It appeared like the nation was finally prepared to move on from this unfair policy and recommit to excellence and merit when the Supreme Court made its announcement last summer in Students for Fair Admissions ( SFFA ) v. President and Fellows of Harvard College ( the decision that effectively ended affirmative action ).
White and Asian applicants no longer receive rejection because they do n’t meet an organization’s arbitrary diversity criteria, nor do unqualified applicants no longer receive admission to or employment and then immediately fail because they lack the necessary skills and experience.
As a high school English teacher, I had particular reason to celebrate the selection. I’ve seen so many students of mine for years who had near-perfect SAT scores, lots of volunteer hours, and unlimited creative potential denied entrance to supposedly elite universities because they were the wrong skin color. However, I saw their great- but- certainly- great peers make it into those same schools and actually qualify for scholarships — again, because of their race. The highest court of the country intervened and decried it after so many decades of soft reasoning and lawful fumbling.
Sadly, affirmative action would n’t go away that easily. According to a recent report from Renu Mukherjee at the Manhattan Institute, the American Bar Association ( ABA ) and New York State Bar Association ( NYSBA ) have” continued to grant admissions preferences to black and Hispanic applicants using methods that are race-neutral in theory but race-conscious in practice.”
In order to “foster racial and ethnic variety in the absence of racial motion,” the ABA and NYSBA proceeded to establish a series of virtual workshops that would assist law schools in identifying minority applicants. According to Mukherjee, the primary way to do this was “tying]the applicant’s race ] to ‘ a non- cultural goal or value being pursued by the university ‘” so that “if the school faces a constitutional challenge, administers may say that any preference granted to URMs]underrepresented minorities ] is never based on race itself but rather on their ‘ lived experiences.'”
For those familiar with the application process, none of this is exactly subtle. There are a number of ways to determine a person’s race without asking him directly, and it does n’t take a DEI expert to spell it out. It’s primarily a matter of asking applicants to write essays about their personal backgrounds for law schools and colleges, not just their test scores.
Consequently, affirmative action and all the problems it creates continue to do damage to everyone involved. Not only will countless diligent students and employees see their advancement thwarted, but countless minority students will unavoidably struggle in roles they are not qualified to fill, and institutions that require artificial racial diversity will compromise their standards, perpetuating all of this and preventing racial harmony. The assumption will always be the same for every successful black person and unsuccessful white person: His race had some connection to it.
To the obstinate DEI acolyte who views success as a zero-sum game, diversity naturally operates in this manner.
However, as Mukherjee explains toward the end of the report, there’s a better way to ensure diversity without resorting to affirmative action, and it’s one that the NYSBA actually endorses: pipeline programs. These are programs that “help students enter the legal profession by providing them with free academic tutoring, standardized test prep … mentorship, and career development opportunities”.
Pipeline programs help raise students of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds to the levels necessary for success, rather than lowering standards and weeding out better-qualified applicants. Therefore, those who grow up poor or come from dysfunctional families may have access to those programs that only the wealthy ( and typically whiter ) Americans can enjoy. If done correctly, these pipelines would encourage more diversity across various institutions ( both ideological and economic ), as well as racial, and move Americans past the racist tit-for-tat that today’s leftist leaders ca n’t seem to let go of.
However, establishing and maintaining effective pipeline initiatives would require ongoing funding and support, and more importantly, it would require Americans to be objective in their evaluation and treatment of non-white Americans ‘ social disorders. This would require people to stop blaming systemic racism and unconscious bias for someone’s apparent inability to advance academically and professionally. The pipeline programs Mukherjee recommends offer crucial assistance in this area because personal agency and accountability must be returned to the individual.
As it stands, using affirmative action to close the achievement gap only serves to make the issue worse. While irresponsible elites, DEI bureaucrats, and race hustlers may be fine with this status quo, Americans who want a more productive, harmonious, and yes, diverse society, must continue fighting to create a better alternative. The Supreme Court’s victory last year marked only the start of this campaign.
