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Many colleges and universities use race as a factor in admissions, but the approach has been a hot-button issue for decades — even making its way to the Supreme Court several times since the late 1970s.

Critics argue that racial preferences in college admissions hurt minority students more than they help them. Schools relax their academic standards to admit more minority students, they say, and underrepresented minority students who enter with lower academic credentials end up concentrated at the bottom of the most selective schools. Students of any race who fall to the bottom of their class, they argue, are less likely to persevere and succeed at more difficult majors like science and engineering.

Proponents of affirmative action in admissions say the policies help create more diverse campuses, which better prepares all students for life after school — particularly as the United States becomes increasingly diverse. Schools with well-designed policies, supporters say, make special efforts to identify talented, underrepresented candidates who are qualified for college work but who might otherwise lose out in competition for admission with more privileged students.

In an Intelligence Squared event, two teams recently debated the motion, "Affirmative action on campus does more harm than good." In these events, the team that sways the most people by the end of the debate is declared the winner.

Before the debate at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass., 22 percent of the audience voted in favor of the motion and 48 percent against, with 30 percent undecided. Afterward, 36 percent agreed with the motion, while 55 percent disagreed — meaning the side arguing for the motion swayed the largest number of people to win this particular debate.