MIT and Harvard are hardly the only practitioners of racial discrimination. Nagai reminds readers that in Not Yet Separate, Not Yet Equal, authors Thomas J. Espendshade and Alexandria Walton Radford found that elite universities admitted Asian Americans at lower rates than other racial groups.

Whereas the admissions rates were 31, 27, and 26 percent for African Americans, Hispanics, and Whites, respectively, Asian Americans were admitted at 18 percent.

The same study showed the Asian American applicants needed to score significantly higher on the SATs to gain admittance: 140 points higher than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points higher than blacks.

Of course, all of this affirmative discrimination is done in the name of diversity, to make sure that Asian Americans are not “overrepresented” relative to their numbers in the national population.