Affirmative action in college admissions is racist, ineffective, and pernicious. The Supreme Court heard a challenge to its legality this week and seems likely to strike it down as a violation of the Constitution. If this is the court’s decision next year, it would be long overdue.
Racism means prejudice and discrimination based on race. Prejudice refers to making decisions and conclusions about a person based on the person’s race and not on reason or actual experience. Identity politics runs in this vein because it groups people based on the irrelevant attribute of race and assumes that all people of one race have had the same experience.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ON THE LINE AS SUPREME COURT HEARS HARVARD AND UNC ADMISSIONS CASE
It is racist to assume that there exists a “black perspective” or a “white perspective” or a single perspective or life experience associated with any race. Placing people in so-called affinity groups based on race is to make a predetermined judgment about that person for no reason other than the color of their skin.
Chasing racial diversity is a fool’s errand. The definition of race is fuzzy at best, and as new families are formed, it promises to become even fuzzier in the future. For example, is a child of white and black parents white or black? The answer is: It shouldn’t matter.
Likewise, what does it mean to say someone is Asian when the term covers more than half of the world’s population and dozens of countries all with unique languages, cultures, and religions?
To be sure, our history and the world’s history include imposing terrible abuses on people because of irrelevant characteristics such as race, religion, or gender. This is why the United States has laws to prevent discrimination on the basis of these irrelevant characteristics. Our laws recognize that making judgments about people based simply on their race will lead to more inequality, not less.
It’s past time that we recognize this in the context of college and university admissions. Racial classifications deny individuality.
The Supreme Court agreed in a 1978 decision that ruled affirmative action to remedy past discrimination was no longer justified. However, Justice Lewis Powell in his concurring opinion noted that colleges and universities continued to have a compelling interest in creating a diverse student body. Thus, fiat lux, the era of diversity was created.
Later, in 2003, the court ruled that race could not be used as a quantifiable admissions basis but could be a factor in admissions decisions. Most recently, in 2016, race in admissions has been confined to one factor in “holistic” admissions decisions.
The court is widely expected to rule this term, though barring another leak we will not likely see the decision until June, that the use of race in admissions in any form is a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and, for private colleges and universities, that Title VI, the statute that bans racial discrimination in education, prohibits affirmative action.
If such a decision is forthcoming, colleges and universities would no longer be allowed to pursue explicit racial diversity. However, seeking diversity based on characteristics such as economic status, class, viewpoint, and/or geography would continue to be permissible.
Diversity, though a vaguely defined term at best, is certainly important but should not be sought blindly. Problem-solving and decision-making are enhanced when the people working on the problem or decision have a broad range of perspectives, methods, and experiences. But race is not a good proxy for determining a person’s perspective, character, or experiences.
Finally, discriminating on the basis of race in college admissions is pernicious because it leads to suspicion and self-doubt, which, though often unwarranted, is quite damaging. Any student who could have been the beneficiary of such discrimination, even if they were not in fact benefited, is harmed more than helped because it creates suspicion in others regarding the legitimacy of that person’s status and often creates self-doubt in any person who may have been the beneficiary of the “thumb on the scale” that is affirmative action.
We should be glad to say goodbye to affirmative action.
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George A. Nation III is a professor of law and business at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The views expressed represent the author and not Lehigh University.
