This was originally posted on blogger. I can understand why many lefties are in a huff about affirmative action. Affirmative action policies are meant to be anti-racist, and maybe reverse residual effects of racist American policies of the past and general prejudice of society at large. Plus, universities like having multicolored recruitment posters. 
However even with affirmative action, elite universities have a horrid track record of admitting marginalized students. Here’s data from my old economics professor Danny Yagan and others about how elite universities by-and-large take in students with very high-income families and spit them out into the high-income labor market. Stories of a low-class student of color’s life being changed through education are statistically, few and far between. 
Family wealth and income, to me, is what really matters in terms of education and inequality. Race is tied to it, but not the only thing that divides the have and the have-nots. So although Clarence Thomas and his posy in the Supreme Court have struck down race-based affirmative action, aren’t there other still-legal policies that can amend American inequality? I’m curious if so, and if not, why not.