The right has wanted to dismantle affirmative action for decades, and the new conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court has finally been able to deliver. A group calling itself the Students for Fair Admissions, which is made up of people who believed they could have been accepted to Ivy League schools if not for affirmative action, filed lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill claiming discrimination against Asian and white students.
On June 29 of this year, the right-wing block of SCOTUS struck it down using the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which was designed to protect Black Americans. Systemic barriers for marginalized groups, such as grossly underfunded schools, housing discrimination, and income inequality, have long prevented talented students from accessing higher education, but the right-wing justices twisted the protections afforded in the Constitution to deny certain people their civil rights.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had a harsh dissent, saying the ruling striking down affirmative action “condemns our society to never escape the past that explains how and why race matters to the very concept of who ‘merits’ admission.”
Sadly, as a result, many colleges are expected to abandon their former mandate to prioritize diversity. This shift places a growing burden on historically Black colleges and universities to bridge the gap. HBCUs have nurtured exceptional talent that often went unnoticed by other institutions. With the ruling overturning affirmative action, HBCUs are expected to meet the mounting demand. This is problematic.
RELATED STORY: Why many Republicans would prefer students never learn the truth about American history
The president of Morehouse College, an all-male HBCU in Atlanta, has already projected that applications will double from 7,000 to 14,000. But the college can’t handle the load currently. The dormitories are already fully occupied, and in order to accommodate an extra 1,000 students while upholding small class sizes and high-quality courses, the college would have to expand its faculty by at least a third within the next three years.
Ironically, Morehouse College enacted its own affirmative action program to ensure diversity for non-Black students several years ago. This point was not lost on the Democratic challenger to GOP Congressman Rich McCormick, who celebrated the anti-affirmative action ruling:
Though they make up only 3% of American colleges and universities, HBCUs contribute to almost 20% of all Black graduates. HBCU graduates make up approximately 80% of Black judges and more than half of Black doctors and lawyers. Additionally, a quarter of Black undergraduates who receive STEM degrees are affiliated with HBCUs.
In spite of the criticality of HBCUs, they have received significantly less investment and support than other post-graduate institutions. A study by Brookings Metro found that in 2020, the 10 largest HBCU endowments were 100 times smaller than the 10 largest endowments for predominantly white institutions. To give an example of the disparity, one college, New York University, pulled in $4.2 billion in 2019 from endowments alone, and that’s less than the combined total of every single HBCU endowment in the entire nation, which is roughly $3.9 billion.
Additionally, less than 1% of federal research and development grants are awarded to HBCUs. This lack of investment translates to far less resources for students and faculty. This was the one theme that kept coming up in talking with students of various HBCUs. Searching online, I was able to connect with both freshmen and upperclassmen on social media pages for various HBCUs. Although most responses were positive when I asked them about their experience at HBCUs, several had many complaints about their school’s administration.
Student union at Savannah State University.
O'kevia Graham wouldn’t tell me the exact HBCU she attended in North Carolina, but said she wouldn’t attend this school if she decides to go for her master’s degree. “People didn’t answer phones, never returned calls, and ignored emails.” Attempts to talk to school officials on the record were unsuccessful.
Historically, HBCUs have been woefully underfunded and many are still in serious financial straits. It’s not just the buildings that need attention, it’s the student allocations. For example, the North Carolina legislature appropriated students who attended North Carolina A&T State University $8,200 less per student than the $16,400 per student it gave to NC State. Even with student services, which includes admissions, financial aid, and the registrar’s office, HBCUs are nowhere close to being funded comparably to the predominantly white schools. For example, at NC State, student services allocations amounted to $1,342 per student. At A&T State, it’s only $726 per student.
While each state receives federal land grant funding for their institutions, HBCUs have been underfunded for decades compared to their white counterparts. In Oklahoma, Langston University has been underfunded by $418.9 million, according to federal officials. President Joe Biden directed his secretaries of Agriculture and Education to work with the governors of 16 states to address the issue. Even if certain governors aren’t interested in helping these schools, the letter points out that it would behoove them to consider the litigation costs. Maryland had to recently settle an HBCU lawsuit for over $577 million.
Nonetheless, despite the frustration with resources, most of the students I spoke with had positive statements about their HBCU experience. Valerie Frechette said she loved attending Clark in Atlanta. “I learned a lot. First courses I ever had in Black history. Also, the professors were awesome. They had our backs and were really close.”
I asked why she decided to go to an HBCU. “I have an aunt who attended, and she made long-lasting friendships. She still goes to school functions. It’s a part of her identity, so I wanted that for me. And the school has a great political science program, so that sealed the deal.”
For the majority of American history, HBCUs were the only option for minority students since higher education institutions were exclusionary. A prime example is Harvard, the oldest higher education institution in the nation, which didn't enroll a Black student for over two centuries. Even Black female undergraduates were only admitted after affirmative action received Supreme Court approval in 1978. Similarly, the University of North Carolina didn't begin accepting Black applicants until the 1950s, and to this day, their Black student enrollment still hasn't matched the proportion of the state's Black population, which stands at 22.3%.
The NAACP has called on more than 1,600 U.S. public and private colleges and universities with selective admissions processes to commit to the "Diversity No Matter What" pledge following the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action. (The pledge includes eliminating racially biased entrance exams, promoting outreach programs, ending legacy admissions, recruiting diverse staff, creating a supportive environment, and supporting minority-serving institutions.)
Fannie Pettie Watts, co-founder of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.
But there are still plenty of strategies predominately white institutions can employ to ensure diversity. The first is to communicate to students and potential students what the ruling actually says. Race can no longer be used as a factor of admission, but the impact of racism can still be used through application materials such as essays and personal statements. The onus, however, is now on the student.
Colleges can still consider factors that have a known impact of increasing racial diversity. The best one is by factoring in socioeconomic status. This works for Bryan Cook, director of higher education policy at the Urban Institute. “Class-based affirmative action is essentially giving a significant weight to students who come from lower-income households.”
Schools have not done a good job with this so far. According to The New York Times, a 2017 study found that 38 U.S. universities—including five Ivy League schools—have enrolled more students from the top 1% of earners than from the bottom 60%.
Another prominent strategy is to get rid of legacy-based admissions, which are essentially affirmative action for wealthy white alumni. Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Sen. Jeff Merkley sponsored the Fair College Admissions for Students Act. The law is simple: Schools that give special consideration to children of alumni or donors wouldn't be able to access $120 billion in federal student aid, such as loans or Pell Grants.
Also, certain Ivy Leagues, such as Harvard, are at least looking at eliminating athletic recruitment for niche sports such as fencing, lacrosse, crew, sailing, ice hockey, water polo, and squash. Majority nonwhite and lower-income communities don’t have the recreational centers of affluent white communities, and the argument is there is little benefit to subsidizing these types of sports. Duke University economist Peter Arcidiacono discovered it would make an impact. “If you eliminate athletic preferences at Harvard, white admission rates go down, Black admission rates stay the same, and Hispanic and Asian rates go up. Over 16 percent of white admits are athletes at Harvard, which is significantly higher than for Black students.”
Some states, to be fair, have already taken other initiatives to increase diversity in the post-affirmative action world. Texas enacted a “Percentage Plan” in 1997 after a court ruling barred affirmative action in university admissions. (That ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2003. But that was when the court cared about stare decisis, that whole respecting past decisions thing.) The Percentage Plan allows every graduate of a public high school in the top 10% of his or her class to get into any public college, without any SAT or ACT score. That makes a lot of sense, as standardized college tests have been found to be exclusionary to minorities and classist. This increased diversity dramatically at Texas schools.
Another plan is to increase the enrollment of community college transfer students. California enacted this plan, and it increased enrollment of Latino and Black students to state universities. Schools can do this on their own and don’t need to wait for their state to act.
Affirmative action protest against the U.S. Supreme Court.
Morgan State announced they would continue using a variety of strategies to attract diverse students, such as forging partnerships with community organizations and school districts where these student populations are concentrated.
As always, some states, like Florida, are taking the opposite approach and trying to make it even harder for minorities to attend college. HB 999 would prohibit students from majoring or minoring in certain disciplines, like ethnic studies, gender studies, CRT, or social justice. The high cost of higher education has always been a barrier for people of color, yet Republicans in Florida have been trying for years to curb the state's popular Bright Futures program, which guarantees tuition assistance to state schools based on grades.
RELATED STORY: The US is forgiving more federal student loans in a bid to tackle 'unsustainable debt' for borrowers
Forty-five years ago, in his dissent of the Regents of Southern California v. Bakke, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, “For it must be remembered that, during most of the past 200 years, the Constitution as interpreted by this Court did not prohibit the most ingenious and pervasive forms of discrimination against the Negro. Now, when a state acts to remedy the effects of that legacy of discrimination, I cannot believe that this same Constitution stands as a barrier.”
Today, the fund that bears his name, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, is leading the charge to fund HBCUs: “In light of this unprecedented decision, it is imperative, now more than ever, that America’s corporate leaders make an intentional effort to engage our HBCUs to ensure that their companies are finding and helping to cultivate the best and brightest students of color that our nation has to offer. Additionally, it is more critical now that Congress passes the IGNITE HBCU Excellence Act to provide HBCUs and their students with the critical infrastructure grants needed to improve institutional facilities, increase broadband access, provide access to cutting-edge technological resources, decrease environmental hazards, and establish or enhance centers for innovative research.”
Minorities have been dealt yet another blow by this conservative activist Supreme Court, but it doesn’t have to mean the end of campus diversity. Until progressives take back control of our courts to ensure fairness for everyone, not just those who have means, there are steps that can be taken to ensure multitalented and qualified nonwhite applicants get a shot at higher education. We’ll soon see which schools are allies, and which aren’t.
Campaign Action
On June 29 of this year, the right-wing block of SCOTUS struck it down using the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which was designed to protect Black Americans. Systemic barriers for marginalized groups, such as grossly underfunded schools, housing discrimination, and income inequality, have long prevented talented students from accessing higher education, but the right-wing justices twisted the protections afforded in the Constitution to deny certain people their civil rights.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had a harsh dissent, saying the ruling striking down affirmative action “condemns our society to never escape the past that explains how and why race matters to the very concept of who ‘merits’ admission.”
Sadly, as a result, many colleges are expected to abandon their former mandate to prioritize diversity. This shift places a growing burden on historically Black colleges and universities to bridge the gap. HBCUs have nurtured exceptional talent that often went unnoticed by other institutions. With the ruling overturning affirmative action, HBCUs are expected to meet the mounting demand. This is problematic.
RELATED STORY: Why many Republicans would prefer students never learn the truth about American history
The president of Morehouse College, an all-male HBCU in Atlanta, has already projected that applications will double from 7,000 to 14,000. But the college can’t handle the load currently. The dormitories are already fully occupied, and in order to accommodate an extra 1,000 students while upholding small class sizes and high-quality courses, the college would have to expand its faculty by at least a third within the next three years.
Ironically, Morehouse College enacted its own affirmative action program to ensure diversity for non-Black students several years ago. This point was not lost on the Democratic challenger to GOP Congressman Rich McCormick, who celebrated the anti-affirmative action ruling:
Though they make up only 3% of American colleges and universities, HBCUs contribute to almost 20% of all Black graduates. HBCU graduates make up approximately 80% of Black judges and more than half of Black doctors and lawyers. Additionally, a quarter of Black undergraduates who receive STEM degrees are affiliated with HBCUs.
In spite of the criticality of HBCUs, they have received significantly less investment and support than other post-graduate institutions. A study by Brookings Metro found that in 2020, the 10 largest HBCU endowments were 100 times smaller than the 10 largest endowments for predominantly white institutions. To give an example of the disparity, one college, New York University, pulled in $4.2 billion in 2019 from endowments alone, and that’s less than the combined total of every single HBCU endowment in the entire nation, which is roughly $3.9 billion.
Additionally, less than 1% of federal research and development grants are awarded to HBCUs. This lack of investment translates to far less resources for students and faculty. This was the one theme that kept coming up in talking with students of various HBCUs. Searching online, I was able to connect with both freshmen and upperclassmen on social media pages for various HBCUs. Although most responses were positive when I asked them about their experience at HBCUs, several had many complaints about their school’s administration.
Student union at Savannah State University.
O'kevia Graham wouldn’t tell me the exact HBCU she attended in North Carolina, but said she wouldn’t attend this school if she decides to go for her master’s degree. “People didn’t answer phones, never returned calls, and ignored emails.” Attempts to talk to school officials on the record were unsuccessful.
Historically, HBCUs have been woefully underfunded and many are still in serious financial straits. It’s not just the buildings that need attention, it’s the student allocations. For example, the North Carolina legislature appropriated students who attended North Carolina A&T State University $8,200 less per student than the $16,400 per student it gave to NC State. Even with student services, which includes admissions, financial aid, and the registrar’s office, HBCUs are nowhere close to being funded comparably to the predominantly white schools. For example, at NC State, student services allocations amounted to $1,342 per student. At A&T State, it’s only $726 per student.
While each state receives federal land grant funding for their institutions, HBCUs have been underfunded for decades compared to their white counterparts. In Oklahoma, Langston University has been underfunded by $418.9 million, according to federal officials. President Joe Biden directed his secretaries of Agriculture and Education to work with the governors of 16 states to address the issue. Even if certain governors aren’t interested in helping these schools, the letter points out that it would behoove them to consider the litigation costs. Maryland had to recently settle an HBCU lawsuit for over $577 million.
Nonetheless, despite the frustration with resources, most of the students I spoke with had positive statements about their HBCU experience. Valerie Frechette said she loved attending Clark in Atlanta. “I learned a lot. First courses I ever had in Black history. Also, the professors were awesome. They had our backs and were really close.”
I asked why she decided to go to an HBCU. “I have an aunt who attended, and she made long-lasting friendships. She still goes to school functions. It’s a part of her identity, so I wanted that for me. And the school has a great political science program, so that sealed the deal.”
For the majority of American history, HBCUs were the only option for minority students since higher education institutions were exclusionary. A prime example is Harvard, the oldest higher education institution in the nation, which didn't enroll a Black student for over two centuries. Even Black female undergraduates were only admitted after affirmative action received Supreme Court approval in 1978. Similarly, the University of North Carolina didn't begin accepting Black applicants until the 1950s, and to this day, their Black student enrollment still hasn't matched the proportion of the state's Black population, which stands at 22.3%.
The NAACP has called on more than 1,600 U.S. public and private colleges and universities with selective admissions processes to commit to the "Diversity No Matter What" pledge following the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action. (The pledge includes eliminating racially biased entrance exams, promoting outreach programs, ending legacy admissions, recruiting diverse staff, creating a supportive environment, and supporting minority-serving institutions.)
Fannie Pettie Watts, co-founder of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.
But there are still plenty of strategies predominately white institutions can employ to ensure diversity. The first is to communicate to students and potential students what the ruling actually says. Race can no longer be used as a factor of admission, but the impact of racism can still be used through application materials such as essays and personal statements. The onus, however, is now on the student.
Colleges can still consider factors that have a known impact of increasing racial diversity. The best one is by factoring in socioeconomic status. This works for Bryan Cook, director of higher education policy at the Urban Institute. “Class-based affirmative action is essentially giving a significant weight to students who come from lower-income households.”
Schools have not done a good job with this so far. According to The New York Times, a 2017 study found that 38 U.S. universities—including five Ivy League schools—have enrolled more students from the top 1% of earners than from the bottom 60%.
Another prominent strategy is to get rid of legacy-based admissions, which are essentially affirmative action for wealthy white alumni. Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Sen. Jeff Merkley sponsored the Fair College Admissions for Students Act. The law is simple: Schools that give special consideration to children of alumni or donors wouldn't be able to access $120 billion in federal student aid, such as loans or Pell Grants.
Also, certain Ivy Leagues, such as Harvard, are at least looking at eliminating athletic recruitment for niche sports such as fencing, lacrosse, crew, sailing, ice hockey, water polo, and squash. Majority nonwhite and lower-income communities don’t have the recreational centers of affluent white communities, and the argument is there is little benefit to subsidizing these types of sports. Duke University economist Peter Arcidiacono discovered it would make an impact. “If you eliminate athletic preferences at Harvard, white admission rates go down, Black admission rates stay the same, and Hispanic and Asian rates go up. Over 16 percent of white admits are athletes at Harvard, which is significantly higher than for Black students.”
Some states, to be fair, have already taken other initiatives to increase diversity in the post-affirmative action world. Texas enacted a “Percentage Plan” in 1997 after a court ruling barred affirmative action in university admissions. (That ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2003. But that was when the court cared about stare decisis, that whole respecting past decisions thing.) The Percentage Plan allows every graduate of a public high school in the top 10% of his or her class to get into any public college, without any SAT or ACT score. That makes a lot of sense, as standardized college tests have been found to be exclusionary to minorities and classist. This increased diversity dramatically at Texas schools.
Another plan is to increase the enrollment of community college transfer students. California enacted this plan, and it increased enrollment of Latino and Black students to state universities. Schools can do this on their own and don’t need to wait for their state to act.
Affirmative action protest against the U.S. Supreme Court.
Morgan State announced they would continue using a variety of strategies to attract diverse students, such as forging partnerships with community organizations and school districts where these student populations are concentrated.
As always, some states, like Florida, are taking the opposite approach and trying to make it even harder for minorities to attend college. HB 999 would prohibit students from majoring or minoring in certain disciplines, like ethnic studies, gender studies, CRT, or social justice. The high cost of higher education has always been a barrier for people of color, yet Republicans in Florida have been trying for years to curb the state's popular Bright Futures program, which guarantees tuition assistance to state schools based on grades.
RELATED STORY: The US is forgiving more federal student loans in a bid to tackle 'unsustainable debt' for borrowers
Forty-five years ago, in his dissent of the Regents of Southern California v. Bakke, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, “For it must be remembered that, during most of the past 200 years, the Constitution as interpreted by this Court did not prohibit the most ingenious and pervasive forms of discrimination against the Negro. Now, when a state acts to remedy the effects of that legacy of discrimination, I cannot believe that this same Constitution stands as a barrier.”
Today, the fund that bears his name, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, is leading the charge to fund HBCUs: “In light of this unprecedented decision, it is imperative, now more than ever, that America’s corporate leaders make an intentional effort to engage our HBCUs to ensure that their companies are finding and helping to cultivate the best and brightest students of color that our nation has to offer. Additionally, it is more critical now that Congress passes the IGNITE HBCU Excellence Act to provide HBCUs and their students with the critical infrastructure grants needed to improve institutional facilities, increase broadband access, provide access to cutting-edge technological resources, decrease environmental hazards, and establish or enhance centers for innovative research.”
Minorities have been dealt yet another blow by this conservative activist Supreme Court, but it doesn’t have to mean the end of campus diversity. Until progressives take back control of our courts to ensure fairness for everyone, not just those who have means, there are steps that can be taken to ensure multitalented and qualified nonwhite applicants get a shot at higher education. We’ll soon see which schools are allies, and which aren’t.
Campaign Action