Harvard University has now shown that there is a limit to how much it will compromise its reputation in pursuit of racial obsession. On Thursday, the university announced that it will reinstate its standardized testing requirement.
The decision will enable Harvard to far more easily identify the students with the most talent and potential — but it will also hold the school accountable for its racial preferences.
The university’s policy of foregoing standardized admissions had allowed it to sidestep scrutiny over the extent to which it discriminates against Asian and white students. Data unveiled in a lawsuit by the organization Students for Fair admissions showed that Harvard had previously given black students in the first four deciles of academic achievement a 10 times greater chance of admission than Asian and white students. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling that affirmative action violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, the university surreptitiously reaffirmed its desire to use race in admissions decisions. In a statement after the court’s ruling, Harvard noted the court’s comment that a college could consider “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life” and said in response: “We will certainly comply with the Court’s decision.” If Harvard had continued its policy of not requiring standardized tests, the university could have more easily continued to racially discriminate without getting caught. (READ MORE from Ellie Gardey: Advocacy for Marriage as the Ideal Is Racist, Says Professor)
In announcing the new policy, Harvard Magazine drew attention to a study by two Harvard professors and a professor at Brown University that found that standardized tests are the single best metric for identifying students who will be most successful in college, particularly those who come from lower-income backgrounds. Harvard Magazine quoted one of those Harvard professors, Raj Chetty, who noted that research has shown that the other aspects of students’ college applications can be more easily manipulated with money.
It is hard to imagine Harvard pointing out such a reality in 2020. At the time, decisions to pause a requirement for standardized tests coincided with the antiracist frenzy that followed the death of George Floyd. Many antiracists, such as Ibram X. Kendi, advocated for the position that standardized tests are racist because there are different outcomes, on average, across races. Kendi said in 2020, for instance, that “[s]tandardized tests have become the most effective racist weapon ever devised to objectively degrade Black and Brown minds and legally exclude their bodies from prestigious schools.” Though most universities did not make an explicit connection between antiracism and their decisions to suspend standardized test requirements — and to continue those policies years past the pandemic’s end — it was commonly understood that this was a motivator behind the decisions. For instance, the New York Times said following the University of California’s decision to eliminate standardized testing, “The change is expected to accelerate the momentum of American colleges away from the tests, amid concern that they are unfair to poor, black and Hispanic students.”
Harvard’s move to reinstate standardized testing is the second sane decision the school has made this year. The first came in January when former President Claudine Gay was forced to resign in the wake of a plagiarism scandal. The decision to let her go was a defeat for “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” policies at the university given that she had been their foremost advocate. Prior to being elected Harvard’s president, Gay had made her name by spearheading the university’s efforts to implement antiracist ideology. She claimed that her goal was to address “structural inequality” and she initiated a “cluster hire in ethnicity, indigeneity, and migration.” (RELATED from Ellie Gardey: Year Begins With Major Defeat for DEI as Harvard’s Claudine Gay Resigns)
With the elimination of the test-optional testing policy — and the departure of Claudine Gay — is Harvard moving away from DEI radicalism?
In one sense, yes. The most diehard advocates of antiracism are totally opposed to standardized tests. For example, the National Education Association, the largest education labor union, has said, “Since their inception a century ago, standardized tests have been instruments of racism and a biased system.” Thus, Harvard’s rejection of this position demonstrates that it is rejecting total radicalism on this issue. The university is also framing its decision to reinstate standardized testing as part of a laudable goal: identifying talented students across the socioeconomic spectrum. “In short,” said Hopi Hoekstra, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, in announcing the decision, “more information, especially such strongly predictive information, is valuable for identifying talent from across the socioeconomic range.”
However, given the jaw-dropping extent to which Harvard preferred certain races over others in its admissions process — a reality that was unveiled by the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case — Harvard has a long way to go before it fully drops racism from its admissions process. In addition, Harvard maintains a huge DEI apparatus that has influence over every aspect of the university. Still, this is a major step forward.
Now, we need to use Harvard’s standardized testing data to ensure that the university follows the law and does not accept and reject people on the basis of their race.
