Affirmative Action on the Docket

In two cases, the Supreme Court will weigh whether considering race in college admissions amounts to unconstitutional discrimination.

By
21
A woman cheers at a rally in Boston's Copley Square to support Students for Fair Admissions' lawsuit against Harvard University (Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in a pair of cases that could overturn contentious precedents dating back to the 1970s.

Sound familiar?

Last term, the court’s Dobbs decision overturned the federal abortion status quo. This year, race-based affirmative action in college admissions is on the docket.

Both cases before the court today have the same plaintiff: Students for Fair Admissions, which describes itself as “a nonprofit membership group of more than 20,000 students, parents, and others who believe that racial classifications and preferences in college admissions are unfair, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.” The group was founded by Edward Blum, an activist who has been involved in several past Supreme Court cases related to racial discrimination.

Keep reading with a free account
Create a free Dispatch account to keep reading Get Started ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN IN
21
By
Comments (21)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Seth Halpern

    The very wealthiest universities can easily afford to switch to a class based admissions system if racial favoritism is ruled out. However, other schools aspiring to keep up in the competitive rankings will continue to cover costs by recruiting rich students who can afford to pay full tuition. So the SCOTUS cannot cure what ails the system even by complying with federal and constitutional law. Elite education will continue to be disproportionately a preserve of the privileged.

    The alternative is a massive government financial aid binge which, as has been amply observed, will encourage colleges to keep raising tuition.

    Collapse
  2. Mmiller

    Based on a quick look at one article, I believe the schools (or at least one school) argued that racial diversity is important, e.g., for stock trading, in order to avoid "groupthink." If this were true, though, wouldn't liberal schools go out of their way to admit conservative students as well as liberal students?

    Collapse
  3. Raymondbrosterhous

    Here's an amusing sidelight on today's arguments regarding affirmative action, that highlights how absurd some of these policies are. The two major teachers' unions (NEA nd AFT) filed a friend of the court brief in SCOTUS fully supportive of Harvard's affirmative action program. And President Randi Weingarten has spoken repeatedly on the need for Harvard's affirmative action program.

    In other words, even as they fight to keep poor minority kids trapped in failing public schools, they plead that racial preferences in college admissions are necessary to compensate for these students’ inferior K-12 education -- education provided by some of their membership.

    Collapse
    1. Halvor

      I know conservatives like to dump on the quality of public K-12, but improving the chances of a black swan event like getting into Harvard by raising "failing" public schools to average, say, seems like a stretch. Harvard admits 1,600 out of 66k applicants from a pool of 3.3M HS graduates. Unless you come from an intense culture of achievement, the relative quality of your HS doesn't seem likely to matter.

      Collapse
      1. Raymondbrosterhous

        For clarity, I was dumping on the public K-12 systems of the inner cities. No one can defend what is going on there and increasingly polls show overwhelming numbers of minority parents want alternatives. But for the kids being currently educated in those systems, a future career as a professional is the true "black swan event."

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          John D. Wright

          You make some interesting general points but I think you also missed Halvor's point which dealt with the Harvard case specifically.

          Collapse
          1. Brilliantly Oblivious

            Perhaps the problem is paying so much attention to a “privileged “ school like Haahvaahd. SCOTUS could do more for diversity by choosing clerks from a wider range of schools.

            Collapse
    2. Mmiller

      Sadly, teachers unions have much more interest in protecting their turf and benefits than helping children ... of any race.

      Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    I don't think affirmative action survives the Court given the manner in which it has been implemented. I tend to doubt it would survive in it's present form in any Court given the circumstances.

    Collapse
  5. Natty Bumpo

    Thanks for this update and summary of the cases. It would seem reasonable to do away with racial preferences and legacy admissions. I am not seeing how early admission is more beneficial to one race or another. I do see why colleges and universities like early admission, especially in these days of declining enrollment.

    Collapse
    1. Mmiller

      I think it's fine for schools to have legacy admissions, if they want to. If that interferes with their ability to achieve what they consider to be racial justice I suppose they can just choose which is more important to them.

      Collapse
      1. BenP

        I'm happy they were at least forced to put their priorities on display for the whole country. Diversity is really important, but what's most important is keeping the donation train rolling from the families of rich white kids.

        Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Paul Reichardt

    Pure uninformed a priori speculation, of course, but it’s probably a good assumption that the current SCOTUS majority will go full “Dobbs” on affirmative action.

    Collapse
    1. Mmiller

      I don't like the idea of blithely running roughshod over precedents, but I always thought that the Court's rulings on AA were a bit absurd.

      "Feel free to consider race, and to discriminate against members of races you don't like or deem overrepresented, just be sure not to let us know exactly how you did it. Just obfuscate a bit so we can't quite tell who got in, and who didn't get in, because of the discrimination. You can call it holistic."

      Collapse
  7. BenP

    Live oral arguments beginning in a moment, lots of news outlets playing it, for those interested.

    Collapse
  8. Timothy S Ferriter

    The use of subjective criteria - “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” - to decrease the number of Asians admitted to Harvard feels like the same invidious discrimination that Harvard employed in the mid 1900s to ensure that to many Jewish people weren't admitted. This discrimination is used to inflate the number of other races, including white people, that are admitted to Harvard.

    And while it might be a noble goal to try to rectify past wrongs, doing so at the expense of Asian-Americans who have also suffered discrimination in the country from the Chinese exclusion laws to interment, seems like an arbitrary choice to favor one race's suffering over another.

    Collapse
    1. NYZack

      Interment! That’s about as bad as it gets!

      (That is, I think you meant “internment.” Sorry for being snarky, but I couldn’t resist.)

      Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    MatthewRobin

    "While Gallup has found that a majority of Americans say they favor “affirmative action” for minorities, a recent Pew survey found that large majorities—including 79 percent of white respondents and 59 percent of black respondents—say that race should not be a factor in college admissions."

    I hear the disembodied voice of Sarah Isgur reminding me to not trust issue polls.

    Collapse
    1. Mmiller

      If Sarah's voice is separated from her body, it's probably because the body ran off for chicken sandwiches or BBQ.

      Collapse
    2. Jsun7419

      Poll question wording plays such a huge factor in the results of polls that it's very easy to get politically motivated polling to try and drum up support among policy expert types and the people are paying attention (but not too much attention).

      Collapse
    3. DTruitt

      "Affirmative action" can mean anything to anyone. For example, it can be considered affirmative action to eliminate legacy admissions, which clearly have the effect of reinforcing past discriminatory admissions that may have been pro-white or pro-wealthy.

      The problem isn't with polling - the problem is using race to discriminate. I cannot imagine the current court being willing to maintain race based admissions any longer, and the so called 25 year rule is not a binding rule, just a notion that things will probably look different a generation later.

      Collapse