The campaign against affirmative action has reduced the complicated process of college admissions to a simple and highly inaccurate sound bite: Black and brown students are being admitted over higher-achieving white and Asian American applicants. Ascribed a flawed essence, affirmative action has become easier to reject.
In recent years, there has been an increase in state-level ballot initiatives to prohibit the consideration of race in the college application review process. And, of course, there have been the legal challenges with judicial decisions more closely tracking with the shift in public opinion away from inclusion. On Thursday, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision held that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s efforts to create a diverse class violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. In short, a majority of the court determined that it was time for affirmative action to end.
Affirmative action, at its core, encourages steps (actions) to positively (affirmatively) enable a culture in which talented folks with great potential will not be denied educational or employment opportunities because of their race, religion, gender or national origin. It is corrective — by saying that past practices of exclusion are no longer tolerable or justifiable.
