Introduction
Policies promoting affirmative action seek to improve the representation of minority groups and women. In the workplace, this may imply practices that encourage the hiring of disadvantaged minorities. Through affirmative action, special consideration can be given to minority candidates in college applications. Affirmative action has sparked heated arguments, numerous legal challenges and is misinterpreted more often than not. Nevertheless, as a theoretical model, affirmative action is relevant for advancing a broad racial justice policy. The term has been used since the start of President Kennedy’s administration more than fifty years ago. Its enduring principles are crucial for eradicating systemic practices that exclude highly competent people of color and other marginalized goods.
The United States Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment forbids states from denying any individual in their territory the equal protection of the laws. Nonetheless, several state universities provide significant admissions preferences to particular races. The Supreme Court accepted such favors in Regents of Uni. of California v. Bakke (1978), although the decision was close and contentious (Kaplin & Lee, 2009). On the one hand, these favors ensure equality, eliminate previous discrimination, and increase educational heterogeneity, therefore fulfilling the fundamental goal of equal protection. However, on the other hand, they may be interpreted as favoring certain races at the detriment of others, which contradicts the Equal Protection Clause’s stated objective. This essay underscores the need for a middle ground in interpreting and implementing affirmative action to ensure that all students in postsecondary education feel discriminated against by the policies.
The Legal Confines of Affirmative action in Higher Education
Affirmative action has a special place in America’s struggle to end discrimination. The term initially appeared in Executive Order 10925, issued by President JFK Kennedy in 1961 (Rose, 2021). The executive order established the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and ordered federally funded programs to “take affirmative action” to guarantee that recruitment and employment procedures are not racially biased against minorities. This program reinforced awareness that centuries-old racism (by statute and tradition) intrinsically limited black people and other marginalized populations’ socio-economic, political, and academic opportunities (Kaplin & Lee, 2009). For example, colorblind seniority schemes safeguarded white employees from employment layoffs since senior employees were typically white due to historical and current employment prejudice. Similarly, a colorblind admissions procedure benefited white candidates due to historical and continuing educational privileges connected with ethnicity (Rose, 2021). The premise of affirmative action is that pre-emptive measures are required to level an unequal field of play.
Since its inception, courts have narrowed the definition of acceptable affirmative action measures. Affirmative action programs were first developed in higher education institutions in the 1960s and 1970s to increase access for underprivileged and disadvantaged groups in society, particularly people of color (Benokraitis & Feagin, 2019). In 1978, the Supreme Court got the opportunity to deliberate on such policies in the Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke. The case was filed by Allan Bakke, a white man who was refused entry to pursue medicine at the University of California at Davis (UC Davis). Thus, people who qualified as financially or academically underprivileged and were part of a marginalized community were given 16 of the university’s 100 seats (Kaplin & Lee, 2009). Several justifications were provided to support this affirmative action program.
To begin with, UC Davis claimed that the initiative was designed to address previous inequality in medical schools and the healthcare field. Second, it was used to combat current societal prejudice. Thirdly, it expanded the number of doctors in neglected areas. Finally, it stressed the educational advantages that come with having a multicultural student population. UC Davis’s policy would have been sustained as constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment on the basis that it was designed to mitigate the impact of previous social prejudice, according to four justices (Kaplin & Lee, 2009). These justices were considered highly conservative and prohibited institutions from using race to shape their admission criteria. Accordingly, the final decision on the issues rested on Justice Lewis Powell Jr. He dismissed UC Davis’s contention that it had a legitimate goal of addressing historical prejudice and boosting the number of healthcare practitioners in underprivileged regions, saying that it did not meet strict scrutiny standards.
Consequently, Powell merely backed UC Davis’s contention that it has a strong commitment to the advantages of a multicultural student population. He then dismissed the race-conscious curriculum at UC Davis based on how it was implemented in reality (Kaplin & Lee, 2009). Ultimately, Powell determined that the seats set aside for disadvantaged groups represented a threshold that did not fulfill the criteria for limited customization. The race-conscious strategy provided by Harvard University as a component of its advisory opinion, on the other hand, received the justices’ support (Deibel, 2018). Following Harvard’s policy, all candidates were entitled to a heavily personalized, comprehensive assessment process that took race into account one of several parameters to consider multicultural students along with a range of metrics such as socio-economic background, geographic location, and race.
In recent years, the Supreme Court has frequently confirmed the legitimacy of race-conscious enrollment as a means of promoting inclusivity in postsecondary learning, despite challenges from the lower courts. For example, in 1995 and 1997, petitioners Gratz and Hamacher applied for acceptance to the University of Michigan. Both were Michigan citizens and of White ethnicity (Kaplin & Lee, 2009). Even though the university deemed Gratz to be highly eligible and Hamacher to be in the qualifying category, they were refused early entry and subsequently denied admission to the program. Accordingly, they sued the university, arguing that race as a component of its admissions policy infringes the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Consequently, in Gratz v. Bollinger, a federal court found that the application of race as a criterion in enrollment at the University of Michigan was legally permissible in the U.S. (Kaplin & Lee, 2009). The general thrust of the institution’s reasoning was that, in the same way that preference is given to students of alumni, scholarship athletes, and other groups for purposes presumed advantageous to the school, the affirmative action program serves a rational basis by offering learning advantages resulting from a multicultural student population.
In Grutter v. Bollinger, a lawsuit identical to the University of Michigan student complaint, a separate judge reached the contrary decision, rejecting the law school’s criteria. The court determined no evident or essential connection between intellectual diversity and ethnic diversity (Kaplin & Lee, 2009). However, an appeals court overturned the verdict a year later, stating that the admissions criteria were lawful. In subsequent judgments, the Supreme Court has approved Bakke and re-sponsored specialized evaluation systems that include race among the many variables to foster inclusion in its judgments. For example, in Fisher v. the University of Texas, Abigail Fisher, a Caucasian high school student, disputed the school’s policy of considering race as a qualifying factor when a student was not in the top 10 percent of their graduating class by arguing that the program violated the Constitution (Kaplin & Lee, 2009). In her complaint, Fisher alleged that the provision was discriminatory towards Caucasian students. The Supreme Court ruled narrowly that colleges are legally allowed to apply the race component in their enrollment policy as long as it aims to increase diversity.
Likewise, in 2014 Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued Harvard University, alleging that its race application policy violates the Fourteenth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause. The complaints substantially restate earlier lawsuit claims, claiming that universities should pay more attention to socio-economic situations rather than race, that standardized assessments establish a baseline for who warrants enrollment, and that there is adequate racial and ethnic diversity on campus (Ratanjee, 2020). The case’s primary goal was to create a colorblind system. The lawsuit petitioned the court to ban the employment of ethnicity or race in academic contexts and bar enrollment personnel from knowing a candidate’s ethnic or racial origin (Ratanjee, 2020). Five years later, the Boston district court upheld Harvard University’s race-conscious enrolment policy without limitations.
If the case were successful, it would have far-reaching effects. Primarily, the situation would have significantly changed the enrolment procedure. Removing all links to race might hinder institutions from performing face-to-face interviews and enrolling candidates. Likewise, it would risk students’ opportunity to present essays and proposals regarding how ethnicity or race has influenced their lives. Moreover, it would also prevent them from presenting their views regarding immigration, a thorny issue in present-day America. In reality, it would punish specific candidates in the guise of equal protection.
Race-Conscious Admissions Ban across States
Historically, most cases challenging race-conscious admissions have been unsuccessful. However, race-based affirmative action is presently banned at all public colleges in eight states. Washington, California, Michigan, Arizona, Nebraska, and Oklahoma have enacted such prohibitions by the popular vote. Likewise, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida signed an executive order enacting the restriction in 2000 (Liu, 2020). In New Hampshire, the assembly approved a law prohibiting race from being taken into account. In Texas, a prohibition was enforced from 1996 to 2003, premised on a lower court judgment (Liu, 2020). In response to lower court disputes, the University of Georgia willingly withdrew the race factor and proclaimed the move official (Liu, 2020). All these states provide evidence of what occurs when institutions are driven to promote multiculturalism without regard for race. In virtually every one of these states, public premier institutions reacted to affirmative action restrictions by developing new strategies for boosting racial, cultural, and socio-economic heterogeneity in universities.
Creating Percent Plans Texas
Florida and California established schemes to ensure enrollment to public universities for exceptional graduates from every high school in their respective states. These initiatives, at their most basic level, produce geographic variety. However, because high schools are usually separated by class and ethnicity, percent programs promote racial and socio-economic balance by allowing graduates from under-funded high schools to apply (Liu, 2020). Such students are those who had never thought that one day they would join a premier research institution.
Incorporating Socioeconomic Aspects into Admissions
Colleges have also begun to include socio-economic variables in their admissions processes. For example, they take into consideration criteria like affluence, family income, single-parent status, area demographics, parents’ educational level, and high school achievement. Students at the University of Washington, for example, are now being asked about personal problems, employment, or family commitments they have had to deal with as part of their application process (Oniki, 2020). Furthermore, students who have endured hardships but have shown outstanding academic success in the face of such hurdles are given an advantage by the institution.
Backing New Financial Aid Programs
Financial assistance is an essential component of helping low-income students once they have been admitted to a university. In this context, comparing aid offerings is a crucial element in determining where to study. Many states have implemented new financial assistance schemes to provide funding for low-income students and encourage them to enroll in college or university. Nebraska, for instance, has implemented the Collegebound Nebraska program, which provides free education at all University of Nebraska institutions to all Nebraska citizens (Oniki, 2020). The only requirement is that applicants must be Pell Grant holders and have full-time student status with a minimum grade point average.
Improving Recruitment and Support
Universities have improved their outreach to and assistance for low-income students. According to Torres (2020), most academically gifted students from low-income households are oblivious of their college choices, and two-thirds never even enroll in top universities, despite their abilities. For instance, the University of Florida established a unique initiative to contact first-generation students, who are the only members of their households to attend university, to urge them to enroll in college education (Oniki, 2020). Once they are registered, the institution continues to help them by providing them with free tuition with no obligations and offering specific leadership and mentoring opportunities.
Abolishing Legacy Privileges
Legacy privileges, which offer a significant advantage to the children of former students, overwhelmingly favor white, affluent students. In turn, this indirectly lowers the admissions prospects of underprivileged candidates. Accordingly, the University of Georgia, the California System, and Texas A&M University have abolished legacy privileges after terminating affirmative action (Oniki, 2020). As a result of eliminating legacy advantages, colleges and universities are making it easier for all students to get a high-quality education while reducing college debt.
Criticisms and Consequences of Race-Conscious Admissions Ban
Race-conscious admissions have been able to withstand various court challenges throughout the years. However, this does not mean that these achievements are without problems. The current legislative restrictions on affirmative action and the way it is generally handled have angered many critics. Some have voiced displeasure with the current diversity reasoning that places Caucasian students as designated recipients of educational benefits derived from minorities. The programs have also been criticized for failing to adequately aid disadvantaged students from economically impoverished families and address structural imbalances. This argument is pegged that the policies have lost their stated aim of addressing systemic disadvantages. Criticisms of race-conscious enrollment have been echoed by even those who support such admissions. Instead, they see the need for an all-encompassing approach to racial inclusion. In addition to this, they believe that race-conscious selections, while not a solution, should not be discontinued. It is essential to ensure that gifted kids from all backgrounds have access to high-quality education. Race-conscious policy supporters generally focus on the immediate, adverse effects of abolishing them.
At the same time, there is a lot to learn from lessons in Texas and California, which scrapped race-conscious selections requirement in their universities. The proportion of Latinx and African American students instantly decreased after UT-Austin ceased taking race into account from 1996 to 2004. Remarkably after the decision, African American enrollment fell by 40%, and Hispanic enrolment fell by 5% (Long & Bateman, 2020). Affirmative influence in employment and education was outlawed in California after proposal 209 was passed, and the state saw a comparable fall. When it went into effect, black populations saw a 55 percent drop in the number of admissions chances they received from the state’s two most elite universities, UC Berkeley and UCLA (Long & Bateman, 2020). Over the past two decades, the UC system has invested heavily in race-neutral alternatives, but it has never regained its historic levels of diversity.
Similarly, some critics argue that today’s top-tier colleges and universities have terrible minority student populations. This notion is reflected in The New York Times report showing that African American and Hispanic learners are more disadvantaged in America’s best universities and colleges than they had been over three decades ago (Ashkenas et al., 2017). Programs that promote ethnic diversity cannot be reduced at our colleges. Unfortunately, this is precisely what is being done. Some students at UNC and Harvard, who identify as African-American, Native-American, and Asian-American, formed a group to support more equality and diversity initiatives. Given the country’s historical and ongoing challenges with racial inequities and blatant racism, the students have condemned polarizing tactics and acknowledged that dealing with race is still essential (Torres, 2020). When discussing their talents and achievements with the university, students said that race provides an essential backdrop.
As demonstrated by the students, many people of color in college have significant advantages over a small number of white students. Their report explained how variety across and among racial groupings offered crucial solidarity for Harvard’s students of color, who were subjected to blatant and subtle manifestations of racial animosity on the Harvard campus (Torres, 2020). The students have strongly refuted the idea that socio-economic diversity could take the place of racial diversity. Instead, they argue that people of color are subjected to racial prejudice regardless of their socio-economic status. Extensive research supports their claims that students of color are more likely to face disciplinary action for the same behavior than their white counterparts. There is a start to this rough treatment from an early age. Researchers believe that the gap in the suspension rates of African American and white preschoolers is due to the teachers’ own latent biases (Torres, 2020). People with traditional names are also more unlikely to be contacted for a second interview.
Race can have a significant impact on an applicant’s self-perception and outlook. For example, low-income African American and Latinx households are more likely than poor white families to dwell in areas with concentrated poverty (Hernández et al., 2016). Asian American candidates, for example, would be denied their right to promote the worth of their exclusive culture and perception if race or ethnicity were eradicated from Harvard’s enrolment process. They would also likely be denied intelligent students who would be much less likely to get in if their background was not fully understood. These are the separate consequences of race that affirmative action has traditionally intended to address.
Changing Trends in Minority Groups University Enrollment Rates
Enrollment rates that are declining are not always indicative of institutions becoming more selective in who they accept. Emerging evidence suggests that this is mainly because potential students are registering in more colleges than previously. The obstacle is that the number of available spaces for them has not expanded as swiftly. In raw numbers, colleges are offering more admission invitations than previously, but hardly sufficient to maintain pace with the growing rate of submissions. The Pew Research Center found that in 2002, there were approximately 4.9 million submissions which increased to 10.2 million applications in fifteen years (DeSilver, 2019). This implies that each student submitted an average of seven applications.
Application volume has increased in all categories of school competition, but not in a conventional way. There has been an increase in admissions at all bar the most selective institutions. According to DeSilver (2019), these schools accepted less than 10% of applications in 2017. Only the institutions with the greatest admittance rates (70 percent or more) have seen enough increase in submissions to match up with the boom in enrollments. These findings show the importance of affirmative action in ensuring that all students have equal access to university education.
Given the increased representation of ethnic and racial minorities in postsecondary learning, higher education institutions should provide ideal learning spaces, fair admission requirements, and a friendly atmosphere for students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Ultimately, universities and colleges must confront a variety of critical concerns around diversity and inclusion. These include addressing the diverse educational and social requirements of ethnic and racial minority college students, enhancing the admissions process to compensate for past statutorily legitimized discrimination, and providing suitable programs and practices to assist such students in thriving.
There is no notable difference between the enrollment process of ethnic and racial minority students and that of other students. In general, the process entails deciding to earn a degree, deciding on the type of institution to join, and finishing the requisite paperwork and acceptance tests needed by the university or college. Nevertheless, due to past institutional racism and regulatory obstacles, American colleges and universities should rethink novel approaches to leveling the field of play to expand the proportion of racial and ethnic minority students in higher education. Some of the approaches include those adopted by states that have banned race-conscious admissions policy. In this way, colleges and universities will diversify the American labor force and reflect the broader culture.
Conclusion
Throughout generations, prestigious universities and colleges have barred students of color from enrolling. As a result, the number of students of minorities attending the nation’s best colleges and institutions has remained disproportionately low. Affirmative action empowers higher education institutions to be more selective in evaluating applicants to offset the detrimental effects of bias. Admitted students who have previously been refused entrance to higher education because of their race, religion, economic background, or sexual orientation are offered a second opportunity through affirmative action. Race-conscious enrollment policies need to be defended by activists and policymakers in the United States. Contrary actions will continue to exclude underprivileged but academically bright minority students from top American universities and colleges.
References
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