This week, John and I sit down with Richard Kahlenberg of the Progressive Policy Institute and George Washington University. He’s author of the new book Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges. Rick played a pivotal role in the SFFA v. Harvard case that struck down race-based affirmative action in the US. But he is not an opponent of affirmative action tout court. Nor does he oppose diversity—indeed, he thinks campus diversity is a good thing. He simply thinks using socioeconomic class as the criterion for affirmative action benefits can aid racial and ethnic diversity at elite schools while at the same time distributing those benefits in fair and sensible way.
According to Rick, rethinking affirmative action is a liberal project, not a conservative one. He points out that even Civil Rights Movement giants like Martin Luther King and Bayard Rustin advocated for class-based affirmative action. Trump may be eradicating DEI excesses, but Rick thinks he’s going too far by targeting diversity itself. And while he admits that accepting more economically disadvantaged students to the likes of Harvard may lower standards a smidge, he notes that some experts estimate that will mean accepting students from the top 98th percentile instead of the top 99th—hardly a nosedive. John raises the issue of vocational training—why is a four-year college the end-all-be-all of post-high school training? Rick says he agrees but says he’s wary of apprenticeship becoming the default option for poor and working-class kids. We end on the future of the Democratic Party, which is struggling to find itself in the wake of the 2024 election.
0:00 Intro
1:03 How Rick feels being a “liberal maverick,” according to the NYT
4:18 Rick’s advocacy for class-based affirmative action
6:39 Rick: “The Trump administration has gone too far” by trying to eliminate racial diversity
13:02 Opening up the elite university’s old boys club
21:21 Will economic diversity in admissions come with test score disparities?
23:55 Ground News ad 25:56 What’s Edward Blum’s deal?
29:36 Rick: The Democratic Party needs to ask itself why it lost to Trump
34:48 The black allies of class-based affirmative action
40:53 Is vocational training a viable alternative to four years of college?
44:48 Addressing the development problem among black students
52:52 Rick’s hopes for a new Democratic Party
Recorded March 30, 2025
Links and Readings
Rick’s new book, Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges
Pew poll on race and ethnicity in college admissions
Glenn and John’s 2023 conversation with Peter Arcidiacono
The 1966 Coleman report, Equality of Educational Opportunity
Rick’s book, Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don't See
Rick’s Atlantic piece, “Liberal Suburbs Have Their Own Border Wall”
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