You can have equality. You can equity. But according to the Supreme Court’s Thursday decision banning affirmative action, you can’t have both.
The High Court declared that race can’t be a factor in admissions. As the Associated Press reported, the court’s conservative majority effectively overturned cases reaching back 45 years in invalidating admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.
Chief Justice John Roberts said that for too long universities 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.”
Like the Court, reactions were divided along conservative and liberal lines.
From the Black conservatives at Project 21: “Today we have a 21st century Brown v. Board moment,” Project 21 Chairman Horace Cooper said in a statement. “Finally, the Court has ruled that colleges and universities will have to use only methods that are ‘race-neutral’ for admissions and will no longer be able to discriminate against or in favor of applicants based on their race.”
“No student should have to worry that they will be prevented from entry into college because of their race, and thanks to today’s ruling, no student will,” added Cooper.
From the White House: “The Court has effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions. And I strongly — strongly disagree with the Court’s decision,” said President Biden.
There will be pundits duking it out for weeks, if not months, over the Supreme Court’s decision.
And it should give rise to other examinations of “equality.”
Take legacy admissions. If race can’t be a factor, why should familial connections? If institutes of higher education are to make the admission process a color-blind, achievement-based meritocracy, then giving points to students based on having a parent or other relative as alumni should also be eliminated.
That’s gotten short shrift in the race-focused admissions debate, and it’s unlikely any of the liberal voices taking umbrage with the Court decision will embrace it.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who identified as a Cherokee when she was a law professor at Harvard, posted this unintentionally ironic tweet: “An extremist Supreme Court has once again reversed decades of settled law, rolled back the march toward racial justice, and narrowed educational opportunity for all. I won’t stop fighting for young people with big dreams who deserve an equal chance to pursue their future.”
An equal chance, or an equitable one?
To give all students an equitable chance, that means working to adequately fund all public schools, and to give parents the choice to choose charter or private schools to further their child’s academic future. The disparities across America in elementary and secondary education are often staggering – that’s where the fight should be focused.
Schools may have solar panels on the roof, or take pride in classes on gender identity, but if their students struggle with math, science and reading comprehension, have leaders done their job in preparing children for educational excellence?
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