Supreme Court restricts use of race in college admissions

[msmerymac]

formerlyak, I think PSA mentioned that in Michigan, since they got rid of AA in college admissions in 2006 (?) the percentage of Black students has gone from 9% to 4%. You're right that maybe they just aren't putting enough effort into finding diversity in other ways, but I think it's still concerning.

[Bad Dingo]

Jun 30, 2023 8:49:22 GMT -5 wildrice said:

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 heard an NPR piece about the negative effects on individuals who were not able to get into the more elite schools because of the ruling and the impact it had on their life earning potential.

Found it...

www.npr.org/2023/06/30/1185226895/heres-what-happened-when-affirmative-action-ended-at-california-public-colleges

 ""Black and Hispanic students saw substantially poorer long-run labor market prospects as a result of losing access to these very selective universities," Bleemer told NPR. "But there was no commensurate gain in long-run outcomes for the white and Asian students who took their place."

Black and Latino students were also less likely to earn graduate degrees or enter lucrative STEM fields.

"If you follow them into the labor market, for the subsequent 15 or 20 years, they're earning about 5% lower wages than they would have earned if they'd had access to more selective universities under affirmative action," Bleemer said.

The ban has in fact acted as a deterrent to prospective Black and Latino students, Bleemer said. His study found that high-performing minority students were subsequently discouraged from applying to schools where minority students were underrepresented.

"Most do not want to attend a university where there's not a critical mass of same race peers," said Mitchell Chang, the associate vice chancellor of equity, diversity and inclusion at UCLA. That's because attending a school made less diverse by an affirmative action ban, "puts them at greater risk of being stereotyped and being isolated," he said.

These findings "provide the first causal evidence that banning affirmative action exacerbates socioeconomic inequities," Bleemer's study said."

[Bad Dingo]

This decision will possibly have negative outcomes for healthcare as well.  As we've discussed in the past, women and POC have better outcomes when receiving care from other women or non-white doctors.  

www.statnews.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-strikes-down-use-of-affirmative-action-a-blow-to-efforts-to-diversify-medical-schools/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20Daily%20Health%20Policy%20Report&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=264636306&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_BUCfwOEQjx54NK8qHSKvCD_QgyJs5Y5VWL3xvIEqTetoYVmN2_KjLj0TMq4vDM9PvpYgXrVCD-vcr1YvWHfw_i86wkA&utm_content=264636306&utm_source=hs_email

[smock]

Let's be honest, the students who benefit the most from preferential treatment in admissions are legacies and white student-athletes who otherwise wouldn't get in.

Based on the NPR piece stating that bans on considering race deter Black and Latino students from applying to selective schools, I wonder if we'll see an increase in applications to HBCUs and HSIs (Hispanic Serving Institutions).

[sonrisa]

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. 

Honestly, I think the decision actually leaves the door open for exactly the type of discrimination Asian families were hoping to end: not quota style racial measures nor explicit goals to increase representation of this or that group, but the harder to quantify, "softer" racial bias that was showing up as lower "personality" scores among Harvard applicants (ie. that Harvard was ranking Asian students as less unique, having less character and being less exceptional than applicants with similar objective criteria). 

From the decision: "At the same time, nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university."

The emphasis is on "unique" and "character." Those are exactly the words that get slapped on upper class white athletes or legacy kids who don't make the cut under official criteria but are bringing something "special" the university is looking for - like happy alums or sports oriented donors.

"Character" is one of those words like "honor" that has been weaponized by oppressors and colonizers for centuries.  (Whenever those with authority and power use the word "honor" look for the brutality it is justifying or masking.)

[pinkdutchtulips]

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. 

The original suit that made affirmative action a thing was Baake v U of Michigan in the late 1970's? I want to say that Baake was of Asian decent. 

[pinkdutchtulips]

Jul 5, 2023 16:22:36 GMT -5 pinkdutchtulips 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. 

The original suit that made affirmative action a thing was Baake v U of Michigan in the late 1970's? I want to say that Baake was of Asian decent. 

I just double checked the case .. Bakke v U of Michigan .. just a disgruntled white guy pissed he didn't get into med school at Michigan.

[erbear]

Jul 5, 2023 16:22:36 GMT -5 pinkdutchtulips 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. 

The original suit that made affirmative action a thing was Baake v U of Michigan in the late 1970's? I want to say that Baake was of Asian decent. 

He was not. Bakke was a mediocre white man.

[pinkdutchtulips]

Jul 5, 2023 16:37:54 GMT -5 erbear said:

Jul 5, 2023 16:22:36 GMT -5 pinkdutchtulips said:

The original suit that made affirmative action a thing was Baake v U of Michigan in the late 1970's? I want to say that Baake was of Asian decent. 

He was not. Bakke was a mediocre white man.

We must have replied at the same time. I checked the case again. Disgruntled white guy who was upset he was rejected by Michigan Med School. 

[Bad Dingo]

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/19/us/wesleyan-university-legacy-admissions/index.html

"Wesleyan University will stop giving preferential treatment to applicants who are the children of alumni – joining a growing list of schools to end legacy admissions after the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action."

[sent]

Massachusetts has a proposed bill to tax endowments of colleges using legacy as part of their admissions.

fortune.com/2023/07/05/harvard-legacy-admissions-wealthy-massachusetts-schools-tax-proposal/