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So, there's a few things standing out about the Justice Department's threat to sue Yale about their use of race in admissions 1/ https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2020/08/14/justice-department-threatens-yale-lawsuit#.XzZ2kpKXS5g.twitter
Off the top, the ability to consider how diversity is dynamic & contextual in relation to the an institution & its students (Uma Jayakumar & @garceslm write about this) is not rigid enough for the Justice Department. 2/
What the DOJ appears to do is assume that diversity goals must have a narrow "critical mass" to meet; the faulty belief that there are quantifiable goals of enrolling certain proportions of students by race & ethnicity. Yet, this is exactly what SCOTUS said can't be done. 3/
The argument that Yale's admissions approach is not narrowly tailored enough seems to be in comparison to UT-Austin's approach, which is cited in the statement. This is a horrible comparison. Most obviously, UT-Austin faces different restrictions on admissions considerations 4/
UT-Austin has a percentage plan for admissions that admits the majority of incoming students each year with a much smaller secondary round that uses holistic admissions that considers race. Yale utilizes holistic admission for all applicants, not a small segment. 5/
Comparing Yale's & UT-Austin gives the illusion that Yale is disproportionately impacting all applicant chances by simply considering race at all, whereas UT-Austin only does so for a much smaller applicant pool. It's false equivalence of polices & pools. 6/
Also, given the SFFA v. Harvard ruling & arguments, I would be shocked if the DOJ figured out how to convincingly argue that they prove that race is a determining factor in Yale's admissions decisions given how holistic admissions actually works. Simply put, they can't. 7/
@MichaelBastedo et al. note the holistic admissions process can take on slightly different forms, but in each form, staff consider multitudes of information & never situate any one factor as the "deciding factor" for an applicant's admission decision 8/ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221546.2018.1442633
Jumping back to above real quick, here is Uma Jayakumar & @garceslm's short discussion of "dynamic diversity" 9/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0013189x14529814
More will come out about this case, but this is a major attempt to eliminate race in college admissions policies by the DOJ, contradicting SCOTUS rulings. This is seemingly part of a long-term game plan to erode use of race in admissions by saying it's "too vague to measure" 10/
The DOJ power play (in an election year, mind you) relies on false assumptions about how race is used in admissions, framing as antithetical to "merit," & framing "good students" as white & Asian American in these cases are targeted by considering race at all. 11/
The many legal challenges & SCOTUS rulings has made universities carefully craft their holistic admissions policies & widen "diversity" beyond race. Ex, see @asociologist, @ellenberrey & Rose-Greenfield's account of Michigan admissions 12/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11186-016-9270-2
As I include in my current book project (Behind the Diversity Numbers), these changes fit the broadening of diversity to include whiteness & stating "everyone is diverse," builds on stereotypes of groups & their abilities, & tries to deracialize "merit"... 13/
Despite the mounds of research showing how a grade is racialized through an unequal school system. See @AmandaLewisPhD & @johndiamondphd's Despite the Best Intentions for one clear-cut example of the racial inequality surrounding "merit." https://global.oup.com/academic/product/despite-the-best-intentions-9780195342727?cc=us&lang=en&
@ellenberrey's The Enigma of Diversity ( https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo19910067.html), @PhdAmaka ( http://cup.columbia.edu/book/to-fulfill-these-rights/9780231183093), @nkwarikoo's The Diversity Bargain ( https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo24550619.html) & @shamuskhan's Privilege ( https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691156231/privilege) all highlight the broadening/whitening of diversity above 15/
Wrapping up for now, the DOJ's threat highlights that highly selective & well-resourced universities like Yale are invaluable to group advantages & operate as @victorerikray argues as #racializedorganizations. However... 16/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122418822335
Rather than targetting white & Asian American students, these institutions continue to *privilege* white students & families, & rely on interconnected systemic inequity facing BIPOC communities to argue that even considering such inequity is too much from the DOJ's view. 17/
These arguments situate racial inequality as something that doesn't influence life chances (or as @JoseItzigsohn & @karida_leigh note of Du Bois's approach "Life & Chance" https://nyupress.org/9781479856770/the-sociology-of-w-e-b-du-bois/) despite the evidence that it does. 18/
What we will continue to see are arguments that race doesn't matter for anyone but whites (& some Asian Americans using myth of 'model minorities') to preserve group advantages, buffer critiques of unequal schooling & 'merit', & limit racial equity & justice in the future 19/19
