Scotus outlaws affirmative action as factor in college admissions, decrying the use of race in admissions to Harvard University and University of North Carolina as unconstitutional. Social media responds to decision amid debate as to who really gets to advance in America?
Define meritocracy? The Supreme Court in a landmark ruling on Thursday banned colleges from using race as a factor when admitting students, effectively ending the use of affirmative action in allowing minority groups access to college.
The justices on Thursday decided in a 6-3 opinion that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC)’s race-based affirmative action admissions policies are unconstitutional.
‘Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points,’ states the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts.
Thomas Sowell on affirmative action pic.twitter.com/KsvD7lHTU7
— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) June 29, 2023
Has Affirmative Action outrun its usefulness? Or is it still a necessary tool to a marginalized sector of society?
Roberts was joined in the majority opinion by Republican-appointed justices Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. The court’s liberal justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
The ruling ends a decades-old policy known ‘affirmative action’ that was designed to boost the number of black and Hispanic students in colleges. The idea was to ensure minority groups are fairly represented among university student bodies given the belief that access to university is often a factor of parental income and opportunity – historically skewed towards that of white folk.
Lawyers brought two cases in the name of a non-profit, Students for Fair Admissions, who argued that they were disadvantaged by affirmative action.
They sued the University of North Carolina and Harvard University alleging that race-based admissions are illegal.
In the Harvard case, professors were accused of discriminating against Asian American applicants to boost student numbers amongst other groups.
Attorneys on behalf of the students argued the North Carolina college’s race-based policy had violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment of ‘equal protection under the laws.’
Considering the facts that RBG refused to retire, white women continue to vote overwhelmingly Republican, and it’s actually white women that benefit most from affirmative action policies—just like it’s them who treat abortion as a flagship cause—white women need to have a meeting pic.twitter.com/y9tzp6dQfj
— Olayemi Olurin (@msolurin) June 29, 2023
The biggest winner and now loser – White women
Both Harvard and UNC have maintained that their use of race in admissions does not discriminate against Asian Americans.
Affirmative action in higher education was originally put in place during the civil rights movement to diversify student bodies that were almost exclusively white. In the late 1960s, colleges and universities began to consider race as a factor in admissions, giving extra consideration to underrepresented groups.
Since its inception, affirmative action has been controversial, with different sides arguing over its efficacy, fairness, and legality.
Of note, Asian Americans who make up 6% of America’ s population represent 26% of the student body being admitted to ivy league school, Harvard. Also worth considering is the fact that 43% of white students admitted to Harvard are legacy or athlete students.
The ruling led to a wide swath of response on social media.
Posted one commentator: ‘How insane did Harvard’s affirmative action policies get? An African American student in the 40th percentile of their academic index is more likely to get it than an Asian student in the 100th percentile. Black students in the 50th percentile are more likely to get in that white students at the top.’
African Americans at the expense of Asian Americans?
While Republican Presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy argued: ‘Affirmative action is the single greatest form of institutional racism in America today. The Supreme Court just struck it down in college admissions. As President, I will end it in every sphere of American life. Meritocracy and “equity” are fundamentally incompatible. Mark my words: “elite” universities will now start to play complex games to achieve the same results using shadow tactics like deprioritizing test scores.
‘This is unlawful and I will instruct the Justice Department to end these illegal practices. I will go further to repeal Lyndon Johnson’s disastrous Executive Order 11246, which mandates that federal contractors – approximately 20% of the U.S. workforce – adopt race-based hiring preferences.
‘Top companies now regularly disfavor qualified applicants who happen to be white or Asian, which spawns resentment and condescension toward black and Hispanic hires. Everyone loses in the end. Time to restore colorblind meritocracy once and for all.’
Data published on the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) shows a mixed picture when it comes to diversity in U.S. colleges nationwide.
In 2021, the last year for which figures are available, 60 percent of Asians between the ages of 18 and 24 were enrolled in college, compared to 38 percent of White people the same age.
Affirmative action was never a complete answer in the drive towards a more just society. But for generations of students who had been systematically excluded from most of America’s key institutions—it gave us the chance to show we more than deserved a seat at the table.
In the… https://t.co/Kr0ODATEq3
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 29, 2023
Biggest winners and biggest losers – not who you think
The figure is 37 percent for Black youths, 33 percent for Hispanics and as low as 28 percent for students who describe themselves as American Indians or Alaska Natives, according to NCES.
Nine states have already made it illegal for admissions professions to consider race in college applications.
They are Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.
According to 2022 data from the Pew Research Center, the U.S. public continues to view high school grades and standardized test scores as the most important considerations in college admissions.
Nearly 3 in 4 respondents (74%) said that race or ethnicity should not be a consideration, a figure that has remained constant since 1978.
In fall 2021, Black and African American students made up 9.37% of the Harvard undergraduate class. In fall 2022, African American students made up a record-breaking 15.2% of admitted undergraduates.
