Eliminating Affirmative Action in the United States as a restriction on membership in the country’s elite class

As James Fallows of The Atlantic pointed out yesterday, with reference to date from the website College Transitions, the number of college and university applicants influenced by the United States Supreme Court decisions in the Students for Fair Admissions cases is actually quite small: the highly competitive schools that accept under 20% of their applicants or less account for around 4% of students enrolled in the entire country. In other words, the resistance to affirmative action does not prevent minority students such as W. E. B. DuBois's "Talented Tenth" from getting higher education at all; it just makes it that much harder for them to become part of the country's elite. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 30 June 2023)

 

See also this study.