> ALL discrimination is abhorrent

I think you meant, racial or ethnic discrimination. Apologies, but nitpicking to make your position stronger.

Is some discrimination acceptable then?

trivially, i’m happy to discriminate in favor of, e. g. , people who are fluent in french and english if i want to hire a french and english translator.

Or in the context of say, admissions, i would expect to see discrimination on academic merit in the field of study for a program you’re applying to. If you were an outstanding undergraduate who majored in like, the archaeology of medieval germany, you should expect to have a very hard time getting into a graduate program in high energy physics.

(tangentially i happen to know a MD/PhD whose undergrad was performance ballet, but she double-majored as a physical chemistry major and did piles of lab work too, and thus didn’t have any troubles)

If we're being pedantic, the whole point of the admissions process is to discriminate. The question is, discriminate on what basis?

Undoubtedly they discriminate on the basis of grades and test scores, but also on the basis of things like extracurriculars. Whether or not race should be a part of this equation is the heart of this debate.

Discrimination based on academic record, aptitude testing, extracurricular activities, personal recommendations, athletic record, etc. is presumably acceptable.

Also known as Merit.

Even if this lawsuit succeeds, Yale will still be able to discriminate against applicants of color. The DoJ is specifically targeting methods of discrimination that don’t benefit white people.

I don't see any evidence that they have negatively discriminated against applicants "of color", or will do so. It seems this discrimination chiefly affects Asian Americans, if you define them as "people of color".

Yale uses legacy status — which is discriminatory against applicants of color — as an admission criterion.

I think that's a rather weak point. I know many people (including myself) who are white or Asian and did not come from college educated families.

I think legacy status is a bit ridiculous, but legacy status admissions benefit those with higher socio-economic standings, not those of a certain race. The issue here is one of discrimination based solely on race. Legacy admissions are a weird from of classism (and therefor some degree of racism, I suppose), but not of race-based discrimination.

I think the difference is quite important.

It confers benefits based on race. Legacy college preferences are fundamentally identical to the “grandfather clauses” enacted during Reconstruction, which created onerous barriers to registering to vote while exempting people whose grandfathers were registered. The intent and result was to disenfranchise Black voters. So too with legacy admissions — they are rooted in attempts to continue segregating the student body after de jure discrimination became untenable.

It’s true that not every white applicant has a legacy status to benefit from. But if you look at the racial breakdown of students who benefit from legacy preferences, I think you’ll find far more white students than the in the overall student body.

They're not identical at all, because only a small minority of whites have legacy status at Yale, whereas the overall majority/plurality of whites had grandfathered voting status.

And nowadays, legacy preferences -- I'm all for getting rid of them -- hurts the average white student more than the average black student, because they fill up the white quota.