Rerouting the race
In its ruling, the high court “sanctioned two tiers of access in our nation’s colleges and universities: one for the children of donors, alumni, and other interest groups, and another for racial and ethnic minorities. Donors and alumni can still lobby universities to include their children, but people who support racial and ethnic diversity in schools no longer have that opportunity,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
In 2006, 58 percent of Michigan voters — in response to a 2003 decision by a different Supreme Court upholding the “narrowly tailored” race-conscious admissions at the University of Michigan Law School — approved a constitutional amendment banning racial preferences in state hiring or education. The legal challenges to the Michigan ballot initiative ended up at the Supreme Court.
The high court’s defense of the ban as constitutional pays homage to the virtues of the allowing the electorate to decide tough questions rather than the courts. The decision states: “This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it. … It is demeaning to the democratic process to presume that the voters are not capable of deciding an issue of this sensitivity on decent and rational grounds.”
While Tuesday’s high court ruling doesn’t settle the legality of race-based affirmative action, it makes clear states can now safely put the issue before the voters. Eight states now outlaw race-based admission policies at their public campuses, including Florida and California. Others are poised to introduce ballot referendums on the question.
The University of Georgia abandoned race-conscious admissions 13 years ago after an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel decreed it was a violation of the U.S. Constitution to use a system that gives automatic advantage or disadvantage to anyone based on race.
A number of education advocates are encouraging a more holistic approach to campus diversity that shifts the focus solely from the race of students to the disadvantages — poverty, underperforming schools, dangerous neighborhoods — students faced in their lives.
That way, the white child of an Appalachian coal miner earns the same consideration in college admissions as the black child of an Atlanta day laborer.
About the Author
Maureen Downey has written editorials and opinion pieces about local, state and federal education policy since the 1990s.
