SCOTUS Decision on Affirmative Action Reminds Us Racial Discrimination is the "American Way"
Happy Fourth of July weekend from the majority on the Supreme Court!
I strive to respond to current events such as the SCOTUS decision on affirmative action in real-time. Your support gives me the flexibility to do this. Would you become a paid subscriber today?
In his book, Why We Can’t Wait, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about affirmative action before it was called affirmative action.
He called it “compensatory consideration.”
Among the many vital jobs to be done, the nation must not only radically readjust its attitude toward the Negro in the compelling present, but must incorporate in its planning some compensatory consideration for the handicaps he has inherited from his past.
King explained that gestures at desegregation and voting rights would not be sufficient to generate true equality. Instead, the nation needed to go further. It had to make repair for the damage done by centuries of inequality and exclusion.
Affirmative action as applied to admissions in colleges and universities is intended to provide “compensatory consideration” to people groups long barred from accessing those institutions.
King went on to explain the essence of affirmative action.
It is impossible to create a formula for the future which does not take into account that our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years. How then can he be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we do not do something special for him now, in order to balance the equation and equip him to compete on a just and equal basis.
Affirmative action seeks to remedy historic wrongs by considering race. Rather than using race to exclude people of color, affirmative action expands opportunities for those who have been intentionally marginalized.
The majority decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), imagines that this nation’s racist past is just that—past—and that history does not exert a powerful force on the present.
Their decision indicates that the six justices who struck down race as a factor in higher education admissions believe the process is purely meritorious and that eliminating racial considerations will result in a fairer admissions process.
This fallacious reasoning ignores the reality that a nation with white supremacy at its inception will always default to favoring white people.
Proactive, intentional efforts to correct racial disproportionality in higher education are why affirmative action is necessary.
The SCOTUS decision says the nation has done enough for Black people and other people of color. No further action required.
Yet Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson stated in her dissent, “Deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”
This decision highlights the inherent contradictions of white supremacy. It divides people based on socially constructed racial categories and uses those categories to marginalize people. At the same time it thrives on a “colorblind” approach to race that pretends the very categories it creates do not exist.
The decision is also telling because it does not address other factors for admissions such as sports involvement, legacy status, or family members of employees. Only race has been banned as a consideration.
The SCOTUS decision on affirmative action highlights and elevates the importance of investing in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
These schools exist precisely because of racial discrimination in higher education. Racial segregation during the Jim Crow era meant that Black students could not access most historically white institutions, especially the ones considered “elite.”
HBCUs have always been committed to creating a sense of racial inclusivity and belonging. This focus is not an add-on or an extra program. It is embedded in the souls of such institutions.
The decision by the Supreme Court on race in affirmative action should be evaluated with another of the court’s decisions delivered just one day later.
SCOTUS also disallowed President Biden’t proposed student loan forgiveness program.
It makes no provision for the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic was not only a catastrophic health crisis, but an economic one as well.
So on the front end, Black people and other people of color will have a harder time gaining admission to colleges and universities, and on the back end, it will be harder to repay the debts they incur once they have persisted through school.
It is no small factor that young Black women are the likeliest to take out student loans and have the highest amounts to repay. The most ambitious and least privileged groups of people endure the heaviest burdens of these SCOTUS rulings.
The deeper issue in these rulings goes beyond the decisions themselves. It involves using a “scorched earth” approach to jurisprudence.
While any program as expansive and ambitious as affirmative action in higher education is subject to abuses and misapplication, the solution is not to outlaw the practices at the federal level.
Instead issues should be taken up on a case-by-case basis that allows colleges and universities to improve their affirmative action policies, not ban them altogether.
The SCOTUS decisions around race in affirmative action and student loan forgiveness will have the net impact of making it harder for historically marginalized communities to gain access to education—long-touted as the great equalizer and guarantor of opportunity.
These decisions come at the start of the Fourth of July weekend. They are a fitting reminder that racial exclusion has always been part of the “American Way.”
I don't like the decision. However, I also note that the plaintiffs were, cleverly, not white, but rather also people of color. David French, in his NYT editorial, noted that Harvard, at least, set themselves up for failure by incorporating so many preferences, so much implicit (and explicit bias), and so much sloppiness as to put their whole process under a microscope. And, the plaintiff strategy of setting one disfavored group against another has its own dark history.
On the left hand.. I agree with everyone hear..
On the right hand.. unless the church begins leaning into Jesus Christ, how can we expect justice to flow like Micah prophesied?
Heal our land.. but help us to put aside our idols.. even our own power .. our might.. to fill with your spirit-to-overflowing...
Then will I hear from heaven.. and heal our land..
-sayeth His word
Come! Lord Jesus.
Perfect love(💙). Come!
❤️💚💙💫
,-w
Keep pressing on.. and may our idols.. starting with mine.. be shattered..