On the cusp of an important affirmative action trial involving Harvard, a national poll has found that 72 percent of Americans disapprove of racial preference in college admissions. Next month, the U.S District Court in Boston will hear Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University. The case was brought three years ago against Harvard by a group of Asian students claiming that the highly competitive Ivy League school’s admissions policy makes them a surplus demographic and their acceptance less likely than that of an equally qualified non-Asian applicant’s.
This latest public opinion poll, conducted by Boston-area WGBH and consulting firm ABT Associates, is consistent with previous surveys showing meager support for a policy pioneered in the 1960s—a well-meaning civil rRights solution that’s since shown to be broadly unpopular and sometimes, as SFFA’s discrimination case alleges, actually counterproductive.
Asked specifically whether they agree with the Supreme Court’s rulings on the matter thus far—the latest decision upholding affirmative action was handed down in 2016’s Fisher v. University of Texas—nearly three-quarters of national respondents said no. The poll reflects, but slightly surpasses, recent findings from Gallup (that 65 percent disapproved of the Fisher ruling in 2016) and Rasmussen (that 60 percent opposed in 2017). In three national polls, in three years, a majority did not support race-based affirmative.
Eight states—including California, Texas, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma—have banned race-based college admissions. And just this July, the Trump administration started the process to rescind a slew of Obama-era Justice Department edicts promoting the intentional diversification of student bodies at every level of public schooling.
It seems a rare instance of the federal government responding to the wishes of teachers. Another poll this year showed a similar majority’s opposition to affirmative action, but it pulled from a sample of school teachers rather than the broader public. A majority of respondents to Education Next’s annual survey opposed not just race-based affirmative action but also the income-based version, which progressives tend to promote as an alternative. Teachers witness daily, and across decades, the effects of these policies on their classroom communities’ and their individual students’ development. They see what the general public doesn’t.
The clearest defense of affirmative action is that it remains the most efficient way to ensure campuses are diverse. Some of its opponents propose replacing the current race-based system with an income-based one. Studies attempting to project how socio-economic affirmative action would work differ, however, on whether such a policy would actually keep communities from skewing whiter, or more Asian—as with the trend SFFA argues Harvard took such pains to resist. The “soft skills” factored into Harvard’s admissions criteria work against Asian applicants intentionally, the students argue, describing an obviously unfair process.
Income-based affirmative actionwon’t promote a strict meritocracy. But neither does a generic, sans-affirmative-action admissions process. College admissions favor applicants whose parents set them on a path toward college. The surest step toward meritocracy after affirmative action would be to leave behind one key unfair advantage that’s available to a slim minority of the elite applicant pool. If the District Court of Massachusetts decides in these students’ favor this fall, the end of the affirmative action era will likely leave legacy admissions vulnerable. Can you call yourself an egalitarian and still have your kid check the “legacy” box on his application to your alma mater? Many do.
Public opinion is also prone to self-contradiction. Most of the 1,002 adults surveyed by WGBH—a majority of whom are black, Hispanic, and Asian according to the write-up the network published—said for instance that they consider diversity in higher education a worthy goal: Asked to rank the value of campus diversity, 86 percent prized it as a goal of at least “somewhat” importance. These are the same 1,002 respondents three-quarters of whom opposed SCOTUS’s recent rulings on affirmative action, decisions the court made in defense of diversity on campuses.
Is there any world in which the abolition of affirmative action and the practical maintenance of racial diversity in schools aren’t mutually exclusive? Now, with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy—and the Harvard case’s presumed path to the Supreme Court—we’ll find out soon enough. In principle, valuing diversity and opposing affirmative action don’t necessarily conflict. Respondents either didn’t think too deeply about the questions, or they support the institution of a diverse meritocracy on campuses, in keeping with the American promise.
It is generally true that the more and the better we know people who differ from us—in race, background, and worldview—the wiser and worldier we are, and the fuller our lives will be. These respondents, chosen to a represent a certain cross-section of the country, may simply believe that race doesn’t overrule or dictate merit and that the official entangling of the two is unfair. In practice, public opinion perceives, it does more harm than good. The growing unpopularity of affirmative action evident in most, but not all, public polls does suggest that the more we as a society see of the policy—and here the effect may be accelerated for educators—the less we support its continued practice.
