Diversity on Trial: Affirmative Action’s Michigan Test (Podcast)

In 1978, the Supreme Court allowed colleges to take race into account when crafting their incoming classes. Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, that’s what many schools did: to get a diverse incoming class, universities used race as one factor among many.

But some schools get a lot of applicants — tens of thousands of students applying for just a few thousand spots. How do you complete an individualized review of so many people? How do you make sure you consider race consistently across those tens of thousands? Is there a way to streamline the process while still ...