- Admissions 101
- Trading tips with Jay Mathews on winning at college admissions.
When is an admissions preference not an admissions preference?
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Nanette Asimov raised this intriguing issue in a recent piece on a California state legislative attempt to get around a 1996 constitutional ban--passed by voters---against "preferential treatment" on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public employment, public education or public contracting.
The loophole the legislature has voted to sneak through, Asimov said, is case law allowing college admissions officers to "take into consideration whether applicants have had to overcome a disadvantage." As the law reads now, they can't use race to determine if there has been a disadvantage. The new bill awaiting the governor's signature would permit them to do that "as long as it doesn't constitute a preference," Asimov quoted UC Berkeley discrimination law expert David Oppenheimer saying.
This could have an effect on many other states. Does it make sense to you?
— Jay Mathews
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