There is a picture that easily explains equality. Three individuals of different heights need to overlook a fence to see a baseball game on the other side. To assist in their view, each is given a step stool of equal height. With the stool, the tallest one can see the game perfectly. The one of middle height can only see part of the game for their view remains obstructed. The shortest one cannot see the game at all.
Step stools of equal height are not what that moment called for.
Rather, what everyone needed was a stool that provided them with an unobstructed view of the game. This approach values true equality and acknowledges that people come from different places and deal with various obstructions.
By overturning forty years of precedent affirming race-conscious admissions for colleges, the Supreme Court turned its back on true equality and ignored the genesis of affirmative action and how it squares with existing law. The Court ignored that racial inequality is not just yesterday’s problem. It remains a problem today and will persist unless intentional steps like affirmative action are taken.
We have been schooled on our dark history of slavery. In 1619, we saw the first documentation of Africans that were transported in chains via ship to Virginia. Before long, we had 4 million enslaved Africans. After signing the Emancipation Proclamation, our government paid reparations – to the slave owners, $300 for each enslaved person freed. We took land from Indigenous people and paid nothing for it.
The 14th Amendment was intended to redress our nation’s history of slavery. But our racist policies persist. In the 20th century, our neighborhoods were segregated not by happenstance but by design. “White flight” occurred when African Americans moved into a neighborhood. Real estate agents steered white folks away from Black and Brown neighborhoods and vice versa. Banks refused mortgages to Black people or provided sub-prime loans. Contributing more to inequality was our government. It prohibited banks from lending to Black people and refused to insure mortgages for Black people buying homes in white neighborhoods. Local zoning codes permitted high-density, factories and industrial sites to be in lower-income neighborhoods, which were and are still largely populated by people of color.
If we look at student applicants specifically, they too face barriers that slow one down. Youth of color are more likely to be involved in the criminal legal system due to disproportionate discipline in school, more likely to have parents without a secondary education, and less likely to take advantage of early childhood education programs.
Affirmative action is but a modest down payment for centuries of inequities. Although college campuses continue to struggle with diversity, without affirmative action, that struggle will prove harder. After California banned affirmative action, it saw freshmen enrollment of minority students drop considerably as did Michigan after it banned the use of race-conscious admissions.
Affirmative action has always been attacked and, although it has persisted, the Supreme Court at each turn has eroded its viability. The court has now done away with it altogether. Almost.
Applicants who are the children of alumni, donors or faculty members, have an affirmative action program of their own and it remains intact. In this context, some seem less concerned that perhaps one with a less academically stellar record is admitted over others. The majority of those admitted under this affirmative action program are white.
The Court has consistently articulated that color-blind admissions policies are the rule with few exceptions. But color-blind admissions take us back to the image described earlier. All are provided with a stool of equal height, but not all can see the game.
Some now advocate for admissions policies predicated on economic status. This does not address racial inequality. A Black boy born to a wealthy family is more than twice as likely to end up poor as a white boy from a wealthy family. Inequity will persist without race-conscious policies.
There are many young kids who could do great things for themselves, this country, and the world. Only race-conscious policies will permit all those kids to reach their potential and when they do, we all win.
Denise Maes has decades-long experience in Colorado as a director and consultant on public policy and government relations. She currently is a regional administrator for the GSA in the Biden administration. Her views are her own.
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