The results were not what was expected or intended

From Campus Diversity and Student Discontent: The Costs of Race and Ethnic Preferences in College Admissions by Althea Nagai.  Findings:

For the sake of campus diversity, many colleges and universities pass over white and Asian American applicants with better academic preparation, favoring blacks and (to a lesser extent) Hispanics. CEO statistical research (logistic regression analyses) showed that underrepresented minorities (URMs) received significant preference over white and Asian American applicants with the same or better academic credentials.

• Statistically controlling for test scores, grades, in-state residency, gender, and legacy connections, odds ratios1 showed large preferences awarded to blacks over whites in undergraduate admissions at the following universities: The University of Virginia; the College of William and Mary; the University of Wisconsin; the University of Michigan; Miami University-Ohio; and Ohio State. Moderate preferences were awarded at the University of Oklahoma.

• Odds ratios were found to favor Hispanics over whites at many of the same universities, but many were moderate in size.

• Whites also received preference over Asian Americans at several universities.

• At Harvard, being Asian American was the only statistically negative factor among more than 10 factors considered by the admissions committee.

Racial preference in admissions creates race consciousness and mismatch.

• Admissions committees keep the degree of mismatch secret.

• Mismatched students disproportionately drop out of STEM, change to non-STEM majors, transfer to other schools, and take longer to graduate.

• The academic disparities from mismatch continue throughout college.

Psychological costs associated with campus diversity and disparities are many.

• Black students experienced greater first-year “grade shock,” greater discounting of academic feedback, greater alienation, less attachment to the university, and greater dissatisfaction with their overall college experience.

• Pre-college academic factors were strong predictors of these psychological setbacks.

• Many URMs would have gone somewhere else had they known where they ranked.

In short, where mismatch is significant, those admitted under racial preference programs incur significant costs that flowed from the mismatch in pursuit of racial diversity.

Campus diversity was also correlated with a general sense of campus discontent among nonminority students and faculty, not just URMs.

• Greater campus diversity was correlated with more student unhappiness; less satisfaction with their quality of education; less work effort; and less satisfaction with the college experience. 

• Greater numerical diversity was also correlated with faculty discontent with the quality of education imparted by the college; faculty dissatisfaction with students’ work ethic; and faculty unhappiness with students’ pre-college preparedness. Among administrators, greater diversity was correlated with administrators’ discontent with the quality of education provided by the college and administrators’ dissatisfaction with students’ preparedness for college

Prominent pro-diversity researchers now acknowledge that using race as a factor to produce racial/ethnic diversity does not produce the positive benefits enumerated in Grutter. Universities are now told that they need to foster feelings of inclusion among URMs.

• The responsibility for inclusion rests with them and non-minority students.

• They need to attend to URMs’ lower sense of validation.

• URMs need more positive and numerous interactions with faculty.

• Universities need to hire more URM faculty and provide a more inclusive curriculum.

The goal is now inclusion. Numerical diversity is the pre-condition.

 Researchers found that Asian Americans, experienced more “negative cross-racial interactions” —51% of Asian Americans compared to roughly a third of blacks and Hispanics and a quarter of whites.

Asian Americans and multi-racial students, not URMs, also reported more discrimination to their college/university. 

Institutionalizing racism will eventually be seen for the evil it has always been, no matter how noble the sentiments might have been.  And their are good reasons to question how noble some of those sentiments might have been.