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“The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to reconsider the role of race in college admissions… The first case, filed against Harvard University, contends that the university’s race-conscious admissions policy discriminates against Asian American applicants. According to [Students for Fair Admissions], Asian Americans are significantly less likely to be admitted than similarly qualified white, Black, or Hispanic applicants… The second case, filed against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the state’s flagship public university, argues that the university’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions process violates both Title VI and the Constitution.” SCOTUSblog
Here’s our prior coverage of affirmative action. The Flip Side
The right argues that affirmative action is counterproductive and outdated.
“[A Duke University study] found that among incoming freshmen at Duke who reported a major, more than 76% of black males intended to major in economics or the hard sciences, a higher percentage than among white males. Yet only 35% of black male students went on to obtain a degree in one of these majors, a drop of 41 percentage points. In contrast, the difference between initial and finishing proportions among white males was only 5 percentage points…
“Remarkably, the study found that this gap in attrition rates could be accounted for by looking at entry-level tests scores among students. Like other selective schools, Duke admits some black students with lower SAT scores on average than those of white applicants, but other black students who are admitted have academic credentials that match those of the typical Duke freshman. Not surprisingly, those black students with test scores similar to the white average were no more likely than white students to switch out of the more challenging engineering, economics and natural-science majors…
“Racial preferences in college admissions are not only legally dubious but also counterproductive. Students who would likely thrive at less selective institutions are struggling at elite schools… Proponents insist that no black middle class would exist in the absence of affirmative action, yet the track record suggests that racial preferences have resulted in fewer architects and scientists and physicians than would have existed in the absence of these policies.”
Jason L. Riley, Wall Street Journal
“Affirmative action was once a well-meaning policy designed to rectify decades of discrimination, but we are no longer living in the 1960s or even the 1980s. The policy has gone from one designed to rectify past racist policies to a racist policy itself as universities turn racial discrimination against academically overperforming demographic groups (namely Asians) in order to be more inclusive…
“What Harvard and North Carolina, along with other universities, are fighting for is the ability to implement racial quotas to preserve racial diversity, one of the more irrelevant forms of diversity that adds very little to higher education. Diversity of thought is far more important and far less of a priority. Diversity of class and socioeconomic status is also omitted, as 71% of black and Latino Harvard students come from privileged, high-income backgrounds. Pairing together rich black students, rich white students, rich Latino students, and rich Asian students is what Harvard argues creates an educationally stimulating environment.”
Zachary Faria, Washington Examiner
“[In a recent alumni letter, Harvard president Lawrence S. Bacow] falsely assumes that there is no middle ground between Harvard’s system of massive racial preferences and racial quotas, on the one hand, and a boring homogeneity, on the other. In fact, there is a vast middle ground…
“Indeed, it appears that there is at least one kind of diversity—socioeconomic diversity—that Harvard has little or no interest in. As SFFA explains, at trial it ‘simulated an alternative where Harvard eliminates its preferences for the white and wealthy [i.e., ‘children of donors, alumni, and staff/faculty’] and increases its preference for the socioeconomically disadvantaged. This simulation would achieve greater racial diversity without using race. And it would achieve something that Harvard currently lacks: socioeconomic diversity.’”
Ed Whelan, National Review
The left argues that affirmative action is necessary to remedy the legacy of racial discrimination and promote diversity.
The left argues that affirmative action is necessary to remedy the legacy of racial discrimination and promote diversity.
“[Harvard accused] SFFA of misleading the justices. ‘Students for Fair Admissions’ petition recycles allegations both courts rejected and offers a thoroughly distorted presentation of the record,’ the university told the court. ‘For example, SFFA contends that Harvard ‘automatically’ awards ‘enormous’ preferences to all African-American and Hispanic applicants, and ‘penalizes’ Asian-American applicants and caps their admission. The record and the district court’s findings refute those contentions.’…
“A 2020 study on the effects of California’s Proposition 209, which banned race-conscious admissions programs in state universities after voters approved it in 1996, found that the change led to worse outcomes for Black and Hispanic high school graduates in the state in virtually every metric. Admission rates and postgraduation earnings declined for both groups, without significant gains by white or Asian students. Labor economist Zachary Bleemer, the study’s author, said his finding could ‘provide the first causal evidence that banning affirmative action exacerbates socioeconomic inequities.’”
Matt Ford, New Republic
“The long history of racial discrimination in the United States means that race-blind admissions would simply allow the effects of historic discrimination — embodied in racial bias in K-12 education, income inequality and segregation — to carry on, especially in elite colleges and universities…
“There is no doubt that achieving diversity is important to providing rich and culturally relevant educational experiences as well as addressing the legacies of racial injustice. I have been a professor for 38 years, and I have taught constitutional law and criminal procedure both in classes that are almost all white and those that are racially diverse. Students have a different experience learning about, say, the legal and societal issues of racial profiling by the police when there are Black and Latino men in the classroom who can talk powerfully about their experiences of being stopped by police for no reason…
“Conversations about racial bias and civil rights are different when there are students of color in the room. Preparing students for the racially diverse world they will live and work in requires that they learn in racially diverse classrooms.”
Erwin Chemerinsky, Los Angeles Times
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld race-conscious admissions under both the Civil Rights Act and the Constitution. In 1978, 2003, and 2016, a majority approved affirmative action programs at both state and private schools. The court held that these schools have a compelling interest in promoting ‘the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity.’…
“Nine states have banned the practice by legislation, ballot initiative, or executive action; these moves resulted in staggering decline in the share of underrepresented racial minorities enrolled in higher education… But the dream of a nationwide prohibition has floundered—until now…
“The nearly guaranteed outcome, a ban on affirmative action in colleges and universities, will reverse 44 years of precedent, affect thousands of schools across the country, and upend the admissions process for millions of students. This new policy will not be enacted by elected representatives in Congress, or the president, or state legislatures. It will, instead, be imposed by six justices of the Supreme Court—policymakers whom no one elected and no one can vote out.”
Mark Joseph Stern, Slate
