Affirmative Action Has Served to Assuage the White Liberal Conscience

After decades of affirmative action, Black and Hispanic college applicants remain largely shut out of elite colleges, where grads have the inside track on America's best opportunities.  While showing some limited success for increasing college attendance at lesser institutions, affirmative action has been entirely ineffective in mitigating the effects from the larger problems of segregation, corporate influence, and test-based demonization in K-12 schools:

Elementary and secondary schools with large numbers of black and Hispanic students are less likely to have experienced teachers, advanced courses, high-quality instructional materials and adequate facilities, according to the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

Until corporate predatory charter schools stop churning out miseducated robots and until our leaders take steps to end segregation and until racist and classist standardized tests are discontinued, black and brown representation in the best universities and colleges will continue to decline.