On June 29th, 2023, the Supreme Court ended race-based admissions in colleges and universities across the United States due to the heavy fighting from the Students for Fair Admission, an organization helping students challenge affirmative action.
Affirmative action, the practice of favoring individuals belonging to groups regarded as disadvantaged, has given many students difficulties getting accepted because of their race since 1965 when the Lyndon B Johnson administration first passed affirmative action.
The banning of affirmative action is seen as a positive, but for some groups of people, it is seen as a disadvantage.
“I met with some seniors currently that are excited about the decision change, and some are kind of worried about it,” Demi Stillinger, College and Career Counselor, said. “Now they can showcase everything else and not have to be just about race where others, you know, that’s their cultural background, and they were excited to showcase that, and now they can’t.”
The universities named in the lawsuit, Harvard and UNC, used students’ race to make their establishment more diverse. For other institutions, race-based admissions is central to their mission.
“Since a lot of institutions are trying to be Hispanic serving institutions,” Ms. Stillinger said. “they’re solely looking to hit that number. It was a big thing in the admissions world, to kind of see based on their student population and whatnot, for a diverse community.”
Now although a diverse community in a college may look positive from afar, this leaves many people from other races with less opportunity for getting into a college.
Especially in Jordan High School, with the population containing 28% Asian American students, 25% Hispanic, and nearly 10% of the population being African American.
“I think the selective schools, it’s more of you have to have some of those rigor, academic coursework, there are other things that are just not the race,” Ms. Stillinger said. “I think the race part of it was because there’s other big opportunities there. So those kinds of things and how it’s going to affect scholarships and programs, all the colleges and just seeing how it kind of ripples affects this year.”
Depending on the background and where students choose to apply, affirmative action is something that students do account for.
Despite the Supreme Court ruling on the end of affirmative action, the fight is not over. On September 20, the Students for Fair Admissions struck once again by suing West Point for its race-based admissions policies.
Even with laws implemented, a permanent end may never come about. “The world is ever-changing, just like college admissions,” Ms. Stillinger said. “The college world is just so unpredictable and just ever-changing.”
