It's often the case that the older and WASPier an institution, the more it bends over backward to "embrace diversity". Swarthmore College, the respected Pennsylvania school started by Quakers, is just such a place. In its alumni magazine, you can see the proud announcement that the incoming class for 2015 is 49 percent white.[The Class of 2015 - Swarthmore College Bulletin, October 2011]



You can bet the college engineered it that way, so it could point to the actual numerical reality that it's got a minority white class. The dozen or so whites who should have gotten in—but would have pushed the number to 50 or 51 percent—will just have to understand that their rejection was necessary to pave the way for Manifest Diversity.



Other stats about the class:





202 women, 184 men

9 percent "international" (of all races? they don't say)

6 percent "multiracial"

6 percent "African American"

15 percent "Hispanic/Latina/o" (got to make sure the "a" precedes the "o", for obvious reasons of combatting entrenched sexism)

15 percent "Asian American"

[Click for full illustration]

The final class was 386 students out of 6,547 applicants. Naturally, Swarthmore doesn't provide demographic information for the rejected students.



A look at the alumni notes gives you a heads-up on the new American elite, which is basically a mix of Asian, Jewish, and some white. "Tom Weintraub and Molly Yang welcomed their new baby girl, Grace Tubman Yang Weintraub, this August."



Swarthmore takes seriously its stated mission to make the entire world a better place. I guess scrubbing whites out of the picture is how they intend to do it.



