These data, albeit a decade old, are a real head-scratcher. I am not sure how to explain it. It has been subject to some vigorous discussion lately on the social media site Formerly Known as Prince (as I have decided to call it).
Ron Unz took a whack at it in The American Conservative ten years ago. One excerpt:
But before we conclude that our elite media organs are engaging in an enormous “conspiracy of silence” regarding this egregious pattern of racial discrimination at our most prestigious universities, we should explore alternate explanations for these striking results. Perhaps we are considering the evidence from entirely the wrong perspective, and ignoring the most obvious—and relatively innocuous—explanation. In recent decades, the notion of basing admissions on “colorblind” meritocratic standards such as standardized academic test scores has hardly been an uncontroversial position, with advocates for a fully “diversified” student body being far more prominent within the academic community.
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