EDUCATION REFORM: Colleges can admit ‘diverse’ students without racial preferences.

Racial preferences in university admission are divisive and unfair, argues Richard D. Kahlenberg on Politico. Diversity is a worthy goal, he writes, but it’s best achieved by eliminating preferences for the privileged, such as children of alumni and faculty, and giving an admissions boost to students from lower-income families.

Kahlenberg is director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute and author of Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges.

Giving a break to economically disadvantaged students, regardless of their race, will boost racial integration, he argues. It has far wider public support than racial preferences.

But then universities would have to admit more of those icky white people from Appalachia.