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als who, as a matter of basic fairness and American ideals, should be treated as such.

One of the problems with affirmative action is that, in its obsession with racial categories, it might perversely give preferential treatment to an African American kid whose father is a prominent lawyer and whose mother is a college professor over an Asian American applicant whose parents were refugees from Burma. No one is reducible to race.

The new MIT admissions regime should also remove any doubt that Black and Hispanic students are there based solely on merit, too. As for the students who would have been admitted under the old highly racialized system, it’s not as though they will have no future if they end up at a good state school somewhere.

One would think that less discrimination would be considered ipso facto a good thing, but for supporters of affirmative action, it’s all about who is being discriminated against, and in what cause.

Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.

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