Supreme Court restricts use of race in college admissions

[picksthemusic]

6-3 ruling.


www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/29/affirmative-action-supreme-court-ruling/

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina that relied in part on racial considerations, saying they violate the Constitution.



The votes split along ideological grounds, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts writing for the conservative members in the majority, and the liberals dissenting.



“The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,” Roberts wrote. “Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

Gift link:
wapo.st/3NyHCfk

[msmerymac]

Does Roberts think the color of a person's skin has no bearing on the challenges they may experience?

[Jalapeñomel]

Sigh.

[Velar Fricative]

Of course they did.

[underwaterrhymes]

Fuckers

[Patsy Baloney]

The person you avoid at Thanksgiving is very happy.

[picksthemusic]

For those who can't see Tweets:

Justice Jackson, dissenting: "Our country has never been colorblind. Given the lengthy history of state-sponsored race-based preferences in America, to say that anyone is now victimized if a college considers whether that legacy of discrimination has unequally advantaged its applicants fails to acknowledge the well-documented 'intergenerational transmission of inequality'

that still plagues our citizenry.



"It is that inequality that admissions programs such as UNC's help to address, to the benefit of us all. Because the majority's judgment stunts that progress without any basis in law, history, logic, or justice, I dissent."

[nsl]

The cognitive dissonance necessary to be totally cool with legacy admissions but declare affirmative action unconstitutional is... a lot.

[StrawberryBlondie]

This opinion is actually a lot narrower than I expected TBH.

Not to say it's not bullshit, but I expected much, much worse.

[erbear]

This is so frustrating. We freaking know for a fact that systemic racism, exists. We know that generational wealth is predicated on opportunities like college. We know we live in a patently unequal society. I mean, I guess I also know that these fuckers like the status quo and that an uneducated population serves them but it is still so incredibly frustrating to witness the backslide.

[imimahoney]

Justice Jackson's dissent is a thing of pure excellence. Everyone should read it.

thehill.com/homenews/4073556-read-jackson-dissent-supreme-court-affirmative-action/

[imimahoney]

And an interesting take here

[sent]

I will read more about this decision later, but being of Indian origin, I read/hear a lot more about the opposite side of this debate. That Asian students (East Asian and Southeast Asian) mostly don't benefit from AA and are actually hurt by it and I think that's what brought this lawsuit up in the first place. 

[VillainV]

I work at one of the institutions named, and it will be interesting to see how this affects the culture and climate of our student body over the next few years. We are so very diverse now.

[StrawberryBlondie]

Jun 29, 2023 11:34:28 GMT -5 sent said:

I will read more about this decision later, but being of Indian origin, I read/hear a lot more about the opposite side of this debate. That Asian students (East Asian and Southeast Asian) mostly don't benefit from AA and are actually hurt by it and I think that's what brought this lawsuit up in the first place. 

Wasn't last year's Harvard freshman class something like 30% Asian?

[livinitup]

picksthemusic Thank you for the post & gift link.

[sent]

Jun 29, 2023 11:55:10 GMT -5 StrawberryBlondie said:

Jun 29, 2023 11:34:28 GMT -5 sent said:

I will read more about this decision later, but being of Indian origin, I read/hear a lot more about the opposite side of this debate. That Asian students (East Asian and Southeast Asian) mostly don't benefit from AA and are actually hurt by it and I think that's what brought this lawsuit up in the first place. 

Wasn't last year's Harvard freshman class something like 30% Asian?

The argument is that there are many many more qualified applicants who are Asian that won't get accepted because the university thinks they have enough. So reverse AA I guess.

[plutosmoon]

I'm admission adjacent (fin aid) at an elite college. Our college lawyer is still reviewing how this will impact our admission process. Sure race is one factor in our process, but so are athletics, arts abilities, and socioeconomic status, I see no one questioning these preferences. Test scores and grades alone don't tell us what a student brings to our community.

I'm trying not to be discouraged since I'm confident in my admissions colleagues ability to continue to build a diverse class even with this decision. While the decision is a tough blow and going to create challenges in our work, there is a lot of work being done by admission folks to ensure diversity remains, especially at colleges like mine.

[Bad Dingo]

Jun 29, 2023 11:34:28 GMT -5 sent said:

I will read more about this decision later, but being of Indian origin, I read/hear a lot more about the opposite side of this debate. That Asian students (East Asian and Southeast Asian) mostly don't benefit from AA and are actually hurt by it and I think that's what brought this lawsuit up in the first place. 

Because the narrative is that Asian students need to compete w/other students of color for less seats so that the white students can continue to have the majority enrollment.

[aurora]

I'm disappointed but not surprised. And it sounds like the complexity of the opinion could make things confused for years.

[sent]

Jun 29, 2023 12:35:24 GMT -5 Bad Dingo said:

Jun 29, 2023 11:34:28 GMT -5 sent said:

I will read more about this decision later, but being of Indian origin, I read/hear a lot more about the opposite side of this debate. That Asian students (East Asian and Southeast Asian) mostly don't benefit from AA and are actually hurt by it and I think that's what brought this lawsuit up in the first place. 

Because the narrative is that Asian students need to compete w/other students of color for less seats so that the white students can continue to have the majority enrollment.

Yes this. They claim to want diversity but not too much of the Asian kind because that would be too diverse. Or something. 

[msmerymac]

Jun 29, 2023 12:25:25 GMT -5 sent said:

Jun 29, 2023 11:55:10 GMT -5 StrawberryBlondie said:

Wasn't last year's Harvard freshman class something like 30% Asian?

The argument is that there are many many more qualified applicants who are Asian that won't get accepted because the university thinks they have enough. So reverse AA I guess.

Yeah, I know that's what some parents of Asian descent have argued in NYC since they've been trying to make admission at the top 3 public high schools more inclusive. Currently, I believe it's only based on the entrance exam rather than middle school, GPA, talents, interests, faculty recommendations, geographic diversity, etc. 

Anyway, Stuyvesant High School is 71% Asian, and parents of current students argue that doing things like trying to select the top students from all middle schools in Manhattan or something would necessarily decrease the percentage of Asian students and effectively be reverse AA. 

Similarly, since the University of California hasn't allowed race to factor into admissions the number of Asian students increased. 

ETA: the percentage of white students at Stuyvesant is 18% and some of the UC schools are also made up of majority Asian students, so the assumption is that increasing racial diversity will need to decrease the percentage of students who are Asian.

[sent]

Jun 29, 2023 13:27:50 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Jun 29, 2023 12:25:25 GMT -5 sent said:

The argument is that there are many many more qualified applicants who are Asian that won't get accepted because the university thinks they have enough. So reverse AA I guess.

Yeah, I know that's what some parents of Asian descent have argued in NYC since they've been trying to make admission at the top 3 public high schools more inclusive. Currently, I believe it's only based on the entrance exam rather than middle school, GPA, talents, interests, faculty recommendations, geographic diversity, etc. 

Anyway, Stuyvesant High School is 71% Asian, and parents of current students argue that doing things like trying to select the top students from all middle schools in Manhattan or something would necessarily decrease the percentage of Asian students and effectively be reverse AA. 

Similarly, since the University of California hasn't allowed race to factor into admissions the number of Asian students increased. 

ETA: the percentage of white students at Stuyvesant is 18% and some of the UC schools are also made up of majority Asian students, so the assumption is that increasing racial diversity will need to decrease the percentage of students who are Asian.

Right, so what's the answer here. Many are disappointed with this ruling because we want diversity and people of different skin colors on campus (or elite public NYC school etc.). But not too many of these colors over here even if they're a small minority in the general US population because they're overrepresented in higher education. 

[picksthemusic]

Jun 29, 2023 11:24:39 GMT -5 imimahoney said:

Justice Jackson's dissent is a thing of pure excellence. Everyone should read it.

thehill.com/homenews/4073556-read-jackson-dissent-supreme-court-affirmative-action/

It's for this specific type of thing that they didn't want her on the bench in the first place. I'm so glad she's there to voice her dissent. I wish she didn't have to give it, of course.

[picksthemusic]

Jun 29, 2023 12:06:26 GMT -5 livinitup said:

picksthemusic Thank you for the post & gift link.

Of course! It's very important that folks have access to this stuff!

[formerlyak]

msmerymac, brings up something we were just talking about in my class today. The UC hasn't been allowed to ask about race on applications since Prop 209 passed in 1996. On this page, you can select years (I use 1994, 1999, 2004, 2018) to see how that affected the race demographics in the UC system. I looked at the system as a whole, not campus by campus.

www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/admissions-residency-and-ethnicity

What it shows is that for most groups, the breakdown didn't change between 1994 and 2022 after Prop 209 passed. The two groups that changed were White (went down) and Hispanic (went up). That actually tracks with the demographics of the state population as a whole. And the percent in each race that were admitted is very similar to the percent of that race in the overall applicant pool. If schools can no longer ask about race on applications, maybe they need to expand outreach programs for underrepresented minorities?

What the UC did, and where StrawberryBlondie made a good point about the narrowness of the ruling, is integrate an opportunity to talk about race (or gender identity) into the answer of one of your personal insight questions. There are question about overcoming adversity or the general "tell us anything you want us to know about you that doesn't fit somewhere else" question and that's where people put it.

I am not sure the history of when the state of Washington had to remove the question about race from their applications, but their application essay is also about overcoming adversity or challenge (it's their only question in fact). I have a feeling we will see a lot more questions that give applicants a chance to tell their story in that way on college applications.

[neverfstop]

Apparently there were LOTS of opinions...and they were spicy. From Axios.

But in 237 pages worth of opinions yesterday, it was clear — in ways the justices rarely allow to be clear — that the disagreements here were rooted in the real world, not simply competing interpretations of the equal protection clause.
It was clear that the court's three justices of color were drawing on personal experience, not just legal formalism.

And it was clear, frankly, that some of them were mad at each other.
🔬 Zoom in: Justice Clarence Thomas seemed to be mad at Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wrote a stinging dissent accusing the court's majority of "let-them-eat-cake obliviousness" — and an "ostrich-like" hope that ignoring race would make racial inequities disappear.

Thomas wrote his own opinion, as he often does — ostensibly to agree with the majority ruling, but also to take on Jackson.
"As she sees things, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society," Thomas wrote. He said Jackson set out to "label all blacks as victims," adding: "Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me."
Jackson's dissent focused on the majority opinion, addressing Thomas only in a footnote — but a brutal one.

"Justice Thomas' prolonged attack responds to a dissent I did not write in order to assail an admissions program" that does not exist and "ignites too many more straw men to list, or fully extinguish," she wrote.
🥊 A final zinger: Justice Sonia Sotomayor responded with what she called "the most obvious data point available to this institution today."

"The three Justices of color on this Court graduated from elite universities and law schools with race-conscious admissions programs, and achieved successful legal careers," she wrote.

[Bad Dingo]

abovethelaw.com/2018/10/asian-american-affirmative-action-lawsuit-against-harvard-has-always-been-on-behalf-of-mediocre-white-people/

Elie Mystal's article on the case from 2018.

"It’ll be a bad day for African-Americans, Latinos, and white women — who are actually the primary beneficiaries affirmative-action style policies in the employment context, but don’t seem to know it.

But it won’t be a good day for Asian-Americans. You can’t make a deal with white supremacists and come out ahead."

[Velar Fricative]

Jun 30, 2023 5:49:51 GMT -5 Bad Dingo said:

abovethelaw.com/2018/10/asian-american-affirmative-action-lawsuit-against-harvard-has-always-been-on-behalf-of-mediocre-white-people/

Elie Mystal's article on the case from 2018.

"It’ll be a bad day for African-Americans, Latinos, and white women — who are actually the primary beneficiaries affirmative-action style policies in the employment context, but don’t seem to know it.

But it won’t be a good day for Asian-Americans. You can’t make a deal with white supremacists and come out ahead."

I remember reading this back then, he is so prescient. Well, except the part about Thomas writing the majority opinion but he's not wrong about Thomas taking advantage the system himself and then kicking the ladder down once he climbed to the top. 

[wildrice]

formerlyak, I'm really glad to hear that CA hasn't seen any adverse effects of that ruling. I hope that remains the case in many other places.

I'm skeptical about others, though. Some places are just not going to do the right thing if they aren't legally required to. Worse, some places may actively discriminate against those who reveal the sources of their adversity. I guess discrimination is still illegal (for now) but that doesn't mean there aren't ways to get around it. College admissions is far from my area of expertise so I hope this ends up being a neutral impact, but I'm not convinced yet.