Now that the Supreme Court has struck down the consideration of race in college admissions, schools nationwide will face an uphill battle when it comes to diversifying their campuses.
But while some have warned the development could erase decades of progress on campus diversity, others are noting that those who have benefitted the most from affirmative action have actually been white women.
According to a report from the Centre for American Progress, white women "may have been among the greatest beneficiaries" of efforts to integrate and diversify campuses in recent decades.
Between 1967 and 2009, female college enrollment more than doubled from 19 per cent to a whopping 44 per cent. It was during this time that white women age 25 to 35 with college degrees surged from less than 15 per cent to more than 40 per cent.
In comparison - between 1976 and 2008 - Black and American Indian/Alaska Native people had an increase in college enrollment from 39 per cent to 46 per cent while Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander people’s enrollment share more than doubled during this period.
In 1994, there was a four percentage point gender gap difference between young white men and young white women enrolled in college immediately after high school graduation. By 2012, that gap had grown to 10 percentage points, the Pew Research Centre reports.
So why is there a misconception about who is benefitting the most from affirmative action? According to racism education professor Robin DiAngelo, the answer is quite literally black and white.
"As long as you frame it (affirmative action) as a racial issue, you will have animus towards it," Prof DiAngelo explained to Politico. "It’s been an incredibly effective means to stimulate racial animus."
Prof DiAngelo described that for years, people have shared their disdain for affirmative action in roundabout ways.
She added: "It’s inevitable that someone’s going to say, ‘well, I’m all for rights, but not for special rights’ and you know that they’re referring to affirmative action."
The professor cites a "lot of misunderstanding" as to why many people don't have a clear picture of the impact of affirmative action.
"It’s been reduced to this really simplistic, ‘you have to hire unqualified Black people.’ If you’re really being honest, and boiling it down, those are the assumptions people are making. And that is why they have so much resentment towards it."
Prof DiAngelo has a theory about why white women have benefitted so much, and it involves their proximity to decision makers.
"When you benefit white women you benefit white men," she said. "White women tend to be white men’s partners, daughters, sisters. They’re in their orbit. It has been white men who are in the position to decide to enact affirmative action. So if you have to hire somebody, who are you most likely to hire? Someone who reflects you and your interests.
"It’s one of many strategies by those who want to undermine racial progress for Blacks. And you can see those strategies now across society in book bans, bans against teaching racial history, against programs intended to address historic injustice."
So how does the United States move forward in a world without affirmative action? According to Prof DiAngelo, the Supreme Court's decisions puts a "renewed responsibility on white women."
"We have gotten in, we have gotten entry. How are we going to use our positions? And we are in a really unique position, because we are privileged structurally through systemic racism, but we also are oppressed through patriarchy," she said.
"So we can use that understanding of patriarchy and misogyny and sexist oppression as a way in to understand racism. That oppression doesn’t exempt us from colluding with racism, benefiting from racism and upholding it.
"So many white women used patriarchy as a way out. 'I’m oppressed too, we’re all sisters.' Unfortunately, we are not. And we historically don’t have a record of standing alongside Black women and other women of color.
