There is data (e.g. on Harvard university admissions) which shows that average SAT cut-off scores of admitted students are very different for various racial groups, which strongly hints at DEI based discrimination. I don't agree with that happening. I think people should be admitted/rejected based only on their ability, not partly based on whether they happen to fall in some group for which the quota has to be increased/decreased.
Assuming performance on the SAT is an unbiased measure of ability is the flaw in this premise. It is well known that SAT performance is correlated with race, family income and gender. For instance, girls reliably score worse on SAT Math even when they outperform boys in school on the same subject.
However, it turns out family income is an even stronger predictor of test performance. But family income also happens to be correlated with race, so the race/SAT score correlation is more likely an income/SAT score correlation.
In fact, some even maintain that the process of selecting SAT questions is itself a self-reinforcing bias. If you want data, searches like "Is the SAT biased" or "Is the SAT racist" will take you down that rabbithole.
Given that the testing process has clear shortcomings, it seems fair to account for that during admissions. Unfortunately, this looks a lot like very obvious reverse discrimination if one is not aware of the non-obvious, systemic discrimination it is adjusting for.
The SAT is just one very small aspect of criteria for acceptance. Even when I went to school it was well-understood that the difference between a 1500 and 1600 didn't matter - that was never going to be what got you admitted.
