I’m a beneficiary of affirmative action. There’s no question that I’m less competitive than a White guy of the same age, even when he is less qualified. My achievements pale in comparison with familiarity and tribal alignment. When there are opportunities, justice and fairness are reflexively ignored when choices are to be made among people of different classes, genders and races.
Structural racism can’t be ignored. The conservative justices are essentially saying to Blacks, Latinos and some Asians, “We don’t want to acknowledge or focus on centuries of conquest, imperialism, colonialism, racial oppression and systemic persecution. Going forward, we must dispense with the acknowledgment of race as a factor in American life, especially in college admissions. You folks are on your own because this is what freedom looks like. We don’t think there are barriers to your advancement. Grab your bootstraps. Work smarter and harder, and you’ll get to where we are, eventually. Hahaha.”
Those who entertain fantasies of a colorblind society amid so much systemic racial discrimination need to get a grip. Until they do, we’ll be moving in the wrong direction. Brace for the impacts (discrimination, confusion and lawsuits).
Having served for several years on the committee charged with screening applications for undergraduate admissions to the University of California at Berkeley, I can attest to the rigor applied to the process to ensure its fairness and openness. Of course, you might never know how unbiased each application’s reader is, but the process, in my experience, never weighted race over any other considerations.
By removing the guardrails of affirmative action, we are openly allowing bias to creep into decisions, whether on purpose or by accident.
Karen Randlev, Williamsport, Md.
Despite Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling destroying the idea of racial equality in college admissions, there are things that colleges can do to keep some equality in admissions.
The University of North Carolina, for example, could admit an equal number of rising freshmen from each North Carolina Zip code, which is not a racial-based requirement. It also could admit freshmen based on their parents’ education, focusing on those with the least post-high-school education. It could focus on first-generation Americans and immigrants.
This ruling is another reason the nine-member court is a dinosaur. The Supreme Court’s size should be updated to represent the needs of a country of more than 330 million people and so that the court’s composition reflects the demographic mix of the nation, not just the views of a minority.
The decision on affirmative action lacked any reasonable consideration for racial discrimination in college admissions.
The country’s racial demographics should be used as a guideline for college admissions, with a reasonable diversity mix of all races. If a college or university repeatedly fails to meet the intent of the guidelines, it could be charged with racial discrimination. However, the diversity mix must also be flexible to suit local demographic and applicant diversity.
The Supreme Court has decided there is no racial discrimination in the United States and that we no longer need laws to protect equality of minorities.
