The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a number of cases this term, including two cases pertaining to affirmative action in college admissions.  The justices of the nation's highest court heard arguments for about five hours on Oct. 31 in the cases Students for Fair Admissions vs. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions vs. University of North Carolina. "So, what these cases involve is, basically at the heart, is racial discrimination. What Harvard and UNC have done, at least it's alleged by the plaintiffs, is that they have used their admission system to specifically keep down the numbers of Asian Americans who are being admitted into those two institutions," Lance Izumi, a senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute, told The Daily Signal. "And so, in the case of Harvard, for example, they have used race as a factor, has been allowed under previous Supreme Court rulings, but have used it in a way that basically sets a quota on the number of Asians who are being admitted into Harvard," said Izumi, who is also the author of Obama's Education Takeover. Izumi added:  So, for example, if you took an Asian American applicant who had a 25% chance of getting into Harvard, if you changed his race to Hispanic American, that same person with the same characteristics would have a 77% chance of getting into Harvard.And if you change that Asian American to [an] African American, again with the same characteristics, that person would then have a 95% chance of getting into Harvard.Izumi joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to further discuss the Supreme Court cases, the impact of these cases, record-low ACT scores, and what he hopes the next Congress will accomplish on education policy.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices