‘Needless blow’

NEW YORK, NYC:

Jamaican United States Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, along with the Congressional Black Caucus has decried the decision by the Supreme Court on Thursday to strike down Affirmative Action in school admissions.

Also coming out against the court’s decision were President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama.

In a statement Congresswoman Clarke said that the court’s decision will have serious consequences for black and brown students, and undermines its longstanding support for affirmative action.

“For decades, affirmative action stood as a policy that promoted diversity and a chance at equal education to remedy the lingering impacts of slavery, Jim Crow, and the history of segregation that has threatened to keep the American Dream out of reach for so many people of colour. The Supreme Court’s ruling to dismantle affirmative action in college admissions will have serious consequences for Black and brown students across the nation and for generations to come,” said Congresswoman Clarke.

She said that the United States was founded on the basic principle that we all deserve the same opportunity to achieve our highest aspirations.

“The Supreme Court’s decision is a reminder of how far we still have to go to ensure all Americans are treated equally. It’s clear that the American people continue to see this Court faces a legitimacy crisis, and we cannot falter in our fight for racial justice and equal opportunity for every single student,” she said.

UNDERREPRESENTED

In an Associated Press report, Chief Justice John Roberts said that for too long universities have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the colour of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice”.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress”.

In a separate dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s first black female justice, called the decision “truly a tragedy for us all”.

The Supreme Court had twice upheld race-conscious college admissions programmes in the past 20 years, including as recently as 2016.

But that was before the three appointees of former President Donald Trump joined the court.

At arguments in late October, all six conservative justices expressed doubts about the practise, which had been upheld under Supreme Court decisions reaching back to 1978.

Affirmative action refers to certain education, contracting, and employment policies, such as race-conscious policies that consider race as one factor in a holistic admissions process that aim to increase the representation of racial and ethnic groups that have been historically underrepresented. These groups include black, Latino/Latina, Native American, and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) students who face systemic barriers to educational opportunity, including cultural biases in standardised test questions and far less access to college preparatory courses that harms their competitive edge in the college admissions process.

The court in its decision said that race could no longer be a factor in college and university admissions.

CULTURAL WEDGE ISSUE

The Congressional Black Caucus, in its statement said that by its decision the court has thrown its own legitimacy into question.

“Since 1978, the Supreme Court has held that race-based admissions policies in colleges and universities can be administered in keeping with the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Precedents set decades ago in the landmark Bakke decision have given students, regardless of their race or ethnicity – a better chance at equal admissions to our nation’s top schools, and our country has been made better for it. By delivering a decision on affirmative action so radical as to deny young people seeking an education equal opportunity in our education system, the Supreme Court has thrown into question its own legitimacy.

“Unfortunately, we have seen backlash to progress many times throughout our nation’s history. During Reconstruction, we had a mere 12 years of black achievement in policy, politics, the arts and sciences, and education that were followed by 70 years of state-sanctioned Jim Crow. We didn’t stop fighting for equality then and we won’t stop now because too much is at stake to allow extremists to turn back the clock on progress.

“The Congressional Black Caucus is proud to stand alongside our colleagues of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) to fight for equal opportunity in admissions and to push back strongly against attempts to use this as a cultural wedge issue to pit communities of colour against one another because our nation’s diversity is our greatest strength.”

It said that the decision deals a needless blow to America’s promise of equal and fair opportunity. Casting aside decades of precedent, the Court’s anti-opportunity majority further undermines its own legitimacy by gutting race-conscious university admissions, which will benefit the wealthy and well-connected most.

“Today’s decision underscores the realities that exist in our society that many, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said in her dissent, would rather ‘ostrich-like’ stick their heads in the sand and pretend that preventing consideration of race will end racism,” said the statement.

It said that for decades, Affirmative Action has opened doors to segments of the population who had persevered as barrier after barrier came in their path.