What is affirmative action? You may have heard about the recent Supreme Court case that sent waves throughout the college community this past June. However, affirmative action remains an ambiguous term for many.
Affirmative action acknowledges previous inequalities and aims to promote racial representation in society today. The concept was first introduced by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 in an Executive Order. While students may be more familiar with affirmative action in regard to college admissions, the Order was originally intended for desegregation in the workplace. The order required business owners to use affirmative action policies to hire people of color, especially Black people.
Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968 sparked the expansion of affirmative action to other settings. Soon after his death, Harvard University announced that they would begin to use affirmative action in the admissions process to provide equitable access to education.
Affirmative action exists today to diversify college populations on the basis that learning in a diverse environment is valuable to members of all races, including historically disadvantaged races. Affirmative action policies have been legally upheld many times in the last century. In June, however, the Supreme Court took a different stance. In a 6-3 conservative split, the Court ruled that affirmative action was unconstitutional, specifically targeting race-conscious admissions in higher education.
Opponents of affirmative action say that private universities are discriminating against white and Asian students because admissions teams are filling up spots with students of other races. The group Students for Fair Admissions, who filed a suit against Harvard, argued that Harvard discriminated against Asians and Asian Americans during the admissions process and said that students in those groups had a higher barrier to entry because of a larger racial applicant pool.
During the Supreme Court hearing, Justices in favor of affirmative action focused on the positives for Latinx and Black students, whereas the Justices against affirmative action highlighted the potential harm for white and Asian students. In an opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that college admissions and the United States as a whole shouldn’t “look past our differing skin colors and identities.”
In her dissent (a report arguing against the ruling), Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education.” She argued that the Constitution made it the United State’s responsibility to create equal opportunities while acknowledging possible historical hindrances that may affect applicants.
It is important to note an important caveat in the Justices’ ruling. The Supreme Court declared that colleges could still consider race in the context of an applicant’s life, which is often expressed in an applicant’s college essays and supplements. Students can still address their race in outlining their experiences in racial communities, with discrimination, or other situations that they felt were affected by their race.
Despite the divide among the Justices, the Court ruled to overturn affirmative action, which has left many students wondering about the potential impact of the case on St. Paul’s students. SPS is a top college preparatory school, so all of its students work hard for college matriculation. Future articles on this topic will feature input from faculty and administrators at St. Paul’s who can explore how this historic ruling might impact both students’ college admissions process and the SPS admissions process for new students.