University Admissions and Affirmative Action
Affirmative action is under legal attack. Courts should uphold affirmative action and empower universities to be even bolder in admissions decisions. Moreover, universities should adopt economic affirmative action in addition to, or in lieu of (should race-based affirmative action be declared illegal), race-based affirmative action. I. The Legal Fight Race-based affirmative action is under attack. Students for Fair Admissions (SFA) sued Harvard University, filing a motion for summary judgement in June, alleging that the University engages in ‘racial balancing’ in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [1] SFA’s racial balancing claim is straightforward. [2] Asian American applicants include more highly qualified candidates, along comparable quantitative measures like grade point average, test scores, and athletic achievement, than other applicant groups. Yet Asian Americans are consistently scored lower than other candidates are on qualitative measures a...