Russell Robinson ’25
I was not alive for 9-11, but I always thought that if I were it would be something like June 29th, 2023.
I still have imprinted in my brain scrolling through my phone in the passenger seat with my dad, seeing the news. For the next three hours, I forced him to put on CNN while I simultaneously started reading every newspaper, text, and the Supreme Court Docket. I had the primal urge to gather all the information I could to protect myself to understand how this could happen and what I should do.
Like a lot of high schoolers in America, it has been my dream to attend a highly selective college, and that has shaped my life consciously and unconsciously. I probably more so than others have been conflicted with affirmative action. I am half Asian and half Black, the two people who have been continuously pitted against each other in this debate. My hours of questioning how I should think about this debate, however long they may have been, led me to the conclusion that the college system doesn’t truly serve anyone equally, whether affirmative action is in place or not. However, it’s crucial to acknowledge that removing affirmative action could have unforeseen side effects.
The purpose of Affirmative Action is to allow universities to take into consideration the applicant’s race during the admission process, given that they are qualified. Affirmative Action took shape around the civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s. However, it was first legally addressed in the University of California v. Bakke in 1978, when a white applicant named Allan Bakke claimed he had been denied enrollment in favor of less qualified minority candidates. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that while a quota system was blatantly discriminatory, colleges could still use race as a factor in their admissions decisions to promote diversity. Later in another Supreme Court Case in 2003, it was suggested that Affirmative Action would eventually become obsolete in 25 years and should be ended then.
The Supreme Court continued to follow this precedent until the summer of 2023, when, in the cases of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, it ruled Affirmative Action as discriminatory and ended its use in most settings. These cases rested on the allegations that Asian Americans were being penalized for their race during the application process, resulting in lower admission rates. The decision ruled that any attempt at racial balancing was a violation of the Constitution, sending ripples throughout the United States.
Indeed, the data clearly shows that Asian Americans are being discriminated against under Affirmative Action policies when it comes to highly selective colleges. However, when it comes to determining who benefits from affirmative action, the answer is a lot murkier. The expected answer would be African Americans, however, this is not entirely true. The main beneficiaries of Affirmative Action have been white women according to the data, and the Black attendance rate at these elite colleges has stayed consistent.
The biggest problem with the Supreme Court striking down affirmative action isn’t the students it will affect, but it is the wider country at large and the way people get jobs. In reality, affirmative action in higher education affects only a few students. Sean Reardon, a sociologist at Stanford University, did a rough estimate and stated that “[f]ewer than 200 selective universities are thought to practice race-conscious admissions, conferring degrees on about 10,000 to 15,000 students each year who might not otherwise have been accepted… That represents about 2 percent of all Black, Hispanic, or Native American students in four-year colleges.” Out of the millions that apply to college and many millions more that don’t go to college, Affirmative Action in schools will never concern 99% of the US population.
While some may argue that these highly selective schools’ alumni often occupy many positions of power and therefore diversity is important, I don’t necessarily believe that concentrating our future leaders from one institution is desirable. These highly selective schools are some of the most exclusive and unequal places in America. About 40% of students in the top 0.1% attend an Ivy League or similarly elite university according to a New York Times article. It is in very few people’s interests to have most of our future leaders from an institution that caters to the elite.
To fix this socioeconomic imbalance action, action must be taken even before high school applications. Those in the highest quintile of family income will score, on average, 100 more points on the SAT than the next quintile, and 250 more points than the bottom quintile according to the most recent SAT data. This data shows that wealthy students have a huge advantage over poorer ones when it comes to applications, more so than they already have. The most effective and meaningful way to increase socioeconomic diversity, and consequently, racial diversity in the Ivy League is to reform public education rather than relying solely on Affirmative Action.
While Affirmative Action is a nice bandage, it was simply a cup trying to stop the flood of systemic inequality. If colleges truly care about diversity in their schools, they could increase their class sizes instead of fixating on low acceptance rates. They could also be more transparent about the amount of financial aid available to prospective students.
Furthermore, Affirmative Action is not limited to education, but appears in the practice of hiring for jobs as well. In fact, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recommends employers practice Affirmative Action practices. If Affirmative Action were to end, its impact would extend to millions of people, far beyond the thousands affected by college admissions policies.
In response to this tragic ruling, while the conservative Supreme Court poses a potential threat to many long-established rights, the potential end of Affirmative Action ending could perhaps force colleges to start considering wealth as a factor in promoting diversity. Moreover, it gives us as a country the opportunity to reevaluate these systems and the possibility to reconstruct them.
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