Tactically, I doubt this attempt at outrage will be very effective. There is a widespread implicit understanding that equitability and meritability compete for the same resources, so X positions are distributed on equity and (1-X) positions are distributed on merit. The real arguments are over the value of X, and they are made in two usual forms: “We should be a meritocracy” i.e.”X should be zero” i.e. push X lower, and “We should be equitable” i.e. “X should be 1” i.e. push X higher. There is also something I think of as the “personal ideal state” exemption: everyone has some personal ideal for how the distribution should look, which determines whether they support meritocracy, equitability, or apathy in a given scenario at a given time.
A good chunk of this is just using different definitions. The Stanford numbers count white hispanics as Hispanic and the government source as white. The Stanford numbers are only out of 85% not 100% like the government source, because it adds categories for unknown and international.
It does seem like Asian and multiracial students are represented more at Stanford than in the general population. But given that Stanford draws primarily from the Bay Area, is that surprising?
That's not what's happening. 22% of Stanford's incoming class is white. That isn't representative of the US or Bay Area. It's not even close. Nobody would claim that in good faith..
Now, as long as they're missing out based on merit that's fine. But discriminating against them due to the color of their skin is just good old fashioned racism. So now Stanford is a racist institution. How do we fix that?
This is an older article (2012) showing how one excellent UK university does admissions. I think it covers some of the challenges your statement implies and showing some of the hard work such universities do. There's an interesting anecdote about a student who tutors believe simply won't keep up with the course due to starting from too far back (they are described as being from a hopeless school), another where a student has been guided by their school to study the wrong classes. In the UK, education is split into 'state schools' (free) and 'private schools' (paid for), and within both bands there is much variety, but in general private schools have better outcomes (as do state schools in wealthier areas). In the UK, this 'private vs state' debate is one of the most polarizing - should you be able to pay to win? At least at Cambridge, careful effort has dramatically changed representation over the last 20 years - from approximately 50% in 2000, to 62% in 2012, to 73% now (with private schools representing approximately 15% of students at age 18 this is a pretty good effort), and I think this article represents some of the hard work that has to go in to ensuring equality of opportunity (they describe: careful thought of each application, metadata held about schools, analysis of school provided documentation, etc, review, second chances, etc. they also do a _tonne_ of access things specifically designed to widen the funnel at all parts of the pipe).
I don't know or think it's the same for Stanford - after all, 16% of Stanford admissions are legacies - but it can be done with hard work! I'd certainly be interested in a similar article for Stanford, though.
Why is it even surprising? If you look at truly meritocratic high schools - Thomas Jefferson, Stuyvesant, whites represent less than 20% of the student body.
Yes, this is where the article is wrong. Race is not one monolithic bloc. If admissions were purely meritocratic, then the incoming class would be approximately 70% asian, 20% white, and 10% other. Clearly, some minority demographics don't need affirmative action in order to be competitive in applications. But the article errs in assuming that all minority demographics are equally dependent on affirmative action.
> While whites make up more than 50 percent of the nation’s adolescent population, per 2019 Office of Population Affairs numbers, they were only 22 percent of Stanford’s class of 2026.
Ok. White males are only 21% of the population of the Bay Area. California proper they only make up 17.5% of the population. Only half of Stanford's enrollment comes from the other 49. 14% are international. Soooooooooo....
Even if they had the wherewithal to fix it, California institutions can't even use affirmative action towards white people in order to do so because of Proposition 209 passed back in 1996.
So I'm not sure what the paper is trying to insinuate. We've discriminated against white people too hard? This is literally the raw meritocracy white conservatives have wanted in action.
If those students are not good enough for Stanford but were admitted anyway, we will see worse quality of graduates, which would lead to Stanford reputation loss, which would force Stanford to adjust or lose.
What if the reputation is self-sustaining and the "best" universities aren't the best educators but just those who have all the right connections. Maybe they were privileged by history, etc.
At least in the Ivy League, White under-representation becomes extreme if you discount the huge number of (very over-represented) Jews that are included in the White category.
