A CNN article notes that black students may now feel less inclined to mention their race when applying to colleges. They frame it as a blow against Affirmative Action by pesky conservatives on the Supreme Court, but removing racism can't be a bad thing.
In order for black students to vault ahead of other students, Asian students were penalized. If they had a 'white-sounding' last name, they were told to check off white rather than Asian, because they were the 'wrong' minority for American progressives who control academia. The secret sauce was overtly discriminating against them while "I am a Black girl in STEM" checked off the proper diversity boxes.
Asians, 5 percent of America, were not a minority, while Black and Latino people, 31 percent of America, were. Obviously that could not last and in Science Left Behind, written in 2011, I wrote about the entrenched racism of academia against Asians and its negative impact.
They were united years ago - against American Republicans and the Queen of England. But if academics secretly start penalizing Jewish students because the side with Hamas terrorism the way Asian students have been penalized for decades, that unity may change. February 4, 2017. Alisdare Hickson/Flickr, CC BY
Affirmative Action was created to mitigate The Shackled Man problem - if you and I are running a race and I am in leg irons, you have a big advantage. If 100 yards into the race you take off my shackles and declare we are now equal, well, we are not. Affirmative Action gave Black people who had been penalized by southern Democrats and their Jim Crow laws long after the Civil War legal protection - companies would pay fines or even have officers go to jail if they didn't comply.
It was never meant to be permanent. It doesn't need to be. We no longer need to penalize Asian kids so Black kids can get into college, literally everyone can go to college now. Colleges want to take your student loan money, academia does not care how much debt you incur.
If mentioning your skin color gains you an advantage in the elite school you want, though, that is racism. If your skin color penalizes someone else, that is racism.
Yet unlike Affirmative Action, there is no penalty if universities continue to use "secret sauce" for admissions.
So use your skin color advantage. They want you to let them know. “A lot of elite colleges are looking for ways to identify these students,” Tracy Ramos, co-founder of College Bound Parenting, told CNN.
The easiest way is just to tell them - if you are the preferred skin color anyway.
So I encourage non-Asian students to continue to note their race on admissions. No one even knows that diversity means, institutions just make it up, so it can't hurt and will almost always help. The best schools, like Caltech, will continue to ignore it, while the most intolerant will secretly give you an advantage.
