In the legal profession, there’s a saying that bad facts lead to bad law. When extreme situations arise, courts and lawmakers often create rules that are difficult or unfair to apply in more typical scenarios. The war on drugs, for example, has resulted in numerous legal overreactions that have eroded civil liberties in America. A perceived crisis can provoke an overly harsh response.
However, sometimes bad facts can shed light on the need for better laws. Just recently, the Supreme Court made a ruling that, in the context of college admissions, the presence of racial discrimination necessitates a new standard. Harvard University, the defendant in this case, undermined its own argument for race-conscious affirmative action, leading to a precedent that prohibits racial discrimination in admissions while still allowing for measures to address past injustices.
To fully grasp why Harvard lost the case and why race-based affirmative action is now illegal in public colleges and federally-funded private schools, it’s essential to understand two key facts. First, there is overwhelming evidence that Harvard actively discriminated against Asian applicants. Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that a Black student in the fourth academic decile had a higher chance of admission than an Asian student in the top decile.
This discrimination wasn’t exclusive to Harvard. The University of North Carolina, also facing a case regarding its admissions process, had significantly stricter admission standards for Asian students. Compounding the injustice, Asian Americans have historically faced marginalization. Justice Clarence Thomas affirms that “Asian Americans can hardly be described as the beneficiaries of historical racial advantages.”
Discriminating against any racial group in America is unjust, but it is particularly egregious to target a community that has endured significant discrimination throughout history. Asian Americans have faced immigration restrictions, segregation, and even internment in government camps during World War II.
Adding to the already unfavorable situation, Harvard deliberately rejected alternative, race-blind approaches that could have achieved similar student diversity. Evidence presented in the case demonstrated that Harvard could attain nearly the same racial composition among its student body without resorting to race-based practices by giving socioeconomically disadvantaged students just half the advantage it gave to recruited athletes and eliminating preferences for the children of donors, alumni, and faculty.
These advantages primarily benefit white and wealthy applicants, exacerbating a system in which Harvard favored certain predominantly white applicant categories and discriminated against Asians, a historically disadvantaged minority. Such facts presented a significant challenge for Harvard’s defense in court.
So, where does this leave the law? The answer is straightforward, but the consequences are complex. The court invalidated the use of race as a factor in college admissions but kept in place alternative admission methods that can promote diversity and address genuine injustices. Justice Thomas explains that states can still provide admissions preferences to individuals who have been victims of discrimination. This preference would be tied to a specific injustice.
Justice Thomas provides examples of acceptable preferences, such as considering an applicant’s financial means or their medical struggles. However, what universities cannot do is use an applicant’s skin color as a shortcut for making decisions.
These are individualized determinations, but they can still lead to systemic change. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argues in her dissent, significant racial disparities in health, wealth, and well-being persist among American citizens due to past injustices. However, these disparities can be addressed through race-neutral policies targeting wealth, income, and, in specific cases, health.
In other words, because of past injustices, race-neutral policies can still result in racially disproportionate outcomes without engaging in discriminatory practices against innocent applicants. Treating economically disadvantaged students equally, regardless of race, promotes both systemic change and individual fairness, benefiting Black and Latino youth disproportionally. Furthermore, by maintaining the ability to consider specific instances of racial discrimination, schools can still provide advantages to those who have experienced concrete acts of racial injustice.
The notion that schools can achieve genuine diversity without resorting to racial discrimination in admissions is not mere speculation. There are specific examples of state university systems, such as California and Michigan, that have successfully increased diversity without implementing race-based affirmative action. State schools in both states have proudly enrolled highly diverse student bodies, despite the absence of race-based preferences.
The consequences of the Supreme Court’s Harvard decision will reverberate throughout American law. There is no longer any justification for “beneficial” racial discrimination. Redress for actual discriminatory acts is still possible, but the idea of using race alone as a means of achieving social progress has likely been eradicated. Programs designed exclusively around the race of their participants will face renewed scrutiny.
Beginning with the first affirmative action case in 1978, colleges have had more than four decades to develop equitable schemes of racial classification. Yet, both Harvard and U.N.C. illustrate that even supposedly well-intentioned discrimination can appear deeply unfair to applicants, particularly Asian individuals who have faced negative double standards based on their race.
Nobody can deny America’s dark history of racial discrimination, nor can anyone credibly argue that discrimination is absent in today’s society. However, universities have the capacity to address both the legacy and reality of discrimination without creating new racial classifications and inflicting further harm on a new generation of Americans. There are better ways to achieve justice and fairness than by discriminating against individuals based on the color of their skin.
Denial of responsibility! VigourTimes is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
