Zohran Mamdani, the Democrat running for mayor of New York City, was born in Uganda. He doesn’t consider himself Black but said the application didn’t allow for the complexity of his background.

On the surface, it sounds like an act of calculated advantage-seeking. After all, Columbia, like most elite universities then, ran race-conscious admissions. Identifying as Black might have increased his chances in a system designed to redress centuries of racial exclusion.