In a landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court has effectively ended race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities across the nation. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision for the court majority, stating that colleges and universities must use colorblind criteria in admissions. The court’s six-justice conservative majority argued that admission policies violated the fourteenth amendment’s equal protection clause by discriminating against white and Asian American applicants through its use of race-conscious policies that benefited students from underrepresented backgrounds. For the past 50 years, there has been a divide on the court on the constitutionality of race preferences. Since 1978, the Supreme Court has allowed universities to use affirmative action to achieve a diverse student body. However, when Proposition 209 was passed in California in 1996, state governmental institutions were prohibited from considering race, ethnicity, or sex in the areas of public employment, public contracting, and public education. As a consequence, devastating effects on diversity were felt across institutes such as the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles who saw a 50% decrease in their number of Black and Latino freshmen (Bleemer). As a result, minorities enrolled in less competitive campuses and were less likely to receive a graduate’s degree and pursue a lucrative career in STEM. Despite more than a half billion dollars spent on outreach and alternative admissions standards, several school officials claim to still fall short from meeting their desired equity and diversity goals. Bleemer’s analysis on these findings “provide the first causal evidence that banning affirmative action exacerbates socioeconomic inequalities” by decreasing the population of students of color at higher education institutions and limiting the opportunities presented to them (Affirmative Action). As affirmative action is a practice meant to favor individuals belonging to disadvantaged groups over similarly qualified non-minority individuals, it remains an essential approach necessary to provide more equitable opportunities to those that suffer from racial disparities.

Works Cited

Bleemer, Zachary. “Affirmative Action, Mismatch, and Economic Mobility after California’s Proposition 209.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 137, no. 1, 1 Sept. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjab027.

Network, The Learning. “What Students Are Saying about the End of Race-Based Affirmative Action in College Admissions.” The New York Times, 21 Sept. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/learning/what-students-are-saying-about-the-end-of-race-based-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions.html#:~:text=Affirmative%20action%20literally%20means%20%E2%80%9Cthe.

“Research and Analyses on the Impact of Proposition 209 in California | UCOP.” Www.ucop.edu, www.ucop.edu/academic-affairs/prop-209/index.html.

Strauss, Valerie. “Why Race-Based Affirmative Action Is Still Needed in College Admissions.” Washington Post, 30 Jan. 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/30/needed-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions/.