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Will the universities accept federal government money, including federally backed loans and Pell Grants? If the answer is "yes" then they'll be subject to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race or national origin in programs that receive federal funds, unless that discrimination is necessary for the achievement of a legitimate non-discriminatory objective. Might also want to look at 34 CFR 100 which are the federal regulations the Department of Education has put out effecting Title VI of the CRA by that agency. There are also likely to be state level anti-discrimination laws any such University would be subject to.
I see three broad options here.
Firstly, you can refuse to take any federal money. This (probably) evades any liability for federal anti-discrimination protections but also cuts your University off from a very large source of funding and many of the disadvantaged students it is presumably aimed at helping.
Secondly, you can take federal money and just not discriminate on the basis of race or natural origin. This evades liability but fails to function as the ethnic spoils system you want it to.
Finally, you can take federal money and discriminate on the basis of race insofar as necessary to achieve a "legitimate nondiscriminatory objective." This is what current universities do, with their purported objective being the obtainment of the educational benefits that flow from having a racially diverse student body. I do not think the Department of Education, or a court, are going to agree that something like "the promotion of Asian/Irish-American identities" is a "legitimate nondiscriminatory objective." Indeed, they seem like straightforwardly discriminatory objectives to me.
I think your Universities would rapidly find themselves useless to help their targeted audience, most likely via litigation from either the federal government or a prospective student.
More options
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