This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, March 15, 2016.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Affirmative action as a compelling government interest has been before the Supreme Court a few times in recent years.

But what does the evidence say about students who are admitted under those kinds of policies?

Gail Harriet is a professor of law at the University of San Diego

and is a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

She spoke at the Cato Institute's Constitution Day event last year.

I have been asked to talk about academic overmatch or mismatch. It's the term we use when a student

suffers educational disadvantages by attending a school where his academic

credentials put him towards the bottom of the class.

By definition, these are disadvantages he would not have suffered attending a school a little

lower in the pecking order.

In short, it's not always wise to attend a

school that you got into by the skin of your teeth. This problem can affect

affirmative action beneficiaries, but it can also affect legacy students and

athletes. I for one, however, am more concerned about affirmative action beneficiaries

because that's the group we have the biggest

stake in helping if we are hurting them instead of helping that's very bad news

despite all the rhetoric about race preferential admissions being about

obtaining the benefits of diversity for all students.

It's a cinch that few would support

race preferential admissions if the mounting body of evidence

...