The New York Times offered a possible “solution” on Thursday that would allow colleges to circumvent the Supreme Court’s recent ruling regarding Affirmative Action in the admissions process.
The Court ruled against Harvard University and University of North Carolina last week, stating that colleges could no longer consider race as a factor when reviewing the applications of potential students — so the NYT offered a possible workaround that has already been adopted by the University of California’s medical school.
The program, like Affirmative Action, is designed to enforce diversity — and it appears to operate essentially like Communist China’s “social credit score,” but in reverse.
“To build a diverse class of students, the medical school at UC Davis ranks applicants by the disadvantages they have faced. The disadvantage scale helped turn UC Davis into one of the most diverse medical schools in the U.S. Can it work nationally?” the NYT asked in a tweet.
To build a diverse class of students, the medical school at UC Davis ranks applicants by the disadvantages they have faced. The disadvantage scale helped turn UC Davis into one of the most diverse medical schools in the U.S. Can it work nationally? https://t.co/4QGPL48uKe
— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 4, 2023
Dr. Mark Henderson, head of admissions at U.C. Davis’ medical school, said that he implemented the program in an effort to get away from a world where most of the students who were able to get into medical school came from wealthy families.
Henderson developed what he refers to as the “socioeconomic disadvantage scale, or S.E.D.” — and explained that it gave each student a score from 0-99 based on their individual backgrounds, financial status, parental education levels, and other personal hardships.
According to the NYT, since the Court ruled against Affirmative Action in college admissions, some 20 schools have approached Henderson for information about his process — but the question remains as to whether it would work on a grander scale or whether critics of “race-conscious admissions” would accept it as something more substantive than a back-door Affirmative Action.
Still, it appears likely that some schools will try to implement different programs in an effort to lessen the impact of the Court’s ruling.
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