Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges

In this thought-provoking account, journalist Kahlenberg (Excluded) makes a convincing case that college admissions offices should give preferential treatment to applicants who are economically disadvantaged, and that such an approach is more likely than race-based admissions to achieve colleges’ stated objective of having a diverse student body. He reached his conclusions before the Supreme Court banned race-conscious admission decisions in the 2023 SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC decisions. Kahlenberg, who had a history of working for civil rights, including desegregating schools, was regarded as a turncoat by some on the left for his role as an expert witness in support of Students for Fair Admissions, the conservative group that challenged race-based affirmative action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Heeffectively pushes back on that critique by citing research to support his claims; by detailing the views of progressive icons who shared similar opinions, among them Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.; and by grounding his analysis in profiles of low-income students who struggled at college because of the lack of economic diversity, like Edmund Kennedy, a Black undergrad who felt out of place at Amherst College, where almost all the other students of color came from affluent families. It’s a provocative call to reconsider how diversity in higher education can be achieved. (Mar.)