In today's Pope Center piece, Notre Dame philosophy professor James Sterba gives his counter-arguments to the case I made against enshrining "socio-economic diversity" as another goal for elite colleges to attain through admissions preferences. We both participated in a forum back in September at Pomona College where that was the topic. I presented my case against that in a piece we published in October.  Professor Sterba responds and I respond to him.

I remain convinced that "affirmative action" -- whether to achieve "better racial balance" or to get more students from poorer families into top schools, has minimal and mostly imaginary benefits that come at substantial cost.