I had a vivid flashback when I heard the news of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action.
I was whisked back to my high school drafting class during one of the final days of my senior year.
I was comparing notes with a white classmate about our upcoming college plans. Our grade point averages and ACT composite scores were practically identical. I was just one position higher than he was in our final class rankings. And we both applied for admission to the architecture program in the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
I told him that I got accepted. He told me that he didn’t.
There was a pause. I didn’t know what to say.
He said it wasn’t fair.
I’d been accepted to the U. of I. through a program designed to boost the enrollment of students from underrepresented groups. I was elated when I got word of the scholarship. And while I was aware of the pushback toward affirmative action policies, that conversation with my white classmate was the first time I’d spoken with anyone who felt that such programs were unfair to them.
At that moment, I felt awful. But that feeling would fade.
A couple of months later, during my first weekend on campus, my roommate and I encountered three other Black male students we knew from high school as we walked along the main business strip near campus.
As we stopped to greet each other, a campus police car pulled up beside us. Two officers exited the vehicle and approached us, asking to see identification. The officers were nonchalant, even pleasant, engaging in small talk as they waited for each of us to reach into our pockets and produce our student ID cards. They thanked us as they got back into their squad car and drove off.
The encounter lasted for just a few minutes, but it has stuck with me ever since. I imagine it was a routine exchange for the officer. For me, it was a subtle, yet clear, sign that I stood out.
Even though affirmative action got me admitted to a predominantly white college, it didn’t mean that I was accepted. The officers chose only to question five Black men in a sea of white students parading along Green Street — including many who had also gathered briefly in small groups as we had.
The sympathy I felt for my white classmate who did not get accepted has eroded over the years, as I’ve gained a deep knowledge of the overt racism of our past and the more subtle forms of discrimination that persist. Affirmative action may have provided me an advantage in getting into the U. of I. But he has advantages in practically every other facet of life.
Data shows he’s more likely to be approved for a mortgage, hired for a job, benefit from generational wealth and see his property values appreciate faster. He’s also less likely to attract the suspicions of law enforcement or the public at large.
A ‘tone-deaf’ ruling
The six Supreme Court justices who voted to kill affirmative action may have followed the letter of the law, but their assessment that the policy is “unfair” feels tone-deaf in a nation that was literally built on a system of oppression — a system that most Americans don’t seem to be motivated to change.
What’s more, the court’s ruling could ultimately weaken our ability to fight racial inequities across board. A college education has long been viewed as one of our most valuable weapons in the fight to level the playing field. And there may not be a place in need of such weapons more than Chicago.
Consider the unemployment rate for Black Chicagoans with a high school diploma, about 33.3%, is nearly five times higher than it is for their white counterparts, 7.2%, according to my analysis of 2021 census data provided by the University of Minnesota. That gap narrows, but doesn’t disappear: The unemployment rate is three times higher for Blacks with a bachelor’s degree and two times higher for those with a graduate or professional degree.
Losing affirmative action could make an already daunting path to a college degree even harder for those who’ve long battled racial discrimination. There’s work to be done to address social, economic and educational inequalities, so that affirmative action programs are no longer needed.
And we should have a growing army of people ready to engage.
Surely those who fought to end racial preferences in college admissions will be just as passionate about ending racial preferences in all walks of life.
Alden Loury is data projects editor at WBEZ and writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.
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