No, the college admissions scandal doesn’t serve to justify racial preferences

My new piece for Real Clear Policy examines and rejects the argument that the college admissions scandal retrospectively validates the use of racial preferences in college admissions.

If racial preference in college admissions is unjust, it doesn’t magically become just because people identify some other injustice that has different beneficiaries.

Many of those arguing that the admissions scandal somehow vindicates racial preferences seem unaware that Singer repeatedly falsified students’ ethnicities to get them into affirmative action categories….

If you’re an applicant who doesn’t fit in *either* the celebrities-and-cheaters pool or the racial-preference pool, things definitely aren’t somehow canceling out. You’re competing with other families like yours for an artificially small number of remaining admission seats….

Public universities should not discriminate by race, especially not on the excuse that someone managed to game the system on other grounds. Two injustices do not add up to one justice.


No, the college admissions scandal doesn’t serve to justify racial preferences curated from Overlawyered

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