By Nyla K., founder
Around the nation, high school seniors are hoping to get a spot at highly selective colleges. Every year the process gets more selective, and now the admissions are about to become even more complicated. The U.S. Supreme Court has been evaluating affirmative action cases since October amid the latest lawsuit that wants to end the use of race on college applications. A ruling is anticipated in June on the future of affirmative action. Research done by Pew Research Center showed that 73% of Americans say that universities should not take race into consideration. If the Supreme Court rules out using ethnicity and race, campuses will most likely have a higher population of white students. Currently, under the 14th Amendment, colleges are allowed to use race as a factor in applications. The decision would jeopardize affirmative action on college applications around the nation. This leads to decades-old debate, about whether race should be a determining factor for colleges.
Students might not think twice when including race on their college applications. However, when applying for colleges you are competing with other students who have high test scores, GPA, and extracurricular activities. There are benefits to putting your race on your application, it allows the schools to learn more about your background and help give them a deeper understanding of who you are. Without the ability to have race be a factor would affect students around the world. For many, ethnicity and race are a big part of one’s identity. With recent lawsuits across the country, accusing schools of not letting a student in based on race. Universities now more than ever are highly race-conscious; they want to have a diverse student body, but also students who accept diversity. This issue creates the major race gaps happening in America now. The number of Black and Latino students are decreasing while White and Asian-American students are rising on college campuses.
The banning of affirmative action would result in a decline of students of color. Universities would no longer have any legal obligation to consider a student's race, ethnicity, or gender, during the admission process. Affirmative action is still needed in today's society. Eliminating race would create more barriers for students of color. The policies in place with affirmative action also include training programs and different outreach programs. Affirmative action helps mend years of unequal treatment in the workplace and education system of people of color have been facing for years. While opportunities have expanded for women and people of color, millions of Americans still continue to experience race and gender barriers. The target and outreach programs were made specifically for instances where race and gender must be taken into consideration. Affirmative action just levels the playing field in corporate America and in the education system. While not every university needs to have affirmative action policies in place, there needs to be programs in place to ensure diversity.
In order to continue to have diversity and inclusion affirmative action is needed to ensure opportunities for all students. On campuses, affirmative action can reduce discrimination in the education system. The use of affirmative action has increased diversity among Black and Latino students. There is a common misconception that affirmative action allows universities to deny students access, but what affirmative action does is it allows race to be a consideration factor. But race is never the primary or determining factor in an application. Before affirmative action policies went into place, 80% of campuses were white students. Affirmative action in the education system benefits all students because it allows for a diverse learning environment. We can't erase hundreds of years of injustice and discrimination in a few decades, but affirmative action acts as a bridge between changing the laws and the culture.
Affirmative action is still needed in today's society in situations where there has been strong evidence of systematic discrimination. Affirmative action was never created to solve all problems with inequality in America. However, it was intended to redress discrimination in hiring and academic admissions. The use of affirmative action is necessary for equal opportunities for all students regardless of race and ethnicity.
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