In a new column at the New York Post, Betsy McCaughey argues that racial quotas for colleges actually hurt minorities.

College quotas are actually destroying lives of minorities

Today the US Supreme Court hears a constitutional challenge to racial preferences in college admissions. These preferences obviously hurt whites and Asians turned down to make room for less qualified minorities, but ironically, the preferences also harm many Hispanics and African-Americans — the very students they’re supposed to help.

No wonder campuses are roiled with racial tension. It’s high time the court put a stop to racial preferences entirely.

Abigail Fisher, a white woman who sued the University of Texas for rejecting her in 2008, claims the university’s admissions process unconstitutionally favored minority applicants, violating her right to equality under the law. Like affirmative-action programs everywhere, the school claims it judges each applicant “holistically.” Don’t buy it.

For University of Texas applicants, simply being born black or Hispanic gets you points for “achievement,” even if your parents are wealthy bankers. Being born white or Asian gets you zip. It’s similar at Harvard, which is being sued in another case. In defense, Harvard says “when choosing among academically qualified applicants,” colleges need “freedom and flexibility to consider each person’s unique background.”

That’s doubletalk. Many minorities admitted to elite schools based on race aren’t “academically qualified.”

A survey of selective colleges by UCLA professor Richard Sander documented that students who get in based on race tend to earn lower grades and are less likely to graduate. At less demanding colleges, they’d have a better chance to succeed.

They’re in over their heads.

But not in California, which outlawed racial preferences in 1996. Minority students now are more apt to attend lower-ranked public colleges but twice as likely to graduate.