What a Supreme Court Ruling on Affirmative Action Could Mean for the Next Generation of College Students

By D&A Communications Staff

In the spring of 2019, America learned that students from elite backgrounds -- in this case, the children of Hollywood stars -- were given preferential acceptance to top schools like Harvard and Yale. Actors Lori Laughlin and Felicity Huffman were indicted and sentenced to prison terms for their roles in paying bribes and orchestrating staged photos of their daughters’ athletic abilities in order to ensure that they were accepted to schools on laurels they never earned.

In all, more than 50 people were indicted in the scandal, dubbed Operation Varsity Blues.

In yet another scandal, countless private universities and colleges were found to have given preferential admissions to students who had so-called “legacy” status -- parents who either attended those schools or who made sizeable donations to the school.

According to researchers, children from the top 1-percent are 77 times more likely to attend an elite private college compared with children in the bottom 20 percent.

According to researchers at UC Berkeley, Stanford and Brown University, children from the top 1-percent are 77 times more likely to attend an elite private college compared with children in the bottom 20 percent (1), while a 2020 Wall Street Journal reports that 56% of the nation’s top 250 institutions considered legacy in their admissions process (2). 

Nevertheless, the conservative majority in the Supreme Court are expected to strike down what remains of Affirmative Action in education, questioning the legal rationale and impressing the idea that colleges and universities should enact a more "race neutral" admissions policies to improve racial diversity.

It’s a sentiment that has swept the nation in recent years, with a wave of anti-diversity sentiment being reflected in bills that restrict any DEI efforts in 17 states including Florida and Texas.

Affirmative Action: Why It Still Matters

If the court strikes down affirmative action — also known as “race-conscious admissions policies” — it would make it unconstitutional for universities across the country to consider a student’s race as one factor in a holistic admissions review process.

And while some would argue that race will still be factored into a student’s admissions equation, not having a legal mandate would potentially allow some institutions to slide back in time to how things were before such a statute existed.

 Our world has changed and continues to evolve to that of a multi-ethnic and multi-national culture. Our educational institutions should reflect the positive changes offered in a pluralistic society.

The fact is -- and it’s proven in research -- race-conscious admissions policies serve the best interests of all students -- not just those of color -- by creating a diverse student body, promoting campus integration, and most importantly, an inclusive educational experience that benefits how students experience and engage with educational content (3).

Our world has changed and continues to evolve to that of a multi-ethnic and multi-national culture. Our educational institutions should reflect the positive changes offered in a pluralistic society.

An “Unfair Advantage”

Critics of diversity programs in education consistently cite that such practices are “quota based” and give an unfair advantage to students simply based on race -- when in fact, their racial background only one part of the equation for their acceptance. Some say that institutionalizing and “holding space” for students of color discriminates against qualified white students, overlooking entirely the historical discrimination against people of color in education and how diversity impacts a student’s educational experience.

In the landmark 1978 case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court weighed in on schools that used affirmative action as a means of rectifying the wrongs committed in the Civil Rights era with segregation.

Justice Lewis Powell ruled that schools could not use affirmative action to rectify the effects of past racial discrimination, but did concede that campus diversity would benefit all races, not just minorities. While race was not allowed to be the single reason for acceptance, schools could weigh race as a factor in an applicant’s background. 

The Case for Socioeconomic Affirmative Action

Advocates for socioeconomic status to affirmative action, or SES, say that race-conscious affirmative action is flawed because it still supports the interests of wealthy students and fosters racial animosity.

It has always been historically harder for poor children to achieve, not only because of their race but because the economics of their class gives them a vastly different childhood experience.

Jeffrey Kahlenberg, formerly a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, has become a progressive voice with a starkly contrasting viewpoint of race-conscious affirmative action. When Harvard University and the University of North Carolina were challenged in court with using race as a factor in discrimination, Kahlenberg testified that elite colleges have become “fortresses for the rich” and that Harvard in particular, has “23 times as many rich kids as poor kids,” referencing a 2017 paper by Raj Chetty, a Stanford economist and colleague. 

Indeed, it has always been historically harder for poor children to achieve, not only because of their race but because the economics of their class gives them a vastly different childhood experience -- from where they live, to the intangible benefits that wealth allows with its extracurricular activities and high caliber school districts. 

Case in point, the achievement gap in standardized test scores between rich and poor children is roughly twice the size of the gap between Black and white children. That’s more than it was more than half a century ago (4).

Regardless of viewpoints, race and class are inextricably intertwined and those two factors are why Affirmative Action still matters, however you decide to define it. 

As we come closer to a Supreme Court decision on affirmative action in 2023, schools are still implementing policies to weigh a student’s eligibility and factoring more than just GPA and student activities. A 2019 survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling found that 24.6% of schools cited race as a "considerable" or "moderate" influence on admissions. Still, more than half reported that race played no role whatsoever (5).

To date, nine states have banned the use of race in admissions policies, including Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

If the Court does rule to ban affirmative action, we will certainly see schools scrambling to find new ways of ensuring diversity. But without a legal mandate in place, it’s doubtful that we will see a guarantee of equal access to education as what previous generations have benefitted from for decades.

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1. Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility, R. Chetty, et al. National Bureau for Economic Research, 2017.

2. Legacy Preference Gets Fresh Look Following College-Admissions Scandal, Douglas Belkin. February 22, 2020. Wall Street Journal.

3. Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development Office of the Under Secretary, U.S. Department of Education. 2016.

4. The Widening Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations, Sean Reardon, Stanford University, September 2011. 

5. National Association for College Admission Counseling, 2019.