19

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "SFFA doesn't like the Asian American %" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster quoted from an article in the New York Times discussing the group, "Students for Fair Admissions". This organization successfully sued Harvard University over race-based admissions preferences resulting in a Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action in college admissions. This academic year is the first in which incoming students were admitted under the new rules and the diversity mixes of the freshman classes of top universities have been watched closely. Students for Fair Admissions represented Asian students in its case against Harvard and expected that the Supreme Court ruling would lead to an increase of Asian students among the leading schools. However, three prominent universities — Princeton, Yale and Duke — actually saw declines in Asian American enrollment. As a result, the organization is threatening to investigate whether those institutions are correctly following the law and to sue them if they are not. I have discussed multiple threads on the topic of race and college admissions in this blog as many such threads have been among the most active. The topic has been discussed so frequently that I'd expect the forum's posters to be sick and tired of the topic by now. Indeed, several posters demonstrated considerable fatigue with the topic. But as this thread's position as the most active thread shows, there is stil considerable capacity among posters to debate the topic. Most of the attention in this thread is focused on two groups, Asian-Americans and Black Americans. The primary argument is whether there are too many, the correct amount, or too few of each group. That argument is complicated by the fact that there is little agreement about the correct numbers, let alone whether colleges acting legally to reach that number. Fundamentally this is a dispute between whether universities should seek to admit the "most qualified" students or a "diverse" group of students. Those who favor admitting the most qualified students are not always able to agree on which metrics should determine who is most qualified, but often settle on tests scores. As such, they generally oppose any situation in which a student is accepted with a lower test score than a student who is turned down. Those who value diversity normally take a broader view and argue that diversity strengthens the student body. In their view, a diverse group of students which might include a few with lower test scores is, overall, stronger than a homogenous class consisting only of those with top stats. Colleges themselves have generally taken the second view and, the Supreme Court ruling notwithstanding, have tried to recruit diverse student bodies. The issue up for debate, therefore, is whether those efforts are legal. Posters in this thread obviously have various views. One thing I noticed in this thread that I hadn't noticed in previous threads on similar topics is self-described Asian and White posters arguing strongly in favor of diversity. But that may be the only welcome development in this otherwise tiresome thread.