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Affirmative action: What pops into mind at that phrase? With the Supreme Court ruling to end it this summer, the question is whether or not campuses will prioritize diversity.
Affirmative action was, at its core, about creating opportunity where it didn’t exist historically.
To properly answer that question, it’s important to understand affirmative action’s role in admissions. What purpose did it serve in education? Most simply, it was a plan to provide opportunity to all people, regardless of race or gender. The transparency of including identity data in applications allowed universities to take gender and race into account during the admissions process; it allowed schools to strive for a certain quota of gender and racial presence on campus, to produce more diverse leaders.
Affirmative action was, at its core, about creating opportunity where it didn’t exist historically.
Still, affirmative action primarily benefited white women since its inception in 1953. Ever since it was put into place, the number of women in most colleges has slowly risen. While the perception was that spots in schools were being taken from white students and given to POC students, realistically the majority of change took place in gender equity.
According to Pew Research Center, 50% of adult Americans interviewed disapproved of affirmative action, with 52% of Asian people disapproving, 57% of white people disapproving, 39% of Hispanic people disagreeing, and 29% of Black people disagreeing. Many reported their views were tied to a misinformed bias that affirmative action was taking spots away from qualified students to give them to underqualified Black and Hispanic students.
Affirmative action was a necessary facet of society to keep diversity levels up. The real problems stand with legacy admissions—those students are the underqualified people taking spots away from those who would bring something new to campuses. Giving spots to students of color and different genders is not the problem; reserving spots for students simply because of a large donation or generational connection is the problem.
Affirmative action was important, and its loss will have negative impacts on the diversities in our society.
In order to combat the negative impacts of overturning affirmative action, students must continue conversations about diversity, and not use their connections to influence the admissions process. Honesty and advocacy will provide the solutions.
