Actually, affirmative action likely suppresses the rates of Black students majoring in CS because it increases the rates at which they drop out of the major. Un

Actually, affirmative action likely suppresses the rates of Black students majoring in CS because it increases the rates at which they drop out of the major. Universities have good data on how likely a student is to graduate in their chosen field, and they know that the bulk of the Black student they admit who flag STEM fields as their preferred majors will not succeed but they admit them anyway to achieve the desired demographics. Absent affirmative action, these students would be attending less prestigious universities, but they would be graduating in STEM at higher rates. This is the research that explores the effect of affirmative action on majors: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6675032/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6675032/ Some claim that racism inside the university is why Black students drop out of STEM. However, the rates of persistence in STEM for the same level of academic performance is the same for all races: a Black student with 700s on their SAT is as likely to succeed as a white or Asian student with 700s. A student with 600s or 500s is less likely to succeed, and equally so regardless of their race. But if you admit a lot more Black students with the latter scores, you can see how this will affect persistence rates.