SCOTUS ruling on affirmative action ‘made it more difficult’ for diversity in college, professor says
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BALTIMORE – A local law professor told WJZ the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the use of affirmative action for college admissions makes it more challenging to ensure diversity in higher education.
The nation’s highest court voted Thursday 6 to 3 to end affirmative action in college admissions practices.
While Higginbotham views this Supreme Court ruling as a step backward in ensuring equality, he remains hopeful.
“We’ll still get there,” University of Baltimore School of Law professor Michael Higgenbotham said. “The court today, its decision has made it more difficult. It may take a little longer but we’re still going to get there.”
As soon as the news broke, reactions came in on both sides of this issue.
“I think it’s going to limit the amount of opportunities that people of color can have and I think that’s really discouraging,” one woman said.
“I would like to see the whole society care more about class, economic class than race,” another person said.
This landmark decision overturns a longstanding precedent that benefited college students of color.
The case was brought on by a conservative group that challenged the fact that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina used race as one of the factors when making admissions decisions.
The group argued that affirmative action discriminated against Asian American applicants.
Before the court’s ruling, there were nine states that already banned affirmative action, including California.
Higgenbotham said those states have seen a sharp decline in diversity in higher education.
“They eliminated the use of race about 15 years ago and the racial diversity in their classes dropped significantly,” Higgenbotham said.
The reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision has garnered reaction from many, including Morgan State University, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Congressman Kweisi Mfume.
“With this unjust decision, the Supreme Court has helped entrench ongoing racial discrimination in higher education rather than eliminate it,” Mayor Scott said. “For decades, race-conscious admissions have offered a glimmer of hope to students across the country that their entire life experience would matter. The only thing this decision guarantees is that the history of discrimination and racism that Black and Brown students have been forced to overcome will continue unabated.”
“We cannot and will not let this conservative court limit the potential and brilliance of our young people, no matter how hard they try to eliminate the progress made so far.”
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is shamefully disrespectful to the lived experiences of millions of Americans and their ancestors. The effects of 200 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow laws cannot be erased or overcome without first attempting to provide educational opportunities to balance the scale of historic discrimination,” added Congressman Mfume. “Today’s destructive Court decision will over time energize a whole new generation of young people to now realize that the issue of race and skin color has not gone away, and that unfortunately, it still dominates too many aspects of the American system of higher education.”
Jessica Albert