<p>It’s not payback, it’s a leveling of the playing field. You can’t systematically disadvantage groups of people for basically the entire existence of the country and then expect them to bounce back and be able to play equally in just 50 years. Underrepresented minorities, on AVERAGE (not always, but average) have lower household incomes, are less likely to live in the nation’s top school districts or have the means to send their children to expensive college prep academies, and score lower on standardized tests. In general, basically, they have less access to the trappings of admissions to elite schools because of societal disadvantage. Even when we’re talking about economically advantaged Hispanics and African Americans, in particular, they are still less advantaged than their peers within their socioeconomic group (and there’s research to support this).</p>
<p>So African American and Hispanic admitted students overall have a lower average SAT score than white students and Asian students. However, because they GENERALLY have lower average scores that would be true regardless of whether the school took their ethnicity into account or not.</p>
<p>And when these arguments come up, the focus is always on standardized test scores - which actually are a small part of the process anyway. Standardized test scores don’t say much about one’s ability to succeed beyond the first year of college, and there are far more important things in the package. No one’s yet showed me that underrepresented minorities also have lower average GPAs than their fellow white and Asian applicants, for example.</p>