I think this is being framed poorly. The "-based" in "race-based" suggests that race is a dominant factor. But it sounds like the real question is, can admissio

I think this is being framed poorly. The "-based" in "race-based" suggests that race is a dominant factor. But it sounds like the real question is, can admission decisions consult race even as a minor consideration. > The court is hearing challenges to their admissions policies, which consider race among many factors when evaluating applications. > Institutions like Harvard say they consider an applicant's race as one of several factors - including economic status and religious belief - in order to build classes that accurately represent the racial and ethnic diversity of the country. In which case -- sure, perhaps this is a valuable conversation to have. But if one considers the efficient frontier of tradeoffs between the goals of having the most "meritocratic" class of students with the best grades and test scores or most AP credits etc, or having a "representative" class which reflects the diversity of the nation, I'm guessing there are bigger opportunities for improvement. Legacies and athletic recruitment, perhaps? If the explicit consideration of race is removed from admissions, are there not plenty of ways for admissions offices to try to consider similar factors other than personal academic performance, which would leave the plaintiffs still unsatisfied? Non-race factors for which admissions offices could try reflect national statistics in incoming classes: - percent public school vs private school - percent households which rent vs own their primary residence - distribution over home values in admits' zipcodes of residence - share of admits who had a parent incarcerated for some portion of their childhood - personality big 5 scores We get indignant in public about different treatment on the grounds of race. But I think students and families get frustrated because of the (inevitable) feeling of a loss of control when being judged based on criteria out of their control. If instead of race, one had the sneaking suspicion that one was not admitted because there were too many other private school, owned-home, 800k - 1.2M home, non-incarcerated-parent, high-conscientiousness applicants ... would you feel better?