The Supreme Court Ruling (or Non-Ruling) on Race and Admissions

Since the decision by the Supreme Court a week ago to remand the case of Fisher vs University of Texas at Austin back to the Fifth Circuit Court, many of us involved in college admissions have been trying to figure out what that means and how it will effect the students we work with.

Here, in a New Yorker article by Louis Menand, is the best analysis I have read. It's really worth reading the whole article, but if you won't, here's my favorite part:

"People often talk about affirmative action as strictly a benefit to the minority student. But it is equally a benefit to the majority student. It puts that student in intellectual contact with people who come to college with very different experiences and viewpoints and expectations from life. Dealing with that contact is one of the ways people learn how to think. Discussing “Huckleberry Finn” in an all-white or all-non-white classroom is completely different from discussing it in a mixed-race classroom. So is discussing race-conscious admissions policies."