Consider This from NPR - The Death of Affirmative Action

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

The Supreme Court effectively killed race-conscious admissions in higher education on Thursday. In two cases, the court decided that the admissions policies of Harvard and the University of North Carolina - both of which consider race - are unconstitutional, ruling the policies violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.The decisions reversed decades of precedent upheld over the years by narrow court majorities that included Republican-appointed justices. The rulings could end the ability of colleges and universities, public and private, to do what most say they still need to do: consider race as one of many factors in deciding which of the qualified applicants is to be admitted. NPR's Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg reports on the ruling and what it means for college admissions. NPR's Adrian Florido looks at how colleges and universities in California adjusted their admissions policies when the state banned affirmative action 25 years ago.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. Good afternoon, folks. Sorry to keep you waiting a few minutes. President Biden was blunt on the impact of today's big Supreme Court decision. The court has effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions, and I strongly, strongly disagree with the court's decision. In two cases, the Supreme Court ruled that the admissions policies of Harvard

and the University of North Carolina, both of which consider race, are unconstitutional. The cases represent a clash between two views of American democracy, one outlined by Edward Bloom, whose group, Students for Fair Admissions, brought the lawsuits. issue today by the United States Supreme Court marks the beginning of the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that binds together our multiracial, multiethnic nation. And another view articulated here by Dana Thompson Dorsey, who teaches education law and policy at the University of South Florida in Tampa. We're still living in an American society where structural racism and discrimination is very prevalent. That cannot be denied, including and especially in education. Backers of affirmative action are warning the decision means many of the nation's top universities will see an immediate drop in black and Latino enrollment.

And in Biden's remarks, he pointed toward an admissions approach that he said the court's decision permitted. It means understanding the particular hardships that each individual student has faced in life, including racial discrimination that individuals have faced in their own lives. The court says, quote, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an application's discussion of how race has affected his or her life. Consider this. The Supreme Court just effectively killed race-conscious admissions in higher education. What might that mean for colleges and universities? We'll take a close look at a state that already banned affirmative action.

From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Thursday, June 29th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working together to create a just world where all people have access to renewable energy, clean air and water, and healthy food. The Schmidt Family Foundation is part of the philanthropic organizations and initiatives created and funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt to work toward a healthy,

resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. It's Consider This from NPR. We'll start with the legal arguments. The court ruled to invalidate the admissions programs at Harvard and at the University of North Carolina. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports. This is All Things Considered from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. And I'm Ari Shapiro. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended race-conscious admissions policies at colleges and universities across the country.

In a pair of rulings along ideological lines, the court invalidated admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports. The decision reverses decades of precedent upheld over the years by narrow Supreme Court majorities. Chief Justice John Roberts, a longtime critic of affirmative action programs, wrote the decision for the court majority. Many universities, he said, have for too long concluded wrongly that the touchstone of an individual's identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.

Noting that the court's most recent affirmative action decision in 2003 had suggested that there would have to be an end to such programs at some future point. Roberts essentially said that time has now come. It feels tragic. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger has for 30 we need a whole new approach in the society. It's now the second choice. That sentiment echoed Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent. The court, she said, entrenches protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society. Justice Katonji Brown-Jackson, the court's first black female justice, chimed in, quote, With a let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, she said, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces colorblindness for all by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law, she said, does not make it so in life. Indeed, the reality is that in those places where affirmative action has been eliminated,

there's been a severe drop in minority and particularly African-American admissions. NYU law professor Melissa Murray was the acting dean at the University of California, Berkeley in 2016 and 17, when a state referendum barred the use of race in college admissions decisions. There was an immediate drop off in the number of African-American students, and that was both was an immediate drop-off in the number of African American students, and that was both a confluence of the change in the admissions policy, but also African American students not wanting to go under those conditions. People want to be with other people like them. They don't want to be spotlighted. There is a kind of comfort in numbers,

and it was very difficult, I think, for a very long time to recruit under those conditions. Indeed, the situation got so bad, she says, that she had to go to the president of the state university system to get permission to place clusters of African-American students in classes instead of sprinkling them around. Now every school will be in that situation, or so it may seem. the court did not entirely close the door to racial considerations in college admissions. As Roberts put it, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life. What's more, the court specifically left open the possibility that the nation's military

academies, because of their, quote, distinct interests, may be able to continue with their very successful affirmative action programs, which have resulted in a very diverse officer corps. University of California professor Jerome Carrabelle. That issue is so sensitive because it raises the question of national security that the court has backed away from following its own logic. And he notes that a similar logic might apply to police forces seeking to recruit minorities so as to ensure that a virtually all-white force would not be policing a majority black town.

For the vast majority of colleges and universities in the country, however, diversity will no longer be an acceptable rationale for taking race into account. The decision likely will cause ripples in every aspect of the nation's economic, educational, and social life, from the Rooney Rule that requires a minority applicant to be considered in all NFL coach hiring decisions, to employment and promotion decisions, DEI programs in schools and workplaces, and much, much more. Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy. We're going to be fighting about this for the next 30 years. Professor Kennedy points to what he calls double talk in the Supreme Court's majority decision.

Take two signs, he says. One says black people stay out and contrast it with a sign that says black people welcome. Both have race in them. Are they truly both racially discriminatory? Well, the Supreme Court, at least in one side of its mouth, seems to suggest that, yeah, they're both racially discriminatory. But then at the end of his opinion, it says, well, of course, one can look favorably upon somebody who has overcome racial impediments. Indeed, today's Supreme Court decision, plus dissents and concurrences, reached a book-sized 237 pages. Race has never been an easy subject for Americans to deal with, and it's about to get a lot harder. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

That's NPR's Nina Totenberg. We have some idea of what we can expect in the wake of the court's ruling, and that is because 25 years ago, the state of California banned affirmative action. NPR's Adrian Florido reports on what happened next. California knows all about what an affirmative action ban can mean for college campuses. When voters approved a ban that took effect in 1998, the impact at the state's top two public colleges was staggering. Enrollment at Berkeley and UCLA among Black and Hispanic students fell 40 percent immediately. Zachary Bleamer is a Princeton economist who's studied the ban's impacts on minority enrollment at University of California campuses. After Black and Latino numbers plummeted, the schools had to figure out how to get them back up using only race-neutral policies. It's been 25 years of trial and error. Experimenting with many different admissions policies.

UC schools de-emphasized grades and test scores and began reviewing applicants more holistically. They stepped up recruitment in poorer communities that tend to be Black and Latino. They guaranteed spots to students who graduate in the top 9% of their high school classes. The goal of each of these policies was to replace race-based affirmative action by identifying disadvantaged students who are nevertheless going to succeed at these universities and admitting them. Through these race-neutral alternatives to race-based affirmative action, schools have been able, slowly, to regain much of the racial diversity they lost. But... It was hard. It was hard. Mitchell Chang is Associate Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at UCLA,

which recently enrolled its most racially diverse class since the ban took effect. There was no magic bullet. Some things work better than other things. And this is also work that doesn't happen overnight. In fact, it's taken UCLA more than two decades to make up the lost ground. And still, Chang says, his school is not where it wants to be. It still enrolls far fewer black and Latino students than their share of California high school graduates, a problem it didn't have before the affirmative action ban. So all these

years later, it's still working to close that gap. The ban on race-conscious admissions had the biggest impact on Berkeley and UCLA, the state's two most selective public schools. Likewise, experts think that across the country, it is similarly competitive universities that will be most affected by the Supreme Court's ruling. Many of these schools have been preparing, including Pomona College, a small, very selective university in Southern California. Gabrielle Starr is its president, and she says every student her admissions officers let in is highly qualified to be there. But being able to consider race has allowed them to ensure they also put together a diverse class. Having a campus that looks like the world in which

our students will go on to live is really important just as a bedrock value. As a private school, Pomona wasn't subject to California's affirmative action ban. It will be to the Supreme Court's ruling. Starr started worrying about a possible national ban a couple of years ago as the Supreme Court solidified its conservative shift. So she started reaching out to schools like the UCs for guidance. She says it's going to take some time for Pomona College to figure out its next steps. We're going to do our best. In the meantime, she fears her campus will become less racially diverse. NPR's Adrienne Florido in Los Angeles.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org.