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Notes -
Hasn’t California banned AA in university admissions for nearly 3 decades now? I don’t doubt that university administrators/admissions committees will try every trick in the book to put a thumb on the scale in favor of “diverse” applicants, but there are hard limits on how far they can move that needle, particularly given Asian academic performance as you mentioned. The top 2 UC campuses (Berkeley and LA), for instance, are near-majority Asian and have vanishingly low numbers of Black students.
California's affirmative action ban is the perfect example of how personnel equals policy. The UCs have been flagrantly violating the affirmative action ban for essentially the entire time it's been in effect. It's just laundered through a "holisitic" admissions program where everyone knows the "personal statememt" all applicants write is where you talk about how much Kwanzaa drag shows meant to you growing up.
The combination of a fig leaf ban and a system where the top 10% of high school students (not sure if state-wide or per school) are guaranteed admission in at least one UC means they have marginally more white and Asian enrollment than they would prefer, but the schools are still doing everything within their power to put their thumbs on the scale.
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