No, it wouldn't make sense.

Most schools only give preference to out of state residents because they can charge these students more. This makes some sense from the simple standpoint of economics. It also makes sense to charge out of state folks (who don't pay the taxes) a higher rate.

Basing admissions policy on the category of simple skin color, or perhaps the "one drop rule?" however, strikes me as having no remotely logical basis. It does not even make sense from the standpoint of promoting "diversity." Middle class blacks from the North, for example, probably have more in common with Middle Class whites in the North than they do with rural blacks in Alabama or in the projects or, for that matter, Africa. Skin color is a very poor guide to anything (income, merit, common interests, etc).

Basing univeristy admissions policy on skin color strikes me as no less illogical than having the police respond to calls on the same basis.

Now, Anthony, has a point too. I agree that we need to abolish public education. That doesn't mean, however, is that we should throw all concepts of fairness and merit out the window in the meantime. I don't see that there is anything "elitist" about that.

Well, Mr. Long has made very good points here. To the extent that government-funded schooling can be done more or less fairly, I would agree with him that grading is different from admissions. But I would go so far as to say that forcing people to fund a system that grades people on the basis of merit is not necessarily less unjust that forcing them to pay for a system that grades people on another basis. There are limits to this purist way of looking at it. But I think that any defense of the traditional grading system in government schools runs the risk of defending a tax-funded elitism.

I must agree with Mr. Long's basic point. According to libertarian principle, it is just as wrong for teachers to grade students on the basis of their skills as it is for them to grade them on any other basis. State-funded meritocracy is no more intrinsically libertarian than state-funded egalitarianism, or state-funded discrimination. Different uses of stolen money might offend our sense of justice more or less, but, so long as the money is not being used itself to fund more coercion -- such as for locking up or bombing innocents -- it is hard for me to see a libertarian case for one type of government spending over another.

So while it is "wrong for a [government] faculty member to grade students on the basis of race and gender" it is also wrong for a government faculty member to grade people at all. If we're just talking about the concept of discrimination per se, then Mr. Long's other point sticks: "Ideally they wouldn't be tax-funded at all and then such colleges could freely do whatever they like."

Stephan Kinsella has also argued on decentralist grounds that the feds shouldn't overturn state affirmative action. But that's opening up a whole different issue.