By Robert A. Scott
News reports about the Supreme Court’s overruling of two decades of Affirmative Action case law are numerous. Many have focused on the costs to colleges of ensuring a diverse applicant pool when race cannot be considered.
This is true, but the major consequence of the court’s decision is on opportunities for black and Hispanic youth to enter the pathways to prestigious positions.
Just look: Eight of nine of the court’s justices graduated from Harvard and Yale. Twenty percent of federal judges graduated from an Ivy League or highly selective public institution.
Yes, institutions will have to broaden their reach in recruiting black and Hispanic high school students from beyond their traditional feeder schools and communities.
This has been the experience in the nine states that have banned race-based admissions, including California, following that state’s ban on affirmative action in 1996.
Interestingly, there has been little commentary on the vourt’s exclusion of the military academies from its ruling. They can continue to consider race in their pursuit of diversity as a goal. This may be a carryover from the Powell opinion in the Bakke case, but needs further explanation.
The original impetus for Affirmative Action was overcoming years of public and private racial discrimination, of providing opportunities for advancement.
In announcing his support for the policy, President Lyndon Johnson said in a 1965 commencement speech at Howard University, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”
He argued that laws against discrimination were not sufficient; affirmative actions were required to make up for past prejudice.
It was in the 1979 Bakke case that Justice Lewis Powell wrote the majority opinion supporting Affirmative Action if quotas were not used, and the policy served to support the educational benefits of diversity.
This is when the goal of overcoming years of racial discrimination was joined by goals for diversity as a consideration in admissions decisions.
In 2003, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the influential opinions in the Gratz and Grutter cases supporting race-based Affirmative Action.
However, she also optimistically wrote that she expected that race-based considerations would not be needed in 25 years, although it was necessary at the time. It still is.
Nearly 70 years since Brown v. Board of Education racial and resource disparities among schools persist, resulting in de facto segregation and unequal opportunities for high-quality public education.
The reality today is that most colleges do not practice Affirmative Action in student selection.
Only about 5% of American colleges and universities admit less than 50% of applicants. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and a small number of other institutions admit fewer than 7% of applicants for first-year enrollment.
Last fall, Harvard admitted under 3% of applicants. So, with many more applicants than spaces for students, these highly selective colleges try to compose a first-year class of differing characteristics in addition to academic preparation.
Such characteristics include geographic region; high school and family resources; intended major course of study; athletic, musical, or theatrical talents; hardships overcome; and racial, ethnic, or economic considerations, among others.
Most colleges and universities do not have this opportunity. According to the National Association of College Admissions Counselors, most institutions admit two-thirds of the applicants for freshman status.
While 85% of those admitted to Harvard accept the offer, well-known schools such as Colgate and Purdue find that less than 30% of those admitted accept their offer.
For many colleges, the yield on offers of admission is even lower. These colleges do not have the luxury of composing a class; they need to enroll a class.
The significance of the Supreme Court case is not in undergraduate admissions. It is, rather, that these highly selective campuses that have used race to assist in enrolling a diverse student body are major sources of judges, doctors, scientists, patent holders, and other leaders in society.
If these institutions cannot consider race and racism in composing a first-year class, the consequence will be that black and Hispanic high school graduates will not be enrolled in the same numbers and will not have the same access to positions available to graduates of these institutions.
For example, nearly one-third of corporate officers and directors attended elite colleges and universities. U.S. presidential cabinets have been dominated by the graduates of elite schools.
Some 80% of PhD faculty members graduated from 20% of all institutions. Sixty-three percent of medical doctors graduated from the “most selective” or “extremely selective” colleges.
The top patent holders in science and technology are at the most selective and prestigious universities.
While graduates of less selective, regional colleges, such as the ones I led, do well in life and careers, the fact is that graduates of highly selective universities have an advantage.
These institutions are national pipelines to prestigious networks that should be open to more high school graduates. The opportunities they provide should not be limited to those who attend highly resourced suburban schools and private academies, where black and Hispanic students are in a distinct minority.
Less selective colleges, including historically black colleges and universities, are important in their regions. They prepare teachers, lawyers, managers, entrepreneurs, and others who become the backbones of their communities. Their impact is more regional than national.
Ivy League and similarly selective institutions have the resources to look further for talented young people in rural and urban communities not usually frequented by elite college recruiters.
Let us hope that state legislators will allow highly selective public universities to do the same. By looking more deeply into family and community obstacles overcome by applicants, perhaps they will be able to compose socioeconomically and ethnically diverse student bodies who will find new paths to success.
As a nation, we should do more to support our public schools so that more students can reach their potential. We must acknowledge the continuing effects of racially discriminatory practices in schooling, housing, and public resources.
Then, all young people will be able to enroll in colleges that can provide the academic preparation and alumni networks necessary for professional success and community leadership.
Perhaps then our courts and board rooms will be more diverse not only in family background but also in their colleges of origin.
Robert A. Scott, President Emeritus, Adelphi University, and Author, How University Boards Work, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018; Eric Hoffer Book Prize Awardee, 2019.