On June 29th, 2023, the Supreme Court struck down the use of race in the college admission cycle otherwise known as affirmative action. Colleges used race as a factor in order to diversify their college campuses and to bridge the inequality in representation in higher education. In the 1960s, universities began using race in order to admit more people or color who were previously excluded from such opportunities. An example of the immediate benefits of affirmative action is the University of Washington. Before the legislation was passed, African American enrollment in the university was at 136. After affirmative action was passed, 1,110 black students were enrolled at the university after a few admission cycles. In the grand scheme of things, the total number of Black students enrolled in U.S universities went from 282,000 in 1966 to 1,062,000 in 1976. Affirmative action didn’t just benefit African American students as minorities witnessed an increase of 57% in representation on college campuses.

Education plays a key role for any individual. It helps people become a participating member of society with the right tools to flourish. But most importantly, education is often an indicator on future income. Affirmative action aids minorities and women have a greater chance at higher education. It gives students who would’ve otherwise never given college a thought motivation to continue their education. With education comes better paying jobs which slowly but surely results in greater racial inequality in the long run. Thus low income students have an opportunity to escape poverty. 

Being an Asian American high school student, this court case was particularly interesting to me. Recently I went camping and the issue of affirmative action was brought up. Many of my friends took the stance that affirmative action was an unjust system and that by removing race as a factor, college admissions would become a meritocracy. This, however, is not the stance I take. Race plays a key role in an individual’s identity. As for me, my Indian heritage has certainly made me who I am today and I’m sure my peers would say the same. College admissions should be about what you bring to the table as a human being whether that’s your intellect, athletic ability, or personality. Aside from being an essential factor in determining who one truly is, diversity provides an innumerable amount of benefits to campuses which has proven to be harmed with the elimination of affirmative action. Take for example the public universities in California. The schooling district decided to ban the use of race in admissions in 1966. Despite their costly outreach programs and other efforts, public colleges in California lack diversity. Take, for example, UC Berkeley. The university is composed  of over 10,000 Asian Americans and over 6,000 Caucasians. On the contrary, despite being the largest represented minority in California, Hispanics only represent around 16% of the student body and there are less than 600 African American students. Remember, these calamitous figures are in spite of the millions of dollars Berkley has spent for outreach programs showing how affirmative action really does impact diversity on college campuses. To conclude, the United State’s past regarding racial discrimination definitely makes a part of me feel morally obligated to implement affirmative action. I know nothing can change the horrific actions experienced by marginalized communities in the past, but things like affirmative action definitely help make amends, even if it is by just a little bit.

Another reason why I don’t agree with the Supreme Court’s decision is the legal reasoning. Essentially, this case, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. The University of North Carolina (UNC) and Harvard, revolved around the constitutionality of affirmative action. SFFA argued that taking race into account for college admissions disregards the 14th amendment as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The only issue is that precedent set by the case Grutter v. Bollinger determined that a school’s narrowly tailored use of race doesn’t violate the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment. In order to overturn this precedent, you have to prove that the precedent is wrong (unconstitutional), causes real-world consequences, and hasn’t created any reliance issues. However, both UNC and Harvard have displayed throughout the trial that they plaintiffs don’t satisfy the requirements to overturn the precedent set. Firstly, under the strict scrutiny test, race in college admissions aligns with the 14th amendment due to the narrowly tailored, holistic admission process and diversity being a compelling government. On top of that, there aren’t any workable solutions to maintain high levels of diversity as witnessed in colleges like Berkley. Thus, Grutter v. Bollinger shouldn’t have been overturned and affirmative action should still be a thing. 

I would like to end this blog post by sharing an interesting tidbit I heard when researching this topic. He basically said that it was odd that the Supreme Court is using the 14th amendment, which came into fruition to protect the rights of African Americans, to harm minorities. It’s funny to me that political polarization has such a massive impact on the justice system and that, depending on the judges beliefs, laws and legislation can be interpreted in a different manner just to fit a narrative. But hey, it’s just a thought!