It took Republicans no time at all to take the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision and use it to attack other educational initiatives intended to support people of color. On Thursday — the same day the Court declared race-conscious admissions policies unconstitutional — the state’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, dispatched a letter to colleges and universities across the state: “Missouri institutions must identify all policies that give preference to individuals on the basis of race and immediately halt the implementation of such policies.” Hours later, the University of Missouri — which enrolls 70,000 students across four campuses — declared, in a statement acknowledging Bailey’s letter, it would end race-based financial aid programs.
“As allowed by prior law, a small number of our programs and scholarships have used race/ethnicity as a factor for admissions and scholarships. Those practices will be discontinued, and we will abide by the new Supreme Court ruling concerning legal standards that applies to race-based admissions and race-based scholarships,” Christian Basi, spokesperson for the university, wrote.
The majority’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. The President and Fellows of Harvard University concerned college admissions, but GOP officials are citing one specific line to challenge other programs intended to level the playing field for underrepresented communities: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” Both Bailey and Republican Rep. Robin Vos, speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly invoked the line as they announced plans to target financial aid. Vos declared his intention to introduce laws that would end scholarships, grants, and other programs intended to encourage minority enrollment at Wisconsin’s colleges and universities the same day the court handed down the decision.
I used to think along similar lines, but later came to understand structural inequality. You see, we don’t all start on an even playing field. The children of wealthy adults have far more opportunity than children of working-class adults, for example. Children from families living in poverty may struggle to keep up with their peers in school if they aren’t getting adequate nutrition. (School lunch programs help, but don’t fully address the problem.) Our lineage and our luck play a large role in what we might think of as “merit”.
When it comes to racial equity programs for college admissions or the like, these programs exist because we acknowledge that people of colour — especially Black people — have been systematically oppressed for generations in ways that impact the following generations.
Try to imagine being a Black child growing up today. You’re more likely to be in poverty and going hungry than your white peers, more likely to need to drop out of school to earn money, more likely to have a parent jailed, the list goes on, all while constantly getting subtle (and sometimes blatant) messages that you’re “inferior”.
You and I obviously didn’t create this situation, but the fact remains that we don’t all start life on equal footing. Yes, there are plenty of white people who grow up in poverty, have parents in jail, etc… but it’s not systematic for white people. Affirmative action in education is a way we can ensure more of the most talented Black minds can access the education and experiences they need to help break this repeating cycle and someday, hopefully, build a society without such immense barriers beginning from birth.
(edit: I’m Canadian now, but I grew up in the US so I’m much more informed about its history.)