Editorial: Court got it wrong on affirmative action

College admissions has always been a nuanced topic; however, everyone can agree that admissions decisions should be fair and equal. Agreement on how to do so is a bit more difficult. In arguments against affirmative action, some say that favoring one group over another based on skin color is unequal, but it isn’t that simple. The color of someone’s skin has the power to determine their entire life. To ignore something of such magnitude is ignorant and negligent. 

On June 29, the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in a 6-3 vote. The decision addressed two schools, Harvard and the University of North Carolina, ruling that their race-based admissions systems are unlawful. 

“Many universities have for too long…concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,” said Chief Justice John Roberts, one of the six justices who voted to end affirmative action. 

This brings up the question of equality versus equity. Equality is allowing people of all races, ethnicities, genders, etc. to apply to a college, but equity is recognizing that each individual has different circumstances and provides an equal playing field for all applicants. 

Affirmative action has been in place since 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson issued an executive order to ensure employment equality regardless of race, color, religion, and national origin. Then in 2003, the Supreme Court Case of Grutter v. Bollinger ruled that colleges could use race as a factor in admissions. 

Much of the disparity between whites and people of color is economic.

“New data from the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) show that long-standing and substantial wealth disparities between families in different racial and ethnic groups were little changed since the last survey in 2016; the typical White family has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family and five times the wealth of the typical Hispanic family,” reported The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the U.S. 

When, due to the color of your skin, you can’t afford the same tutors, schools, college coaching, and resources as your white counterparts, how can you be expected to compete?

In a similar fashion, legacy admissions continue to prevent the equality that people against affirmative action claim to be fighting for. The practice of more favorably viewing university applicants whose parents are alumni is known as “legacy” admissions. “…Several studies have shown that legacy admissions overwhelmingly favor wealthy and White applicants, and critics have described the practice as reverse affirmative action — benefiting such students at the cost of applicants of color and other disadvantaged groups,” reported The Washington Post. While affirmative action has ended, the inequitable process of admitting students because their parents went to the school continues to thrive. 

“The court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society,” stated Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of three who voted against the demolition of affirmative action.