We have plenty of evidence of racial inequality.
But even within the same social class, we see racially different opportunities.
So working-class Whites tend to live in more advantaged neighborhoods than working-class Blacks.
And a recent study found that Black—upper middle-class Black adults—excuse me.
Black adults who grew up in upper middle-class families are much more likely to experience downward mobility than are White adults who grew up in upper middle-class families.
And so we see this kind of intergenerational differences in terms of the transmission of privilege.
And reparations not just from the harms of slavery, but also from U.
And, again, if we think about these organizational goals of playing a civic role, and these universities as wanting to be kind of bastions of racial equity, we know that many elite colleges have benefitted from the slave trade, from slave labor, from—you know, have had faculty who have sort of been part of the foreign policies that led to poverty in other countries. And many Americans also imagine higher education to be a kind of engine for social mobility.
And that leads me to my second argument for affirmative action.
And when we think about the goal of promoting social mobility and opportunity, we have to take into consideration race in admissions.
And so reparations is another way that I think—another institutional goal that can be met through affirmative action.
And lastly, a diverse, legitimate leadership.
We know that affirmative action can lead to diversity in leadership.
President Obama talked about how he thinks he benefitted from affirmative action, just as Sotomayor talks about how she was an affirmative action baby.
If we think that that symbolic representation matters—and it matters in order for leadership to be seen as legitimate, to be—for people to be seen—to see leadership that looks like them is increasingly important.
And so, again, thinking about the contribution to society, this is one small way that higher education—a role that higher education can play.
So the last thing I want to say about this is that any way you admit students, there are winners and there are losers.
You know, other countries do admissions very differently.

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