FEBRUARY 2007 243 American Journal of Education 113 (February 2007)  2007 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0195-6744/2007/11302-0004$05.00 Black Immigrants and Black Natives Attending Selective Colleges and Universities in the United States DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, MARGARITA MOONEY, and KIMBERLY C. TORRES Princeton University CAMILLE Z. CHARLES University of Pennsylvania This analysis uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF) to study black immigrants and natives attending selective colleges and universities in the United States. In the NLSF, 747 black students were of native origin, and 281 were of immigrant origin, yielding an overall immigrant per- centage of 27 percent. The overrepresentation of immigrants was higher in private than in public institutions and within more selective rather than less selective schools. We found few differences in the social origins of black students from immigrant and native backgrounds. The fact that most indicators of socio- economic status, social preparation, psychological readiness, and academic prep- aration are identical for immigrants and natives suggests that immigrant origins per se are not favored in the admissions process but that children from immigrant families exhibit traits and characteristics valued by admissions committees. Prior to the civil rights era, Americans of African origin were largely excluded from selective colleges and universities in the United States through a com- bination of de facto and de jure mechanisms. Once discrimination in ed- ucation was definitively banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, however, things began to change. During the late 1960s, elite schools throughout the country began to undertake various “affirmative actions” to increase black enrollment. As outlined in the celebrated speech made by President Lyndon B. Johnson at Howard University, the initial justification for this policy was restitution for past wrongs: Electronically published November 28, 2006