Affirmative Action

Throughline

NPR

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 16.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This conversation was recorded ahead of the Supreme Court's expected decision on affirmative action. As of publishing, no decision has been issued.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on affirmative action sometime this month. Most of us understand that some colleges use race as a factor in college admissions. But journalist Jay Caspian Kang argues that this focus is too narrow, and that it avoids harder conversations we need to have as a culture. In his view, focusing on the admissions practices of a select few universities creates "a fight for spots in the elite ranks of society" — and blinds us to the bigger problems plaguing American democracy. On today's episode, we talk with Kang about affirmative action's origins in the civil rights era, what it does and doesn't achieve, and what a more equitable education system could look like.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Two far-reaching cases before the U.S. Supreme Court today have the potential to overturn
0:08.4	years of precedent.
0:09.4	We'll hear argument first this morning, case 21707, students for fair admissions versus
0:15.2	the University of North Carolina.
0:17.0	This is a suit against UNC, the nation's oldest public university and Harvard University,
0:22.5	the nation's oldest private school.
0:24.4	We'll hear argument next, in case 2011-99, students for fair admissions versus the
0:29.5	President and Fellows of Harvard College.
0:31.7	Plaintiffs argue the school's admissions process discriminates against white and Asian-American
0:36.7	applicants by giving extra preference to black, Latino, and Native American applicants.
0:42.0	Question for the justices, whether colleges should be allowed to take race into account
0:47.1	when deciding which students to admit.
0:49.6	What does diversity mean if it's just a benedictive of rich kids?
0:53.6	Student body diversity makes our businesses more innovative and globally competitive.
0:58.8	Our scientists more creative, our medical professionals more effective, and our military
1:04.6	more cohesive.
1:05.6	Asians should be getting into Harvard more than whites, but they don't, because Harvard
1:09.6	gives them significantly lower personal ratings.
1:12.7	What are we really talking about here?
1:14.3	What do you mean by equality?
1:15.9	Just like we saw in the Borschen case, this is a court now that is not afraid to overturn
1:20.7	things that they think were wrongly decided.
	...

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