The Supreme Court is set to rule on the contentious topic of affirmative action.
In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the justices are asked to consider a public school’s use of racial preferences in admissions decisions.
When this case was at the Court before, the justices settled for sending it back to the Fifth Circuit for heightened review. This meant the university’s argument could still prevail, but would just have to face a higher Constitutional standard.
This is not the terrible outcome many believe it is.
This time, the justices are deciding whether higher standard has been met by the university. If it has not, then the use of racial preferences in college admissions will be deemed unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause.
Affirmative action has been broken for quite some time and needs a radical revamping for the 21st century.
As originally envisioned, affirmative action was designed to ensure blacks gained representation in the face of outright discrimination and legal barriers to their success.
This was a blunt weapon wielded against a problem that really required a scalpel, and affirmative action has only become more distasteful as the situation for blacks has improved.
The problem with affirmative action is that it assumes race is the sole cause of disadvantage in life.
When stated this plainly, the absurdity of this proclamation comes to light. Just as there are wealthy, advantaged blacks, there are poor, disadvantaged whites. Particularly concentrated in Appalachian regions, white poverty goes largely ignored in the media, despite the almost thirty million white Americans living in poverty.
With this in mind, an affirmative action based not on racial point accumulation but rather on economic factors makes more sense. The new affirmative action could take into account an applicant’s family wealth and income, crime and graduation rates in their county, city or state.
By taking into account personal and localized factors that also has influence on an individual’s overall experience and chances at attending college, the students that truly need a leg up can be given one.
The stated purpose of affirmative action in college admissions is to increase “diversity,” which will provide students a better educational experience. Were colleges to use an income based affirmative action, they would still be able to accomplish this goal.
Not only would racial diversity be achieved through this program, as black and Hispanic students are disproportionately poor, colleges could also capture economic diversity.
At UT-Austin, for example, 40 percent of the school’s 2014 admitted class were from households with an income of $100,000 or up, with an additional 20 percent not reporting their household income.
With better affirmative action, help can be concentrated towards students that need it most without the racial resentment the current system engenders.
zaochamb@indiana.edu
