Could academia’s failed experiment with diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, finally be coming to an end?
Probably not. But at least a few schools are once again acknowledging the value of merit.
Yale University became the latest Ivy League institution to reintroduce standardized testing to its admissions process. Many schools, Yale included, removed this requirement during the pandemic and declined to reimplement it afterward, arguing it could put minority and underrepresented applicants at a disadvantage.
But as it turns out, the optional testing policy that replaced it hurt those applicants far more than the standardized testing requirement ever did. And that’s because it gave an advantage to students who had the resources and social capital to supplement their applications with testing, while those from lower-income households struggled to prove their performance was up to Yale’s standards, according to university researchers. It’s almost as if an equal playing field requires some sort of universal standard by which students can prove their mettle.
And indeed, that’s exactly what Yale found. “Yale’s research from before and after the pandemic has consistently demonstrated that … test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grades,” the university said in a statement.
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Dartmouth College reached the same conclusion earlier this month when it reinstated standardized testing requirements. Test scores, the school explained, are the best way to predict a student’s college success regardless of that student’s “background or family income.”
It seems Yale and Dartmouth have realized that their efforts to stack the odds in favor of certain applicants deliberately have been at best counterproductive and corrosive to the universities’ academic integrity. Whether they’ll take this realization to the next logical conclusion and gut their campuses of all other harmful DEI initiatives is another question. But on this front, at least, merit is making a comeback.
