Since the 1960s, some colleges and universities have used race (a practice called affirmative action) as one of many criteria when deciding which students to admit. First, in the 1960s, some colleges wanted to open doors to Black students that had previously been closed because of longstanding racial discrimination. Later, many colleges considered an applicant’s race in an effort to create diverse student bodies. This summer, however, the Supreme Court ruled that race can no longer be used as part of the college admissions process.
What do you think? Do you agree with the Supreme Court’s recent decision? Should colleges be allowed to use race as a factor in deciding which students to admit, whether to address racial discrimination or to build a more diverse student body? Why or why not?
The teenagers seeking shade as their tour groups crisscrossed leafy Harvard Yard on Thursday knew that they would be among the first students to feel the effect of the Supreme Court’s ruling on race-based admissions when they applied to colleges.
What they didn’t know was exactly how it would affect their chances. But many high school students, visiting Harvard University and beyond, said they were concerned to see long-established admissions practices giving way to something new and unfamiliar.
“It makes me more stressed about the whole concept of college,” said Danyael Morales, 16, a rising senior of Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage at Boston Latin Academy, a public school in Boston. “And with the whole agenda of not seeing race, I feel like colleges are not going to see me.”
The court voted 6 to 3 to reject affirmative action programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The move is expected to lower the number of Black and Latino students at elite college campuses.
In Chapel Hill, N.C., most U.N.C. students are gone for the summer, but the student union swarmed with high school hopefuls trying on Carolina sweatshirts while their parents clutched admissions folders.
William Walker, who is Black, was visiting from Minneapolis to settle his son, an incoming freshman, at orientation. He discussed the decision with his family after the news broke. His daughter, a high school student, said it made her nervous about what college would be like for her, though Mr. Walker was not concerned, given her high grades and Advanced Placement classes.
He said his family would do their best to adapt. “You just adjust the fight. If Mike Tyson sends jabs to the gut, you rock and send uppercuts.”
Yosef Herrera, 16, a Hispanic high school student in Mercedes, Texas, said he supported the Supreme Court decision because he thought that affirmative action focused too much on race, often at the expense of other factors like ethnicity or family income. The policy can hurt people by inflaming racial divisions, he said.
When his time comes to apply to the Ivy League schools that he hopes to attend, Mr. Herrera, who is a co-chair of the High School Republican National Federation, said: “I think they’ll be fair. They’ll look at my application, and they’ll see what I’ve done as a person.”
The Supreme Court ended race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities. In other words, colleges can no longer take race into account when they are deciding whether to admit a student. How do you feel about this decision?
How important is diversity as part of the college experience in your opinion? How do you define “diverse”? Since colleges can no longer look at race, how else should they try to create a diverse student body?
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.” But colleges are allowed to consider other qualities that students are born into and do not control, such as their gender, whether their parents are alumni, and whether they are from an underrepresented state. Should colleges still be allowed to consider these qualities? If yes, how are they different from race? If no, why not?
Students can still write about how race might have affected their life experience in their essay. “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. Colleges can no longer consider race, but they can consider how race might have affected an applicant’s life: What do you think about that distinction? Will you consider writing about race in your college application?
Some colleges began using race-based affirmative action after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as a way to provide opportunities to academically gifted Black students who otherwise would not get a chance to attend schools like Harvard and Columbia because of persistent racism. In the decades that followed, some people argued that the time period when racism affected a student’s academic opportunities was over, while other people argued that many students were still affected by the history of racism in the United States and lingering systemic racism. What do you think? Do you think race-based affirmative action still has a role to play in repairing the damage of America’s legacy of racism?
The effect of race-conscious admissions has always been limited to a relatively small number of students applying to elite colleges. For the vast majority of students, these schools are not an option — academically or financially. Why do you think our society spends so much time and energy focusing on this subject? How else do you think the United States could strive for equity — racial or otherwise — when it comes to college?
