I am not up to speed on the Affirmative Action cases before the Supreme Court but it seems like there is a near-consensus that the Court is poised to gut Affirmative Action in college admissions with implications for the policy in general. What the Court does is beyond the control of the Republican Party, but upending Affirmative Action will do real and lasting damage to the GOP’s rebranding efforts and cost them even more support with women and racial minorities.
One of the frustrating things about college admissions is that admission boards consider all kinds of things beside the raw data involved in grades and test scores. People receive preferential treatment if their parents are alumni or if they come from geographical areas with few applicants. They may be rewarded because they play a certain musical instrument or have extracurricular activities that fill a need with some school program. I think it’s a legitimate argument that students learn a lot from having contact from people from different regions of the country or different religious backgrounds, or from foreign countries. This is learning that occurs mainly outside of the classroom, but it’s an important part of the learning process. One could even make an argument that Yale classmates of George W. Bush benefitted by having contact with the grandson of a U.S. Senator and son of a congressman, despite the fact that Bush never would have been accepted based on objective metrics. It’s a weak argument, perhaps, but making powerful connections is one of the advantages of going to an elite university.
Affirmative Action is intended, in part, to compensate for the fact that rich and powerful people already get preferential treatment in college admissions. But people like George W. Bush are supposed to benefit, too, because meeting people from other walks of life broadens perspectives and deepens knowledge. There are many competing considerations that the admissions officers rightly take into account when they go about building a class of students, and gender and racial diversity is as legitimate as any of the others.