Opponents of affirmative action may achieve a victory in limiting race-conscious admissions based on the outcome of a lawsuit against Harvard University that could permanently alter how colleges admit students.
Harvard factors race into its admissions process, intended to create racial diversity on campus, Harvard President Larry Bacow wrote in a letter to the Harvard community Wednesday. In Boston’s federal district court, Students for Fair Admissions are alleging in a lawsuit against Harvard that Harvard admissions discriminates against Asian-American applicants by limiting how many the college admits per year.
The outcome of this case has the potential to do away with affirmative action at Harvard, which some hope will increase the number of Asian-American students accepted and some fear will decrease the number of black and Hispanic students admitted.
Harvard already admits an extremely low number of black and Hispanic students — only 6 and 10 percent, respectively.
It’s true that Harvard admits twice as many Asian students than either black or Hispanic students, but a population of 19 percent Asian students still isn’t something to be astounded by. Anyone who views two in 10 Asian students as overrepresentation probably isn’t used to being surrounded by anyone who’s not white.
Forty-four percent of Harvard — a vast majority compared to any other racial demographic — is white. It’s a shame that this trial has become a question of whether Asian-Americans are advantaged over other minorities, rather than whether Harvard discriminates against all minorities in favor of white applicants.
Affirmative action is a powerful tool, but it’s supposed to help disadvantaged populations. Harvard should be using its policies to level the playing field among white students and all minorities, rather than to freely admit white students and divvy up the room that’s left over.
Even if Harvard is conscious of race, when it decides who to admit, what Harvard is doing now isn’t adequate affirmative action. There’s no need for Harvard to admit fewer Asian-Americans to increase their quota of black and Hispanic students, when they already have so few compared to their white population.
And if Harvard is discriminating against Asian-Americans in favor of admitting more black and Hispanic students, it’s hardly showing in their racial demographics, and it’s not effective in raising up groups that have traditionally been discriminated against for educational opportunities.
Ruling against Harvard would be ruling against affirmative action, and that would set a dangerous precedent for other colleges to admit even more white students than they already do.
The only way to combat the cycles ingrained in our society that disadvantage minorities is through education.
Asian-American students are often pressured to act less “stereotypically Asian” to get into a top school, and that’s wrong — especially when white students, the largest racial demographic at any given college, are never defined based on their race. Asian voices contribute to diversity, and Asian-American students pushing for greater representation at Harvard shouldn’t be demonized for intentionally trying to reduce opportunity for other minorities.
It shouldn’t be Asian-American students’ responsibility in the first place to ensure that their success doesn’t come at the expense of other minorities’ on campus.
But at the same time, if the lawsuit takes away Harvard’s ability to consider race in its admissions, that can’t be a good thing. Without affirmative action, Harvard would be an elite white boys club and, in many ways, it still is, but this policy holds them to a better standard.
To ignore the importance of race as a determining factor for someone’s opportunity in life is to continue to give white students the upper hand. But if admissions officers want the ability to know an applicant’s race, they need to put that information to better use.
