Should Colleges Use Affirmative Action in Admissions?

similar case against the University of North Carolina — SFFA seeks a ruling that finds racial preferences in college admissions unconstitutional. Indeed, today in 2023, affirmative action — a policy that relies upon discrimination towards Asian Americans, is overwhelmingly opposed by the public, generalizes racial groups and perpetuates socioeconomic homogeny — cannot continue.

Harvard continues to disadvantage Asian Americans in admissions. Despite having the highest average academic qualifications of any racial group, Asian Americans have the lowest admittance rate to Harvard. The university’s internal reports have found there is a “negative chance of getting into Harvard by virtue of being Asian,” according to court documents. Some proponents of affirmative action see it as a way to counteract past discrimination against Black and Latino Americans. Yet they fail to see that affirmative action allows systematic support the Supreme Court banning perspective fails to consider the danger of using arbitrarily-defined race classifications. According to the Census Bureau, “White” includes everyone from Swedes to Afghans, “Asian” can be anyone from the culturally and ethnically diverse and colossal continent of Asia and “Hispanic” can mean a Spanish aristocrat or a poor farmer in Mexico. But by using these classifications to determine an applicant’s access to resources to boost chances of admission, colleges forget that, while people of color still disproportionately lack access to these resources, there is socioeconomic diversity within these groups in a way there wasn’t in the past. Assumptions are made based on race but do not necessarily reflect reality.

A common misconception is that affirmative action is key to reducing the racial wealth gap. However, researcher Richard Kahlenberg, an expert witness for SFFA, notes that most of Harvard’s underrepresented students are already well off. “Seventy-one percent of Black, Latino, and Native American students at Harvard come from college-educated homes with incomes above the national median; such students are in roughly the most advantaged fifth of families of their own race,” Kahlenberg wrote in The Atlantic. By allowing colleges to consider race in admissions to achieve racial diversity, we give them a way out of admitting a socioeconomically diverse class. According to The New York Times, only 4.5% of Harvard’s students come from the bottom 20% of the income spectrum. America’s colleges and universities need to take a raceneutral approach to affirmative action. Socioeconomic factors like family income, school quality and the accessibility of college counseling must be considered to properly gauge an applicant’s potential. Justices of the Supreme Court: affirmative action can no longer be used as a tactic to suppress Asian Americans, generalize racial groups and preserve the systematic advantages for the already privileged. Scrap it.

Black Americans were denied the opportunity to buy or sell their homes because of redlining. Redlining, a discriminatory practice, worked by labeling majority Black and Latino communities as “red” areas, signaling to potential investors to not give out loans to families in those areas. Redlining was just one of the institutional barriers to success that many Black and Latino Americans faced decades ago, and its impacts continue to be felt today. Underfunded schools, persisting wealth disparities and a history of limited resources are just a few of the ongoing impacts of redlining. This is when affirmative action comes in to close the gap between this disparity. Without affirmative action, our society would continue to accept and perpetuate the inequalities that trap Black Americans in a cycle of poverty.

According to a study from EdBuild, predominantly white school districts have access to funding worth $23 billion more than districts with primarily students of color. This $23 billion difference means that white school districts have access to significantly better resources, luxuries that all Menlo students enjoy going to a wealthy private school in Atherton, California. These superior educational resources include better access to excellent teaching, higher academic rigor and more education, Black and Latino youth become significantly more likely to fall back into the cycle of poverty. Moreover, according to a study by Linda Darling-Hammond, former Professor of Education at Stanford University, when schools have diverse teaching forces, the effects can be profound. “[I] n New York City, roughly 90 percent of the variance in student reading and mathematics scores at grades 3, 6 and 8 was a function of differences in teacher qualifications. The schools with highly qualified teachers serving large numbers of minority and low-income students performed as well as much more advantaged schools,” Darling- Hammond wrote.

SAT scores also illustrate the educational achievement gaps we see in schools. According to a study from the Brookings Institution, Black and Latino students perform significantly lower than white and Asian students on the SAT. These factors make affirmative action incredibly important. When working with fewer resources, less help and fewer opportunities, of course students of color are unlikely to perform up to their true potential. Working under the assumption that Black and Latino students can perform better when given the resources to succeed is the only just way to create fairness in the college admissions process.

One of the most common