Affirmative action was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on June 29, and it was declared that race can no longer be a factor in college admissions, according to Education Week.
The affirmative action ruling mainly affects students applying to private colleges, considering how University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) schools banned affirmative action in 1996, counselor Julie Cler said.
“For students (applying to private colleges), it’s important that when they’re answering any type of essay question they bring in their experience, background, race, and ethnicity because that’s a way for them to let colleges know who they are,” Cler said.
With the ban on affirmative action, certain schools will be able to act in a discriminatory way when selecting students for admission, senior Anayeriss Dunn-Hubbard said.
“I definitely think I will be directly affected because just applying as a black student did have a little bit of benefit because of the diversifying factor,” Dunn-Hubbard said. “But with affirmative action being taken away, schools are going to be able to look past that and even maybe discredit me for it.”
Affirmative action would have been beneficial for Bhat, who is applying to a humanities major, when being considered for admission since a small number of humanities students are Asian individuals, senior Nidhi Bhat said. Depending on one’s major, the ban on affirmative action may make their college application process easier or more difficult, she added.
“I know that for a lot of my peers who are applying to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), which is predominantly true for Asians, especially in our area, it becomes easier,” Bhat said. “It has been almost a barrier that’s been removed in terms of their college applications. Ultimately, even though this is better for Asian students predominantly and even if it’s worse for me, the system was beneficial for (other) people of color, so the cost for me and my peers is outweighed by the potential for Black students.”
The overturning of affirmative action puts Dunn-Hubbard in a position where she feels she must excel and achieve more than before as a Black student, she said.
“I’m a minority at school, and I have to try my hardest to put myself out there because I’m already expected to be what people expect — that I’m just going to be lazy and things of that nature,” Dunn-Hubbard said. “So with this new ruling being passed, I’m going to have to jump twenty hoops to get half as far as another applicant who’s going to be already put up higher than me because they’re white or they have more money.”
Senior Jesus Ochoa feels that the different viewpoints on the affirmative action debate are all understandable, he said.
“I would say I’m neutral about this because I can see the positives and the negatives,” Ochoa said. “For example, people might be disagreeing with this decision because it provides them a lesser chance to get into college because of their race, but also, other people can see it as an equality matter.”
Affirmative action was imperfect, and instead of being based solely on race, it should be based on class while race is taken into account, Bhat said.
“Asian and white students have innate advantages based on where they grew up and the families they were born into, so it’s really hard to say that banning affirmative action is not making it equal when there’s already systemic inequalities in place,” Bhat said.
Overall, the US seems to be regressing in progress, Dunn-Hubbard said.
“We already had the taking away of Roe versus Wade, which is allowing women’s bodily autonomy to be put into question regularly,” Dunn-Hubbard said. “That and also the taking away of affirmative action… It’s putting us back to a time when women and minorities were both seen as less than.”
It is important that the public voices individual opinions and speaks out when confronted with societal issues, Ochoa said.
“Sometimes I feel like the US is heading in a good direction, but other times, I feel like we’re pulling back,” Ochoa said.