People of color have never been treated equally in America. That is the reason they need priority in education to allow them to start to balance out some of that inequality.
The issue comes when you are applying skin color adjustments to people who aren't at a disadvantage. A rich black person has significantly more opportunity than a poor asian person. However, Harvard was saying the rich black person should get extra preference over the poor asian student, purely because of their skin colors. Why should the asian student from a poor family with hardly any opportunity be held down?
Were they held down though? In California when they eliminated AA at their public universities there wasn’t much change in the economic outcomes for asian and white students. Sure, before maybe they didn’t get to go to the ‘best’ school but on average still had similar outcomes.
This isn’t true for black/Hispanic/native American students whose economic outcome depreciated. These students benefited from being able to break into the social networks provided by elite universities. Something that white/Asian students might already have access to.
So if all that matters is going to elite schools then sure, but there are externalities that are important and not everyone benefits equally from the top echelon of schools. It’s not a perfect system but it’s better than not having it.
Harvard specifically suppressed asian applicants based on their race, not via some secondary effect, but as a core aspect of their race-based admissions. In the court case, this was demonstrably proven and is why the race-based admissions were struck down under the Equal Protections clause.
"The First Circuit found that Harvard’s consideration of race has resulted in fewer admissions of Asian-American students. Respondents’ assertion that race is never a negative factor in their admissions programs cannot withstand scrutiny."
Yes, if all that matters in your life is where you go to school then yes they were held back from achieving that.
For a lot of people higher education is seen as the mantle to climb the socioeconomic ladder and on average the Asian or white kid who was competitive but didn’t get to go to harvard will achieve similar outcomes regardless.
People of color have never been treated equally in America. That is the reason they need priority in education to allow them to start to balance out some of that inequality.
The issue comes when you are applying skin color adjustments to people who aren't at a disadvantage. A rich black person has significantly more opportunity than a poor asian person. However, Harvard was saying the rich black person should get extra preference over the poor asian student, purely because of their skin colors. Why should the asian student from a poor family with hardly any opportunity be held down?
Were they held down though? In California when they eliminated AA at their public universities there wasn’t much change in the economic outcomes for asian and white students. Sure, before maybe they didn’t get to go to the ‘best’ school but on average still had similar outcomes.
This isn’t true for black/Hispanic/native American students whose economic outcome depreciated. These students benefited from being able to break into the social networks provided by elite universities. Something that white/Asian students might already have access to.
So if all that matters is going to elite schools then sure, but there are externalities that are important and not everyone benefits equally from the top echelon of schools. It’s not a perfect system but it’s better than not having it.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184461214/examining-the-impact-of-californias-ban-on-affirmative-action-in-public-schools
Harvard specifically suppressed asian applicants based on their race, not via some secondary effect, but as a core aspect of their race-based admissions. In the court case, this was demonstrably proven and is why the race-based admissions were struck down under the Equal Protections clause.
"The First Circuit found that Harvard’s consideration of race has resulted in fewer admissions of Asian-American students. Respondents’ assertion that race is never a negative factor in their admissions programs cannot withstand scrutiny."
Yes, if all that matters in your life is where you go to school then yes they were held back from achieving that.
For a lot of people higher education is seen as the mantle to climb the socioeconomic ladder and on average the Asian or white kid who was competitive but didn’t get to go to harvard will achieve similar outcomes regardless.