Robert Woodson Sr., a prominent Black conservative, and I were debating the merits of affirmative action on a Washington, D.C., television station recently when Woodson went ballistic. He said it was outrageous that the University of Michigan awards more points for a person’s color than to an applicant with a perfect SAT score.

On the surface, it appears that Woodson had a valid point. But appearances can be deceiving and Woodson’s charge provides a textbook example of that. Not only did he misrepresent the admissions process at the university, which is being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, he demonstrated an appalling lack of knowledge about how college administrators select students.

First, let’s deal with Woodson’s charge. Unlike the law school, undergraduate schools at Michigan use a point system to evaluate applicants. The maximum score is 150 points, with the overwhelming majority of those related to academics.

Opponents such as Woodson like to point out that African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans are automatically awarded 20 points because they are members of underrepresented groups on campus. As Woodson states, a person with a perfect SAT or ACT score receives a maximum of 12 points for that accomplishment under this system.

What Woodson fails to acknowledge is that the University of Michigan correctly assigns a low priority to standardized test results and places a greater emphasis on grade point averages. For example, a students with a straight-A average is awarded 80 points—more than seven times the points given top SAT and ACT scorers and four times those awarded to people of color. Even a student with a C average receives 40 points.

There are two areas that tend to favor White applicants. If the student graduates from what officials consider a strong school, two to 10 points can be added to the score. The strength of the school’s curriculum is also evaluated. If it is deemed weak, up to four points can be subtracted from a student’s points. If it is judged strong, eight additional points can be gained.

Inasmuch as most African-American students at Michigan come from what the university considers weak inner-city Detroit schools, a typical White suburban student can have an 18- to 22-point edge. That alone would more than offset the 20 points assigned to students of color.

What galls me about critics of the program is that they deliberately tell only part of the story. The university, which has spent more than $10 million defending its race-conscious admissions process, freely admits that it awards 20 points to underrepresented groups.

Critics never mention that 20 points are also given to any applicant from a socio-disadvantaged group. That means a poor White person is just as entitled to 20 points as a person of color. No students can collect 20 points for being in more than one category.

Also receiving an automatic 20 points are scholarship athletes. Neither Bob Woodson nor his buddies express outrage over this fact. And they never discuss a provision that allows the university’s provost to give 20 points to a student at his or her discretion.

A student from Michigan’s largely White Upper Peninsula can pick up 16 more points—10 for being a Michigan resident and six for coming from an underrepresented county in the state. If that student is poor, that’s a total of 36 points.

Further, extra points are awarded to students from an underrepresented state, for being the child or stepchild of a Michigan graduate, for demonstrating leadership and service skills, for personal achievement and for writing a good essay. Yet, critics of affirmative action are only pouncing on the provision that considers race and ethnicity.

Often lost in the debate is how classes are selected. Universities look at a variety of factors when trying to assemble a class. Because they don’t want all students to come from the state of Michigan, they award extra points to students from other states. They try to come up with a mix of students that will afford everyone in the class an opportunity to learn from people different from him or her.

In trying to create this mix, admission counselors might bypass a student with better grades and higher test scores to favor another student who might bring more varied experiences to the class. The premise is that students learn as much from one another outside the classroom as they learn directly from professors.

In fact, the White students who brought the suit against the University of Michigan had higher test scores and GPAs than some Whites who were accepted. Instead of challenging the admission of those students, however, conservatives have chosen to attack the handful of African-Americans accepted. And that’s truly outrageous.