During the Supreme Court‘s affirmative action hearing this week, Justice Neil Gorsuch invoked squash players to inquire whether colleges could further diversify their student body by removing admissions policies that “tend to favor” the wealthy and white demographic.
As members of the 6-3 Republican-appointed majority on the high court appeared skeptical about the use of race in college admissions, one of the six conservative justices, Gorsuch, expressed his belief that sports such as squash and rowing crew “favor predominantly white children.” The topic was raised in discussions Monday for cases brought against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, which are alleged to have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
In response to his comments on Monday, the College Squash Association has served up a fact sheet to correct the “false narrative” and “inaccurate stereotype” posited by the Republican-appointed justice.
HARVARD BEGS SUPREME COURT TO KEEP AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND PROTECT ‘STUDENT BODY DIVERSITY’
CSA argued that 43.5% of varsity student squash athletes were “listed as a race/ethnicity other than white during the 2021-2022 season,” according to a document shared with the Washington Examiner.
The group noted that the data presented outpaced the overall percentage of nonwhite student athletes published by the NCAA in 2021, which was 36.7%.
“[Gorsuch’s] inclusion of squash athletes in a group of prospective students which ‘tend to favor predominantly white children’ is an outdated and false narrative as demonstrated by the existing broad and diverse college squash community,” David Poolman, executive director and league commissioner of CSA, wrote in the document.
The bulk of Monday’s arguments focused on whether colleges should be able to apply admissions policies that categorize applicants in preferential ways. Such categories include the applicant’s race and whether they are admitted to play a sport or are the children of donors, faculty, or alumni.
Students for Fair Admissions, the conservative nonprofit group that sued both universities, argues the admissions policies and other categories that influence admissions should be removed or reduced in the final determination for selecting applicants. The group is in favor of a more “race-neutral” policy that relies more on socioeconomic factors that would maintain diversity goals and ensure fairness for potential students with backgrounds such as Asian Americans or Hispanics.
“Harvard argues,” Gorsuch, who graduated from Harvard Law School, said, “that we have a compelling interest in diversity writ large and that this court has deferred to that interest, and among the diverse things that we need to have in our class are children of large donors … children of legacies and the squash team. I’m not making it up. It’s in the record.”
“Let’s say if it just gave up preferences for donors’ children, legacies, and squash athletes … or maybe those who row crew, all of which tend to favor predominantly white children, and it could achieve whatever it deemed racial diversity, would it then be permitted to engage in race consciousness, or in that circumstance, would you agree that it would not be narrowly tailored?” the justice continued.
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Legal counsel for Harvard disagrees with SFFA’s assertion, contending that Harvard’s percentage of roughly 14% black students could drop down to 6%.
The two cases challenging affirmative action are among the most high-profile that the 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court will hear this term. A decision is not expected to be released until the spring of 2023.
