Today’s Ruling on Affirmative Action Will Have Major Consequences
Why the Supreme Court’s Decision Today was a Step Toward Segregation for U.S. Racial Issues
By: Jessica Montalvo
Today the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, which forces institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies. When I heard about this ruling, it took me back to many experiences I have had in higher education institutions. As a professional Mexican-American woman who has been in the field of education for 20 years, and in higher education for seven of them, I know that this decision will, without a doubt, have major consequences.
Seeing institutional inequities, especially racial inequities, in the various private and public universities I have served, I have sat around major decision-making tables throughout my career in higher education. I have listened to stakeholder conversations of the admissions processes and the qualities that are considered when these decision makers admit students into their colleges.
The data that we are required to review demonstrates the inequities and imbalances when admitting BIPOC students. GPA’s, exam scores, and the holistic makeup of the student are all considered. If they have a lower GPA, they tend to not be considered. Most of the students that are not admitted are from our BIPOC community with no chance of collegiate entrance. A number of students that receive a majority vote from the admissions decision-making body were, in many cases, admitted on academic probation, having to prove themselves within the first semesters of their university careers. There were most certainly always conditions placed on them.
Higher education institutions are not designed to serve our students in the BIPOC community. Institutional strategic planning that incorporates diversity, equity, and inclusion is a nightmare with no clear pathway to understanding the impacts that race and culture bring to the collegiate experience. We certainly do not have adequately trained professionals that are influencing our students. Additionally, we tend to not see professionals that look like us. Take conservative states like Indiana, and it’s even more present for circumstances for racial bias, racism, and inequity to occur regularly.
I understand how affirmative action is racial justice, and I understand why people don’t think that affirmative action is fair. But let me ask you, what other data do you need to show that race is absolutely a huge factor in this country? What other data do you need that proves the higher attrition rates mostly consist of our students who are traditionally from our BIPOC communities and typically classified as low-income and first-generation? These are our students with limited access to resources that are needed in order to participate in higher education.
The New York Times reports Justice Sonia Sotomayor stating, “Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress,” that “cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.”
Justice Sotomayor argued that the majority’s vision of race neutrality “will entrench racial segregation in higher education because racial inequality will persist so long as it is ignored.”
My stance? I’d like to see what higher education institutions are really going to do to achieve diverse student bodies. I’ll give them a chance to design inclusive strategic planning, but I won’t hold my breath. All I see is segregation all over again.
Why the Supreme Court’s Decision Today was a Step Forward for U.S. Racial Issues
By: Gavin Zaletsky
This Thursday, the Supreme Court made a controversial decision to reject the use of race as a factor in college admissions as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Chief Justice John Roberts stated in a majority opinion that, “a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.”
While the conversation around the efficacy of affirmative action is one that has been going on since its introduction, what caused the most recent ruling was actually from a coalition of Asian American students who felt that the criteria for college admissions, specifically at Harvard University, discriminated against them with what they call a “racial penalty,” holding them to a drastically higher standard than that of Hispanic or black students.
The Fourteenth Amendment directly states, ‘Any law which operates upon one man, should operate equally upon all.’ In the eyes of the Supreme Court, using one’s race as a determiner of college eligibility goes against that statement.
This appears to fundamentally be a debate over equity and equality, which are not the same thing. Proponents of affirmative action recognize that a special treatment is given to specific groups of people but accept this as necessary in order to have these groups reach desired levels of achievement. If there were real equality in its truest form, affirmative action would not be a policy as nobody would be receiving special treatment, and every person would be given the exact same treatment and looked at no differently purely because of race.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court’s only black justice, said in his own statement, “While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my race and all who suffer discrimination, I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law.”
While it goes without saying that certain groups of people have a harder path in life than others, to automatically group an entire race of people together and label them all as under privileged takes away from the achievement of the individual and instead further perpetuates racial stereotypes.
Assuming that just because someone is black or Hispanic they are somehow less intelligent or less capable than say, a white or Asian student, and granting them special treatment in college admissions because of their race not only undermines the achievement of said individual by lowering the bar of success comparatively with other students, but also discredits the work of the other students as their genuine achievement has now been domineered by the lesser achievements of another individual who only received such recognition because their skin happened to look a certain way.
Let’s break down what that means with an example; Jared is a white male who is looking to get into Harvard. He has a 3.8 GPA, plays two varsity sports, and is the captain of the debate team. Matt is a black male who is also applying to Harvard. Matt has a 3.4 GPA, plays one varsity sport and is a member of no clubs.
Despite the fact that neither of these students would actually get into Harvard with these credentials and not including factors like standardized testing, references, and interviews, in this hypothetical with affirmative action, Matt would be accepted to Harvard and Jared rejected, despite Jared’s objectively better resume, simply because the university has a racial quota they must fill and have already accepted the maximum number of white students.
Let’s take this even further. What Harvard could not see on either of these resumes is that Jared is actually working a full-time job to put food on the table for his family because he lives in a one parent home in a bad part of town, and Matt lives in a gated community with both parents and a yacht.
Here, Jared is objectively much worse off than Matt, living in poverty, having to work to make ends meet, and Matt has lived a life of luxury thus far in his life never understanding what financial struggle is, yet somehow, according to affirmative action, Matt is more deserving of leniency in college admissions?
This logically makes very little sense. There are millions of wealthy, educated, and able minded black and Latino students who genuinely did not need to receive special consideration, yet they did and benefited from this. Alternatively, there are millions of whites, Asians, and Indians who have had incredibly difficult lives and receive no type of consideration of this. There are also millions of wealthy whites and Asians as well as millions of under privileged black and Hispanic youth. The point is, there are well off and not well-off members of every group there is, and to only reward certain groups special privilege is discriminatory and unfair.
How “dark” is dark enough for affirmative action? Must someone require two BIPOC parents, only one, or a percentage determined through a DNA test?
What ends up happening with these types of policies, as we had been seeing in recent years, is groups of people who now intentionally self-identify as a minority group so that they have a better chance of getting into a college, myself included. As someone with Hispanic heritage and blood yet a European complexion and last name, I found myself unsure of what to mark myself while filling out college applications. The conclusion myself and my first-generation Hispanic mother had come to, was that it would be best for me to identify as Hispanic instead of white so that, in her own words, “my achievements looked better to college admissions.”
While I did nothing wrong and in no way lied as I am a Hispanic male, the fact that I even had to consider which race would make me “look better” to the colleges I was applying to should be enough of an indicator of just how broken policies like these have become today. This also creates a kind of disdain for associating myself as “white” as I expect people to make certain assumptions about my background or upbringing they otherwise would not have made if I said I were Hispanic instead. This is very dangerous as it perpetuates self-hatred and shame for being who you are, something nobody should ever have to experience no matter what race. While I understand that many groups of people have been feeling this way for a long time, I don’t believe the answer is to retaliate and direct this same negative behavior back the opposite direction, rather to get rid of this mentality entirely. I know I am not the only person who has had these experiences with my race as it has been a frequent topic of discussion in many of my college courses.
One current principle that has been implemented almost forever is that of financial loans. In this case, regardless of someone’s skin color, wealth is the indicator of necessity, and this provides millions of students the chance to attend a university they otherwise never would have been able to. This is a great example of a policy that is non discriminatory and also helps put students on a level playing field without using subjective terms like how “dark” someone is.
As stated earlier, this is a debate of equity and equality. Opinions aside, factoring a human being’s race into their intellectual and monetary value is the textbook definition of racial discrimination. According to the fourteenth amendment, racial discrimination is strictly prohibited, so it only makes logical sense that this policy would be removed. In order to reinstate a policy like this, a new amendment must be made nullifying the fourteenth amendment stating that racial discrimination can now be an included factor in employment and college admission, so long as said race is determined by… whoever is in charge at the time? Whichever group is believed to be held back at the time?
Who is the arbiter of social justice? Who determines who is entitled to special privilege? It seems the only logical answer to this question is simply not to incorporate race into these determinations. The Supreme Court seems to agree with this logic, seeing as though this is the ruling they came down with today.
On a final note, and perhaps the most simple answer to this debate; in 2003 a similar discussion was being had in the Supreme Court, and the final decision came down to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. While deciding to uphold the affirmative action policies for the university in the case, she said that, “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” Implying that this was a policy that was never meant to be permanent.
How do you feel about this ruling? Is affirmative action a necessary policy for allowing under-privileged individuals an equal shot at college entry? Or is this a policy rooted in the same type of discriminatory actions it was intended to remove? Let us know what you think!
