In Students For Fair Admissions v President and Fellows of Harvard College (2023), the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to effectively ban the use of race as a factor in college admissions, thereby ending affirmative action. In the ideologically divided decision, the conservative supermajority felt these race-based admission programs contradicted the “colorblind Constitution” (Justice Clarence Thomas).
If this nation did not have the history of systematic and social racism that it, in fact, does, I would not (for once) argue with the conservative standpoint. Prioritizing one group over another based on the color of their skin is in and of itself racist, regardless of whether it is in educational program admissions, employment, or any other environment. However, what Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, and their fellow right-wingers fail to consider is that affirmative action programs have not existed to make up for the awful racist neglect of the past, but to counter existing initiatives of systemic racism.
One of the most evident examples of such an initiative is legacy admissions, which gives admission odds boosts to students with alumni family relations. Looking at how legacy admissions interconnects with race, because it does - most individuals who have either completed or are completing a postsecondary education were born before 2005. This means that the older relatives of these individuals most likely attended college in the 1990s or long before. In 1990, 25% of black people were college enrolled, significantly less than that of white or asian individuals.
Therefore, there must logically be a substantially less proportion of current black youth who qualify for legacy admissions, considering their family members are much less likely, undeniably due to systemic racism, to be university alumni. In other words, legacy admissions are in actuality a fancier word for race-based admissions.
My proposal? Either we bring back affirmative action, and we even go so far as to encourage it, or we ban legacy admissions whilst simultaneously taking ample steps to counter any statistic indicating racial inequalities. That, dear Justice Thomas, would be a true prenumeration to the “colorblind Constitution”.
Sources
Comments