Higher education and civil rights leaders worry the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action may embolden “those with hate in their minds” to disenfranchise students of color attending elite colleges.
Speaking to reporters Friday morning, leaders from across the country responded to the ruling determining that selective colleges and universities can’t use race as a factor in admissions. They also outlined what the decision means and doesn’t mean for students and higher education institutions.
“The court effectively ended a 45-year-old precedent,” said Tom Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, better known as MALDEF.
“We should all be clear that that’s how far backward the majority decision takes us,” he added.
While the Supreme Court ruled that the affirmative action programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause when considering race as a factor in the college admissions process, nothing in the decision indicates “that somehow Harvard and UNC systems did not identify the students who had every right and merited admission to those institutions as to any other,” Saenz said.
“It’s important to point out because there will be those with hate in their minds who will seek to tell Black and Latino students attending selective institutions that the Supreme Court says they do not belong. That is false,” Saenz said. “Every current Black, Latino student, student of any race, deserves and belongs where they are.”
J. Luke Wood, the incoming president of California State University, Sacramento, said he anticipates “that there will be elevated hate” across campuses nationwide as a result of the Supreme Court decision.
That’s why leaders Friday concurred that it’s more important than ever for colleges to ensure all students feel like they belong on campus. They said they intend to do so by publicly embracing diversity and inclusion, as well as rejecting…
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