NYC NOW - June 30, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

NYC Ferry is increasing its service to Rockaway due to high demand for beach visits. In other summer news, four Suffolk County beaches close for swimming amid bacteria concerns. Also, Oscar-winning actor and Brooklyn native, Alan Arkin, has died at 89. Finally, a Supreme Court ruling from yesterday prohibits the use of race as a factor in college admissions, a decision that could dramatically alter the representation of Black and Latino students at selective institutions. Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, joins WNYC’s Tiffany Hanssen to unpack the implications of this landmark decision.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, June 30th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Summer is here and beach-loving New Yorkers want to hit the shore. Luckily for them, the NYC ferry is upping service to Rockaway to accommodate an uptick in demand. WNIC's Catalina Gonella has more. Starting July 1st, writers will be able to reserve tickets on weekend and holiday.

holiday ferries to the beach up to two weeks ahead of time. $10 will secure passengers a spot on board and grant them access to an expedited line. Most spots on each vessel will remain unreserved for the regular $4 fare. Another update will be an additional vessel NYC ferry is adding to its rockaway service on weekends and holidays. The Rockaway service will also return in August for just four weeks, providing express service from the Brooklyn Bridge to the beach. In other summer news, if you're heading to Long Island this holiday weekend, be sure to check for beach closures. Suffolk County officials have closed four beaches to swimming due to high levels of bacteria in the water. Those are Gold Star Battalion Beach in Huntington, Emmettiville Beach, Benjamin Beach in Bay Shore and

Ron Concoma Beach. Oscar-winning actor and Brooklyn native Alan Arkin has died. He started his career in the city and moved to L.A. with his family at the age of 11. Arkin appeared in more than a 100 TV shows and films. He went on Oscar as the foul-mouthed grandfather in 2007's Little Miss Sunshine. Alan Arkin lived 89 years. Alternate side parking suspended today, but still pay the meters. Air quality is unhealthy. You may want to be avoiding active outside as much as possible. Your forecast 82 with some sunshine now, widespread haze and a high of 84. I'm Tiffany Hanson. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that colleges could no longer consider race when making admissions decisions, upending decades of guidance on affirmative action. The decision will most likely result in fewer black and Latino students being admitted to selective schools. The court's majority said the U.S. Constitution should be, quote, colorblind. The court's liberal members wrote in their dissent that race-conscious policies have advanced equality in schools. Lee Bollinger is the president of Columbia University. He was also the defendant in two cases concerning affirmative action when he was the president of the University of Michigan.

President Bollinger, welcome to WNYC. Thank you. So it's been just a few hours since the court released their ruling, rejecting race-based affirmative actions. So what were your first thoughts when you heard about the decision? My first thoughts were that this is a tragic outcome, I think, for the country. but universities like Columbia, like Harvard and University of North Carolina, have, along with other selective universities, consider race and ethnicity as factors, just factors in admissions for 40, 50 years now, with great results for the country, great results for education, and the court really has set us on a different path. This is like Roe versus Wade and Dobbs over ruling row and setting the country on a very different path. You refer to it as a very different path.

I'm just wondering where you think this leaves the country right now. I think you have to think about this from its roots. And the roots really are Brown versus Board of Education in 1954, which declared separate but equal policies of the Jim Crow era unconstitutional. and the civil rights movement and era that followed in the 50s and 60s. It was really the effort of the country to try to come to terms with the history of slavery, really invidious discrimination against African Americans in particular. And out of that era, really universities said we need to do our part and we need to do things positively to try to help integrate the country.

So over these decades, this has been the practice of all of higher education. But it's also been the practice of business, been the practice of media, governments, all through the society we have tried to take positive steps to overcome the past and ongoing present of discrimination. That's, I think, been very important to the country. this is a philosophy that says that ends. We need to move on from that past. So I think this is extremely important, a watershed moment in a sense in how we think about our history

and what we need to do about it. Once when you were talking about being race-conscious in admitting students, you said there are no easy other ways to do this. What did you mean by that and do you still feel this way? So we know from the few states that have on their own banned universities from taking race and ethnicity into account. And the results have been really tragic again. So the University of California at Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA, University of Michigan,

where they have been prohibited under their state constitutions or laws from practicing affirmative action. There's been a precipitous drop in the racial and ethnic diversity of their student bodies. And I think now we will try to retain racial and ethnic diversity, but it will be extremely hard using the examples of Michigan and Berkeley. So I'm, I think universities will be acting consistent with. the opinion, looking for how to achieve it, continue to achieve what we've had, but I think we will fall short for many years to come, unfortunately. Well, as you look ahead to what universities may be doing, analysis up to this point, suggests that selective schools like Harvard and Columbia

will have to change what they're doing. So I'm hearing you say that you absolutely see it that way. Well, I think there's no doubt about that. I mean, the Supreme Court has now declared that what it allowed before in the Gruder case, which was the landmark case, the first time the majority of the court said that what universities were doing was constitutional. Now the court has reversed that. So, yes, there will be changes. There will be experiments, efforts to consistent with the opinion to figure out how to retain some. portion of that diversity. But it's going to be very difficult. I think it would be naive to think otherwise. What would you say to students or groups who say they've been harmed by race-conscious admissions? So my answer has always been we take account of many factors. I mean, if you come from a small town in a part of the country that isn't represented in the student body typically, take that into account if you have particular talents, athletic, musical, theatrical, race and ethnicity have just been two things that we've factored in. I expect there to be more litigation about this.

I think the opponents of affirmative action are very determined to continue going after universities. President Bollinger, thanks so much for your time and your perspective. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. And Zlie Bollinger, president of Columbia University. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More this evening.