Affirmative action in college admissions, a key Civil Rights Era victory, has been stamped out. What does this mean for Black students? What about their aspirations for a college degree and all that it affords?
In California, we already know all too well. Yes, even in liberal California.
Nearly 27 years ago, Californians passed Proposition 209, banning affirmative action beyond the extent of this week’s ruling on public college and university admissions to also include any educational policymaking, public employment, and contracting.
The impact on Black students has been devastating.
Admission and enrollment rates across California’s higher education institutions plummeted for Black, Latinx, and Native American students, especially at selective institutions. Black students were particularly affected: upon Proposition 209’s implementation, our calculations show Black student admissions fell by 60% and 54% and enrollment by 41% and 45% at UC Berkeley and UCLA, respectively.
For those who did make it onto campus, Proposition 209 made life harder. Black UC students reported feeling less respected by their peers, specifically, “the campuses with an affirmative action ban and an African American population of only four percent or less have African American undergraduates who are less likely to feel respected than those at the campuses with student bodies that are five percent or more African-American.” UCLA students expressed being tokenized, underacknowledged, and under-supported by their administration, some resorting to accompanying each other to class to avoid being the only Black person among hundreds.
The repercussions were profound. Falling admissions rates among Black students predictably stymied bachelor’s degree and graduate degree attainment rates. As of 2019, only 26% of Black adults ages 25 and older in California held a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 34% of all adults statewide.
A whole generation of Black students has come and gone through our public colleges and universities since California banned affirmative action and the state is worse off. Here and around the country, we’re suffering under a dire teacher shortage — and Black teachers are severely underrepresented. The same is true of Black doctors and psychologists amid a shortage of healthcare providers. In the nation’s tech capital, Black STEM professionals are similarly scarce.
However, if California’s experience tells us anything, it’s not how discouraged we should be. Although there is no adequate proxy for race, there are other policymaking strategies for addressing educational inequities still left on the table — and now is the time to double down on all of them.
You may think first of other tweaks to the college admissions process, and those are a good starting point. Even within the confines of today’s ruling, admissions offices are free to make the SAT and ACT optional, eliminate preferences for legacy applicants, and replace them with preferences for students who have faced financial barriers.
But we can’t stop at admissions; despite what the headlines about the Supreme Court’s ruling may imply, there’s far more to educational justice than the moment an acceptance letter arrives in a student’s inbox.
Kindergarten through 12th-grade schools must do a lot more to ensure that Black students are ready for and apply to college. All courses required to apply to a state’s universities should be the default curriculum at every high school and for every student, with instruction that affirms students’ lives and their communities. Black students shouldn’t feel pushed out of school, but rather feel safe, supported, and engaged. School funding should not only be abundant, but equitable.
Similarly, higher education institutions should smooth Black students’ pathways to graduation by ensuring their cultural backgrounds are reflected and affirmed in course catalogs, syllabi, and faculties. Financial aid applications should be easy to complete, aid packages should be allotted equitably, and student debt should be less than crushing. Child care must be available so no one must choose between learning and parenting.
Here in the Golden State, we’re not letting California off the hook. When high schoolers couldn’t graduate without passing a prejudicial standardized test, hundreds of students walked out in protest. One district ensured every senior completed a financial aid application, leading to a statewide law mandating all other high schools to do the same. Black teachers in Los Angeles who can earn more managing a Crate & Barrel instead organized to combat the microaggressions and under-recognition that make teaching unsustainable.
The Supreme Court may be powerful, but so are students and the advocates who believe in their brilliance. Yes, one of our best college access tools has been snatched from us, but that does not mean we wring our hands. Let’s claim every other tool left on the table and apply it to the machinery of our broken education system. We have work to do.