Affirmative Action was struck down on Thursday, 6/29/2023, by The Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS). The case that came before the court was filed by Students for Fair Admissions, which alleged Harvard, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Texas, through their affirmative action policies, were actually negatively impacting Asian-American applicants.
So you would think that maybe Asian-American students filed this case, right? No, Students for Fair Admissions is run by this guy Edward J Blum.
He’s a member of the Federalist Society and a known activist and litigator against Affirmative Action. He’s the president of Students for Fair Admissions, and his mission is to eliminate racial and ethnic classifications and preferences in school admissions.
This Wasn’t The First Time
This wasn’t their first time suing. They also sued, trying to say that Princeton was being unfair to Asian-American students, despite the fact that enrollment of Asian-American students in Ivy League schools far out metrics any other marginalized group.
Now the striking down of affirmative action has a lot of implications, including likely the increased attacks against Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander (AAPI) folks. Because people think that this was something that they did. But no, Edward J. Blum is responsible for the striking down of affirmative action.
Why Affirmative Action Works
The reason why affirmative action works long-term is because people hire and support people who look like themselves.
So if you have any environment where you have a solid dominant group, for example, most of corporate America, most of the education, most of anything where this strong dominant group is white people, the only natural way to get diversity is by putting people from diverse backgrounds into leadership positions.
Bringing People Up
The only way to get people into leadership positions is to put them into an education system that brings them up to a level where they get those leadership positions in spite of the fact that the people that are currently in those leadership positions tend to hire people like them, white people hiring more white people.
So over time, you introduce more people of diverse backgrounds that float up into the system and get into leadership positions, and eventually, they get to a point where they get to hire people like them. That’s how you get more diversity.
Affirmative action, the prioritization of admission or other services of historically harmed, excluded, and otherwise underserved groups, is a deliberate political step to ensure that historically marginalized, harmed and excluded, and underserved can partake at an even level.
Framing Affirmative Actions As Discrimination
The narrative that’s being pushed by conservatives and now the conservative Supreme Court of the United States frames affirmative action as something it is not, namely discrimination against people who do not fall into the categories that are benefiting from affirmative action.
And this is important because affirmative action doesn’t take anything away from dominant groups. If you’re in a dominant group, that may look like someone is getting an advantage, but that’s only if you ignore all the historical context, all the social context, all the things, and all the barriers that stand in the way for historically marginalized, excluded and harmed groups that don’t exist for dominant groups.
If you want to see an example, look at Scandinavia, where affirmative action for gender has been the norm for decades. As a result, the gender composition in leadership positions, politics, and anything that matters in society is around 50-50. That is a direct consequence of affirmative action.
Final Words
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said this, “But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”