WASHINGTON — Hours after the Supreme Court declared affirmative action admissions policies used by Harvard College and the University of North Carolina unconstitutional, supporters and critics of affirmative action staged dueling rallies at the court on Thursday.
The Court ruled along ideological lines that the universities’ race-conscious admissions practices violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The decision, denounced by the court’s liberal justices, will have a profound impact on the diversity of university student bodies and in American workplaces.
Outside the Supreme Court, members of anti-affirmative action groups celebrated the court’s ruling as bringing the country closer to a race-neutral society. Pro-affirmative action activists, however, said the decision will further decrease diversity in higher education.
Just a short walk from the Supreme Court, dozens of college students chanted in a protest of the court’s decision to strike down affirmative action: “When diversity is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”
What can university administrators do after the Supreme court’s decision?
Harvard University President-elect Claudine Gay acknowledged Thursday that the ruling will “change how we pursue the educational benefits of diversity.”
“We will comply with the court’s decision, but it does not change our values,” Gay added. “We continue to believe deeply that a thriving, diverse intellectual community is essential to academic excellence, and critical to shaping the next generation of leaders.”
Some supporters of affirmative action, however, expressed concern that university leaders will be constrained in efforts to foster a diverse student body.
Aram Sinnreich, a professor of communications at American University, joined a protest against the ruling outside the Supreme Court because it is “important to have members of those institutions showing up to support social justice rather than leaving it to the students to do all the work for us.”
Sinnreich said he’s also concerned about how the court’s ruling on affirmative action will impact his own classroom in the coming years.
“I am confident that the president of my university will do everything she can,” Sinnreich said. “I’m not confident that it will be enough to make up for the staggering loss that the Supreme Court has dealt us today.”
Christopher Banks, director of education and workforce development at the Urban League of Portland, said the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action was “a disaster.”
Banks, a guest lecturer at Washington Adventist University, spoke outside the court as a group of students waited behind him.
“Even if you cannot convince anyone in the United States of the social aspects [of affirmative action], economically if this country is to remain the most powerful, richest country on Earth, do not set limitations on your citizenry,” Banks said. “And certainly not on your younger citizens that are your future and that are key to maintaining our power status in the United States.”
What’s next for the anti-affirmative action movement?
The Supreme Court ruling was the culmination of nearly nine years of litigation against affirmative action policies at universities, an effort spearheaded by Edward Blum, the president of the anti-affirmative action organization Students for Fair Admissions.
Blum said in a press conference Thursday afternoon “beginning today, America’s colleges and universities have a legal and moral obligation to strictly abide by the Supreme Court’s opinions.”
Blum said his group will continue to monitor “direct proxies for race.”
“If we feel that a college or university is using something that basically mirrors racial classifications,” Blum said, “that’s something that we would object to.”
Yukong Mike Zhao, the founding president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, said in an interview in front of the Supreme Court that the ruling was a “historic victory for Asian and all Americans.”
“After fighting for equal education rights for college admissions for 35 years, we finally see the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court provide equal protections in law to all communities,” he said. “Today is historic for Asian communities because our children will no longer be treated as a second class citizens in college admission.”
He also called for reforms to the American education system to help “improve the K-12 education for Black and Hispanic children, which is the real root cause of the lack of diversity in higher education.”
How are affirmative action supporters responding?
Hana O’Looney, a rising sophomore student at Harvard College, expressed her support for affirmative action at a rally with several of her classmates a short walk from the Supreme Court.
“I benefit from affirmative action because our classrooms are diverse, I benefit from our affirmative action because our schools are diverse, and I benefit from affirmative action because that helps our country be diverse,” O’Looney said.
O’Looney, who is Asian American, also took aim at Blum’s Student for Fair Admissions for promoting the “narrative that Asian Americans are being discriminated against” in affirmative action.
“At the end of the day, I will not let my racial identity be used as a tool for furthering white supremacy,” O’Looney said.
Sarah Zhang, a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the founder of the Affirmative Action Coalition, said in an interview at the rally that the ruling was “really frustrating” after working for months to advocate on behalf of affirmative action.
“To have affirmative action overturned, especially when so many student groups on campus support it, it’s just such a blow in the face to all of us who have been organizing for these efforts,” Zhang said.
Jeannie Park, director of the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, said the decision will “certainly set back the efforts to increase diversity and racial equity in higher education.” The Coalition for a Diverse Harvard is an advocacy group that has supported race-conscious admissions policies at the university.
“Affirmative action has been an incredibly useful tool for decades, Park said. “There was no reason to overturn the use of race as one of many factors in the holistic admissions process.”
“Now it’s even more imperative for colleges and universities to double and triple down on their efforts to increase campus diversity to support students of color,” Park added.
