Kat: We’ll fight for diversity
Gov, SUNY support
Gov. Hochul and other New York officials vowed Thursday to continue efforts to boost minority students’ access to the state’s colleges and universities despite the Supreme Court’s decision to ban race-based admissions.
In a 6-3 ruling, the nation’s highest court decided that using race as factor in college admissions violates Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
“This is a dark day for equality and democracy,” Hochul said shortly after the decision was announced.
But the governor said she had already spoken to State University of New York Chancellor John King about the goal of admitting more historically underrepresented students to the system’s 64 campuses.
“Diversity is an important part of who we are,” Hochul said. “We want to make sure that New York is a place that celebrates diversity and inclusion.”
King and SUNY’s board of trustees, in a joint statement, blasted the court for pulling “our nation backwards in the journey toward equity and civil rights” but said they will push to bolster minority admissions “within the law.”
“Race-conscious admissions policies have enriched our institutions and our nation. Yet despite the existence of raceconscious admissions policies, black and Latino students, along with other groups, are still underrepresented across institutions of higher education as students, faculty members and administrators,” the SUNY brass said.
While the rulings in the related cases, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University and v. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said colleges can’t explicitly use race and ethnicity as a preference in admissions, “we can use life experience as a factor,” SUNY Board Chairwoman Merryl Tisch told The Post.
A student’s race would certainly be part of life experience along with other considerations, as Chief Justice John Roberts mentioned in his majority opinion.
SUNY has come under fire from conservatives who have branded it “Woke U” for pushing race-based “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice” programs. Discrimination complaints have been filed against SUNY’s Albany campus and Buffalo Law School for promoting preference programs for non-white students.
SUNY’s 64-campus student body combined is 53% white and 47% non-white combined, including black, Hispanic and Asian.
The leadership at the City University of New York said the ruling won’t affect its 25 campuses because 54% of its student body is already African-American and Hispanic combined, 22% Asian and 24% white.
“We are thankful that the Supreme Court has finally ruled against decades of pernicious discrimination against Asian American students,” said a joint statement by several Asian groups in the city.