will go very simple as in ‘we always have some misses, but nothing in our toolbox predicts misses as well as grades and standard tests scores. We used this other stuff to sculpt the group identity composition of students, and it worked for that, but we don’t do that any longer, so we might as well lean really heavy on grades and scores.’ Others won’t. Perceptions of these schools will evolve. How, I cannot predict.
@Eric,
LOL!
You presume wrong. I served for many years on the admissions committee for our graduate program, and I participated for many years in interviews for our MD/PhD program admissions. Furthermore, as a member of dean’s staff for ten years, I got regular briefings from the associate dean for admissions to our MD program.
Opinions are like nose hairs, Eric: everybody’s got ’em. Rather than presuming and opining, try learning something about the topic before commenting, m’kay?