Additional reporting by KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff
The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action in college admissions, forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.
The court’s conservative majority overturned admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.
Chief Justice John Roberts said that for too long universities have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a 69-page dissenting opinion. She was joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision turned its back on 45 years of legal precedent.
“Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress. It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits. In so holding, the Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter. The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society,” she noted.
“With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson––the court’s first Black female justice––wrote in a separate dissent. “But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”
Justice Jackson called the decision “truly a tragedy for us all.”
The Supreme Court had twice upheld race-conscious college admissions programs in the past 20 years, including as recently as 2016. But that was before the three appointees of former President Donald Trump joined the court. At arguments in late October, all six conservative justices expressed doubts about the practice, which had been upheld under Supreme Court decisions reaching back to 1978. Lower courts also had upheld the programs at both UNC and Harvard, rejecting claims that the schools discriminated against white and Asian American applicants.
The 6-3 decision handed down on June 29th is the result of two cases––Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina, and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College.
Both cases questioned the use of race as a factor in admissions policies: they claimed that when admissions officers do so, they violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, and they said some people of color were admitted to schools in place of white or Asian American students who, they claimed, were more qualified for admittance.
The cases were brought under the aegis of the right-wing Students for Fair Admissions, a group started by conservative legal activist Edward Blum. The group contended that using race as a factor in admissions policies violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause because it purportedly disadvantages white and Asian American students. (The turn to advocating for protections for Asian Americans came after white conservatives spent years trying to push the idea that white students were discriminated against by affirmative action policies. In the case of Fisher v. University of Texas, Abigail Fisher claimed the only reason she did not get into the University of Texas at Austin was because a lesser qualified Black student took her place.)
In one interview, Blum, who is white, stated that his organization was just trying to even the playing field for what he has termed “high-achieving” and “better-qualified” Asian American students. “Asian Americans are outperforming whites academically, despite having fewer resources, less family wealth, and lower income levels,” he told the conservative-leaning British website UnHerd. The only affirmative action in admissions should be for students who can prove they come from a lower socio-economic background, he contended: “The most important educational institution in the United States … is the family. Learning begins at the cradle, and parents within the Asian community realize that. That’s something which can be replicated among whites, Hispanics and African Americans as well.”
Meanwhile, the National Center for Education Statistics determined that “The college enrollment rate in 2021 was higher for 18- to 24-year-olds who were Asian (60%) than for those who were white (38%), Black (37%), of two or more races (35%), Hispanic (33%), and American Indian/Alaska Native (28%).”
Diversity gaps in higher education
The nonprofit educational newsite, the Hechinger Report, found that all ethnic groups in the United States have increasingly been trying to obtain college degrees, “but white and Asian Americans are far more likely to hold a college degree or earn one than Black, Hispanic or Native Americans.”
Race-conscious admissions at colleges was meant to help increase enrollment for students of color who have historically been underrepresented in higher education. Wealthy, white Americans have traditionally predominated in higher education. Access to a college degree has for decades been the main vehicle for upward economic and social mobility in the United States.
“By restricting the ability of colleges and universities to consider race as a factor in their admissions processes, the Court’s decision threatens to perpetuate systemic inequalities and hinder progress toward a more inclusive society,” Scott Jenkins, vice president of the North Jersey Black Caucus for Social Justice told the AmNews.
“The Supreme Court’s decision ignores the persisting disparities in educational access and quality that disproportionately affect minority communities. By ruling against affirmative action, the Court fails to acknowledge the systemic barriers that have prevented equal access to quality education for marginalized students. These barriers include underfunded schools in low-income areas, lack of resources and support, and a history of racial segregation that continues to shape educational opportunities today.”
Former first lady Michelle Obama put out a statement noting that she was one of few Black students on campus at New Jersey’s Princeton University in the early 1980s. “Today, my heart breaks for any young person out there who’s wondering what their future holds––and what kinds of chances will be open to them.
“And while I know the strength and grit that lies inside kids who have always had to sweat a little more to climb the same ladders, I hope and pray that the rest of us are willing to sweat a little, too. Today is a reminder that we’ve got to do the work not just to enact policies that reflect our values of equity and fairness, but to truly make those values real in all of our schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods.”
“Since Affirmative Action’s inception,” Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, said “opponents have ignored the reason for race to be a consideration—to responsively acknowledge racism and how it impacts people of color’s lives, and particularly their educational experiences and lifelong opportunities. They have attacked the policy for being anti-meritocratic and unfair to deserving students. Today’s Supreme Court’s decision embraces their false narrative and willfully disregards persisting structural racism and resulting intergenerational inequality and inequity.”
Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said “We will not allow hate-inspired people in power to turn back the clock and undermine our hard-won victories. The tricks of America’s dark past will not be tolerated.
“Let me be clear––affirmative action exists because we cannot rely on colleges, universities, and employers to enact admissions and hiring practices that embrace diversity, equity and inclusion. Race plays an undeniable role in shaping the identities of and quality of life for Black Americans. In a society still scarred by the wounds of racial disparities, the Supreme Court has displayed a willful ignorance of our reality. The NAACP will not be deterred nor silenced in our fight to hold leaders and institutions accountable for their role in embracing diversity no matter what.”