As originally conceived, race-based preferences in college admissions were seen as a means of redressing past wrongs. Conceived in this manner, affirmative action was bound to lead to a debate regarding whether wrongs had been addressed "enough." This debate was bound to be rancorous for two basic reasons. First, there is no way to objectively determine whether past wrongs have been addressed "enough." Second, while the parties to the argument might appeal to universal principles the plain fact is that they also have a self-interest in the outcome. You might bring nothing to the debate but principle, but you can't stop your sparring partner from thinking, deep in their heart, that you're just out to win more than your fair share.
From Bakke v. California Board of Regents through Grutter v. Bollinger, a second justification for race-conscious admissions emerged, appealing to diversity as an essential ingredient in higher education. By suggesting that diversity could be something good for everyone, this appeal promised to elevate the affirmative action debate above a zero-sum tussle over scarce resources. If it is really true that students of all races benefit from exposure to diversity, then we needn't worry about whether past wrongs have been redressed enough. We should just adopt diversity-enhancing policies and procedures in perpetuity.
The promise of debate elevation hasn't worked out in practice. Partly this is because the claim that diversity is good for you even if it means a lower likelihood of admission for your kids has not won over the median voter, even in reliably left-of-center states. We're telling the median voter that diversity is good for them, but they're reacting to the information the same way they might to the message that broccoli is good for them. "That's great, but could I please have fries with that?"
Another problem with the "diversity is good for you" argument, which might help explain why the median voter hasn't bought it, is that it's actually kind of hard to produce solid empirical evidence to back up the assertion. It's easy to imagine how diversity might enhance your learning in a small discussion course on social stratification, American history, or even marketing. It's harder to see how it helps you in a huge lecture course where students seldom speak, or in a math, science, or engineering course where the answers are cut and dried. Peter Arcidiacono and I spent some time trying to uncover evidence that college graduates fared better when exposed to diversity in the classroom, but ultimately couldn't find anything conclusive.
The Sotomayor v. Roberts debate in the wake of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action might spell the end of the "eat your peas and vote for affirmative action" era. The move from courts to the ballot box hasn't worked well for the defenders of race-consciousness; the future of this argument will be in the courts.
One might ask why it is that voters can't see fit to leave us universities alone. Why tell us how to do our thing? Put another way, how can it be that the people who actually determine university admissions policies can be so much more pro-diversity than the median voter?
It's simple, really. A significant component of the joy of working at a university is bearing witness to the transformation of lives. Sometimes those transformations come about because of things we do, sometimes we just happen to be there at a stage in a student's life where they turn a corner for reasons that have little to do with us. In both cases, it is a great thing to witness.
There is some joy in seeing the child of a lawyer be accepted to a top law school with the help of a recommendation letter you wrote. There is some joy in seeing the child of an investment banker land a job with a top consulting firm. There is much greater joy, however, in watching the son of a bodega owner, or the daughter of a single working mom, gain entry to a world of knowledge and opportunity that their parents could only dream of.
While one could argue that it doesn't make sense to base college admissions solely on what makes the faculty happy, there is also evidence that selective universities accomplish more for society at large when they enroll students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Recent work by Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger finds that students from privileged backgrounds do about equally well after graduation whether they go to a highly selective institution or a somewhat less-selective one. Black, Hispanic, and disadvantaged students, by contrast, actually gain something from going to the more selective institution.
The selective University that wants to accomplish the most good for society, in other words, would skew its admissions process toward disadvantaged applicants. Consider not whether the applicant is on third base, to use a tortured baseball/political analogy, but how the applicant got to where they are. The applicant who managed to hit a double will, on average, benefit more from attending your college than the applicant born on third.
And thus, in a world where you can't convince a majority of the Supreme Court that race matters, and you can't convince a majority of voters that increasing diversity is good for their college-going kids, there is a third reason to favor skewing the college admissions process toward the disadvantaged. Quite simply, my dear voters and judges, it is what you should do if you want to reap the greatest return from your public investment in a selective university.
