Race in college admissions is back in front of the Supreme Court Oral Argument on Oct. 31 (Monday)

[Anonymous]

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing two cases – one involving Harvard University, and the other the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – challenging the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions policies.

In the Harvard case, the court will consider whether the school discriminated against Asian American students in the admissions process. With UNC, the court will consider whether the school is using race-conscious admissions in a limited enough manner.

Race in admissions has been the subject of plenty of lawsuits – including at the Supreme Court level. And if the court decides to reverse more than 40 years of legal precedent, it could impact the way race is used in higher education beyond just admissions.

The last time the court ruled on affirmative action was in 2016 when it said colleges can consider race in admissions. But the makeup of the court looks very different today than it did back then.

"I can't think of that many people who are expecting race-conscious admissions policies to be upheld," says Dominique Baker, a professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University. "So the question is how far do they cut it off?"

The conservative activist group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) is behind both the Harvard and the UNC cases. The suits claim that Harvard and UNC's admissions practices use race in a discriminatory way.

While very similar, the cases represent two very different admissions environments: UNC is a state school that highly favors in-state students (it's only allowed to admit 18% of first-year students from out of state) while Harvard is a highly selective private school that admits fewer than 5% of applicants (that's just under 2,000 students this fall).

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/jforum.page?module=posts&action=insert&forum_id=47

[Anonymous]

Higher education shoud be mainly for acedemic merit and must be color blind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Higher education shoud be mainly for acedemic merit and must be color blind.

Actually, higher education is about far more than just academics.

[Anonymous]

I hope this Court overturns Grutter and puts an end to race-based policies in higher ed. It would be the first significant opinion in years I actually agree with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Higher education shoud be mainly for acedemic merit and must be color blind.

Actually, higher education is about far more than just academics.

If they go color-blind, they could still build diversity based on geographic location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Higher education shoud be mainly for acedemic merit and must be color blind.

Actually, higher education is about far more than just academics.

If they go color-blind, they could still build diversity based on geographic location.

If geography is an obvious proxy for race it could still be struck down. I think we’ve seen that some decision-makers aren’t very subtle when it comes to their intentions.

[Anonymous]

The SCOTUS will ban AA. No surprise there.

Colleges will still find ways to achieve diversity (e.g Test Optional) and people will still complain about something else.

That's the nature of zero sum admissions, especially for the highly selective schools.

[Anonymous]

How will this affect universities trying for gender parity? Eg 39,000 female applicants and 22,000 make applicants but they admit males at higher rate to have a near 50-50 class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How will this affect universities trying for gender parity? Eg 39,000 female applicants and 22,000 make applicants but they admit males at higher rate to have a near 50-50 class?

Depends on how narrow or wide the SC rules against affirmative action.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Higher education shoud be mainly for acedemic merit and must be color blind.

Actually, higher education is about far more than just academics.

That’s not an excuse to make it about race. Nice attempt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will this affect universities trying for gender parity? Eg 39,000 female applicants and 22,000 make applicants but they admit males at higher rate to have a near 50-50 class?

Depends on how narrow or wide the SC rules against affirmative action.

Forgot to add that Noah Feldman (Harvard Law) addressed this:

Universities would no longer be allowed to pursue racial diversity, gender diversity, sexual orientation diversity or religious diversity. (They would still be allowed to pursue economic diversity, class diversity, viewpoint diversity and geographic diversity, because these categories aren’t protected against discrimination by the Constitution or civil rights laws.) https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/supreme-court-will-end-the-era-of-college-diversity/2022/10/16/4716c656-4d53-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Higher education shoud be mainly for acedemic merit and must be color blind.

Actually, higher education is about far more than just academics.

In the United States, higher education is not only for academic merit. If that was it, the process could be a lot simpler. We could do it more like the NBA draft. Colleges want letters of recommendation, essays, extra curricular, etc…., and race

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will this affect universities trying for gender parity? Eg 39,000 female applicants and 22,000 make applicants but they admit males at higher rate to have a near 50-50 class?

Depends on how narrow or wide the SC rules against affirmative action.

Forgot to add that Noah Feldman (Harvard Law) addressed this:

Universities would no longer be allowed to pursue racial diversity, gender diversity, sexual orientation diversity or religious diversity. (They would still be allowed to pursue economic diversity, class diversity, viewpoint diversity and geographic diversity, because these categories aren’t protected against discrimination by the Constitution or civil rights laws.) https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/supreme-court-will-end-the-era-of-college-diversity/2022/10/16/4716c656-4d53-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html

Given how polarized and segregated we all are, location and class are almost as good predictor of race as the ethnicity box. Some clever admission officers will be able to achieve all the diversity they want by using allowed criteria— hopefully

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Higher education shoud be mainly for acedemic merit and must be color blind.

Nothing in America is colorblind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will this affect universities trying for gender parity? Eg 39,000 female applicants and 22,000 make applicants but they admit males at higher rate to have a near 50-50 class?

Depends on how narrow or wide the SC rules against affirmative action.

Forgot to add that Noah Feldman (Harvard Law) addressed this:

Universities would no longer be allowed to pursue racial diversity, gender diversity, sexual orientation diversity or religious diversity. (They would still be allowed to pursue economic diversity, class diversity, viewpoint diversity and geographic diversity, because these categories aren’t protected against discrimination by the Constitution or civil rights laws.) https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/supreme-court-will-end-the-era-of-college-diversity/2022/10/16/4716c656-4d53-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html

Given how polarized and segregated we all are, location and class are almost as good predictor of race as the ethnicity box. Some clever admission officers will be able to achieve all the diversity they want by using allowed criteria— hopefully

Not helpful for gender/sex, though.