![]() According to the National Center for Education, of the 16.6 million students enrolled in postsecondary institutions in the fall of 2018, 8.7 million were white, while 2.1 million were Black and 3.4 million% were Hispanic. “Having people from different backgrounds in colleges actually improves educational opportunities for students.”Īnd while affirmative action critics may say the policy is outdated and unnecessary for ensuring diversity on campuses, statistics say otherwise. Affirmative action “diversifies the student body, and actually that’s a huge deal,” Cookson says. Plus, learning in a diverse environment (not just as it pertains to race and ethnicity, but also gender, sexual orientation, and more) is arguably beneficial to all students, not just minorities. And as Slate points out, graduating from an elite school - which is more likely to use affirmative action - typically helps open even more doors than graduating from a less competitive school, particularly for BIPOC and first-generation college attendees, because it helps open up professional networks. And when it comes to college, the opportunity to attend generally helps foster even more opportunity beyond graduation: According to CNN, as of 2019, college graduates earned $33,000% more per year than high school graduates. The basis of the argument is that “minority groups, which include women, have been discriminated against historically, and that there is a constitutional protection that they should have equal opportunity,” Cookson says. “It is the University’s ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admissions policies.” “The Court’s affirmance of the University’s admissions policy today does not necessarily mean the University may rely on that same policy without refinement,” Justice Anthony M. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled against Fisher and in favor of upholding affirmative action. Texas does have a rule in place that grants graduates in the top 10% of their high school classes automatic admission to state universities (though the flagships’ percentages are smaller, top 7 or 8% in recent years), and Fisher - who was 82nd out of 674 students in her graduating class - did not qualify. But the university stated that Fisher wasn’t denied because of her race she was denied because of her academic performance. Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas after being denied admission, claiming the decision was made because she is white. The reverse discrimination argument was the center of a landmark Supreme Court case decided in 2016. ![]() Kennedy, who, in an executive order, stated that government contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or natural origin.” That order regarding employment opportunities further emphasized the need for equal opportunity more broadly, and the policy soon made its way to higher education admissions. ![]() The term was first introduced in 1961 by President John F. What is affirmative action?Īffirmative action is a policy used by colleges and universities to improve the educational opportunities for certain races, genders, and sexual orientations that are commonly and historically discriminated against. ![]() It seems every time Republicans and Democrats switch places in the White House, conversations about whether it works are ignited anew. While Trump didn’t make his personal views on the cases known, his Department of Education and Justice Department ultimately officially signaled that university admissions departments had no obligation to consider race as a factor when determining the composition of their student bodies.īut affirmative action has long been a controversial policy, with lawsuits dating back decades. At the heart of the discussion were two major court cases in which a white student at the University of Texas and a group of Asian American students at Harvard University claimed that affirmative action policies discriminated against them. The Trump era rekindled a heated national debate over affirmative action.
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