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In efforts to bring about greater racial diversity in our nation's public schools, colleges, and universities, income-based affirmative action is not a useful substitute for race-sensitive admissions.
This past June, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote rejected public school assignment plans in the cities of Seattle and Louisville that were based on students' race. (For more on this decision, see page 12 of this issue of JBHE.)
As a consequence of this decision, it has been suggested by both proponents and opponents of race-based affirmative action that there is a viable alternative that could achieve similar results. According to this theory, if school assignments were to be based on family income levels, a significant amount of racial diversity would be achieved because of the simple fact that blacks make up a disproportionately large segment of the low-income population.
Our view is that this theory is mere wishful thinking. Socioeconomic affirmative action admissions plans, whether they be in K- 12 education or at the college level, are just short of a...