Affirmative Action in America
By: Laila Kirkpatrick
Affirmative action is a set of procedures used to eliminate unlawful discrimination among applicants for jobs and higher education. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy issued an executive order stating that "The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."
The sheer amount of opportunities allotted to people of color has allowed many people who were given jobs after the passing of affirmative action to build up wealth for their families, this has allowed a generation of previously disenfranchised people to live comfortably and ensure that they were able to provide for their family for the foreseeable future. When it came to academics affirmative action forced universities to end discrimination in their admissions process based on race. By 1969 universities had nearly doubled the number of black people admitted into universities.
However, many white people felt affirmative action was keeping them from getting into the universities that they thought they deserved to be in. In 2012 Abigail Fisher sued The University of Texas at Austin claiming that they had rejected her to admit black students that were less qualified than her. The Supreme Court decided in a 7-1 decision that the answer to the question “Does the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment permits the consideration of race in undergraduate admissions decisions?” was yes but under a standard of “strict judicial scrutiny.” This case was important for two reasons. The first reason is that Abigail Fisher was picked by the president of Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) Edward Blum who has spent most of his career as a legal strategist fighting against affirmative action. Secondly, the decision held that the Constitution prohibits discrimination based on race. However, this decision did not overturn the policies that allowed universities to consider race as part of holistic review.
Edward Blum’s career has centered around dismantling affirmative action, and his most recent cases have been appealed to the Supreme Court. When Blum selected Abigail Fisher’s case to take to court he was taking a huge step in the direction of racism and bigotry saying that the only reason that the black student admitted into UT were admitted to fill a racial quota that the University had even though these racial quotas had already been determined to be unconstitutional. This is the same argument that SSFA is using to sue Harvard and UNC.
These two cases are Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and fellows of Harvard College. The aforementioned cases began being argued in 2014 and have since been appealed to and argued to the Supreme Court and have pending citations. The previous courts have sided with Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Should the supreme court side with SFFA in these cases, it will overturn Grutter v. Bollinger, a case decided in 2003 that allowed universities to use race as one factor when considering an applicant in the admissions process. This would set the country back decades in progressive policy that allows minorities and historically oppressed groups a chance at higher education. Not only do these cases threaten the opportunities that minorities are afforded because of programs like affirmative action it also diminishes the challenges that many minorities face when applying to college.
When the reason that a black, Asian, or Latino student is admitted to college is because of their race it diminishes their accomplishments while also giving white students the guise that they are superior for just being white and that minorities are in the way of them getting what they “deserve”. This also introduces the real issue in college admissions which is legacy admissions. Often referred to as white affirmative action, legacy admissions allow colleges to consider whether or not an applicant's parents had donated to the school as a factor in admissions. Allowing this to happen makes admission into a college a position to be bought, giving wealthy white students a distinct advantage in the admissions process. While it is nearly impossible to change the way that colleges take into account legacy admissions as part of the process one thing that those who are not minorities can do is be understanding of the college process and view affirmative action as a way to give minorities a fair chance at higher education and a better life, rather than viewing affirmative action as something that works against them.
Sources:
https://www.oeod.uci.edu/policies/aa_history.php#:~:text=11246%20in%201965.-,Executive%20
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/31/1132954999/the-supreme-court-hears-affirmative-action-case
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/20-1199