Higher education in America needs affirmative action and yet its existence is under threat.
On Halloween, the Supreme Court heard opening arguments for two cases that could dismantle affirmative action in higher education, Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students For Fair Admissions v. UNC.
The court’s decision in these two cases could upset 40 years of precedent, just as it did with the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Most recently the court in the 2003 case Grutter v. Bollinger resolved the conflict over the role race should play in university admissions.
It held that the University of Michigan’s law-school-admission policy was constitutional because it was narrowly tailored to serve the compelling interest of attaining a diverse student body.
This is what affirmative action does. It sets the foundations for a more diverse America.
America has two conflicting histories. The first being that for so long white men have held positions of power and privilege. The second history is one of diversity and opportunity. It is a history of many different people coming together from every walk of life to form what is today a complex and beautiful tapestry of backgrounds.
Affirmative action helps remedy the consequences of that first history and helps bring that second history into America’s future.
But these cases seek to end affirmative action by claiming that Harvard’s and UNC’s admission policies are unconstitutional because they constitute unlawful discrimination on the basis of race.
The first case contends that Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policy violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The second case alleges that UNC unconstitutionally favors Black and Latino students over others in its admissions process, violating the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection clause, which prohibits selective denial of rights on the basis of race.
When universities implement affirmative action policies in their admissions it is not to practice discrimination but to create diverse student bodies that will go on to be the leaders of this country.
During the oral arguments, Justice Elena Kagan highlighted just how important diversity is through a series of pointed questions.
“If you’re a hospital and you serve a diverse group of patients, is it super important to you to have a diverse set of doctors? If you’re a police department and you serve a diverse community, is it super important to you to have a diverse set of police officers? If you’re a judge and you want to have a diverse set of clerks, do you think a judge can’t think about [race] in making clerkship decisions?”
Universities are the pipelines to leadership in our society. They will provide the future doctors, police, and judges we need. They will provide leadership in all kinds of different areas.
If universities are not diverse then the institutions that govern us and help us will not be racially diverse.
According to the arguments made by Students For Fair Admissions, this does not matter.
But it does. Being American is to believe in American pluralism, to understand that our institutions reflect who we are as a people in all our extraordinary variety.
