Guerilla College Affirmative Action

 The self-righteous majority on the Supreme Court, having declared affirmative action dead, are likely celebrating. But, cloistered in universities, legal libraries and court chambers for most of their adult lives, they are unaware their supposed victory is no victory at all. 

It is almost absurdly easy for university entrance departments to ensure a diverse student body by deliberately admitting a cadre of minority students each year. 

A careful reading of applications, essays and recommendations can be as enlightening as a photograph. Home and school addresses can be checked against demographic information. Household income in financial aid applications can be another indication of one's race, although sadly. Interning with the United Farmworkers union and fluency in Spanish is a pretty good sign of ethnicity as is a last name ending in the letter Z. 

Seven of the eight Ivy League colleges as well as other elite schools such as the remaining members of the Seven Sisters women-only institutions require interviews with alums as part of the process. I sincerely doubt applicants are placed behind screens during the discussions. 

Unfortunately, many students worry about reverse discrimination. Tyler Austin Harper, an assistant professor at Bates College wrote in the New York Times about his time working as an admissions consultant. He came across students seeking help in sounding less Asian because they feared top universities ignored their qualifications in the name of diversity. Some students Harper counseled wanted to appear "less rich and less white."

Fears of ongoing discrimination are well founded. The University of California at Berkeley bans the use of race in admissions. It's undergraduate enrollment is 19.5 percent Asian despite the fact 55 percent of the state's high school population is Asian.

In a brief supporting the losing side in the court's affirmative decision, the University of California system stated, "UC's experience demonstrates that the race-neutral measures which it has diligently pursued for 25 years have been inadequate to meaningfully increase student-body diversity and that the problem is most acute at its most selective campuses."

Perhaps UC and other elite institutions should be less diligent, more street smart and make a real commitment to a diverse student body.