Does Focusing On Quantification Make Sense?
The result: attorneys for universities across the country will be advising their admissions offices that they can continue to use race as a plus factor. But what they must not do is to expressly quantify it. Linguistic benchmarks such as “critical mass” are acceptable. Point systems that give extra points for race are not. Is that a sensible distinction? On the surface, it appears not to be. Consider the perspective of the applicant: He or she predominantly cares about how much his or her chances of admission are enhanced or diminished by his or her race–and in the end, whether he or she will be admitted. Will I get the thin envelope or the fat envelope? In contrast, he or she will probably be indifferent as to whether the admissions officers assign a number based on race. The evidence in the law school case showed that disadvantaged minority applicants received a substantial boost–they were predictably more likely, due to race, to get the fat envelope. Yet, under the logic of the Co
