Harvard admissions data shows America loves affirmative action — for whites

America’s most elite colleges and universities really don’t want the public to look behind the curtain and get a better understanding of Who gets it and why?. And it’s not for the reasons you might think.

The urban myth exists that any Latino or African American applying to one of these extremely selective schools can write their own ticket. But the truth is, the people who received the majority of those tickets, the ticket issuers and ticket counter operators were in fact white.

The real pigs at the trough are white people with ties, donations, or incentives who promote wealthy alumni to deposit more checks. Always that.

A new study proves what the relatively few students of color who have ever had the chance to attend select colleges and universities have long suspected: Despite what people call “imposter syndrome” —ie, the insecurity that some Latinos and African Americans feel about whether they deserve the chance they’ve been paid enough — they’re not imposters at all. Far away from it. Rather, they are among those worthy of admission.

The numbers show that, for the most part, students of color have to work harder in high school to get into these elite schools than white students with pickpockets, big pockets or ex-families the student.

Furthermore, in many cases, this pattern will continue throughout their professional life. The only merits get you so far.

Just look at the experience of what can be called white people without privilege. Working-class whites without a foot in the door are being pushed out of top schools not by Latinos and African-Americans but by ruling-class whites who are making work from a certain angle.

All of this came to light thanks to a lawsuit accusing Harvard of engaging in discriminatory practices in its college admissions process. In 2014, an organization calling itself Fair Admissions Students and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Harvard College in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging that it discriminated against applicants. Asian Americans by holding them to a higher standard than other applicants. .

That’s a difficult case to make as the university’s students are currently about 25% Asian. Both the District Court and the First Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, and now the plaintiffs want the Supreme Court to hear their appeals against the lower court rulings.

But the lawsuit itself is not what matters here. It was the public documents that brought the lawsuit to light.

Researchers from Duke University, the University of Georgia and the University of Oklahoma studied those documents and analyzed something hidden in the elite but rarely mentioned admissions processes: Admission preferences for recruited athletes, legacies, those on the “dean’s interest list” (read: sponsors), and children of faculty and staff — a group collectively referred to by the unwieldy acronym ALDC).

Using data from the Harvard lawsuit on 166,727 US applicants who applied to Harvard between 2009-2014, the professors did a great job of analyzing who got in and why they got in.

According to their findings, more than 43% of admitted white students had ALDC. But the proportions of African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Latinos are less than 16 percent. What’s more, research shows, about three-quarters of whites who admit to ALDC would be denied if it weren’t for their ALDC status. Ultimately, removing preferences for athletes and heritage would make the group of students admitted much less white.

As a Mexican-American who went to Harvard, I heard only one of these findings: vindication.

You see, Latino and African-American students who go to Harvard, or other highly selective colleges and universities, tend to come to school with ringing ears. It was the sound they heard in high school of jealous white classmates shooting at each other that if they weren’t colored, they wouldn’t get in.

I know that sound. In an intimate way. I told this story in a book I wrote almost 30 years ago about my experience as a Mexican-American student at America’s oldest and most prestigious college institution.

That petty and petty attack is based on ignorance, and utter misunderstanding, of something called affirmative action, a concept that this year celebrates its 60th anniversary.

On March 6, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order No. 10925, which provided that government contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that candidates are employed. and employees are treated in the course of employment, regardless of their race, color, or national origin. “The reason is that society cannot ignore the devastating and debilitating effects of discrimination, abuse, and injustice over several centuries — and in the case of black Americans, total enslavement. — by putting everyone on the starting line of a race and shouting: “Ready, prepare, begin!”

That is absurd. Simply preventing discrimination is not enough. America needs to encourage opening up opportunities for groups that have previously been denied by making an active effort – that is, taking “affirmative action” – to live up to and make what Harvard brags about in its recruiting materials. is “commitment to diversity. ”

Yeah whatever. When I walked through the Johnston Gate and into Harvard Yard in the fall of 1985, I was one of 35 Mexican-Americans in a class of about 1,600 undergraduates. That’s only about 2 percent. Add Puerto Ricans, Cuban-Americans, Colombians and others, and the total number of Latinos may have reached 5 percent.

Most of us are A grade valedictorians, student council presidents, self-made people who have passed the high school kicks and made their names.

Meanwhile, 75% of Harvard students at the time were still white.

That reminds me of the second sound people of color often hear in our heads as we begin our college experience. As we associate with our white classmates, we sometimes realize that some of these people are not all. A lot of them don’t seem very smart. They don’t spend much time in the library, but they walk around the campus with an air of impenetrable confidence. Indeed, some seem to simply get through life with help from their parents, from society, and ultimately from the admissions office.

Now, thanks to a very important study, my friends and I know we weren’t imagining everything. In fact, there were several impostors on campus. And now we know who they are.