Admissions policies that take class into account, rather than race, are getting a renewed push [2] as a win-win solution. The contention is that they more fully serve the goal of diversity in higher education and provide a progressive way to resolve an enduring conflict that has now returned to the Supreme Court in a case about race-conscious admissions at the University of Texas at Austin.
But a crucial premise of the class-over-race argument is wrong. It is not possible to maintain the same level of racial diversity in higher education while applying a race-blind admissions policy. Class-based admissions generally reduce the number of black and Hispanic students. To maintain or build the levels of racial diversity on selective campuses, it is necessary to maintain race-conscious admissions.
Links:
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/class-based-vs-race-based-admissions.html
[2] http://tcf.org/publications/2012/10/a-better-affirmative-action-state-universities-that-created-alternatives-to-racial-prefences
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