We now have fewer African-American physicians, scientists, and engineers than we would have had using race-neutral admissions policies. We have fewer college professors and lawyers, too. Put more bluntly, affirmative action has backfired.

Before the <em>Grutter</em> case, constitutional experts thought that the days of race preferential admissions policies were numbered… The Supreme Court had never really approved this kind of discrimination.

As well-meaning as affirmative action policies were originally, they’ve backfired badly, and, at some point, colleges and universities and the courts are going to have to come to terms with that. (Heriot begins at 10:00.)

Race-preferential admissions were intended to facilitate the entry of minorities into higher education and eventually into high-prestige careers. There is considerable evidence, however, that they have the opposite effect. Affirmative action thus works to the detriment of its supposed beneficiaries, who are seldom informed of this risk.

The assumption behind the fierce competition for admission to elite colleges and universities is clear: The more elite the school one attends, the brighter one’s future. That assumption, however, may well be flawed.

Even the most optimistic view of the data shows that racial preferences in law school admissions come at a heavy cost—a cost that disproportionately falls upon African Americans.

Racial preferences spring from worthy intentions, but they have had unintended consequences—including an academic mismatch in many cases between minority students and the schools to which they are admitted. There's a better way to help the disadvantaged.

Robert Siegel talks to UCLA Law Professor and author Richard Sander about the impact on California's education system when the state banned Affirmative Action.

Why racial preferences in college admissions hurt minority students -- and shroud the education system in dishonesty.

Law school admissions preferences impose enormous costs on blacks and create relatively minor benefits.