Response to Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina
The Supreme Court has handed down their ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, 567 F. Supp. 3d 580 (M.D.N.C. 2021). A lot of ink, real and digital, is being spilled cheering and decrying it. I think the majority has made the right choice. If those concerned with ensuring diversity and equal opportunity in our nation’s institutions of higher learning and elsewhere pause and take a breath, they might consider this is a boon to their ultimate goal and not the stumbling block they see it as now.
Systemic racism is real. It’s not honestly deniable. Across innumerable factors and measurements of life in America, minorities, especially African Americans, experience negative effects and consequences unexplainable by any other phenomena. Systemic racism, as I’ve pointed out in a previous essay, is the accumulation of continuing effects of de jure and de facto white supremacy in America. Using race to end systemic racism, however, seems counterproductive. It’s continuing the tools and attitudes of white supremacy. We could, however, use systemic racism against itself. By adopting policies which use the disparities resultant from systemic racism to address and mitigate them. In short, using economic status and geography instead of race.
In many ways Affirmative Action has been a failure. It doesn’t combat the disparities of systemic racism, or even try to do so. Instead, it generally rewards those who have achieved in spite of systemic racism while leaving those less fortunate trapped in their circumstances. The children of wealthy African Americans, attending the best schools and living in good neighborhoods, get a boost in applying to elite schools. Those in less prestigious schools and living in poorer neighborhoods are unlikely to even be considered.
About twenty-five years ago, there were a number of cases where magnet schools were developed at majority black schools in hopes of attracting more white students to them. I can remember Seattle, St. Louis, and Prince George’s County, MD, particularly. School officials would find themselves rejecting qualified black students even though the schools had empty seats because admitting them would upset the racial balance the schools were hoping to achieve. At the time, I called it an effort to “use Jim Crow for good.” The logic and tools of Jim Crow getting used to achieve integration, but somehow still resulting in the schoolhouse door being closed to at least some black students. While there is merit in looking at demographic categories, at the end of the day every student is an individual. I don’t oppose our institutions, let alone schools, from looking at ways to ensure systemic racism isn’t precluding those individuals from achieving their potential. Nor am I opposed to institutions adopting policies intended to integrate all Americans in their institutions and our society. The goal should be not only to “end Whiteness,” as anti-racists and Critical Race Theorists have said, but to eliminate the social construct of race as dividing lines in our culture, nation, and Republic. It doesn’t seem logical or reasonable to think using race as a tool will end race as a central social construct.
For now, there’s anger and pain at the Supreme Court’s rulings on Affirmative Action. I think, however, if they consider their options going forward, those who want diverse student bodies in higher education and an end to systemic racism will find better tools to achieve their goals.
