Abstract

In my comments on Prof. Sterba’s paper, I argue that evidence about the educational value of racial preferences reveals not that these policies produce good educational outcomes, but that schools use racial preferences regardless of whether they produce desirable outcomes. I further argue that in the absence of objective evidence about the value of racial preferences, proponents of these policies tend to rely on personal anecdotes. Often, these anecdotes reveal complex institutional and personal motives having little to do with the objective value of racial diversity.