18+ AMERICANS: Is the U. S. Supreme Court today (6/29/2023) “striking down affirmative action in college admissions” a good thing and why?

Question

Reference article:  Note 1: Choose the answer-option in the poll that most closely matches your response to this question. Note 2: Please state in your comments WHICH ANSWER-OPTION LETTER you selected in the poll.

MrOracle · Accepted Answer

Affirmative Action was ALWAYS literally systemic racism, and a violation of Title IV of the Civil Rights Act. The whole concept was essentially "two wrongs make a right)". It's long overdue to be struck down.

This has legally ELIMINATED racism from college admissions (note that I said legally - it can't stop violations of the law, but now people can be held criminally liable for racist decisions). It is an absolute good thing.

Now, the people who get admitted will have EARNED their way in, regardless of their race. This levels the playing field, and that is what America is all about.

People opposed to this ruling are literally FOR RACISM. They SUPPORT real systematic, institutionalized racism, because that's what Affirmative Action always was.

FunkyMonkee · Accepted Answer

Because it's racist! I'll let uncle Jimmy tell you why.

nightdrot · Answer

Voted Yes, but it probably means less than the hyped media frenzy would suggest. In fact, it was a very nuanced ruling.

The point of Affirmative Action in college admissions was to make race and ethnicity the principle metric for judging such eligibility. The ruling made this unconstitutional and this makes a great deal of sense.

Affirmative Action, beyond being a prima facie violation of the equal protections of the law, was having perverse unintended consequences. Not least of these being that it tended to exclude certain groups with certain racial and ethnic heritages.

Specifically hurt were Asian and Indian (Asian, not Native American) students, whose average test scores are well above even white Americans but whose proportion of the population is small. Thus, by statistical fiat, they were often excluded from college admissions, particularly from the more elite (and expensive) institutions. (It should also be added that Asian and Indian Americans, on average, earn even more in salaries than white men and women.)

Suffice to say, the ruling helps alleviate to a great extent these problems and statistical aberrations. Though of course issues related to legacy admissions remain.

Yet for all that, the ruling did not go as far as its critics claim. While is did say that race and ethnicity could NOT be the sole criteria for college admissions, it stated that they could be considerations among a host of other factors.

Indeed, the ruling even noted that considerations like what zip code a student lives in could be factors in determining admissions. Suffice to say, it does not take too much imagination to assume that some schools will give priority to zip codes with minority majority populations.

There are other examples, but this makes the point. Suffice to say, while the ruling was solid both in constitutional terms and even in basic policy terms, it is not the "be all end all" solution to the problems with college admissions.

The law is too crude a tool to resolve such questions in any permanent or definitive way. Rather, cultural attitudes need to change. Insofar as "we shape the law and then the law shapes us," this ruling may help. However, it is more a point in an ongoing discussion than it is the definitive solution.

razelove · Answer

Yes, that's nice, though I highly doubt anything will change. College's make way too much money on students who fail out of courses and continue to go. I hold no hope for the virtues of the left or right on that one. It dries up a revenue source, so colleges that institute these policies will continue to do so until the fines from that outpace what they get from a 4 year degree taking 6 or more years for the same students.

Anyway, they'll keep doing it, just like jobs that ask for your race "purely for statistical purposes" Same with disability and veteran status, yep yep. I couldn't find stats on failing of affirmative action vs. non, only dropout rate, which was 19% vs 8%. Generally you don't drop out until you realize you can't make it, switching majors and what not happens first.

abc3643 · Answer

I voted "No" and I want to be clear why because, believe it or not, it has little to do with race.

On 28 JUN 2007, (newly appointed) US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the court's opinion which he authored in the case "Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1". That case (and one in Kentucky) was about using race to bring about desegregation within school districts. The manner in which these districts did so violated the Constitution according to the majority.

This is from the syllabus of the opinion:
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Respondent school districts voluntarily adopted student assignment plans that rely on race to determine which schools certain children may attend. The Seattle district, which has never operated legally segregated schools or been subject to court-ordered desegregation, classified children as white or nonwhite, and used the racial classifications as a “tiebreaker” to allocate slots in particular high schools. The Jefferson County, Ky., district was subject to a desegregation decree until 2000, when the District Court dissolved the decree after finding that the district had eliminated the vestiges of prior segregation to the greatest extent practicable. In 2001, the district adopted its plan classifying students as black or “other” in order to make certain elementary school assignments and to rule on transfer requests.
===
In his decision, Roberts wrote what is now a famous quote of his at the very end of the opinion:
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

I can't say that I disagree.

But that case involved public school school districts in which the only requirement to be admitted is to live within the district.

Post-secondary (aka college or university) education is another matter entirely.

Today's opinion as is heralded by conservatives makes sense prima facie; the best students get in based solely on merit regardless of race (or, ideally, any other non-merit attribute).

The problem with this short-sighted view is indirectly echoed by Mark Twain:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

- Mark Twain from "Innocents Abroad".

In short, Twain is saying seeing other places and other peoples broaden cs ones perspective - it is "fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness".

Well, if you don't have the finances to travel the world, the next best thing is to have the world come to you.

And that's what a college education does for most of us. When colleges select students to attend from a broad background of cultures, the students are exposed to the
all these other cultures via osmosis by interacting with other students from different backgrounds.

In other words, colleges are "the melting pot" that America is supposed to be.

This is vitally important to understand because the education a student receives at college and vastly more than what is learned in classes or what is certified by a diploma. The college experience is a monumental leap from being a provincial, self-centered, immature child to a worldly, mature adult capable of empathy and abstraction. By being surrounded by so many different people with so many different backgrounds, it is a shock - a shock for good which forever makes you a better person, a better citizen, and a better parent and guardian of our species and our world.

Now, with today's (29 JUN 2023) ruling in "Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard University", colleges are now more hobbled in their ability to ensure a broad background for their student body. The ability of colleges to create that melting pot is not significantly impaired.

========
I want to be clear about the impact of the college experience but discussing mine and no racial issues are involved.

In the 1980s, I attended a well-known STEM school in upstate NY. Most students either came from New York State (as I did) or from New England although we also had a significant international population.

Just being in my dormitory floor freshman year, I was exposed to students from Haiti, Japan, Canada, Pakistan, Brazil, and quite a few other states. These people became my friends. They included Whites, a Black guy (the Haitian), Asians, Jews, fundamentalist Christians (something I never experienced before), Muslims, etc. And our majors varied... so I learned about their majors. But, mostly, I learned about where they were from.

Here are some examples:
1. I am a native New Yorker from Long Island. Native NYers do no put mustard on hamburgers. Upstate, they did and I became shocked that they did that. And I learned to like it.
2. I learned that people in Western New York say "pop" instead of "soda".
3. I experienced hearing a thick New England accent.
4. I learned that a "grinder" and a "sub" are the same thing as a "hero".
5. I learned what a "Reuben" was.
6. I learned about the Rapture from newly Born-Again Christian roommate (who did not approve of my KISS and Led Zeppelin albums).
7. I learned about architecture.
etc.

All of this is because my college had a diverse student body. My buddy from home did not get in like I did. He would have been better than some of the students I knew there. I did resent that a bit - that we couldn't attend together but we could have if some of these less competent kids didn't attend. But, at the same time, I got to learn for this diverse body... and, being an ambassador from my home area, I helped broaden their minds with my cultural experiences.

Sadly, with today's ruling, I have to ask myself: "If my freshman year was 2023 and not 1981, could I have had the same broadening and growing experience?" I don't know.

I don't know if today's decision is correct from a legal perspective (I haven't read it yet), but today's decision does give the potential for tangible harm and, ironically, help exacerbate racism and bigotry - the opposite of Robert's earlier quote.

There is a place for affirmative actions such as these because diversity isn't just some "woke" liberal word; it is imperative to give one the wisdom that comes with a diversity of experiences; wisdom not gained when not exposed is not exposed to anything different which is what keeps, in Mark Twain's words, "prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness" alive and well.

Screenwriter · Answer

I'm sure those saying that striking down affirmative action is a good thing because there has been reverse discrimination since it's been instituted.

What researchers have found about affirmative action, and this was reported on NPR yesterday, is that it improved the financial/social prospects of minority students. But white students were not financially/socially harmed by losing the few spots that minority students had opportunities to occupy in the top colleges.

It seems that white students THINK they are being denied opportunities by a giant swath of minority students and this is simply not the case. There are a small number of minority students compared to the number of white students who are competing for places.

51 percent of white students at Harvard are Legacy students. Maybe 10 percent are minority legacy students. Meaning they get in because their parents were graduates primarily. Other considertions are secondary. No one is complaining about THESE kind of entrants.

And there are entrants whose parents have donated significant amounts of money to a university, or a building, or scholarships. That is those students' primary method of entrance.

But for students who are first-generation college students and from disadvantaged families, not the upper-middle class and wealthy students who are the traditional students at these universities, race is used as one of the qualifications to open doors for students who would otherwise never have a chance. There are also white students who qualify as disadvantaged and first-generation college students.

But in this country affirmative action college admissions were put into place by a 1965 Act of Congress. There are some universities and colleges that have NEVER employed affirmative action in admissions and have never had the goal of having diverse student bodies that reflect the population of our nation as a whole.

MOST affirmative action college admissions weren't stressed until at least a decade after the initial act and more were put into place after the 2000s, because universities are dinosaurs that move and change very slowly.

In effect, it's been less than 50 years of SOME universities attempting to level the playing field and to open doors that have been closed to women, the disabled and racial and ethnic minority groups.

When one group is disadvantaged ALL groups are. When doors are closed, generational wealth, education and opportunities are also.

There was a practice called slavery that enriched a subset of Americans in the North and South. It disadvantaged a swath of people to enrich those others. Slaves were denied educations, paid employment, intact families, were used as sexual slaves, were worked and beaten, sometimes to death, and had no personal freedom to live, to participate in the democracy they occupied.

To do MORE for groups of people who have historically had and still have fewer opportunities than the majority of people, the majority that still is overrepresented in the halls of power, still makes sense. Employment and education are the simplest ways to do this.

And remember, only 25% of people even attempt a college education, so you are talking about a minority of minorities.

It will take 100 years before giant strides can be made and with this setback, maybe a hundred more.

The dehumanization of one group of people dehumanizes ALL people.

NamerOfStars · Answer

Hell yes. Racial discrimination is BAD, remember? So if that's bad, and rewarding incompetence is bad, and violating equal opportunity law is bad, then why would putting all three together be anything other than awful?

I'm Irish on one side and mostly Irish on the other. One side of my family was brought to what would become this country as slaves. No, not indentured servants, with all the legal protections that entailed, straight-up slaves. The other side came here at a time when Irish people were viewed as white ni- well, you know how that slur ends. You know those "No Irish need apply" signs that so many historical revisionists think never existed? My great-grandfather made a habit of stealing them in his younger days; great-grandma made him get rid of them whenever she'd find one, but after he died, we found eleven more he'd managed to hide from her. At the time he arrived, the Irish settled in enclaves that were poor, dirty, noisy, and dangerous, often to the point where police wouldn't even dare to enter them, because it wasn't safe for groups of armed men, trained to fight to come in.

Today, the Irish are just another subtype of white people. That didn't happen because of discriminatory laws biasing jobs or schools in our favor; that would only have made things worse. It happened because my people had the guts and the combativeness and the whiskey to stand up and fight against entrenched social and economic evils by leading the charge of the labor movement. You think stodgy old Englishmen and Germans would've taken on the freaking US Army at Blair Mountain? Of course not; they're not crazy enough.

I don't say all this to brag, but to point out that being propped up by someone else, over the long term, doesn't make you stronger; it makes you more reliant on them and less able to stand on your own. Every other ethnicity that's started as horribly disadvantaged but managed to climb the ladder out of poverty and misery- the Jews, the Chinese, the Koreans- has done it by climbing. Sometimes they've been given a boost, but you don't get higher by bringing everyone else LOWER.

Anonymous · Answer

It really doesn't matter anymore, because in all honesty, there are very few types of people going to Universities now, and they don't include the middle class guy. People on scholarship, international exchange, and daughters/sons of alumni (admitted because their parents donate a healthy amount to the alumni association, and the school wants to continue the family legacy). For instance... I went to a 6 week sheet metal certification course recently at the local carpenters union, and the 6 week course paid us a weekly debit card stipend paid for BY THE CITY... AND... got graduates (all who chose to), immediate jobs with national contractors, starting at an average between $15-$20/hr-unskilled. There were 20 of us. About 3/4 of us were under age 25-typical University age. Guess how many were female? 1. Guess how many were Black? 2(and 1 of those was a guy in his 50's). My point is... the people who affirmative action was aimed at freezing out? Have realized what a laughable joke going to college is, except for about 3 fields. They can go to Job Corps, or ALL KINDS of certification courses like this-many for tech related certifications for 9 mos-paid for by the government... owe ZERO at graduation... start out making $18/hr in a poor state-MUCH more in a state like CA or N. Y.-get a stipend while they go... all before they're even old enough to drink a beer. Why go get a worthless liberal arts degree, be 100K in debt... work long hours for a nonprofit with that degree while making less than high school kids at McDonald's in Seattle... all just to say "I have a degree?" The only people getting (mostly) those degrees now in University (except for those 3 fields) are the kind of people AA was designed to supposedly "help" and are actually getting screwed. The people who knew AA was screwing them, have figured out how to make a career without owing the government a damn thing and having THEM PAY FOR IT. So the truth is... keep it, toss it, it doesn't matter. Look at the NBA draft... college players are becoming obsolete. Guys are skipping college, going to G League, using NIL to make millions while still in high school. Universities games they play are making them obsolete in a lot of people's eyes now. For many, they're not even needed at all now.

DaveJord · Answer

Its a Blatant racist policy. Sure, there was a time and place for it... but that time is over. Its Affirmative Action was discrimination against WHITES.

Take my sister for example... graduated Highschool with 4.2 GPA, all honors class. But she was white, and my parents were middle class. So, they made just enough not to qualify for anything, but too little to pay for college. Sister put into 8 different colleges and only got accepted to one. But if she was black, she would of totally of got in. Because being a Minority (especially Black) Female was like the golden ticket because you were a double minority. You check off two blocks at once and would qualify for more finical aid and scholarships because you were a minority.

So Affirmative Action was great, because it made collage more affordable for low-income families, but honestly only if you were a minority was it more affordable. Because if you were a poor white person, you just weren't going to get into that collage unless you could afford to pay for it. And if you could afford it, you either didn't go to college, or you went to less a college and took out loans to do it.

lightbulb27 · Answer

Yes.

might be bad for some. I wonder how many kids skirt through the system then get into colleges due to "quotas". If that changes, creates problems. It's not their fault, but it's their responsibility to compete.

I see some cultures and families pushing kids to succeed... it's a lot of work to get some gets through the system. I see other kids flap around like beached fish. Parents make the difference, not these laws. Wealth and a good school system helps. Forget about the system though, can't change it, so succeed inspite of it. That's harder for a lot of kids though that can't see outside the mess they are in, lack control to influence it, and parents are clueless about the reality their kids face in the classrooms. That's all a bit off topic but relevant.

In other words, focus on what matters rather than complain about being fair. there is no fair. If a kid is performing well, parents are active and guiding, has resources, opportunity, social networking, guidance, does the work... they will do fine. If not, they are in trouble in this country and world.

Anonymous · Answer

Affirmative Action is racism. Imagine the democrats telling black people that you are not smart enough to get into colleges, so we will will lower the bar just for you. They create two sets of standards and you have situations where a white or Asian person scoring in the 1500's get rejected while a black person with barely a 900 gets in. Everyone loses when this happens. You create an environment where black people know they don't have to study hard to get in a college. I know they are capable of it! No race of people are born smarter than the other. If you tell one race that they don't have to study as hard to reach the same goals, they will not apply themselves. I think that is what the democrat party wants. They want black people to be less educated and totally dependent on them. They still have the same plantation owner mentality as they had in the 1800's when they owned slaves and then created the KKK. In 1850, every slave was owned by a democrat. No Republicans owned slaves.

BadApple69 · Answer

I said “Hell Yes” because as much as the left hates to hear this being color Blind is how racism ends. When everything is about race (including wether or not you can get into a university) then race will always matter. In the case of universities, they were discriminating against Asian students because they are Asian. And in other cases there is discrimination against white people because we are white. BUT…. If anyone discriminated against a black or brown person they would have the weight of the government down on their heads. I thought, but could be wrong… the government is by the people, for the people… ALL PEOPLE! This current administration wants to divide us up into little groups and get us fighting amongst our each other.

richardcory · Answer

We've had almost 2 generations of affirmative action and the problem remains. I think the root problems happen much earlier than college, and it would be far better to put effort into education of young children.

The way education is funded in the US, there is a huge range of $/student depending on where people live.

Sixgunsound · Answer

We are long overdue for a return yo meritocracy in the places that are creating the leaders of tomorrow. Racist recruiting practices only serve as a concrete demonstration to future leaders that not only is racism validated by government and higher education, but that it is also a viable means to be twisted to personal advantage over more deserving candidates. This decision does not say any race can't win admission on their merits, it simply says candidates without sufficient merit cannot play the race card for unearned privilige. It is unsurprising that the dissenting justices capitalized on this race card to get into their positions. It is unreasonable to characterize this blow against racism as anything but an unalloyed good, yet also unsurprising that the strongest resistance comes from the party of Jim Crow and the KKK. Voted against racist admissions policies.

RealMarek · Answer

It would be great if they really banned racial discrimination (aka affirmative action), but Roberts put some wiggle words in his opinion: "an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise." Believe me, nothing will change.

Phoenix98 · Answer

It's a good thing because Affirmative Action has been improperly used for far to long and for the wrong reasons.

Besides true equality would be giving everyone equal opportunity for success that means everyone starting out on the same starting line. And not be given a free ride to the finish line.

And your not going to get anywhere in life if your always propped/stood up by someone else.

All that aside college in genuinely a waste of time these days if you want to get someone in life your better off going to a trade school because your going to get your money's worth and it's actually going to end with you having a job viable degree that's going to make you money instead of some useless degree you spent 60,000+ dollars on that isn't viable for a single job on earth. On top of that trade schools are cheaper, shorter and provide on the job schooling and training.

RavVid · Answer

A - not an American. Regardless affirmative action is not unique to US but SCOTUS is of course.

It depends on the degree. The important is can the student deal with the course?

If bumping them up just results in them dropping out it is really doing any good.

Avicenna · Answer

The ruling was correct from a legal point of view, but will probably not make much of a difference in the long run. Universities are run by leftists with an agenda, and that agenda is not fairness or helping those who are really oppressed.

RingOfFire · Answer

The 14th Amendment says that you cannot discriminate on the basis of race.

Affirmative Action is EXACTLY for the purpose of discriminating on the basis of race.

DUHHHHHHHH

My 4 year old niece can figure that one out!

I am assuming the lawyers who brought the case to begin with must have been admitted to law school on Affirmative Action rather than their merit and were too dumb to figure that out.

AviatorTom · Answer

Affirmative action, taken to its extreme with a quota system, is just a form of reverse racial discrimination.

LiamJHayden · Answer

I voted "Yes" but would prefer a more nuanced decision. I get that it applies to all schools that receive federal funds, but I would prefer that it was limited to actual state run institutions and that private ones be permitted to do what they want even if they accept federal aid..

Whatthefluff · Answer

It is a good thing. Affirmative action does more harm than good.

18+ AMERICANS: Is the U. S. Supreme Court today (6/29/2023) “striking down affirmative action in college admissions” a good thing and why?

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