The Logical End Point of Trump's Higher-Education Agenda

"But the new higher-education compact offered to universities by the administration strongly suggests that Trump's higher-education agenda, if successful, will result in a far less diverse academy, with fewer Black and Latino students. It will do this by demanding that colleges adopt an admissions system based purely on test scores and GPA-and accusing any institution that resists of illegal racial preferences."

"To back its claim, the DOJ included a table comparing Yale's admissions rate for students of different races and ethnicities with an "Academic Index," a measure that combines high-school grades and SAT or ACT scores. The admissions rates weren't identical: 35 percent of Hispanic students in the top decile of the Academic Index were admitted, for example, compared with 20 percent of white students. The government argued that this showed "significant discrimination on the ground of race.""

President Donald Trump attacked colleges and universities with civil-rights investigations, research-funding rescissions, student-loan cuts, and visa bans. The administration offered a higher-education compact that would require admissions based exclusively on test scores and GPA and accuse resisting institutions of illegal racial preferences. The Justice Department sued Yale and used an "Academic Index" combining grades and SAT or ACT scores to compare admissions rates. The DOJ noted that 35 percent of Hispanic students in the top Academic Index decile were admitted compared with 20 percent of white students. After the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Black enrollment fell at Harvard, remained unchanged at Yale, and Asian enrollment at Yale declined.

Read at The Atlantic