Yes, Elite Colleges Are Biased Against Poor Whites

July 28, 2010
Posted by John Leo

If damaging evidence against affirmative action turns up in a pro-affirmative action book, the author often explains it away as misunderstood or exaggerated. This has happened once again, this time to a book that made no splash when it was published last October, but drew attention here at Minding the Campus in criticism that spread to Ross Douthat's column in The New York Times, Pat Buchanan's syndicated column and now Time magazine.

The book is No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, a careful study of admission practices at eight unnamed elite colleges by Princeton sociologist Thomas J. Espenshade and a research associate, Alexandria Walton Radford. Writing here on July 12th in an article headlined, "How Diversity Punishes Asians, Poor Whites and Lots of Others," Russell K. Nieli of Princeton wrote that the book reported an immense admissions disadvantage to Asians (because admissions officers think there are already too many in the best colleges) and poor whites, who are penalized by favoritism, not only for blacks and Hispanics, but also for whites with middle-class and upper-class backgrounds. None of the criticism that greeted Nieli's article has focused on the anti-Asian bias. All of it has dealt with the slim chances of poor whites at the most selective colleges. the rest

An Antidote to the 'Acting White' Phenomenon: Segregated Schools?
Back in the day, African-American kids didn't think it was a crime to be young, gifted and black...