Richard Kahlenberg occupies a unique space amongst higher education reformists. A Harvard-educated progressive whose heroes include Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., Kahlenberg—who is director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute—has spent decades advocating for the rights of economically disadvantaged Americans. But in recent decades, as liberals have prioritized race over socio-economic status when it comes to who gets a leg up in the world, Kahlenberg began to fall out of step with some of his civil rights compatriots. This was never more so than when he became an expert witness for the conservative advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions, which sued Harvard University and the University of North Carolina for allegedly discriminating against Asian American applicants. The group claimed that those institutions, hiding behind the veil of “holistic admissions,” were docking high-performing Asian American applicants for lacking qualities such as leadership and “grit” over other applicants.
The case, of course, went all the way to the Supreme Court and resulted in the 2023 law banning affirmative action in college admissions. The milestone turned the limelight on Kahlenberg, who, however controversial amongst some liberals, nonetheless had pragmatic, left-leaning solutions for universities that suddenly had to come up with new ways to achieve racial diversity on their campuses—among them are banning legacy preference; expanding financial aid programs; and recruiting from community colleges. The case also validated much of what Kahlenberg had been saying all along—that elite schools’ efforts to diversify their classes through racial preference ultimately amounted to virtue signaling. Despite billion-dollar endowments, schools like Harvard have been loathe to dip into financial aid, instead boosting their diversity numbers by tapping wealthy kids from underrepresented ethnic groups, creating what Kahlenberg calls a “multi-racial aristocracy” on campuses.
Two years after the SCOTUS decision propelled Kahlenberg into the national discourse around affirmative action, he has a new book, Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges, which chronicles his personal and professional journeys through the increasingly combustible debate over equity in college admissions. He spoke with Town & Country about the current admissions landscape and where he sees things headed in the new world order under President Trump.
