Thursday, June 29, 2023

The Supreme Court Outlaws Consideration of Race as a Factor in College Admissions

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down race-conscious student admissions programs currently used at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in a sharp setback to affirmative action policies often used increase the number of Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority groups on campuses. 
The justices ruled in favor of a group called Students for Fair Admissions, founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, in its appeal of lower court rulings upholding programs used at the two prestigious schools to foster a diverse student population. 
The affirmative action cases represented the latest major rulings powered by the Supreme Court's conservative majority. The court in June 2022 overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide and widened gun rights in a pair of landmark rulings. 
Many institutions of higher education, corporations and military leaders have long backed affirmative action on campuses not simply to remedy racial inequity and exclusion in American life but to ensure a talent pool that can bring a range of perspectives to the workplace and U.S. armed forces ranks. 
Blum's group in lawsuits filed in 2014 accused UNC of discriminating against white and Asian American applicants and Harvard of bias against Asian American applicants. 
Students for Fair Admissions alleged that the adoption by UNC, a public university, of an admissions policy that is not race neutral violates the guarantee to equal protection of the law under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

3 comments:

thelastenglishprince said...

We can thank Donald Trump for giving us three on the SCOTUS bench. I have always been against affirmative action. I believe everything should be based on a metric system which awards hard work and discipline, when it comes to higher education. That is what Trump also believed. You choose to be a 2.0 GPA in high school, then you can also choose to attend remedial courses at a junior college. That is where you belong. But you should not be welcomed into Harvard. Skin tone should not be weighted into college admissions processes. A 2.0 who is non-white, does not a 3.5 GPA make. And a 3.0 Caucasian GPA does not a 2.0 GPA make. The whole things has been immensely unfair.

A color wheel should not determine who is accepted into universities. The process should be color blind. The best compete, and the rest should re-set their expectations to be realistic in relation to their overall talent.

If certain demographics find themselves unable to compete in what is a land of opportunity, may they find time to reflect on what ails them and seek to remedy things - whether culture, laziness, or entitlement, which plague their ranks.

* I suppose I will be called a White Supremacist for this comment....

Pastorius said...

Yes, thank God for Trump. That's exactly what I thought this morning.

thelastenglishprince said...

He did promise to change the slant within the judiciary and he kept his promise - especially with judges appointed to the appellate courts, and of course the three to SCOTUS.

Whilst Biden says this is not a "normal" bench, it did come into being through a very normal and Constitutional process which included our houses of Congress in affirming the POTUS choice. He chooses, but they confirm. Totally Constitutionally-based and as it should be.