After the Supreme Court’s ruling this summer that struck down affirmative action, putting all similar programs at risk, we must reconsider our approach to creating equity and closing the racial wealth gap. The New York state Legislature has given us a path forward, approving a bill that would require the state to study reparations for Black New Yorkers for the toll of slavery and the generations of discrimination that followed. It’s now up to Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign it.
Affirmative action recognized the racial inequities systemically built into our economy and society, and worked to undo them by providing access to higher education and the opportunity that comes with it. It was never about giving anyone an opportunity over others who were more deserving based on the merits. It was always about recognizing that traditional methods of determining who was worthy of acceptance, and the inclusion that came with it, were themselves inherently discriminatory.
For this generation and the last, affirmative action was a critical, if incremental, tool in helping to reverse economic and social disparities stemming from centuries of racial injustice. It was pivotal for my own entrance into college, and I came from a stable, middle-class family. For other Black Americans who don’t have those advantages, it’s even more important.
We already know what will happen in its absence. After Oklahoma stopped considering race as a factor for admission in 2014, the state’s flagship campus in Norman saw admissions for Black students decline by 29% and for Native American students by 21% within five years. Two years after the University of Michigan implemented race-neutral admissions, the percentage of underrepresented minorities among the student body fell by more than 17%.
Studies have found that the net wealth of the typical Black American family is about one-tenth that of a white family. This disparity undermines the health of our national economy. As assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary for Economic Policy Benjamin Harris and economist Sydney Schreiner Wertz put it: “When a significant share of the population is unable to fully participate in the economy, private consumption and investment suffers, stifling GDP growth.”
With affirmative action removed from the toolbelt, we must protect other programs designed to promote equity, and push for reparations as a means of resetting the equity foundation.
Here in New York, the statute that undergirds the state program prioritizing contracts for minority- and women-owned businesses, called 15a, is up for renewal in 2024. We need our state leaders to renew the program with a construct that protects it from erosion by the courts. If they don’t, we may lose yet another tool in the battle for equity.
We also need the governor to sign the reparations bill. The legislation would establish a commission to examine slavery and racial discrimination against people of African descent, and how this has impacted Black Americans living today. It would then make policy and legislative recommendations regarding appropriate remedies.
In other words, the legislation doesn’t empower the commission to make reparations, but it does set us on a crucial course to determine the true economic costs of hundreds of years of slavery and discrimination, and then creates a path to undoing those harms.
The political composition of the U.S. Supreme Court is not going to change any time soon. In the face of that, we must find a way forward that sets us on a new course where wealth and race are no longer tied. It’s the right thing to do, not only for Black Americans, but for all Americans, enabling all of us to rise together on an equal playing field.
Valerie White is senior executive director for New York’s Local Initiatives Support Corporation, www.lisc.org/ny.
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