High court’s ruling on affirmative action at colleges is tragedy of grave proportion
I am a product of affirmative action, a shining example of its intended use: to open the door to a quality education for students of color.
I follow in the footsteps of successful Black and Hispanic people, who may not have had the chance to soar had it not been for this effort to level the admissions playing field — successful people like Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who defended affirmative action in her memoir, “My Beloved World.”
“I am the perfect affirmative action baby,” she wrote. “I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the South Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale. Not so far off so that I wasn’t able to succeed at those institutions.”
Yet, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action in admissions at public and private colleges, dismantling the system that so many schools have relied on to increase diversity. This means colleges and universities cannot use race as a factor in admissions. But here’s the punch — admission preferences for legacies, donors and military academies remain in place.
It’s now affirmative action for rich white students, and steering students of color away from civilian universities into military uniforms.
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. While Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the decision was “truly a tragedy for us all.”
It’s a tragedy of grave proportion, given that affirmative action was the nation’s attempt at racial justice by providing a more fair process of school admissions. Its demise will likely mean that there will be fewer students of color at key colleges and universities. And fewer professionals of color at the nation’s corporations.
Even with affirmative action in place, Black and Hispanic students are still underrepresented at selected colleges and universities and at major state universities. So the argument that affirmative action is to blame for white students being rejected is petty and unfounded.
Still, nine states in the United States have banned racebased affirmative action, with California being the first in 1996. In the year after the ban was instituted, California saw a 40 percent decline in Black and Hispanic enrollment at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Both are state institutions.
A Washington Post study of 30 years of race and ethnicity data from eight states that currently ban race-based admission policies showed that the bans helped white and Asian students and negatively impacted Black and Hispanic students. I’m not surprised.
Unlike previous state bans on affirmative action, the Supreme Court’s ruling restricts race-conscious admissions policies at private universities, as well. It is too early to know how schools will adjust their admissions processes or how it will impact programs like the Houston-based Emerge, which prepares high-achieving students from low-income communities for selective colleges and universities.
Emerge’s focus is often on smaller private colleges and universities and even Ivy League schools that can provide full scholarships and assistance.
“We anticipated this and we’re not surprised at all,” Anastasia Lindo Anderson, Emerge CEO, said after the Supreme Court ruling. “We are committed to them. We’re committed to their families. This doesn’t change our work, because our students have the talent and the merit to earn a place at these universities.”
While Emerge students are at top of the class academically, I was an average student — but one with exceptional talent in journalism and writing from an all-girls high school, which helped my chances. I applied to Colorado College, a small liberal arts university in Colorado Springs with a unique “block” program in which students study one course over a three week period, instead of many courses during a traditional semester. I liked the idea of being able to focus on just one subject, and once I got there, I immersed myself into the experience and worked hard.
I was the only Black female in my massive dorm, the only one in most of my classes and the only one at social events. My roommate, a young Native American woman from New Mexico, and I bonded over shared experiences of being “the only one.” That was a tremendous experience of growth for me.
It was never stated that I got accepted to Colorado College because of affirmative action, but many Black and Hispanic students understand that when they have access to spaces where they are a very small minority, affirmation action may have come into play, providing opportunity that might not have happened otherwise. I am thankful for that.
Lindo Anderson said her Emerge students graduate from college at a rate of eight times the national average, and 90 percent of them are firstgeneration college students. The program’s college partners, she said, have stressed that they value the Emerge students and the perspectives they bring to campus, which is often “differences of thoughts, opinions and cultures.”
The commitment to diversity at the nation’s colleges and universities should not require a law, in theory. It should be our natural law of order to make our society better. But the law was needed because of the racism that permeates our society and the implicit bias in school admission practices.
The Supreme Court’s decision is disheartening. Still, I hope the Emerge students and all those who desire to attend college can continue to do so. Their successes will be what helps make this world a more inclusive place.