The already-creamy composition of elite American education is about to become blindingly white. This transmogrification of a sorry status quo is the consequence of yet another regressive Supreme Court decision, issued last week in a case involving UNC-Chapel Hill, that challenged long-established practices of diversity at America’s elite colleges. Affirmative action is gone. One more tool for correcting four centuries of racial suppression has fallen to the determination of white reactionaries to enforce injustice.
This decision was entirely expected. While the Supreme Court has retreated a bit from its drunken bender of 2022, John Roberts continues to lead a court that was appointed by a white-supremacist president to aggressively advance the Republican Party’s agenda. Roberts himself is a long-time and obsessive foe of race-conscious public policy, and it can hardly come as a surprise that an all-powerful body engineered by the most racist president since Woodrow Wilson would dismantle a racially equalizing institution. The poisoned “orange” tree has borne its promised fruit.
But for all its inevitability, the decision still will inflict damage on opportunity and justice in America. To begin with, the status quo ante in higher education was hardly progressive. Only 4% of African American college students attend highly selective universities such as UNC. The vast majority are limited to geographically proximate universities far beneath their talents, which contributes to the high dropout rate among minority students. This notion that elite universities are overrun by hordes of unqualified affirmative action babies is a resentful white fantasy, the education equivalent of the conservative nightmare that Black miscreants will invade the white suburbs.
The consequences of losing affirmative action will be harshly deleterious to African Americans. When California abolished affirmative action as part of Governor Pete Wilson’s push to buttress white supremacy, the representation of Blacks at UC campuses plummeted. At Berkeley. the finest public university on Earth, the percentage of Black students is a pitiful 2.8%. Because Black students who attend elite colleges are more likely to graduate and to obtain top jobs, this erosion of African American enrollment will both damage the life prospects of Black people and whiten our leadership class.
Those, then, will be the practical consequences, and they are pernicious enough. But we must interrogate the fairness of what’s likely to become policy. Most of us know the history of our country. Are we really to believe that everyone’s resume should be evaluated exactly the same way no matter how many disadvantages a Black applicant has faced? Is it really fair to assume that a suburban white person from North Raleigh with gold-plated credentials is vastly more qualified than a Black person who’s had to overcome unspeakable hardships and gotten grades nearly as impressive? The pig-headed rigidity of the meritocrats infuriates me.
Blacks “had no rights the white man was bound to respect,” said Justice Roger Taney. Attendance at an elite university is not a civil right, but African Americans do have a moral right to representation in the elite tiers of American society, and this Supreme Court decision will set them back. In vitiating diversity efforts the Trump Court is perpetuating the traditions of SCOTUS, a too-powerful institution that with the exception of the Warren years has typically defended property and privilege over the values stated in the Declaration of Independence. Using Asian Americans as a prop, anti-diversity conservatives have reclaimed another advantage for the white majority in a country with much to atone for in the area of race. The electricity of the backlash crackles white-hot.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
Let’s face it: colleges and universities that practice affirmative action don’t like to be confronted with the reality of their racist affirmative action practices!
But–now that affirmative action has become illegal, universities will still discriminate by race, won’t they? One method they will likely use is to become “test-optional.” Right now, over 1,800 schools, INCLUDING Harvard—that bastion of higher education–will no longer require students to submit SAT scores! HMMmm…so, we don’t want to ‘stress’ any prospective students by actually TESTING their ability to handle college-level work, is that it?
Look—we understand that many (if not most) of these schools practice ‘legacy admissions’, meaning that they favor the children of alumni. So, yes—we agree—that is clearly an unfair admissions practice too. It helps mostly rich people, and we acknowledge that THEY are mostly white people as well. Discriminatory?? Of course, but that’s ALSO what colleges and universities do, and it is wrong.
The problem with both “test-optional” schools and affirmative action is that ultimately, it harms black students. Wonder why…? Because those who ARE admitted under those schools with lower standards often struggle academically, or they simply fail, and drop out. That benefits NO one.
So it begs the question: did that black student get admitted because they are really smart? Or, did they just get in simply (if not largely) because of their race?
If all those pearl-clutching activists out there really want to help black students succeed, then maybe—JUST MAYBE–they might want to start examining the public school system waaaaay before college becomes an issue. Ever since the era of school desegregation, the exact same public school curricula has become accessible and available to ALL races and ethnicities. Is it racist to suggest that maybe—just MAYBE—certain races or ethnicities emphasize learning, or attendance, or academic success more so than others…?? Yeahh, I’d say that’s a fair assessment. The black community has done itself NO favors whatsoever in minimizing or disparaging academic achievement, and they CERTAINLY do themselves no favors by embracing a trash culture and music genre that promotes misogyny, racism, lower expectations, and which glorifies a ‘gangsta’ mentality. That’s on them. It isn’t on the rest of society to promote them, despite their unwillingness or inability to compete. Black families need to recognize that they ARE being ‘played’ by the media, in an effort to marginalize and to diminish them. The liberal mainstream media knows full well that it benefits the Democrat Party to keep blacks subservient and ignorant, and it has ever (and provably historically) been thus. Prove me wrong!
And–since we’re on the subject, let’s have promote school choice, too. It allows ALL kids to escape bad public schools, and most certainly allows black kids to escape the bizarre madness of CRT, and all the other nonsense behind Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. That crap benefits NO one either, least of all black kids!
School choice will help more kids—ALL kids–than will racist attempts to rig the college admissions process!
I do not believe the court was concerned about political issues real or imagined. Quite the opposite. The court was concerned about the inequalities to all applicants created by affirmative action. However, they did not go far enough. Schools, like Harvard, practice what is known as legacy. If your father his father went to Harvard, you are given a leg up. The notion that only the top money makers in the corporate structure sport Harvard rings may be outdated. Modern corporations must answer to the board, and stockholders, who have only one concern, money.
No one who gets a seat in an elite university is unqualified. Admissions departments decide which qualified applicant gets into the elite college. In our recent past, an applicant whose ancestors were slaves were rejected absolutely. In the 1960s, I attended the only integrated high school in Raleigh. All public schools were segregated a few decades ago. From the beginning of integration until this year, those who have been excluded from America’s opportunities needed to work fast to create an egalitarian society. Exclusion of minorities has returned in the law after only a half- century. of modest favoritism. The advantage of family money, preference for whites and the legacy admissions will be the only Affirmative Action that will remain legal. BUZZ. Time’s up. Your chances have lapsed. Thanks for playing.
Some firms only recruit from the elite universities. It is a hard rule that many law firms and many business organizations recruit only from the top 10% of the graduates of the top ten universities. Of course, the elite graduate can expect salaries up to 10 times higher than the graduate from a lower-rated university.
The graduates from the law schools in the lower 90% can expect to fight for the government openings and small firms. Top MBAs were pretty much mostly white even when affirmative action was allowed. The MBAs from lower-rated schools could expect almost nothing from the marketplace. Undergraduates at the top of their classes at elite universities will be highly recruited and highly compensated. The rest will take whatever scraps are left over after the sons and daughters of big money get their needs addressed. Many of the graduates from big money will take their place at the firms their families have built, regardless of grades. George W. Bush who was a legacy admission to Yale, because of his father, famously bragged about being a :”C” student. You can do that if your father was president.
The justices who speak of a color-blind world are living in a utopia that has never been America, where slavery flourished for centuries and where racial discrimination existed in the law until 1954, and where racism exists in fact on Main Street today. Life in America is far more dangerous for people who live in the ghetto. Black people who wander into the white sections of town do so at the risk of being murdered by law enforcement. A few gifted, talented, boys and girls were given some extra consideration under Affirmative Action. The Supreme Court has cried foul that a few kids get a break, but they say nothing of advantages of being rich and white.
The beneficiaries of affirmative action, of which Justice Thomas is exhibit A, were not granted a place on the hallowed ground at Harvard, Yale, MIT or Stanford without being qualified. They were given a seat in place of another similarly qualified applicant. Minority affirmative action students enrolled in elite universities could have expected maybe 5% of the entering classes to have been people of color. That, of course, was much too much representation for those who like their elite schools to be all-white. Affirmative action was intended as a minor adjustment to admission standards, not a complete make-over of college admissions.
Today, this Supreme Court is moving the country backward, removing rights from minorities and women. They want to take the nation back 60 years to the white man’s paradise they want to create.
Jay, an interesting side note. When a high-powered corporate officer gets into hot water and needs a good lawyer, they hire one with a reputation for winning. (It makes a trivial difference if that lawyer is wearing a Harvard ring) When it comes down to spending time making little rocks out of big ones. These so-called corporate elite legal counsels refer cases to the guy who can get the job done. Window dressing lawyers may impress potential purchasers of the stock, but that is where it ends. Lawyers, straight out law school, go to work for DOJ, The District Attorney or Public Defenders office for experience. It is a hands on internship. You can not get this at Harvard Law.
Suggesting the notion that blacks can only succeed if they get SPECIAL accommodations, based SOLELY on the color of their skin, is patently absurd and downright offensive. It trivializes the humanity of an entire race, and suggests that they are simply too stupid to succeed on their own merit.
By the way….your hypotheticals and ‘what-ifs’ are just that, so, don’t go off on some emotional tangent here, citing your inevitable rants filled with non-existent examples of discrimination that don’t exist.
Listen closely, cupcakes: You don’t SOLVE discrimination by FOSTERING and ENCOURAGING discrimination, and then put lipstick on it by labeling it ‘affirmative action’. Yeah…that sounds so noble, doesn’t it….??? ‘AFFIRMATIVE Action!’ But…that’s how liberal/Marxist Democrats ‘sell’ their asinine lies–they give it a pompous label or definition (purely made up, of course), and the drooling Democrats who voted them in,or who slavishly follow the crap that the liberal media produces (like THIS internet site), gullibly laps up every single morsel of their agenda-driven slop, piously declaring it all as holy and true. Yeahh, sure.
GEE–Maybe–just maybe–if black students were encouraged to ‘mainstream’ themselves more into the academic pipeline, instead of acting like wannabee rap stars who can’t speak comprehensible English, and who all-too-often become utter social and academic failures–then they MIGHT just wind up becoming competing, contributing, and accomplished members of society!! Gosh–imagine that!! Succeeding on merit!! Wow!
Instead of GIVING black students an underserved hand-out, how about we give them a hand-UP, and toughen up our school expectations of them? How about we encourage a stronger black culture that enforces a behavior designed to develop stronger black families….with a family structure that offers positive role models for them??? ….cuz sure as heck, the MEDIA won’t do it!!! Nossir! The media is MORE than happy–just like the Democrat Party is–to keep blacks ‘victimized’, ignorant of their true potential, but unwaveringly guaranteed to continue voting Democrat, no matter how self-destructive and maliciously the Democrat Party treats them!
Affirmative Action is–and always has been–an insulting joke! Lost past time to do away with the entire noxious notion of it!
There is no way to justify judging someone based on the color of their skin. As the Supreme Court decision affirmed, it’s not legal-nor should it be. The only way you could believe this decision is wrong is for you to believe black people are somehow inferior. I don’t believe that, and it’s insulting.
BTW Berkeley, according to you the best public university on earth who you believe must discriminate against black students with its low percentage of black students, isn’t “blindingly white” nor is it about to be. It’s student body is only 25% white according to its published statistics.
To me the answer to improved selection for college calls for first defining the purpose of college and then establishing criteria that provide the students best equipped to fulfil that purpose. As an example, our service academies are by most any definition “elite” institutions but they achieve a good deal of diversity by defining their mission as producing leaders for our fighting men and women. Under this definition, being captain of a sports team or a class officer may be a better indicator of success than being Valedictorian or achieving a perfect score on the SAT. We look to our colleges to educate their students for a variety of roles in our society. Certainly among these roles are scholars and scientist but also politicians, entrepreneurs, artists, community activists, and social advocates. Academic potential is certainly required to some degree in each of these pursuits but so are many other skills that should go into the selection of a well rounded entering class of students.
When it comes to the social construct of “race” all one has to understand is that any period of progress is immediately followed by the same old systemic, structural and institutional racism in a new form…Fredrick Douglas said it best….”the old snake comes forth in a new skin.”
Affirmative Action may not be the best way to address the problems of racism. Instead of getting our backs up over Republicans efforts to mistreat folks, nothing new here, why not get creative an out-think them? The court sent a message to college admission officers, you must produce a better plan. Currently affirmative action means if you have two openings at your college and three applicants, how do you eliminate one of the three applicants? All three applicants have good grades, SAT scores which meet your college’s guidelines.
Affirmative action allows admission officers to solve this dilemma by selecting the Black applicant.
The underlying reasoning behind affirmative action is Black people historically were denied fair treatment. Affirmative action will make up for this. So, giving that applicant ten additional points is acceptable.
It reminds me of that line from Casablanca, where the Chief of Police when faced with crime tells his troops “To round up the usual suspects.” Race becomes a form of stereo typing. The Chief may look like he is doing something about crime, but he is just filling his jail with folks who fit a particular classification, which may or may not bear any connection to the crime. Chief grabbed Lou, who is known for pick-pocketing and charged him with fraudulent stock sales. Does this make any sense?
There must be a better way to help folks who suffer from the effects of discrimination than affirmative action.