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Introduction
In the summer of 2017 the Donald Trump administration was reported to be preparing for investigations and possible litigation over affirmative action policies at selected universities and colleges for discriminating against white applicants (Savage, 2017). This gesture is in keeping with the Republican Party's and many Americans' - including, primarily, American conservatives' - general opposition to affirmative action policies. Affirmative action has been controversial ever since it was first implemented in the mid-1960s. Especially in the case of university admissions, supporters point out that these policies enable the establishment of a level playing field - a central tenet of the American Dream. Adversaries, on the other hand, point out that the policy constitutes impermissible discrimination, especially against white men.
Others argue for a reformed version of affirmative action that takes socioeconomic background into account and does not rely solely on race in admissions decisions. Yet others claim that if affirmative action is to be eradicated, the same should be done with legacy admits: the policy at some elite institutions of admitting relatives of alumni. Finally, there are those that advocate for replacing affirmative action as we know it with Percent Plans - which are race-neutral plans that nonetheless have the consequence of ensuring racially and socioeconomically diverse classrooms at state-run institutions of higher education.
In this essay, I suggest that of all these proposals, Percent Plans represent the best alternative to affirmative action policies, in major part be- cause they are the most aligned with the widely popular ideology of the American Dream and, therefore, has the potential to have the broadest possible support from Americans across the ideological spectrum. These plans, thus, represent the least politically problematic way to resolve a controversial set of disputes about how to ensure diverse classrooms at institutions of higher education as well as about how to spread out educational opportunities widely throughout American society. I suggest in the remainder of this paper that these Percent Plans are much better suited to instituting the American Dream's promise of a level playing field because they factor in socioeconomic class and ensure racial diversity, especially of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic minority students, and they do so in a way that does not accord "preferential" treatment to any particular group...