"Affirmative Action Should Be About Reparations"

"Luke Harris, a Vassar professor, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor at Columbia University and UCLA—both critical-race-theory pioneers—have noted that what got lost in the University of Michigan fight was that students were also awarded 10 points for attending elite high schools, eight points for taking a certain number of AP courses, and four points for being legacies. That's 22 points that certain affluent and middle-class students had built in that poor, first-generation college students had little or no access to. This structure rewarded students who already benefited from living in upscale neighborhoods, who had successful parents or parents who, at the very least, knew how to succeed in 'the system,' and who continued to benefit from the affirmative action of not descending from people who for generations were banned from reading, buying property, and living in safe neighborhoods with decent schools.
"Somehow, advantages of this sort are often invisible to the general public. And if they're made visible, the most coddled people in American society tend to get their feelings hurt—and insist on their self-worth. This dynamic explains the theater of defensiveness that played before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2018, as then–Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who attended one of the most expensive prep schools in the nation and who is the son of a lobbyist and judge, sneered, 'I got into Yale Law School. That's the No. 1 law school in the country. I had no connections there. I got there by busting my tail in college.' Kavanaugh’s grandfather Everett Edward Kavanaugh went to Yale as an undergraduate. If Kavanaugh truly does believe that he is an island of his own merits, his lack of historical knowledge and his lack of awareness of his own privilege are terrifying for any judge, let alone a Supreme Court justice who could soon preside over affirmative-action cases."

Kimberly Reyes at The Atlantic criticizes Lewis Powell emphasis on a student body's diversity.