As many students have heard, Harvard is currently facing a lawsuit over potential discrimination against Asian Americans. The group Students for Fair Admissions (S.F.F.A) claims that Harvard is discriminating against Asian Americans by holding them to an unfair standard compared to other applicants and wants the university to adopt a race-neutral admissions process.
The lawsuit could go on to decide the future of affirmative action. It seems plausible that this case will eventually go to the Supreme Court. Since there are five conservative judges on the bench, they are likely to rule against Harvard, which could mean the end of affirmative action, particularly in college admissions.
Many are afraid if affirmative action ends it will be difficult for disenfranchised groups of people to be admitted into college. Although affirmative action isn’t perfect, students need to care about its future. Students should be concerned about the future of affirmative action to ensure that everyone has an equal chance to be admitted into college and be successful in the workforce.
In its current state, Affirmative Action is a process in which colleges or jobs can factor race, sex or other socio-economic factors when admitting students or hiring potential employees. Part of the reason affirmative action exists is to atone for various racist and discriminatory practices whose effects are still prevalent today. However, because colleges can’t establish racial quotas, they rely on affirmative action to diversify the student population.
Race-blind admission is touted by those against affirmative action to give everyone a fair and equal chance during the process. The problem with this argument is that it assumes everybody had equal education opportunities. To this day, unequal education is still a problem that persists in America, and it primarily affects disenfranchised minority groups. By using not factoring race in the admissions process, it would be difficult for people from a poor socio-economic background to be admitted into college.
The University of California at Berkley doesn’t factor race when admitting students. As a result, the university has seen a decline in African American and Latino students. With race-blind strategies, it will be very difficult for students who come from poor backgrounds to admitted into college, inhibiting them from receiving a job in today’s economy.
The same situation could happen to colleges across North Carolina. NC State uses affirmative action in their admissions process. Out of the student population, 74% of students are Caucasian. If affirmative action was to be removed from the admissions process, then there could be practically no diversity at NC State in a couple of generations. A big part of college is to be exposed to new ideas from people who come from different backgrounds, and removing affirmative action from the admissions process undermines this completely.
Clearly, affirmative action isn’t perfect. It has the potential to unintentionally discriminate against certain groups of people, as seen with Asian Americans. However, adopting race-blind strategies have been proven to decrease diversity in colleges, which would be an even worse effect. If the case goes to the Supreme Court it could have huge consequences. Students absolutely have to be aware of the risk to diversity present at NC State and other universities as a result of this court case and its impact.
