Opinion: Supreme Court bans racial discrimination in college admissions

I am a minority and I have waited 45 years for this decision

I am an Iowan and, in the summer of 1978, I was doing what thousands of other high school students were doing — I was working on a farm detasseling or walking beans. This was before cellphones or iPods or even the Sony Walkman. No one had Beats headphones or earbuds. I had a transistor radio on a rope slung over my shoulder. Of course, I was listening to music, it was after all the best era for popular music, but the real reason I carried that radio was to listen to the news. I was waiting for the Supreme Court to rule in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.

Bakke was the case that introduced the phrase 'reverse discrimination' to the American lexicon. Of course, what we called reverse discrimination, 45 years later is today called 'affirmative action.'

At issue in Bakke was whether the admissions policies of the University of California Davis School of Medicine discriminated against white applicants in violation of the U.S. Constitution. At the time, the med school admitted 100 new students each year. Of those sixteen seats were reserved for minority applicants. Of course, minority applicants could fill any of the 100 seats and were not limited to the sixteen minority seats.

Allan Bakke was a white engineer and former Marine office. He had applied to the school twice and been denied admission twice. While Bakke was not one of the top applicants, he argued that based on the school's criteria, including GPA and test scores, were it not for the sixteen-seat minority “set aside” he would have been admitted.

The court ruled 5-4 in Bakke's favor, and he was admitted. The court did not reject race outright as a factor in admissions but ruled that the strict quota used by the school was unconstitutional.

I know it sounds strange, but this brown high school student, preparing for college admission himself celebrated that decision in the middle of an Iowa farm field.

In my opinion, Bakke was a victory but only a partial victory. The court still allowed race to be considered in admissions but not in the form of strict quotas. In 2003 the court affirmed Bakke, ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger that race could still be a factor in college admissions.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court finally completed the work begun in Bakke and banned racial discrimination in college admissions. In a momentous session, the Supreme Court found in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina that using race as a factor in college admissions violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and more importantly the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In an intriguing role reversal, Students for Fair Admissions argued that minority students (particularly Asian Americans), not white students, were victims of discrimination in the race-based admissions policies of these elite schools. The plaintiffs pointed out that while the number of Asian American applicants to Harvard had been increasing, the percentage of Asian American students admitted had not.

Harvard has a complex admissions process that weighs both objective criteria such as grades and test scores, as well as subjective aspects related to personality. The plaintiffs contended that Asian American applicants as a group outscored all others in objective criteria but were rated consistently lower in subjective traits. At the same time, African American applicants scored the lowest in objective criteria but highest in subjective traits.

Naturally, applicants tend to highlight their most favorable qualities. However, the admission policies at Harvard led to Asian American students minimizing their Asian identity, such as opting to accentuate athletic accomplishments rather than showcasing musical talents like violin proficiency.

The supreme ruled 6-3 for the plaintiffs in North Carolina and 6-2 in Harvard (with Justice Jackson recusing herself from Harvard). In writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts invoked Justice Powell's majority opinion in Bakke, writing:

" … the guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal."

I was a minority student getting ready to apply for college myself in 1978 and in that Iowa farm field I cheered when the Bakke decision was announced. Forty-five years later, as a minority college graduate, I cheered again when the Supreme Court ruled in Harvard.

You may ask how I, as a minority, could support the court's decision in Bakke and now Harvard. I understand that systemic or institutional racism remains a critical issue in our country. However, it is also racist to stereotype every person of color as disadvantaged. I am a multiracial brown man My father was an African, Jamaican, Chinese immigrant with a green card my mother was from Guam. But every person's story is unique. My father was from a poor family, but he came to the U.S. on an academic scholarship after winning an islandwide competition, my mother also came to the states to study. My father became a professor at UNI and my mother was a teacher, both had advanced degrees and I grew up in a home full of books. My parents were not wealthy, but I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood and many of my classmates came from similar backgrounds.

Critics might say, that I can oppose race-based affirmative action because of “my privilege.” That is precisely the point! I did not need or deserve preference in admission based on my race.

To make race itself a deciding factor in college admissions only makes things worse. In Bakke, the admissions policies of the UC Davis Med school discriminated against white students. In Harvard, the university's admission policies discriminated against Asian American students.

Significantly, the court permitted institutions to consider the impact of race on the life experiences of applicants. This moves away from the assumption that every minority applicant should be given automatic preference, enabling schools to take into account actual hardships faced because of race.

I like the words of Justice Thomas in his concurrence:

"While I am painfully aware of the social and economic ravages which have befallen my race and all who suffer discrimination, I hold out enduring hope that this country will live up to its principles so clearly enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States: that all men are created equal, are equal citizens, and must be treated equally before the law."

David Chung is a Gazette editorial fellow. David.Chung@thegazette.com