Rejected elite-college applicants have no strong claim of harm from affirmative action

Evidence

Would-be students who are not admitted to elite universities have stronger grounds than almost anyone else for opposing affirmative action. But their claim of harm or injustice is weak for two reasons. First, the overwhelming majority of applicants would not be admitted to Harvard or Princeton even if every beneficiary of affirmative action were denied a slot in the freshman class. (About 12 percent of applicants to Princeton or Harvard are admitted.) Second, no one has a right to admission to an elite private (or public) university or to a given job; one may be deeply disappointed by rejection, but one cannot claim unjust treatment. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2030

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the affirmative action debate’s empirical framing; echoes findings on the small number actually displaced by preferences in elite admissions.