In a much-anticipated decision, the Supreme Court has outlawed the use of race as a factor in college admissions. The reaction to the decision will undoubtedly be split between those who view the SCOTUS ruling as a loss of opportunities for minorities, particularly black applicants, and those who think it might finally usher in the conditions for true equality. I am in the latter category.
Proponents of affirmative action have a habit of talking about it in theory rather than in practice. Perhaps understandably, they think of affirmative action as a program designed to increase employment and educational opportunities for blacks, particularly in government programs and college admissions. Lost in the debate over affirmative action is whether the program works.
It's true that the college gap between white and black Americans is small. In 2021, 38 percent of white Americans and 37 percent of black Americans aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). And yet, a closer look at the data shows that it is not the black Americans most owed restitution by the United States—American Descendants of Slavery—who benefit the most from race-based college admissions. Many of the blacks enrolled at elite universities are first or second-generation Americans. Between half and two-thirds of the black Harvard students were West Indian and African immigrants or their children in a 2004 study, causing a group of black students at Cornell to demand that ethnic origin be considered to determine who is black. And most of the remaining black students come from affluent families, leaving virtually no spots for the type of diversity most claim is needed.
Meanwhile, shortly after its implementation, sex was added to the consideration for affirmative action programs, and women quickly became the primary beneficiary of affirmative action programs. With Democrats fighting to amend the Civil Rights Act to add "identity" as a protected class, affirmative action programs are bound to have an even smaller benefit for blacks in the future.
But there's an even more damning argument against affirmative action in college admissions and it's the moral one—that affirmative action actually hurts the cause of true equality. Consider that people aren't really arguing that blacks need help getting into college; they are arguing for preference in admission to elite colleges. And that leads to an uncomfortable truth. These universities are elite for a reason. The point is to get the best of the best and have them compete, elevating the level of academic discourse in order to innovate and compete globally. And the truth that no one wants to admit is that trying to artificially increase the number of minority students is doomed, not because of racism but due to supply.
When it comes to the stock of students competitive for the tiny number of spots at elite universities, the data is clear: Blacks have a disproportionately lower number of academically elite students.
Of course, there's no genetic or cultural reason for the lack of elite black students. They are simply trapped in an education system that is failing them, led by administrators who are more concerned about perceived oppression than instilling academic excellence. But that doesn't change the facts. Take Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, the most selective of the selective of New York's public schools. The New York Times recently reported that of the 762 new students admitted to the school, only seven are black. If elite colleges look to these schools for their next crop of geniuses, how diverse can their student body be? And for those who believe white supremacy is to blame for the low number of black students, 489 of the new Stuyvesant students are Asian.
What this means is that affirmative action, at least as it is practiced today, is about lowering the standards specifically for black students. That is actual racism at play.
It uses race as a proxy for struggle, as Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out in his concurrence, where he wrote that universities can no longer "use the applicant's skin color as a heuristic, assuming that because the applicant checks the box for 'black' he therefore conforms to the university's monolithic and reductionist view of an abstract, average black person."
And that's the biggest problem with affirmative action: It's counter to its goal of equality. While the intentions behind it are good, it promotes a different set of standards based on race. This amounts to both a policy failure and a moral one. After decades of open discrimination, the federal government planted a flag marking the end of discrimination, then proceeded to allow discrimination.
The decision on affirmative action is not nearly as ground-breaking as many believe, for the simple fact that affirmative action was never as beneficial to blacks, especially poor blacks, as its supporters think it was, so little will change. Private universities will continue to adjust their admissions requirements to achieve their desired levels of diversity, while college-bound black high school graduates will continue to be admitted to public universities at roughly the same rate.
So what would promote real equality?
It would be more beneficial to black students if we focused on the quality of K-12 education, promoting enrollment in community colleges, minimizing the overemphasis on elite universities, and de-stigmatizing the trades, instead of trying to encourage every student to go to a four-year college.
All of these would promote real equality. But affirmative action in college admissions always had the implication that the government's use of racial preference is the only chance young black Americans have for future success. Nothing could be further from real equality.
Charles Love is the executive director of Seeking Educational Excellence, co-host of The Cut the Bull Podcast, and the author of "Race Crazy: BLM, 1619, and the Progressive Racism Movement."
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
