Here's the debate in the New York Times on Ron Unz's research suggesting Ivy League colleges keep Asian numbers down and Jewish numbers up:

Fears of an Asian Quota in the Ivy LeagueWith a disproportionate number of Asian-American students acing standardized tests, are top colleges limiting the number they admit? Read More »DEBATERS

• Statistics Indicate an Ivy League Asian Quota

• RON UNZ, THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 

• Quotas Are Imaginary; Need for Diversity Is Real

• KHIN MAI AUNG, ASIAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION FUND 

• Scores Aren’t the Only Qualification

• ROD M. BUGARIN JR., FORMER ADMISSIONS OFFICER 

• Discrimination Is Obvious

• S.B. WOO, 80-20 NATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION

• Harvard Shuns Quotas and Narrow Criteria

• JEFF NEAL, HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

• When Wealth Trumps Merit

• JOHN C. BRITTAIN, LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF LAW AND 

• RICHARD D. KAHLENBERG, CENTURY FOUNDATION

I haven't read through this yet, but a couple of quick points:

First, this shows the overwhelming importance of the New York Times as first mover in the mass media echo system in determining What Is, and What Isn't, News. College admissions is a topic of tremendous interest to the kind of people who write the news, and of some interest to the kind of people who read the news, but Unz's research wasn't news until the New York Times said it is. If you go to Google News and type in Unz college, you get three articles over the last three weeks before the NYT decided to feature it today:

I devote a fair amount of energy to critiques of New York Times coverage both because of its power, but also because it influence is by no means wholly undeserved. The NYT employs people smart enough to get it, and sometimes they do. For example, Nicholas Wade, the NYT genetics reporter, spent a decade dismantling the Clinton Era myth that Race Does Not Exist. I haven't seen any evidence of anybody apologizing for propagating bad science, but Wade's dogged work has taken a little of the wind out of the sails of the zeitgeist.

Second, the really interesting aspect of Unz's research is his inference that not only are Ivy League colleges discriminating against Asians, they seem to be discriminating in favor of Jews. Now, that's pretty interesting. But, that's only going to leak out as a secondary aspect of the now-approved story of discrimination against Asians.

P.S., I see a rumor that the New York Times will be for sale in 2013. I think it would be nuts for politically dependent billionaires (i.e., most billionaires) to evaluate buying the NYT solely based on net present value of cash flow. Do you think Carlos Slim regrets the money he spent bailing out the NYT in 2008? The Mexican telecom monopolist bought himself years of being not considered terribly newsworthy, while Americans who want to reduce the profits Slim makes on calls to and from illegal aliens were recurrently demonized. And any connection between Slim's bailout and the NYT's virulence against immigration skeptics is simply Not News.

Money well spent.