The U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule by the end of June on whether to forbid the use of affirmative action by colleges and universities as part of their student admission decisions. The court’s conservative majority has signaled skepticism toward tools that have boosted the enrollment of countless women, Black and Latinx students.
It would be a stunning reversal if the court bans affirmative action, and it would also be tragic, because the playing field is not level between Whites and people of color who aspire to college educations. In fact, the divide is getting worse. The inequities are growing.
Black college and university enrollment has been dropping steadily. Already down by 22 percent between 2010 and 2020 – or by more than 650,000 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics – it has fallen by another 7 percent since then, more-recent figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show.
In two-year junior college programs, enrollment by Black and Latinx men tumbled between 2019 and 2021, according to the national clearinghouse, with Black male enrollment dropping an eye-popping 23.5 percent and that of Hispanic men falling 19.7 percent.
The Supreme Court rulings expected this summer involve affirmative action programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. Both cases were brought by Students for Fair Admissions, a group headed by Edward Blum, a stockbroker-turned-conservative legal strategist, who has spent years filing lawsuits in a campaign to kill affirmative action.
One case contends that Harvard’s admissions policy unlawfully discriminates against Asian-American applicants. The other asserts that the University of North Carolina unlawfully discriminates against white and Asian-American applicants. The schools, which reject those claims, argue ending affirmative action that applies to a small number of students would result in a significant drop in the number of minorities on campus.
The Supreme Court’s chief advocate on the high court for killing affirmative action is Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving justice, the court’s second Black member and a longtime warrior against race-based policies. Justice Thomas and I attended Yale Law School together (we were among 12 Black students), and we both benefitted from admission to the school under its affirmative action program.
Thomas was a front man for former President Ronald Reagan, crisscrossing the country in the 1980s and giving speeches in support of the president’s views on issues of race. Reagan appointed him head of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, where he shifted the agency away from class-action lawsuits.
Think about this for a moment: For someone who reaped the benefits of affirmative action, it’s blatantly hypocritical to become a fervent hater of affirmative action and call for slamming the door closed on others. He seems opposed to the benefits that come from racially diverse campuses, which help foster critical thinking and counter bias in students preparing to become the nation’s next leaders.
Nine states have already ended consideration of race in university admissions, including Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Washington. While many schools do not disclose details about their admissions processes, taking race into account is more common among selective schools that turn down most of their applicants.
What’s truly alarming is that Blum and others in the ultra-conservative movement have already set their sights on the next battle: challenging race-neutral alternatives to affirmative action put in place at a Fairfax County, Va., specialized school after protests over the murder of George Floyd. These alternatives have proven effective in increasing enrollment of people of color.
Taken all together, Blum’s goal in bringing cases that challenge affirmative action is to slash the number of students of color on college campuses.
According to a 2019 survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, about a quarter of schools said race had a “considerable” or “moderate” influence on admissions, while more than half reported that race played no role whatsoever.
The drumbeat to kill affirmative action runs counter to public opinion. Most U.S. adults say the court should allow colleges to consider race as part of the admissions process, yet few believe students’ race should ultimately play a major role in decisions, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The study found that 63 percent say the Supreme Court should not block colleges from considering race or ethnicity in their admission systems. The poll found little divide along political or racial lines, but those polled were more likely to say factors including grades and standardized test scores should be important.
What the poll did not measure is that racial divides and racial discrimination persist in America. For that reason, the attack on affirmative action cannot be ignored. At stake are real consequences for basic fairness in our democracy.
David R. Jones, Esq., is President and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), the leading voice on behalf of low-income New Yorkers for more than 175 years. The views expressed in this column are solely those of the writer. The Urban Agenda is available on CSS’s website: www.cssny.org.