Colleges Created a Diversity Box-Ticking Game—Zohran Mamdani Just Played It
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party’s newly minted candidate to be the next mayor of New York City, found himself in some hot water last week after The New York Times reported that he claimed to be both “Asian” and “Black or African American” on his college application to Columbia University in 2009.
Mamdani holds U.S. citizenship, but was born in Uganda to Indian parents. He is African, and he is American, but he is definitely not black, which is what the term “African American” implies.
The news prompted criticism of Mamdani from some black New Yorkers, including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is actually black, and who is running for re-election as an independent. “The African American identity is not a checkbox of convenience,” he declared in a statement. “It’s a history, a struggle and a lived experience. For someone to exploit that for personal gain is deeply offensive.”
By personal gain, Adams means Columbia University’s race-conscious admissions policies, which awarded preferential treatment to certain applicants on the basis of race. Or, in plain English, the university discriminated in favor of prospective students who were black, Hispanic, or Native American. Checking the “Black or African American” box would have earned Mamdani extra points toward admission at the time. (Mamdani ultimately failed to gain admission.)
Mamdani told the Times that
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