With Affirmative Action Destroyed, What Next?
Several publisher notes on how community members, advocates and policymakers will need to consider responding to a historic and rather destructive Supreme Court decision
Charles D. Ellison | Publisher’s Note
As we all had anticipated, the Supreme Court ended affirmative action this week. Any hopes that this particular Court, with its activist conservative majority, would somehow preserve an inkling of this mechanism used for decades to diversify college campuses were clearly dashed. Chief Justice John Roberts’ was predictable, stern and gloating in his majority opinion language on their justification for destroying it …
Racial classifications are simply too pernicious. A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student's courage and determination. Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student's unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent language, blasting Roberts and others, was vigorous.
To demand that colleges ignore race in today’s admissions practices — and thus disregard the fact that racial disparities may have mattered for where some applicants find themselves today — is not only an affront to the dignity of those students for whom race matters. It also condemns our society to never escape the past that explains how and why race matters to the very concept of who ‘merits’ admission.
The problem with (and ignorance in) Roberts statement is that systematic racism routinely robs the "individual" of their right to a fulfilling lifelong experience, with most victims unable to recover. We need to stop acting like it doesn't. Data is fairly clear on what happens when college institutions refuse to or are barred from taking racial disadvantages (not just, simply, ‘race’) into account especially when we know it’s baked in. As the Washington Post shows us here, state affirmative action bans only depressed underserved Black and Brown enrollment into selective educational institutions …
Research by Zachary Bleemer, an assistant professor of economics at the Yale School of Managementalso also shows how those bans resulted in a drop in earnings among Black and Latino students …
[T]he change hurt long-term earnings for Black and Hispanic graduates, too. A decade after the University of California system ended the practice, minority Californians earning over $100,000 declined by at least 3%, according to his analysis of 10,000 UC freshman applicants. And overall, Black and Hispanic college applicants were earning about 5% lower wages than they would have absent the ban. White and Asian graduates’ earnings during that time, on the other hand, saw little benefit from getting rid of race-based admissions, the research found.
In addition, it’s not like affirmative action was having that dramatic an effect on the admission of wealthy White and Asian students, as the National Bureau of Economic Research points out …
For example, children whose parents are in the top 1% of the income distribution are 77 times more likely to attend an Ivy League college than those whose parents are in the bottom income quintile. Second, children from low- and high-income families have similar earnings outcomes conditional on the college they attend, indicating that low-income students are not mismatched at selective colleges.
Next Steps
Quick thoughts on where we go from here …
There are a lot of rich and thoughtful takes on how bad and destructive this decision is. But, we’ll need an immediate shift from the general mood of pessimism into a focus on how we adjust in the new environment. We need to also ask ourselves why we weren’t preparing as much, at least openly, to adjust before the decision was handed down.
And, we should start asking ourselves: How much do we need to continue this general obsession with and fight over entrance into elite and selective colleges? That’s a quest worth asking to make sure that we’re advancing meaningful goals versus symbolic ones. Answering that question forces us to consider that the vast majority of colleges are not selective or elite, but are accredited and sufficient enough to get many the 4-year degree needed to raise prospects and average incomes. Not every college is “elite” nor should it be. Not every high school student is prepared to enter an elite, brand-named college nor should we constantly expect that case. Which should force us to think more about …
The state of K-12 education. While the destruction of affirmative action is tragic, there is a bit of cart before the horse in this discourse. How are we expecting promising Black or Brown students from any background to gain entrance into any higher ed institution, particularly selective ones, if they’re not adequately prepared in the K-12 systems before that phase? This is highlighted by the fact nearly a quarter of all community college students and nearly 40 percent of four-year college freshmen are forced to take math and English remedial courses. What are we doing about that?
The other big conversation we now must have since it will become increasingly harder to enroll and admit underserved young people into colleges: How then do we now bolster Historically Black Colleges and Universities? This decision could translate into a big moment for HBCUs, in terms of bolstering resources for them to take in a growing influx of underrepresented Black high school seniors and others. Since many of these colleges are state-run and funded, communities will need to find ways to work with policymakers to increase budgets for those schools so they’re able to transform themselves into next-level institutions versus merely sub-par performing alternatives. HBCUs can be transformed to truly rise to the occasion, which many of them are, but funding and vision issues are constant barriers.
Communities shouldn’t just throw their hands in the air and lament the loss of affirmative action. Elections are coming up in 2024 which can give voters an opportunity to radically change the composition of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, while maintaining the current occupant of the White House, to pass policy which checks and overturns the Supreme Court decision. This is how government and the system of “checks and balances” works. Voters and non-voters keep failing to understand that - which is one reason why the previous president was elected and given an opportunity to fill three vacant Supreme Court seats. If you’re that concerned about affirmative action and want it returned, well then get your community ready and mobilized to vote in maximum numbers to change some House and Senate seats … while ensuring the current president, who is a friend of both affirmative action and student loan debt relief, gets another term in office.
With the federal government in gridlock for the foreseeable future, it’s also an opportunity for state legislatures to explore how they can support diversity and inclusion in higher education institutions - but, simultaneously, pushing for improvements in K-12 systems that prepare young people for the next step. Communities should be familiarizing themselves with their state legislators, collaborating with policymakers and triggering a fresh new education movement.