The Threat of "All White" Elite Colleges
A progressive friend recently wrote me and said, "If affirmative action is ended, America's elite colleges will again be all white." First of all, let me note that I am fine with "limited" affirmative action: if there is basically a tie between two students seeking admission to a college, I think it is OK to use minority status to break the tie. But what I really want to remark upon is the amazing claim that only affirmative action prevents America's elite universities from being "all white." UC Berkeley is a pretty elite place, and affirmative action is illegal in the California. Here are its most recent enrollment statistics . Say what?! Whites make up only 24.3% of the admitted students! Chinese students are at 19.5% , nearly the same level as whites, and this despite the fact the whites outnumber Chinese in California by about 22 to 1 . South Asians are another 9% of the admissions: over a third of the number of white admittees, des...