There’s an interesting article in The Atlantic about minority students now needing to write their application essays about their racial backgrounds, so as to get around the new requirement that colleges ask about their racial identities. The thinking there is that the colleges will still want a diverse student population, so the applicants will need to volunteer that information (making the essays, according to the article, boring boilerplate stuff: “As an African-American, I have experienced several forms of racism…”)
But the article made me think that now white students will include hints, and maybe outright lies, about their racial identities, to get admitted as (wink wink) minority students by colleges seeking (wink wink) to gather that information in their essays.
And in an underhanded way, that’s a good idea. Say I’m a white high school senior with good grades, test scores, extra-curricular activities etc. applying to Yale or Harvard. I think I’ve got a chance to get admitted, but it’s by no means a lock. So I write my application essay about the SC decision, and how unfair it is, and how it hurts students like me, and so on. The college is going to read this and decide “Maybe one of our (wink wink) minority admissions?”
And what’s to stop them from just lying “As an African-American…” It’s not supposed to be a factor, so Yale can’t say after admitting Whitey McWhiteson, “Hey, you lied! You’re not black at all!” because that would be admitting that they used race as an admission criterion which would violate the new law.