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Now it’s more complicated. Female students in general do not need preferential consideration; they already outperform boys in high school. The racial bit is trickier. Competitive admissions, without any “affirmative action” adjustments, produce a certain kind of Canadian diversity — lots of Asians, not as many blacks and Aboriginal Canadians. But even after whatever adjustments might be made, the over-representation of Asian students relative to their share of the population remains.

Female students in general do not need preferential consideration; they already outperform boys in high school. The racial bit is trickier

In Canada, we don’t speak quite so frankly. In the United States though, a lawsuit has been launched by Asian-American students against Harvard. It alleges that Harvard illegally games the admissions process to reduce the number of Asians on campus in order to increase the number of blacks and Hispanics. The case has yet to be decided, but the evidence is very strong that Harvard is doing what it denies it is doing.

Last year, New York City adopted new policies for its elite public schools that had the same practical effect: fewer Asians admitted in order to increase the presence of other racial minorities.

Photo by Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

This challenges some long-standing thinking about diversity. If racial diversity is itself a good, then it is not a philosophical problem to limit any over-represented group, including Asians. If yellow and brown are the new white, so be it.

But racial considerations in admissions have long been proposed as remedies for disadvantage. Not just in light of explicit racism, but a welter of social and economic factors that might make it more difficult for racial minorities to achieve the academic and extra-curricular success that determines admission to university.