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Want More ?Diversity?? Minimize Test Scores

In the Chronicle of Higher Education this morning Peter Schmidt reports on two new studies that conclude colleges could increase their pigmentary ?diversity? without resorting to race preferences by simply minimizing the weight they attach to SAT scores.

The second study was carried out by Marta Tienda, a professor of demographic studies, sociology, and public affairs at Princeton University, and Sigal Alon, an assistant professor of sociology at Tel Aviv University. They conducted simulations of how various shifts in admissions criteria would affect enrollments, using student data from the federal High School and Beyond study, the National Education Longitudinal Survey, the College and Beyond database, and the University of Texas at Austin. The researchers concluded that selective colleges created their own need to use race-conscious admissions policies to promote diversity by placing so much emphasis on standardized tests. ?The apparent tension between merit and diversity exists only where merit is narrowly defined by test scores,? they argue.

On the basis of their analysis of data from the Texas flagship, which is required by state law to accept any state resident in the top 10th of his or her high-school class, Ms. Tienda and Ms. Alon argue that ?using class rank as a measure of merit requires smaller or no race preferences to achieve diversity? and that shifting to admissions policies based on class rank would not hurt graduation rates.

Although I?m confident none of these authors intended to lend support to critics of race preferences, I?m equally confident that these studies will provide more ammunition to the anti-preference arsenal of arguments.

One additional thought: Since it is abundantly clear that many selective colleges are perfectly willing to compromise what they regard as merit in order to achieve what they regard as ?diversity,? why not adopt my grandmother?s approach to baking and go even farther? My grandmother thought that if a little bit of butter was good, more butter would be better. On that theory, if ?diversity? is so good, why stop with lessening the weight assigned to SAT scores? Why not give a positive preference to some low scorers?

That number would not have to fixed, allowing it to be described as a ?goal? and not a ?quota.? And no one could dispute the defense that preferences for some low scorers would greatly increase the diversity of many highly selective institutions. Given the great discrepancy of SAT scores by race that currently exists at many of these institutions, they certainly could not have any principled objections to such a democratic policy.

Full post as published by Discriminations on May 02, 2008 (boomark / email).