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canyonwalkerThe US Supreme Court has ended race-based affirmative action in universities. I know, unless you've been living in a cave that's not exactly news anymore. The Supremes handed down their somewhat predictably 6-3 decision (with its super-majority of conservative and ultra-conservative justices) just over two weeks ago, on Thursday, June 29. Example coverage: NPR News article, 29 Jun 2023.
Most things I could say about this decision have probably already been said elsewhere— especially because I am late to the party by about two weeks. But one thing I heard in the hours following the decision I've not heard or seen repeated anywhere, so I'll share it here.
A college admissions officer at a highly selective liberal arts university was being interviewed (quote slightly paraphrased):
The admissions officer went on to explain that college admissions is, in her view, really about what kind of community the school wishes to build. But it's the statement highlighted above that has stuck with me— because of the absurdity it contains.
How can there be an objective assessment of educational qualifications? It's a myth that there can be such a thing. Numbers like SAT scores, ACT scores, and even AP test scores have been shown for years to have limited correlation— reasonable correlation, just not strong correlation— with academic achievement post-high school. Heck, that was established long enough ago that I read the studies in textbooks published in the 1980s when I was in college in the 1990s. And just about everything else about an admissions decision is less numerical, less standardized than that, and therefore requires way more subjective evaluation.
Most things I could say about this decision have probably already been said elsewhere— especially because I am late to the party by about two weeks. But one thing I heard in the hours following the decision I've not heard or seen repeated anywhere, so I'll share it here.
A college admissions officer at a highly selective liberal arts university was being interviewed (quote slightly paraphrased):
"We've accepted as an assumption in our national discussion on the issue that college admissions is an objective assessment of a student's educational qualifications, and that anything else is discrimination."
The admissions officer went on to explain that college admissions is, in her view, really about what kind of community the school wishes to build. But it's the statement highlighted above that has stuck with me— because of the absurdity it contains.
How can there be an objective assessment of educational qualifications? It's a myth that there can be such a thing. Numbers like SAT scores, ACT scores, and even AP test scores have been shown for years to have limited correlation— reasonable correlation, just not strong correlation— with academic achievement post-high school. Heck, that was established long enough ago that I read the studies in textbooks published in the 1980s when I was in college in the 1990s. And just about everything else about an admissions decision is less numerical, less standardized than that, and therefore requires way more subjective evaluation.
