The Commentary Magazine Podcast A COMMENTARY Win!
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Sep 4, 2025 Naomi Schaefer Riley, an AEI senior fellow and author, discusses her impactful article that exposed a program sneaking racial preference into college admissions. She dives into the complexities of affirmative action and the shifting priorities of colleges, from intellectual growth to job placement. Riley highlights the influence of the College Board and emphasizes the need for greater transparency in admissions. The conversation also touches on the fallout from a Supreme Court ruling on diversity, revealing the struggle institutions face in balancing inclusivity with their goals.
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College Board's Hidden Landscape Tool
- The College Board created Landscape to give colleges hidden sociological profiles of applicants by census tract.
- Naomi Schaefer Riley says the tool was pulled after Commentary exposed it as a circumvention of the affirmative-action ban.
Using Census Proxies To Infer Race
- Landscape used granular census-tract proxies (rent vs. ownership, car ownership, proximity to medical facilities) to infer students' likely race and urban/rural context.
- Riley argues those proxies were chosen to favor urban non-white populations over poor rural white ones, revealing deliberate circumvention.
Diversity As A Core Selling Point
- Diversity had become a selling point so central colleges scrambled after the Supreme Court's 2023 ban on race-conscious admissions.
- Riley and John Podhoretz show colleges and vendors sought technical workarounds rather than fully abandoning race-based outcomes.
