Episode Details

Dylan Matthews, Dara Lind, and Jerusalem Demsas talk about affirmative action. They dig into the current Supreme Court case about Harvard’s admission rates and ask: How do we make sure our elite institutions adequately reflect the population? Plus, a white paper about the effects of education on mortality.

References:

• Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser’s explainer about the SCOTUS cases
• Peter Arcidiacono, Josh Kinsler, and Tyler Ransom's empirical papers on Harvard admissions
• Jay Caspian Kang on the Harvard case
• Ending affirmative action in California pushed Black and Latinx students into worse schools and jobs
• Randall Kennedy’s case for affirmative action
• Sheryll Cashin’s case for “place-based affirmative action”
• An argument that class-based affirmative action produces more racial diversity than regular affirmative action
• Nicholas Lemann on affirmative action for the New Yorker
• How the Texas “10 percent” rule changed high school enrollment
• White paper: "The Effects of Education on Mortality: Evidence Using College Expansions"
• “A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost,’” the Wall Street Journal
• Opinion | “Affirmative Action Was Never a Perfect Solution,” the New York Times 
• “Estimating Benefits from University-Level Diversity” 

Hosts:

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox

Dara Lind (@dlind), Weeds cohost, Vox

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer and engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

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