A reader points out that many law reviews exercise race-based preferential treatment in the selection of their editors. According to the Harvard Crimson, the Harvard Law Review is one such publication:
The Review accepts 14 first-years as “grade-ons”–those with the highest average score giving equal weight to grades and the writing sample. Twenty students are accepted solely on the basis of their writing scores, and seven to nine editors are accepted based on a student committee’s review of all their information, including grades, writing scores, race and any kind of disabilities–but not gender.
Harvard Law’s dean–who has said she opposes affirmative action for women in the Law Review’s application process–ought to explain why race- or disability-based preferential treatment is perfectly okay.