Why not ignore everything else and focus all our expendable energy on PR?

[Lindbergh]

Proportional Representation, that is.

Seriously, if diversity is the highest ideal, let's just create slots for the various ethnic and religious groups in the country, allocated proportionately to population, and then use objective criteria/hardship within those groups to find the best applicants.

Would any AA supporters honestly have any issue with this?  If so, why?

[Lindbergh]

Because quotas have been illegal since 1978. Lrn 2 play, n00blet.

O RLY?

Don't worry, we'll just call it critical mass, and we'll be fine.   

[....,,.,]

I guess the argument against would be that this isn't encouraging true "diversity?"  The line you usually hear from admissions offices is something like "We encourage a diversity of views, backgrounds, ethnicities, etc" and that "we look at a number of factors to determine how each applicant could contribute to the overall blah blah."  With your quota system, you're saying that race is the only measure of diversity.

But I'm with you - if you're gonna have AA, quotas don't seem like a bad way to go about it, especially since it appears that's what's going on now anyway.