@garretw87 @smokinjoe

I understand where garretw87 is coming from here with the cautious optimism. Unlike the Voting Rights Act (section 4, iirc) that was struck down a few years ago and then multiple republican-led state legislatures immediately moved to find ways to disenfranchise any demographic they deemed to vote democrat, these race-conscious policies are a result from internal motivations and commitment to diversity.

Nothing is going to make Harvard enact a policy that it doesn’t ultimately believe in (although we clearly see that court cases can dissolve existing policies). And even if the laws say that Harvard’s goals of increasing diversity can’t be through race-conscious admissions, then Harvard can and will find another signifier than race to achieve its goals. One way may be to add points during the review process to an applicant who reports that their family received social benefits, or maybe even go so far as to demarcate a map of zip codes and add points if an applicant grew up in specific communities that are well known for specific demographics.

I anticipate that something like this that is broadly defined but catches prevalence for certain ethnic groups while not being exclusive to any one ethnic group could be the way for Harvard to continue recruitment and achieve its diversity goals.

Also, before my comment here gets reduced down to " OP assumes all X race must be poor, hurr durr" I want to add that there is a small batch of elite high schools in America that recruit very talented students of all races from some of the poorest communities (the Bronx, Appalachia, South side Chicago, etc.) that extend generous scholarship packages for room, board, and tuition from which universities like Harvard are recruiting about half of its prospective diversity students. To put all the focus on universities for being race-conscious is to turn a blind eye that there exist private high schools that are doing the same thing.