First, it's important to realize that affirmative action is based on rejecting Enlightenment principles of impartiality and universalizability. The policy derives from explicitly post-Enlightenment philosophies like postmodernism and critical theory. Both these philosophies reject individual rights and see the group as the primary unit in society since oppression is typically based on groups. It's also worth noting that Enlightenment impartiality has biblical roots: "“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” Leviticus 19:15
India has had an affirmative action-type program since 1945 to fix the historical injustices created by the caste system. 80 years later, and one of the main legacies is that no one wants a Dalit (untouchable) doctor. It's hard to be a Brahmin doctor because medical school is intensely competitive for Brahmins. Think of it like being an Asian doctor in America. Asians are discriminated against because the goal of high-status schools is to produce the next generation of American-style Brahmins to rule society, and Asians are not fully acculturated into this calling. But it's easy for Dalits to get into medical school due to affirmative action, so the outcome is that there are many Dalit doctors who are simply unqualified. And as a Christian, I'm on Team Dalit. They are one of the few groups in India where Christianity is spreading. Their society tells them they are less than human, but Jesus tells them that they are made in the image of God, every bit as much as the highest ranking Brahmin.
There is a similar dynamic in the United States - the ratchet effect. Harvard's average SAT score is 1540. If they admit black students with 1350s, then these students will likely drop out (with nothing but a ton of student loan debt to show for their trouble), or they'll be pushed away from hard majors like physics and engineering and towards easy majors like Psychology and African-American studies. But these students have the ability to be top-notch engineers if they went to any school other than Harvard.
Meanwhile Harvard and other ivy leagues have taken all the black students with 1350s, so the good second tier schools with 1350 SATs admit black students with 1150 SATs. And so on down the chain. Affirmative action is systemically increasing the rate at which black students either drop out of school, or get pushed in majors suitable only for careers in elite overproduction fields - the token black hire at an NGO. I wonder if for devout leftists, affirmative action is working as intended.
You really are talented Jman, you combine a sharp intellect, excellent historical knowledge, a respectful writing style and Biblical wisdom, a powerful combo, keep it up sir!
If colleges simply used test scores they'd have much more "diversity" than they want as half the admissions would be Asians. If they added an income requirement things might well be the same or more so, all those Asian immigrant strivers. I'd be more than happy if they went back to tuition at state schools being the equivalent of what a kid can make with a summer job. Currently I'm paying $11K per semester, that's tuition, doesn't include dorm or meals.
Many people are multiracial anyway. Do we want to subsidize the progeny of slave owners? What of people whose ancestors were slaves in other countries, which includes probably all of us.
Yesterday Harvard announced massive cutbacks in it's Phd programs. I don't understand why with their huge endowment. Their disgraced serial plagiarist former president is still drawing just under a million dollars a year in salary, but at least she is diverse.
"If colleges simply used test scores they'd have much more "diversity" than they want as half the admissions would be Asians"
Exactly, it's straight-up racism towards Asians. And then when they try to justify it, they dig deeper. "Well schools are interested in the whole person and that's why they accept more whites than Asians." I remember my liberal mom telling me proudly when I was a teenager how her generation ended the informal Jewish quotas in Ivy Leagues. Well, they replaced it with Asian quotas, and they brought the Jewish quotas back.
Many, many American Native Tribes had slaves. It was common. So to give preferences to Native Americans is giving preferences to slaves and slave owners.
How do you "make" something cheaper? Cut everyone's salaries in half? Close buildings? Right now our state is trying to close some programs that maybe one or two people are in, and the professors are going out to march about it. Imagine if you tried to make them work 40 hours/week and then cut their pay?
Considering that it used to be the case that any kid could work his/her way through a state school, the first thing to do is look at what’s changed. When I worked my way through a state school roughly 35 years ago:
Faculty vastly outnumbered staff and students were expected to be adults and run their own lives. Now staff outnumber faculty and students are mollycoddled.
My dorm had all the charm of a prison without bars. Cinder block walls, linoleum on concrete flooring & plywood builtins. My kids are currently living in dorms that are nicer than my first few apartments.
Our student gym was in the basement of one of the oldest buildings on campus and filled with hand-me-down equipment from the varsity athletic program. Now student gyms look like the kind of health clubs I avoid because people get upset that I sweat and can’t understand why I take issue with them doing curls in the squat rack.
Then yes there are likely multiple useless degrees if not whole departments that deserve to be cut.
Once you’ve factored in newly excessive costs you need to look at state funding. Adjusting for inflation and calculating on a per student basis has it gone up or down. If down we should raise it. This is exactly the kind of thing I fully support paying taxes for. Especially if the useless degrees are cut. Sure there will be much gnashing of the teeth from those who have been milking the system, but broad based support amongst the public shouldn’t be hard to build.
Right now a state school tuition is probably $10,000 plus. Room and board is another $10,000. Your suggestions above won't make a dent in that. You have to go for salaries and you have to make professors work 40 hours a week.
You overlook the point about staff now outnumbering faculty. They are paying diversity deans mid six figure salaries. Scrapping at least 2/3 of current administrative staff will put a huge dent in costs.
"Racially and economically integrated student bodies at selective institutions of higher education are good for students and important for the future of the nation’s leadership class! "YOU wrote this now back it up with how and why ! MERIT is the only thing that will make America better across the board ! NO preferences for ANY so called "identity group " !
I’m a big fan of UT Austin’s top 10 policy for state schools because it’s predominantly based on merit and state schools are supposed to support the entire state citizenry that pays the taxes to support them.
Any policy that focuses on equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity is going to be unpopular. (Pro tip: When lefty’s try to use inequality of outcome as proof of inequality of opportunity, normie voters full understand that they are pushing for equality of outcome.
When it comes to big name private schools, I’m not sure the UT Austin approach works quite as well. Harvard et.al. might do better with a fully meritorious admissions policy with generous funding for kids who can’t afford it so the none of their students graduate with truckloads of debt.
Activists would have a lot more credibility if they spent more time working to improve the abject failure many of our public schools have turned into thanks to a complete lack of discipline and lowering of standards & expectations.
I often wonder how many critics of diversity efforts could be assuaged if organizations, academic and otherwise, didn't boast about their diversity. While MAGA certainly has racist elements, I think some critics of DEI are just put off by progressive smugness. If an organization diversifies, whether for pragmatic or principled reasons, they would do well to say "these are our best applicants" rather than "look how inclusive we are."
Being unfair isn't helped by hiding it as Princeton and some others have done. The systemic racism of universities is more worrying than some Jim Crow throwbacks on the right.
"Trump would love nothing better than for Democrats to support a set of policies nakedly motivated by race rather than fairness. " And you were doing so well. Why the F did you have to add this completely unnecessary, nay worthless statement to an otherwise fine essay? News for you buddy. It's not just Trump who would be eating the popcorn, but over 50% of Americans. As a Republican, it would not bother me at all if Democrats wanted to die on this hill. Trump would be the least of your worries.
Opposition to race-based preferences need not preclude a serious reckoning with the ongoing impact of U.S. policies toward Native Americans. Unlike other groups often included in affirmative action debates, Native Americans possess a distinct legal and political status rooted in tribal sovereignty and historical treaty relationships with the United States. The dispossession of tribal lands, the forced relocation of entire nations, and the prolonged imposition of assimilationist policies—including the suppression of Indigenous languages and spiritual practices—amount to a concerted effort to dismantle Native societies. These policies were not just discriminatory; they were designed to erase Indigenous identity and self-determination. This isn't a 1619-Project style fever dream. It is history.
Addressing the consequences of these actions through targeted investment and institutional support is not a matter of racial preference in the conventional sense. Rather, it should be understood as the fulfillment of longstanding legal and moral obligations between the federal government and sovereign tribal nations. Framing these efforts as intergovernmental or quasi-diplomatic in nature—as a continuation of treaty obligations and sovereign-to-sovereign responsibilities—offers both a principled and constitutionally durable path forward.
The courts have long recognized that distinctions based on tribal citizenship are political, not racial. The Supreme Court’s decision in Morton v. Mancari (1974), which upheld employment preferences for Native Americans within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, made clear that such preferences do not violate equal protection principles because they are tied to the government’s unique relationship with tribes. This political classification doctrine provides a stable legal foundation for policies that support Native students, preserve Indigenous languages and cultures, and redress the material effects of past and ongoing structural harms.
Framing Native-directed initiatives within this legal and diplomatic structure helps insulate them from the types of constitutional challenges currently being mounted against race-based affirmative action. At the same time, it distinguishes the case of Native Americans from broader identity-based claims, grounding it instead in a history of formal compacts, legal commitments, and nation-to-nation engagement. Rather than being swept into the broader backlash against DEI or racial preferences, these efforts should be understood and defended on their own terms—as part of the United States’ enduring obligations to the Indigenous nations whose sovereignty and cultural continuity it has long undermined.
Just curious. How successful have any of these programs been in the last say, 100 years? How much longer would these programs continue before anyone admitted they were an epic failure?
An interesting comment above about Native American slave owners....
The better question is how long have such programs been designed, funded and implemented in a way that would make them likely to succeed. That almost certainly has not been the case for most of the past century.
It's a noble thought, but I can't imagine the government making it work. Also probably unintended consequences, like with most well-intentioned programs.
One of the ways the left-authoritarians work is through word-shifting. Once "affirmative action" could no longer be explicitly used after 2023, they pursued the same goal through use of the term "EQUITY".
Now, "equity" SOUNDS like "equality"--isn't that clever of them! But the way the term is employed administratively in universitie, in "woke" businesses and government, it's used to ensure the opposite of equality. It's simply the old "affirmative action" discrimination goals pursued under another, cleverer, but much more deceptive name. It's the dishonesty here, the gaslighting of the public, that really rankles me.
First, it's important to realize that affirmative action is based on rejecting Enlightenment principles of impartiality and universalizability. The policy derives from explicitly post-Enlightenment philosophies like postmodernism and critical theory. Both these philosophies reject individual rights and see the group as the primary unit in society since oppression is typically based on groups. It's also worth noting that Enlightenment impartiality has biblical roots: "“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” Leviticus 19:15
India has had an affirmative action-type program since 1945 to fix the historical injustices created by the caste system. 80 years later, and one of the main legacies is that no one wants a Dalit (untouchable) doctor. It's hard to be a Brahmin doctor because medical school is intensely competitive for Brahmins. Think of it like being an Asian doctor in America. Asians are discriminated against because the goal of high-status schools is to produce the next generation of American-style Brahmins to rule society, and Asians are not fully acculturated into this calling. But it's easy for Dalits to get into medical school due to affirmative action, so the outcome is that there are many Dalit doctors who are simply unqualified. And as a Christian, I'm on Team Dalit. They are one of the few groups in India where Christianity is spreading. Their society tells them they are less than human, but Jesus tells them that they are made in the image of God, every bit as much as the highest ranking Brahmin.
There is a similar dynamic in the United States - the ratchet effect. Harvard's average SAT score is 1540. If they admit black students with 1350s, then these students will likely drop out (with nothing but a ton of student loan debt to show for their trouble), or they'll be pushed away from hard majors like physics and engineering and towards easy majors like Psychology and African-American studies. But these students have the ability to be top-notch engineers if they went to any school other than Harvard.
Meanwhile Harvard and other ivy leagues have taken all the black students with 1350s, so the good second tier schools with 1350 SATs admit black students with 1150 SATs. And so on down the chain. Affirmative action is systemically increasing the rate at which black students either drop out of school, or get pushed in majors suitable only for careers in elite overproduction fields - the token black hire at an NGO. I wonder if for devout leftists, affirmative action is working as intended.
It is the unintended consequence which always follows poorly thought out change
You really are talented Jman, you combine a sharp intellect, excellent historical knowledge, a respectful writing style and Biblical wisdom, a powerful combo, keep it up sir!
If colleges simply used test scores they'd have much more "diversity" than they want as half the admissions would be Asians. If they added an income requirement things might well be the same or more so, all those Asian immigrant strivers. I'd be more than happy if they went back to tuition at state schools being the equivalent of what a kid can make with a summer job. Currently I'm paying $11K per semester, that's tuition, doesn't include dorm or meals.
Many people are multiracial anyway. Do we want to subsidize the progeny of slave owners? What of people whose ancestors were slaves in other countries, which includes probably all of us.
Yesterday Harvard announced massive cutbacks in it's Phd programs. I don't understand why with their huge endowment. Their disgraced serial plagiarist former president is still drawing just under a million dollars a year in salary, but at least she is diverse.
"If colleges simply used test scores they'd have much more "diversity" than they want as half the admissions would be Asians"
Exactly, it's straight-up racism towards Asians. And then when they try to justify it, they dig deeper. "Well schools are interested in the whole person and that's why they accept more whites than Asians." I remember my liberal mom telling me proudly when I was a teenager how her generation ended the informal Jewish quotas in Ivy Leagues. Well, they replaced it with Asian quotas, and they brought the Jewish quotas back.
Good comment.
Many, many American Native Tribes had slaves. It was common. So to give preferences to Native Americans is giving preferences to slaves and slave owners.
Plus’s infinity on making state schools cheap enough that anyone can work their way through and graduate with minimal to no debt.
How do you "make" something cheaper? Cut everyone's salaries in half? Close buildings? Right now our state is trying to close some programs that maybe one or two people are in, and the professors are going out to march about it. Imagine if you tried to make them work 40 hours/week and then cut their pay?
Considering that it used to be the case that any kid could work his/her way through a state school, the first thing to do is look at what’s changed. When I worked my way through a state school roughly 35 years ago:
Faculty vastly outnumbered staff and students were expected to be adults and run their own lives. Now staff outnumber faculty and students are mollycoddled.
My dorm had all the charm of a prison without bars. Cinder block walls, linoleum on concrete flooring & plywood builtins. My kids are currently living in dorms that are nicer than my first few apartments.
Our student gym was in the basement of one of the oldest buildings on campus and filled with hand-me-down equipment from the varsity athletic program. Now student gyms look like the kind of health clubs I avoid because people get upset that I sweat and can’t understand why I take issue with them doing curls in the squat rack.
Then yes there are likely multiple useless degrees if not whole departments that deserve to be cut.
Once you’ve factored in newly excessive costs you need to look at state funding. Adjusting for inflation and calculating on a per student basis has it gone up or down. If down we should raise it. This is exactly the kind of thing I fully support paying taxes for. Especially if the useless degrees are cut. Sure there will be much gnashing of the teeth from those who have been milking the system, but broad based support amongst the public shouldn’t be hard to build.
Right now a state school tuition is probably $10,000 plus. Room and board is another $10,000. Your suggestions above won't make a dent in that. You have to go for salaries and you have to make professors work 40 hours a week.
You overlook the point about staff now outnumbering faculty. They are paying diversity deans mid six figure salaries. Scrapping at least 2/3 of current administrative staff will put a huge dent in costs.
Agree. Employees outnumber the students at many universities.
"Racially and economically integrated student bodies at selective institutions of higher education are good for students and important for the future of the nation’s leadership class! "YOU wrote this now back it up with how and why ! MERIT is the only thing that will make America better across the board ! NO preferences for ANY so called "identity group " !
Excellent piece.
Pity the dreadful NYT did not have you do the book review.
But expect more insanity , not less, from the Democratic Party, especially in NYC until a Republican Governor is elected.
Merit over identity.
Adaptation over resentment.
I’m a big fan of UT Austin’s top 10 policy for state schools because it’s predominantly based on merit and state schools are supposed to support the entire state citizenry that pays the taxes to support them.
Any policy that focuses on equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity is going to be unpopular. (Pro tip: When lefty’s try to use inequality of outcome as proof of inequality of opportunity, normie voters full understand that they are pushing for equality of outcome.
When it comes to big name private schools, I’m not sure the UT Austin approach works quite as well. Harvard et.al. might do better with a fully meritorious admissions policy with generous funding for kids who can’t afford it so the none of their students graduate with truckloads of debt.
Activists would have a lot more credibility if they spent more time working to improve the abject failure many of our public schools have turned into thanks to a complete lack of discipline and lowering of standards & expectations.
Class instead of race - amen!
I often wonder how many critics of diversity efforts could be assuaged if organizations, academic and otherwise, didn't boast about their diversity. While MAGA certainly has racist elements, I think some critics of DEI are just put off by progressive smugness. If an organization diversifies, whether for pragmatic or principled reasons, they would do well to say "these are our best applicants" rather than "look how inclusive we are."
Being unfair isn't helped by hiding it as Princeton and some others have done. The systemic racism of universities is more worrying than some Jim Crow throwbacks on the right.
What racist elements?
All the people who supported or justified the Young Republicans after their chats were leaked.
"Trump would love nothing better than for Democrats to support a set of policies nakedly motivated by race rather than fairness. " And you were doing so well. Why the F did you have to add this completely unnecessary, nay worthless statement to an otherwise fine essay? News for you buddy. It's not just Trump who would be eating the popcorn, but over 50% of Americans. As a Republican, it would not bother me at all if Democrats wanted to die on this hill. Trump would be the least of your worries.
Opposition to race-based preferences need not preclude a serious reckoning with the ongoing impact of U.S. policies toward Native Americans. Unlike other groups often included in affirmative action debates, Native Americans possess a distinct legal and political status rooted in tribal sovereignty and historical treaty relationships with the United States. The dispossession of tribal lands, the forced relocation of entire nations, and the prolonged imposition of assimilationist policies—including the suppression of Indigenous languages and spiritual practices—amount to a concerted effort to dismantle Native societies. These policies were not just discriminatory; they were designed to erase Indigenous identity and self-determination. This isn't a 1619-Project style fever dream. It is history.
Addressing the consequences of these actions through targeted investment and institutional support is not a matter of racial preference in the conventional sense. Rather, it should be understood as the fulfillment of longstanding legal and moral obligations between the federal government and sovereign tribal nations. Framing these efforts as intergovernmental or quasi-diplomatic in nature—as a continuation of treaty obligations and sovereign-to-sovereign responsibilities—offers both a principled and constitutionally durable path forward.
The courts have long recognized that distinctions based on tribal citizenship are political, not racial. The Supreme Court’s decision in Morton v. Mancari (1974), which upheld employment preferences for Native Americans within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, made clear that such preferences do not violate equal protection principles because they are tied to the government’s unique relationship with tribes. This political classification doctrine provides a stable legal foundation for policies that support Native students, preserve Indigenous languages and cultures, and redress the material effects of past and ongoing structural harms.
Framing Native-directed initiatives within this legal and diplomatic structure helps insulate them from the types of constitutional challenges currently being mounted against race-based affirmative action. At the same time, it distinguishes the case of Native Americans from broader identity-based claims, grounding it instead in a history of formal compacts, legal commitments, and nation-to-nation engagement. Rather than being swept into the broader backlash against DEI or racial preferences, these efforts should be understood and defended on their own terms—as part of the United States’ enduring obligations to the Indigenous nations whose sovereignty and cultural continuity it has long undermined.
Just curious. How successful have any of these programs been in the last say, 100 years? How much longer would these programs continue before anyone admitted they were an epic failure?
An interesting comment above about Native American slave owners....
The better question is how long have such programs been designed, funded and implemented in a way that would make them likely to succeed. That almost certainly has not been the case for most of the past century.
So the government designed a failed program, but you want the government to design another program?
I agree, but how will it be turned around? I don't have faith that the government can run anything.
It's a noble thought, but I can't imagine the government making it work. Also probably unintended consequences, like with most well-intentioned programs.
One of the ways the left-authoritarians work is through word-shifting. Once "affirmative action" could no longer be explicitly used after 2023, they pursued the same goal through use of the term "EQUITY".
Now, "equity" SOUNDS like "equality"--isn't that clever of them! But the way the term is employed administratively in universitie, in "woke" businesses and government, it's used to ensure the opposite of equality. It's simply the old "affirmative action" discrimination goals pursued under another, cleverer, but much more deceptive name. It's the dishonesty here, the gaslighting of the public, that really rankles me.