Hackers have embarrassed New York University (NYU) by breaking into the university’s servers and posting on NYU’s home page the statistics on how NYU commits race discrimination in its undergraduate admissions—committed before Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard (2023) and continuing to commit even now.
The evidence of NYU’s race discrimination is in the extraordinary discrepancy in SAT scores between applicants from different races. The difference between Asian admittees’ average (1485, the highest scoring) and black admittees’ average (1289, the lowest scoring) is almost 200 points out of 1600. Virtually no Asian or white applicant has been admitted to NYU with SAT scores so low as the black average.
The hackers have performed a public service. It is good to have what everybody knows made public. It is good to see the truthful data that universities do their best to hide.
Universities’ ill behavior now extends far beyond simple race discrimination. The NYU data provides very strong evidence that NYU is defying the Supreme Court’s directive in SFFA v. Harvard to cease such race discrimination forthwith. NYU not only discriminates but also lies about whether it is discriminating. And consider the University of Pennsylvania’s persecution of NAS board member Amy Wax, who was suspended from teaching not least for stating the simple truth that the University of Pennsylvania law school admitted black applicants with scores it would not accept for white applicants. Truth is the great defense—and the University of Pennsylvania stonewallingly refuses to provide the data. Nothing short of hacking, it would seem, is likely to get such data into public view. Universities, given the choice, will stonewall and lie until doomsday.
The federal government should act so that it does not require hackers to find out the truth about universities’ race and sex discrimination. Whether by statute (as we have recommended), Education Department regulation, or the regulation of some successor department, universities should be required to reveal transparently the admissions and hiring data that will reveal whether they conduct race and/or sex discrimination. The Justice Department and states’ attorneys general should enforce this requirement—and if private right of action is authorized, private citizens will be able to seek the publication of such data in court. Universities are such habitual lawbreakers when it comes to race and sex discrimination that no less is necessary.
It is tempting to close with a wink and nod invitation to hackers to do the same again, to some other deserving university. And we don’t: such action is illegal, it does violate privacy and confidentiality, and these are criminal acts for a reason. We condemn this criminal conduct, period.
But what is bad in vigilantes would be good if required by our government, in an action with statutory warrant and civil virtue as its bulwarks. Our federal and state governments should act courageously for truth and against discrimination. We urge them to do so as soon as possible.
Photo by Kathy Images on Adobe Stock
