Necessary or Not?: Race’s Role in Affirmative Action

With race-conscious affirmative action becoming an increasingly controversial topic, it is necessary to discuss whether to protect existing practices or transition to a different policy. On one hand, universities that implement race-based affirmative action policies argue for their importance in maintaining diversity of thought and background among the student body in which “everyone benefits from a range of perspectives in the classroom.”¹ However, opponents of the practice label it as unfair and unjustly racially biased.² These arguments have reached the highest level, with the Supreme Court set to hear Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, a landmark case that could dramatically alter the admissions policies of American universities, as it affects the admissions policies of one of the most prestigious universities in the country. While the defendants in the case proclaim affirmative action is crucial for promoting diversity on Harvard College’s campus, Students for Fair Admissions has denounced the university’s practices as racist — particularly against Asian Americans — and as a euphemism that preserves the idea of race-based policies that have historically damaged the United States. Overall, while the intentions of affirmative action are laudable, its implementation is not. Its place as a protected policy that utilizes race enforces the outdated, harmful supposition that decisions that use such discriminatory factors are fine in today’s world; its subjectivity allows higher institutions to potentially abuse their power; and it may not even be the best method to create a student body with diverse perspectives. For these reasons, we should consider severely downgrading the use of race in affirmative action and instead ponder whether socioeconomic status should be the main standard-for-decision in a new affirmative action process.

To start, upholding a race-based policy sets a precedent for using race as a factor in decision-making and as a tool to achieve an outcome — an outdated idea. While Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard may be the next consequential case concerning affirmative action and the role of race in higher education decision-making, Regents of University of California v. Bakke (1978) established the precedent of allowing race to be used as a factor in admissions. It eliminated racial quotas while preserving the role of race in admissions, a decision that has since shaped college admissions.³

While official quotas have been eliminated, some evidence suggests that universities may use affirmative action to maintain relatively similar class ethnicity percentages from year to year. For example, over the last four years of Harvard College classes (2023, 2024, 2025, 2026), the percentage of the admitted class that is of Asian origin has remained within the range of 25.9% to 29.1%.⁴ Meanwhile, the percentage of the class classified as White has steadied around 47% to 49%.⁵ The percentage identifying as African-American has remarkably stayed between 15.5% and 15.9%.⁶ And the percentage that is Hispanic or Latinx has also remained within the small bounds of 12.5% and 13.4%.⁷ It seems unlikely that this close year-to-year diversity among all ethnic groups would be obtained without purposeful decision-making that accounts for the race of applicants. These last two ranges (for African-American students and for Hispanic/Latinx students) are especially striking. While this data may indicate that Harvard admissions uses race as somewhat of a barometer or cap, as the student body’s racial makeup varies little from year to year, a causal effect cannot be concluded. Nonetheless, given that overall trends for racial percentages have stayed the same, affirmative action possibly remains a tool used by colleges to unofficially maintain similar class racial makeups across years.

Despite Bakke’s prohibition of codified quotas, colleges can maintain unofficial racial quotas due to their broad discretion in implementing affirmative action practices. Landmark laws including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly outlaw racial discrimination to achieve an outcome or quota.⁸ In terms of higher education admissions, qualified candidates may be racially discriminated against or inhibited from admittance due to the precedent set in Bakke that universities continue to employ today. Admissions offices across the U.S. are allowed to consider applicants’ races, permitting racial differentiation for a “good cause.” And while some might argue that affirmative action is not overt racism (as race is just a factor, not the factor), any form of racial differentiation is technically discrimination based on race, which is held to high standards of scrutiny under the law.

To be clear, diversity of thought and background are necessary and beneficial on college campuses, but affirmative action on the basis of race is not the most fair or effective method to achieve such an outcome. However, the complete elimination of any form of affirmative action reduces opportunity and crowds out certain racial groups from being proportionally represented in college classes. For example, the University of California system eliminated affirmative action in 1996 due to California Proposition 209, which has led to Asians being represented at the University of California three times over their share of high school graduates while Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic student enrollment either barely mirrors or falls below their proportion of high school graduates.⁹ Compared to schools that practice affirmative action, then, the proportion of Asians was significantly higher while the representation of Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic groups decreased starkly in comparison. This outcome is not desirable, as colleges are not accomplishing their self-imposed purpose of raising the overall education level and upward mobility of everyone in society.

Instead, colleges may lessen the emphasis of race in admissions and instead factor in the consideration of socioeconomic status to a higher degree, as the latter factor more directly engenders differences in college applications. Critics of this shift in policy may contend that socioeconomic affirmative action would not protect diversity of thought and background. However, given that essential worldviews are formed from life experience, individuals of different socioeconomic classes would provide varying perspectives, and these types of diversity on college campuses would be maintained. Second, socioeconomic affirmative action is not as contentious nor a borderline violation of laws previously stated. Socioeconomic status is a more fair factor to judge upon because it more directly affects a student’s opportunities and participation in high school activities, which thus affect their chances in college admissions.

For example, a poor White high schooler and a poor Black high schooler will likely have similar access to opportunities (and less availability to these opportunities than richer students), and a rich White high schooler and a rich Black high schooler may have relatively similar access to activities, tutoring, and prep services. Theoretically, if a college admissions team only considered race as an element of affirmative action, it would increase the chance-of-admission for the rich Black high schooler over the poor White high schooler and the poor Black high schooler due to the first child’s race, giving rise to a situation in which inequality and diversity of thought would actually worsen because the two rich high schoolers will have similar perspectives stemming from their wealth, community, and life experiences growing up. While this situation is hypothetical, it illustrates why a factor beyond a student’s control should not disadvantage his or her application.

Racism, though, does proliferate at the societal level, as teachers may exhibit their internal biases upon students, or schools may not give the same opportunities to students of different races, meaning that opportunities even within communities may not be the same for every child. Yet, although these systemic differences undoubtedly contribute to the problem of inequity in admissions, the validity of the previously described situation remains. While a college may inadvertently boost the application of the wealthy Black child due to his race (in the name of diversity), it ignores the potential for true diversity that the poorer White child or the poorer Black child’s admission would bring. Admittedly, data on universities’ results in implementing socioeconomic-focused affirmative action is lacking; as such, the true effects of this policy change may be overstated. Still, a socioeconomic-focused affirmative action program holds many improvements over the current form of affirmative action. Existing evidence of socioeconomic affirmative action suggests that these programs may lead to dramatic declines in underrepresented minority student makeup. With this in mind, rather than languishing over a college admissions system that emphasizes the decision point of race, reforming affirmative action should focus on improving equity and updating the admissions process while acknowledging the unintentional ramifications on multiple elements of diversity in higher education study bodies.

Race is implicitly a protected class under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, which states that a state’s laws must treat all people within its jurisdiction in similar circumstances equally, thus making sure that discriminatory or unfairly targeted laws cannot be passed.¹⁰ That means that states (and institutions of the state, such as state colleges) should not be able to practice affirmative action that discriminates based upon race. For public institutions at least, then, racially discriminating policies in college admissions should be severely diminished, though affirmative action in general (in both private and public schools) should focus more on using socioeconomic status as the focal point either way.

Proponents of race-based affirmative action may respond with lingering concerns. For one, some advocates contend that affirmative action ultimately produces beneficial results, even accounting for the aforementioned costs. In fact, some regard race-conscious affirmative action as a solution to issues of minimal diversity in higher education and professional workplaces.¹¹ Still, an affirmative action process that emphasizes socioeconomic status would theoretically create diversity of thought by more deliberately including students from the lower end of the income spectrum, a problem that has historically plagued elite academic institutions like Harvard University.¹² Others contend that affirmative action is not racism but rather just another factor in the admissions process. Yet, race is one aspect of a student’s college application that is beyond their control. And while some might rightfully add that students are also not in control of their socioeconomic status, this aspect of an applicant’s profile quantifiably contributes to the number of activities, opportunities, and outside resources that he or she was able to access. Race, however, while certainly correlated with lack or excess of opportunity, is not in itself a determinant of access to opportunity, although systemic racism and its effects can hinder access to opportunity. But it is still unfair to discriminate based on an aspect of someone’s application that does not solely or always affect that student’s ability to be successful in high school, and when it does, it is usually also tied to another disadvantage (such as low socioeconomic status). From a legal perspective, racial discrimination in college admissions does not follow the equal protection of the laws to all citizens described in the Fourteenth Amendment. In the end, morally, discriminating on the basis of race is, by definition, racism. The U.S. cannot have legitimized, protected racism in a 21st-century society.

With the use of race-conscious affirmative action hanging in the balance with SFFA v. Harvard, it is time to transition to a better, fairer form of affirmative action that emphasizes socioeconomic status and greatly diminishes the role of race. Such a switch would allow applicants from the lower ends of the socioeconomic spectrum to have a fairer chance, as their difficulties would be more accurately accounted for. Diversity of thought and background are necessary and would be maintained in such a process. Thus, while race’s use in admissions has good intentions, it is not ideal when put into practice without strict guidelines. Socioeconomic status, therefore, should play a larger role in affirmative action while the role of race should greatly diminish.

References

¹ Harvard Graduate School of Education. “The Case for Affirmative Action.” Accessed June 10, 2022. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/18/07/case-affirmative-action.

² Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard.” Accessed April 9, 2022. https://www.lawyerscommittee.org/students-for-fair-admissions-sffa-v-harvard/.

³ Justia Law. “Bakke v. Regents of University of California.” Accessed April 9, 2022. https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/18/34.html.

⁴ Harvard College. “Admissions Statistics.” Accessed April 15, 2022. https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics; “The Harvard Crimson | Class of 2024 By the Numbers.” Accessed April 15, 2022. https://features.thecrimson.com/2020/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ “Harvard University Releases Class of 2026 Acceptance Results - Crimson Education US.” Accessed April 15, 2022. https://www.crimsoneducation.org/us/blog/admissions-news/harvard-acceptance-rate; Harvard College. “Admissions Statistics.” Accessed April 15, 2022. https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics.

⁷ Harvard College. “Admissions Statistics.” Accessed April 15, 2022. https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics; “The Harvard Crimson | Class of 2024 By the Numbers.” Accessed April 15, 2022. https://features.thecrimson.com/2020/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/.

⁸ Oyez. “Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.” Accessed April 9, 2022. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/76-811.

⁹ EdSource. “Dropping Affirmative Action Had Huge Impact on California’s Public Universities.” Accessed April 9, 2022. https://edsource.org/2020/dropping-affirmative-action-had-huge-impact-on-californias-public-universities/642437.

¹⁰ LII / Legal Information Institute. “14th Amendment.” Accessed April 15, 2022. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv.

¹¹ R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr. “From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity.” Harvard Business Review, March 1, 1990. https://hbr.org/1990/03/from-affirmative-action-to-affirming-diversity.

¹² “Freshmen Skew Wealthy, As Always. Harvard Isn’t Helping. | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson.” Accessed June 12, 2022. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/9/15/harvard-skews-wealthy-freshman-survey/.