Affirmative Action

Affirmative action policies play a crucial role in fostering a more just society. These policies are instrumental in rectifying disparities and enabling access to opportunities that might otherwise remain out of reach due to systemic prejudices and discrimination.  

By a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that admissions programs used by both the University of North Carolina and Harvard College violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts outlined that admissions programs can only consider race if an applicant outlines how race (or more aptly, racism) influenced their character or abilities in a way that would contribute to the university. Roberts noted that a student “must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.” Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined the Roberts opinion. 

Students should persist in engaging in candid conversations about race and their personal journeys during the college admissions process. The Supreme Court's ruling should not serve as a deterrent for educational institutions to explore these experiences as relevant to their institutional missions.

The decision will impact policies and practices that have historically benefited Black and Latine students, but per Roberts’ opinion, still allow Black, Latine, and other historically minoritized students to discuss their experiences as they relate to race and racism. In the United States, with its legacies of anti-Black racism, xenophobia, segregation, employment discrimination and other systems of oppression, a person’s race is inextricably tied to where they live, how long they will live, and nearly every facet of their experience. Undoubtedly, applicants will show that those experiences are “concretely tied” to a “quality of character or unique ability” that they can bring to the school. 

The decision will impact policies and practices that have historically benefited Black and Latine students, but per Roberts’ opinion, still allow Black, Latine, and other historically minoritized students to discuss their experiences as they relate to race and racism. In the United States, with its legacies of anti-Black racism, xenophobia, segregation, employment discrimination and other systems of oppression, a person’s race is inextricably tied to where they live, how long they will live, and nearly every facet of their experience. Undoubtedly, applicants will show that those experiences are “concretely tied” to a “quality of character or unique ability” that they can bring to the school. 

  • The SCOTUS decision regarding affirmative action was announced on June 29, 2023, well after admissions season. We should anticipate that most universities will clearly observe the consequences of the decision between Spring and Fall of 2025, for the graduating class of 2029, with the majority of admissions offices undertaking their admissions processes during the spring semester.

    We hope that admissions departments will find creative ways that circumvent the provisions of the SCOTUS ruling in curating racially, ethnically, socioeconomically and regionally representative learning environments and perhaps gaining in strides beyond those minimally enabled by affirmative action implementation.

  • Colleges and universities still have the responsibility to increase educational opportunities for students of color and must double down on their efforts and advance policies that ensure every student gets a fair shot.

    Many school administrators have issued statements in response to the SCOTUS decision, restating their commitments to diversity, inclusion, and equity – various constituents, especially current students, alumni, and prospective applicants should continue to hold schools accountable to these stated commitments and charge these institutions with going beyond the minimal advances in minority representation in the past five decades.

    • Applicants should continue to discuss race and their lived experiences within the college admissions process as these experiences necessarily provide insight into a prospective student’s “quality of character” or the development of “unique [abilities].”

    • Collectively, we should invest in pathways that increase access to educational opportunities for all students and continue to redress systemic discrimination, exclusion, and inequity at all levels of our society.

The elimination of affirmative action is a concerning recent development of a skewed Supreme Court. However, we encourage all constituents to question the effectiveness of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs on college and university campuses. Even with the affirmative action policies previously in place, Harvard is one of about 40 American colleges where students from families within the top 1 percent of income outnumber those from the bottom 60 percent. The inequity of college graduating classes goes beyond class: the percentage of Black students at elite colleges has not increased notably in the past 40 years; for example, at Wesleyan, a school that has expressed its commitment to diversity within its learning community, less than 6 percent of its students identify as Black (Mandery).  

Some, like Evan Mandery, have argued that:

“the way that elite colleges have historically framed affirmative action is racist — that students of color can’t secure admission through an otherwise ‘objective’ process without extra assistance. In truth, the process is anything but objective. Nearly all of the criteria elite colleges rely upon are merely proxies for wealth and all are designed to rationalize letting in the sort of student body that serves their institutional interest of satisfying and growing a wealthy alumni network.” 

Without a doubt, the stoppage of affirmative action in college admissions will create challenges to working toward representative and equitable learning environments. If we examine empirical evidence from states that had already banned considerations of race in college admissions, like Texas and California, we see a significant drop off in Black, Latine, and Indigenous enrollment in higher education institutions. In California, ending race-conscious admissions programs led to about a 30-40% drop in Black and Latine enrollment. 

Yet Mandery’s work, and the documented inequity of college campuses even in the era of affirmative action, especially elite institutions, shows that we must continue to think and work creatively to ensure access to educational opportunities (and by extension, employment opportunities, housing and health insurance access) to all students without belittling their achievements and experiences.