It turns out you can achieve both social justice and a powerful alumni donation base -- er, competent educated elite -- simply by admitting the top 1% of each race by income. Who knew? If you're Harvard, you can do good AND do well!

That's not really the Harvard way. The Harvard way is:

* Take about 2/5 of students from the elites

* Take about 3/5 of students who are brilliant

Students of the elites look smart by association. Students who are brilliant are brought into powerful, moneyed social networks. It works well for everyone involved.

The focus on alumni donations is a little bit overblown. Harvard has way more money than it needs. What Harvard looks for is a lot richer than that. The alumni base is part of the national -- and increasingly international -- power structure. A president of some country, a high court justice, or similar sorts of power positions can be at least as important as a billionaire. Likewise, branding is important. The current push on DEI is to make sure that (1) the brand doesn't suffer (2) DEI-focused positions are filled by elite school alumni, and not focused on actual change to power structures.

Not necessarily, some of the 0.1% may have poor opinion of the other, may have specific expectations about the environment for their offspring and not every group is equally influential. For example, since we're talking about Harvard - it definitely wasn't purely about money when in 1920s Harvard implemented Lowell's quota to reduce the number of Jewish students.

I wonder if they believe that this time they're on the right side of history in their quest to reduce the proportion of Asian students.

Just like Robinhood always says: "take from the rich and give back to the rich."

Everyone want to go after the exceedingly small percentage of black and Latino students that get boosted into the Ivy League and somehow in these discussions legacies always seem to get a pass.

(Though obviously not in this case because you correctly called it out)

Paradoxically you've hit upon both marks:

Ivy League this year will have material overrepresentation of Latino and Black kids, substantial overrepresentation of Asian and Jewish kids, and up to 10% 'Children of Alumni', another overrepresentation.

Which leaves those not in those groups out in the lurch.

You're thinking the 0.01%. The 0.1% got busted trying to pass off their kids as athletes. The 1% can afford good school districts, extra curriculars, and test prep.

It didn’t stop them in the first place.

And one’s ability to pass the SAT proves only that one can pass the SAT. It just proves they were privileged enough to have some one teach them “the tricks and tactics to pass the test” - not understanding, not potential, and not intelligence.

Couldn’t one also say that getting into Harvard just proves they were privileged enough to jump the criteria for selection? Eg parents sent them to volunteer abroad and varsity crew? How can any admissions criteria not get gamed over time?