Standardized admissions tests have proved especially good at predicting performance of black college applicants.
The University of Texas at Austin’s decision this week to follow Brown, Dartmouth, Georgetown and several other top schools in reinstating standardized tests as an admission requirement is worth applauding. It’s also a reminder of the absurdity of expecting racial balance in outcomes this far down the academic stream.
For decades colleges and universities have relied on SAT and ACT scores to guide admissions decisions. When testing centers closed during the pandemic, however, many of the most selective schools decided to make the exams optional. Opposition to standardized testing isn’t new, but detractors received a big boost following the murder of George Floyd and the blossoming of trendy “antiracist” initiatives. They added the exams to an endless list of major barriers to racial equity. “Standardized tests have become the most effective racist weapon ever devised to objectively degrade Black and brown minds and legally exclude their bodies from prestigious schools,” Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How to Be an Antiracist,” wrote in October 2020.
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.
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