{"id":34433,"date":"2023-07-08T03:03:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-08T03:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=34433"},"modified":"2023-07-09T08:14:51","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T08:14:51","slug":"affirmative-action-lasted-over-50-years-3-essential-reads-explaining-how-it-ended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/affirmative-action-lasted-over-50-years-3-essential-reads-explaining-how-it-ended\/","title":{"rendered":"Affirmative action lasted over 50 years: 3 essential reads explaining how it\u00a0ended"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Howard Manly<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever since U.S. President Lyndon Johnson enacted affirmative action in 1965, white conservatives have challenged the use of race in college admissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their arguments against such policies are typically based on the use of the equal protection clause<\/a> of the U.S. Constitution\u2019s 14th Amendment, which prohibits discrimination against American citizens on the basis of their race, religion or sexuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to this conservative thinking, race-based solutions are discriminatory by their very definition and, as such, are unconstitutional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question, then, is how does an institution try to offer a modern-day remedy to atone for long-standing patterns of racial discrimination?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, The Conversation U.S. has published numerous stories exploring affirmative action \u2013 and what diversity on college campuses means with race-neutral admission policies. Here is a selection from our archive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. An ambitious start to level the playing field<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During his 1965 commencement address at Howard University, Johnson explained how he intended to make right the wrongs of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFreedom is not enough,\u201d he declared in his speech<\/a>, \u201cTo Fulfill These Rights.\u201d \u201cYou do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, \u2018you are free to compete with all the others,\u2019 and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Johnson\u2019s solutions, as affirmative action scholar Travis Knoll<\/a> pointed out<\/a>, was affirmative action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the conservative majority on today\u2019s Supreme Court, \u201cJohnson understood that the U.S. could not serve as a moral leader around the world if it did not acknowledge its past of racial injustices and try to make amends,\u201d Knoll contended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Court\u2019s mixed history on affirmative action<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The battle over affirmative action heated up during the 1970s when a legal challenge reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that 1978 case, Associate Justice Lewis Powell wrote that while race can still be one of several factors in the admissions process, a separate admissions process for minority students was unconstitutional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Five
Current members of the Supreme Court, from left in front row: Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan; and from left in back row: Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Alex Wong\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since then, the Supreme Court has issued different rulings on whether race could be used in college admissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As University of Pennsylvania race and equity legal scholar Kenneth Shropshire<\/a> wrote<\/a>, the court had subtly established an affirmative action expiration date in its 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that case, Associate Justice Sandra Day O\u2019Connor wrote that the \u201cCourt expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Shropshire explained that that O’Connor\u2019s deadline was one of desire and not reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe vestiges of past discrimination and the unfortunate existence of ongoing discrimination continue,\u201d Shropshire wrote. \u201cNo deadline has made these wrongs and their impact disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Selective colleges will become less diverse<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Natasha Warikoo<\/a>, a sociology professor at Tufts University and author of \u201cIs Affirmative Action Fair?: The Myth of Equity in College Admissions<\/a>,\u201d shared insights<\/a> on how the racial and ethnic makeup of student bodies at selective colleges and universities will change now that the Supreme Court has decided to outlaw affirmative action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she pointed out, nine states already have bans<\/a> on affirmative action, and studies of college enrollment in those states suggest that enrollment of Black, Hispanic and Native American undergraduate<\/a> students will decline in the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnding affirmative action will make it harder to increase the percentage of professionals and leaders from minority backgrounds,\u201d she explained. \u201cThis is because, as research has shown, affirmative action has increased the number of Black college graduates and, in turn, increased the number of Black professionals with advanced degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation\u2019s archives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howard Manly<\/a>, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Howard Manly, The Conversation Ever since U.S. President Lyndon Johnson enacted affirmative action in 1965, white conservatives have challenged the use of race in college admissions. Their arguments against such policies are typically based on the use of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution\u2019s 14th Amendment, which prohibits discrimination against American citizens on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":34434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[292],"tags":[749,3359,453,14363,2275,990,1538,14364,686,1666],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34436,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34433\/revisions\/34436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}