Harvard isn’t the only university defending its discriminatory admissions policies in court. Its nonprofit adversary, Students for Fair Admissions, filed a similar complaint against the University of North Carolina in 2014. UNC’s initial defense, submitted last month, is a case study in the willful ignorance underlying the racial-preference regime in higher education. Above all, schools like Harvard and UNC have deliberately ignored the negative effects of preferences on their supposed beneficiaries.

UNC told the court it...