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Looks like the Supreme Court is finally getting around to challenging affirmative action. Of course we don't know what the ruling will be, but with the decisions so far I'm hopeful they strike down AA, or at least put a dent in it.
I'm surprised this isn't a bigger deal as I haven't heard much buzz about it from my liberal friends. According to the article, 74% of Americans don't believe in using race as a factor in college admissions (although that question and whether or not Affirmative Action should be struck down likely have far different approval rates.) It may be a Roe situation where they really don't care until one of the sacred cows is gored because they believe in their own invincibility. I'm curious if AA does get struck down, will we have the same reaction as Roe?
I'm sure some people will be upset, but do you think liberal states will start changing their constitutions to allow race filtering for college admissions? Or is the political will for AA just gone on both sides of the aisle?
I think the system of racial quotas at US universities will remain, no matter what.
The dilemma for the establishment is the vexing problem of both ever-greater share of Asians in the US population combined with Asians pulling away from everyone on the SAT college exam, which Steve Sailer [wrote]](https://www.takimag.com/article/asian-supremacy/) about recently.
One possible exit route could to be declare racial discrimination illegal but open the door for everyone within the top 10% of their high-school graduating class to get a spot, which would invariably hit against Asians as many high-schools in the US are overwhelmingly Latinx and/or black. Or universities could just ditch the test. Can't break the rules on something you can't measure.
It's depressing to ponder, but it appears that Asians in particular will simply have to get used to doing their undergrad at places like University of Pittsburgh or Boston University rather than the very elite universities, and then move up one step for grad school. To truly do away with racial quotas would mean that black enrollment in many top universities would collapse by 80% or even more. The amount of hysteria that would generate would be very hard for the system to manage. Asians and whites, for better or worse, are more passive and thus easier to steamroll.
Consider that wherever those students go will become elite over time.
Is this true though? I don’t know if the eliteness of schools is extremely correlated to raw intelligence or aptitude. Sure students from ivy leagues succeed but that could be due to networking opportunities and status signaling.
Well, eliteness is clearly extremely correlated to raw intelligence and aptitude, that just doesn't mean that those are sufficient factors alone to explain the eliteness.
If this was the major factor, though, that would in itself make "become elite over time" come to pass. If suddenly all the smart graduates are coming out of Podunk U, eventually the people who make hiring decisions will figure out to headhunt smart candidates there or to put branch offices in the Podunk Corridor.
This, on the other hand, might make things a bit more sticky. Suppose "eliteness" is a nonlinear effect, a consequence of the things you see accomplished in places where you get all the smartest people and all the richest people and all the most well-connected people to mingle. Intelligence benefits from network effects with more intelligence, but to a lesser extent than money and pull. Lose all the smartest people to Podunk, but don't lose the venture capital and the clout along with them, and it's not clear that the smartest are going to be harmed the least by the separation, at least not for a few generations.
Similar effects concern me when I'm tempted to join in on the schadenfreude upthread about potentially getting rid of "legacy" admissions. "He needs help with his homework" might be annoying, but combine it with "I need help with my job-hunt/startup/etc" and it looks like a win/win. Like the old saying goes: It's not what you know, it's not who you know, it's who knows what you know.
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