#18 When diversity and fairness are at odds

The inevitable inconsistencies of race and college admissions

I’m awfully conflicted about using race to determine college admissions. It pits two of my favorite values against each other: diversity and fairness. It doesn’t seem fair that the daughter of Asian immigrants, who worked extremely hard to get into college, might be rejected because of her race. On the other hand, I want higher education to be representative of the larger population.

When I was in high school in the 1990s, gender was fixed and race was fluid. (One of the best-selling books of the 90s was titled Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. It was written by a soft-spoken yogi. Today, only a rightwing firebrand would dare write a book with that title!) Back in the 90s, we were often divided between boys and girls, but we were never divided by our race. We barely mentioned race. 30 years later, it has flipped and now gender is fluid and race is fixed. Teachers are loathe to divide students by their gender, but racial affinity groups have become the norm (in California).

1996. We couldn’t stop listening to Nas and the Fugees

When I was a sophomore in high school (photo above! 🙈), California passed Proposition 209, which amended the state’s constitution to prohibit public institutions, including universities, from considering race, sex, or ethnicity. The campaign was led by Ward Connerly, who identifies as multi-racial, and has been involved in numerous campaigns in opposition to racial classification. (Last year he led the opposition to Prop 16, which would have reinstated affirmative action in California and was opposed by 57% of voters, who say in polls that they favor race neutrality.)

After Prop 209 was passed in 1996, enrollment of Black and Latino students in the University of California system immediately declined:

The economist Zachary Bleemer constructed a massive database linking all 1994-2002 University of California applicants to their educational experiences and subsequent wages between 2000-2017. His analysis found that banning affirmative action exacerbated income inequities between races. It attracted a good deal of media attention, including in the New York Times. But what would Bleemer find if he were to make another database of applicants from 2010-2022? (You can see more details about Bleemer’s research from our exchange on Twitter.)

Look at what happened to UC freshmen demographics starting around 2010:

In 2010, University of California freshmen were 20% Latino, 4% Black, 40% Asian, 30% white, 4% international, and 5% multiracial. The 2022 freshmen class is 37% Latino, 6% Black, 35% Asian, 18% white, and 9% international.

2022’s University of California freshmen class is now somewhat representative of California’s population. Asian students are about double the share of population and white students are about half; but the portion of Latino, Black, and Native American students is almost exactly representative.

Two weeks ago, Stanford’s president apologized for using race in the 1950s to limit the number of Jewish students, calling the practice “appalling antisemitic activity.” The very next week, Stanford submitted a brief to the Supreme Court advocating for the use of race in admissions, even if it limits the number of Asian students. How will future generations view today’s limited Asian enrollment to make more room for others? Might there be a similar 75-page report documenting the practice along with a public apology?

California’s constitution was amended to prevent public universities from using race as a consideration in admissions. And yet over the past 15 years, the percentages of Latino and Black students have grown and the percentage of white students has declined rapidly. This makes me think that when the Supreme Court likely outlaws the use of race as consideration in college admissions next June, there will be a lot of media attention and activist outcry. Perhaps we’ll see something similar to what happened in California — a few years of declined enrollment among Latino, Black, and Native American students followed by a decade or more of rapid diversification.

Meanwhile, if trends continue, there will soon be two women for every man enrolled in college. Do we need to contemplate some sort of affirmative action program to promote more gender diversity on campus? Probably not — at least not yet. After all, 85% of Fortune 500 CEOs are still white Men. Women may be dominating in higher education, but we’re still a long ways away from gender equality in society.

I don’t have much of a hot take to conclude with. I value diversity and I value fairness. I’d like to live in a society that optimizes for both, though I realize they are sometimes in tension. I can be easily convinced that we need affirmative action to increase diversity. I am also swayed by arguments —like this one by Asra Q. Nomani — that college admissions should be based on merit, not skin color. Most of all, I don’t think that elite university admissions should be, in the words of Justice Elena Kagan, the “pipelines to leadership in our society.” (Famously, 8 of the 9 Supreme Court justices went to either Harvard or Yale.) We’ll do much more good by widening the pipelines to leadership beyond elite universities than by perpetuating the perception that their admissions officers should decide the leaders of the future. Let’s tear the paper ceiling.

Kudos

Once again, massive kudos to Ugandan cyclist Florence Nakaggwa, who finished in 7th place in this year’s unsupported, solo Rhino Run Race from Cape Town, South Africa to Windhoek, Namibia. As I type this, there are still many riders out on the road after 13 days of unsupported bikepacking. April Drage is a 41-year-old Australian mother of two, who is just 15 miles from the finish line after having already ridden 1,700 miles over the past two weeks. Best of luck to all of the riders still out on the road.

Kudos also to Fulani chef Fatmata Binta, who won this year’s prestigious Basque Culinary World Prize — becoming the first African to win the “Nobel prize of gastronomy.” I met Chef Binta in Northern Ghana last week, where she used her prize money to purchase four acres of land to support Fulani women who grow and process an increasingly popular West African grain called fonio. Here we are after ordering some roadside roasted guineafowl:

A useful tool: Paste as text from Apple Pencil

I wouldn’t be able to survive at my job if I didn’t take notes during all meetings. Earlier this year, I finally undertook the massive project of moving over 15 years of notes from Evernote to a combination of Apple Notes and Notion. Basically, I use Apple Notes to capture ideas and Notion to organize them. I used to always type out my notes on my laptop or iPad, which could distract other people, who assumed I was emailing or texting instead of paying attention. Now I use my Apple Pencil, which is less distracting. And it easily and accurately converts everything I write to searchable text. If you want to get really geeky about all the note-taking tips and tricks with the Apple Pencil, check out Tom Solid’s 25-minute YouTube tutorial. His fast-talking German accent is perfect for this level of tech geekery. This is one of those times where a 30-minute YouTube video probably saved me hours of potentially wasted time in how I organize and search my notes.

And I’m very much looking forward to Freeform — Apple’s new collaborative note-taking app, which will be released next month. 9to5Mac just released a video showing the app’s collaboration features.

Alright, that it’s for this week. On Saturday, me and the boys are doing a crazy 120-mile gravel ride down in Santa Cruz with nearly 12,000 feet of climbing. If we survive, then I’ll be back next week.

Have a great week!

David