Here’s an oped in the Los Angeles Times by the former Dean of Michigan’s Law School and ex-President of Cornell. It reviews African-American admissions in the UC campuses and argues that the “critical mass” is lacking.

It recites one key point in the Michigan case from 2003. “Expert testimony in the Michigan case indicated that the presence of three African Americans in classroom contexts is a key transition point, where black students can speak more freely as individuals and other students can better appreciate how racial identity is complex, multidimensional and unpredictable.”

Hard to believe that “experts” could determine an actual number of minority people required in an environment as variable-rich and unique as a college class. But the most telling premise comes elsewhere in the piece, when the author explains the influences on the admissions pool: “The admissions pool at the most selective universities reflects the cumulative effect of history, sociology and economics, public investments and private choices.” Note that “private choices” comes in last, and remains vague. The individual attributes of the candidates are minimized, while large historical forces are foregrounded.

This is the recourse of quota advocates. The closer they look at individual characteristics, the more their group definitions fall apart. The more they can find experts to assign numerical grounds for admissions decisions, the better they sound.