Via Steve, here is a piece in The Washington Post about the admissions process to the elite Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (mean SAT score 1482 out of 1600 for graduates). The story focuses on the race angle, and the relative dearth of blacks and Latinos. Here is the current breakdown for the fall of 2005:

52.9% - White
32.3% - Asian
3.8% - Hispancs
2.4% - Blacks
0.6% - Native American
6.3% - Multiracial
1.6% - Other

For comparison, here the numbers for Fairfax county:


69.9% - White
13.3% - Asian
11.0% - Hispancs
8.6% - Blacks
0.1% - Native American
3.7% - Multiracial
4.5% - Other

The two data sets are not equivalent, as no doubt some students come from outside Fairfax county, the younger age brackets skew toward non-whites, and "Hispanics" are likely the preponderance of the "Other" category from the Census (and am I the only one to be a bit suspicious of "Native Americans?").

Specifically, on to the piece, here are some snippets:

At that point, Lodal described the number of blacks and Hispanics being admitted to TJ as "indefensible on every level." Now heading into her sixth year running TJ, the ebullient Texas native, who studied math and physics at Rice University, has been an outspoken advocate for increasing the presence of those minorities.

...

Using data amassed through the Freedom of Information Act, he found that 91 percent of African Americans who passed to the second round were admitted to the Class of 2006, or 10 of 11 students. Meanwhile, 49 percent of white students in the second round were admitted, or 249 of 507 students. Cohen accused the school of having a policy of surreptitious racial preferences. He called it "invidious racial discrimination."

...

It was estimated that 1,500 students might now make the second round. The idea was to pass as many applicants as seemed reasonably qualified to the second round, where they could be judged on more subjective criteria, particularly essays and teacher recommendations.

...

Kiara Savage was riding home on the school bus one day, not long after receiving her letter from TJ, when she overheard another student talking about the school. "They made the admissions process easier so black people and Hispanic people can get into the school," she recalled hearing the boy say.

She tapped him on the shoulder. Excuse me, she said. TJ is a very prestigious school. The people who run it would not lower the standards just so they could add 50 more African Americans to their school.

Trying not to lose her cool, she reminded herself of her 4.0 GPA, the countless hours she'd spent on the basketball court and soccer field, her two years of extracurricular math and science courses. She'd thrived on hard work -- and for all those reasons, she explained to the boy, she deserved every nod that came her way.

"Are you calling me a racist?" the boy demanded.

Please note that Kiara did make the cut into TJHS in the fall, and even if there were slightly relaxed standards for her acceptance it seems that she is highly bright (in fact, there weren't that many more black students in the fall than the previous year, so it seems plausible there wasn't a great relaxation of standards). That is why her assertion is a bit baffling on the analytic level, because it seems that if 10 out of 11 African American students who made it to the second round were admitted, it seems there are two rational inferences one could make

1) the sieving process was harder on African Americans in the first round, making the second round applicants far more qualified (explaining the higher frequency of acceptance).

2) once the students make it past the metrically more objective first round other "subjective" factors kicked in to make the African Americans a shoe in.

It seems that the American administrative class demands diversity. The natural implication of this is that people will conclude that the "proactive efforts" are simply code for relaxed standards for certain groups. Those who feel their have been excluded or left on the outside while those "less qualified than them" have become insiders will naturally cast aspersions. When elites decide to remold society and shift group attainments, the fruit of this will be in part a great deal of individual resentment. Scarcity is a fact of life, and when finite resources are divided there will always be complaints, and when there is a perception that objective metrics are subborned in the interests of a subjective social good, than those resentments will simply enter the zeitgeist as "conventional wisdom."

In the short term I see no sign that the goal of proportional racial diversity will be rolled back in the interests of the meritocracy. That of course means that black Americans (and now Latinos) will all continue to live under the cloud of "set asides," no matter their instrinsic aptitudes, because the perception is that their individual identity and worth is secondary to their symbolic and concrete expression of a particular group identity. When people talk about a different perspective being brought to a classroom, it is not in the context of individual experiences, but the higher order experiences of group identity that someone brings to the table (ie; you could switch black person A and black person B, they would still bring the same "diversity" because their individual variation in experience is irrelevant). Nevertheless, there is also the need to engage in doublethink, where you make it pretty clear that you wish to achieve ends X by-any-means-possible, but continue to assert that the process, the means, have not be distorted or demoted in their primacy within the system. In the public domain people will of course dissemble and continue to assert that diversity and objective meritocracy can coexist, and that the latter is only supplemented by the former, but as you see above, in the private domain people will not hesitate to call bullshit if they feel that the situation warrants it.