Does Banning Affirmative Action Harm College Student Quality

Jimmy Chan and Erik Eyster

Economics Working Paper Archive from The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics

Abstract: Banning affirmative action from college admissions decisions cannot prevent an admissions office that cares about diversity from achieving it through channels other than the explicit consideration of race We construct a model of college admissions where candidates from two groups with different average qualifications compete for a fixed number of seats When an admissions office that cares both about the quality and diversity of its entering class can use group identity as a criterion for admissions its preferred admissions rule selects the best-qualified candidates from each group When it cannot use affirmative action the admissions office's preferred rule generally does not select the best-qualified candidates from either group: it randomizes over candidates to achieve diversity at the expense of within-group selection A ban always reduces diversity and may also lower average quality Moreover even when a total ban on affirmative action raises average quality a partial ban may raise average quality even more

Date: 1999-12
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jhu:papers:440

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