Title VI, a federal law, prohibits discrimination by race in, most prominently for the present discussion, any federally funded university, which is substantial

Title VI, a federal law, prohibits discrimination by race in, most prominently for the present discussion, any federally funded university, which is substantially all of them due to how America does research budgets and federal student aid. Many universities are government institutions, and in the United States government cannot generally discriminate on the basis of race due to the Equal Protection clause of the US Constitution (in the 14th Amendment) and/or the Due Process clause (5th Amendment). Both are generally pretty toothy. However, a contentious series of Supreme Court cases (Bakke, Gratz, Grutter) have held that universities are allowed to racially discriminate if they do so with the intention of achieving compelling educational interests and as long as their institutionalized racial discrimination is not a crass point system but rather a "holistic" evaluation of applicants which uses race as "one part of" the decisionmaking process. Racial discrimination is pervasive at US selective universities, public and private. It is described as a minor, marginal policy, but all players understand that abandoning the formal racial discrimination policies would cause instantaneous hits to enrollment of favored racial minorities of roughly 50% or more, as has indeed happened when particular formal racial discrimination policies were found illegal. For example, the Gratz decision illegalized a points system used by the University of Michigan, where 100 points were required for admission and being a member of a favored racial group was worth 20 points. (For comparison: the best essay they received in a year was worth 3 points and winning a gold medal in the Olympics was worth 5. ) Some states have explicitly "No-we-really-mean-it-this-time" illegalized racial discrimination in public education, a policy which commands a supermajority of support with American voters. California is a prominent example. The universities threatened massive resistance. (That phrasing would be understood by educated Americans to be a grave insult. It is a callback to a particular phrase used by a Southern politician refusing to comply with federal laws prohibiting discrimination against racial minorities.) Enrollment by favored minority groups declined by roughly half. Over the same period, Asian enrollment (as a percentage) increased markedly and white enrollment was roughly constant or declining.