The Real Boost From Affirmative Action Bans

When affirmative action is removed from admissions, it's Asian-Americans, not whites, who benefit the most. A new study to be published this week in a University of California-Los Angeles journal finds that white enrollment declined while Asian-American enrollment surged at some top universities in states where consideration of race is illegal.

The ban has had a strong impact on UC-Berkeley.

(Jim Wilson/The New York Times/Redux)

The study tracked freshman enrollment patterns from 1990 through 2005 in three states, California, Florida, and Texas. The results were particularly striking in California, where Asian-Americans filled the gap created by the decline in African-American and Hispanic enrollment, the study says. At the University of California-Berkeley, Asian-American enrollment jumped from 37.30 percent in 1995 to 46.59 percent in 2005.

Notes Ward Connerly, a leading proponent of race-blind admissions, "It's just a matter of following the data, and the data is very clear: Asian-Americans are outperforming everybody."