Nathan Glazer

About the author: Nathan Glazer is professor emeritus of sociology and education at Harvard University. He has written extensively on race relations, education, ethnicity, immigration, and multiculturalism. He is the author of Affirmative Discrimination, Ethnic Dilemmas, and We Are All Multiculturalists Now.

If test scores and grades alone were used to determine admission to top level universities, the percentage of African Americans attending major colleges or universities would drop from six percent to less than two percent. Affirmative action ensures that African American students are allowed access to prestigious universities such as Harvard and Berkeley, which have long been gateways to positions of power and influence in American society. Denying African American students access to top tier universities would undermine the value of inclusion that is vital to American democracy and send...