Jonathan Tilove of the Newhouse News Service reported that higher education's main problem with diversity was "the underrepresentation of the white, non-Jewish majority, especially such white ethnics as Italian Americans and such religious groups as Southern Baptists and other evangelicals." Though they make up 70 percent of the population, only 40 percent of Harvard's student body consisted of non-Jewish whites, making them far more underrepresented, relative to their numbers in the general population, than blacks or Hispanics.

Responding to Tilove's findings, Harvard Admissions Director Marlyn McGrath Lewis said that it would be a "foolish notion" to filter college admissions by group representation. Stephen Steinberg of Queens College, a defender of affirmative action policies, added that were special attention paid to these groups' representation, "the whole thing begins to look like pork barrel."

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