What if the Supreme Court Ends Affirmative Action?

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears likely to strike down affirmative action, in a decision expected by this summer. The practice of considering race as a tool to counteract discrimination has been in place at many colleges and universities, and in some workplaces, since the civil-rights era. But a long-running legal campaign has threatened the practice for decades. David Remnick talks with two academics who have had a front-row seat in this fight. Ruth Simmons tells him, “For me, it’s quite simply the question of what will become of us as a nation if we go into our separate enclaves without the opportunity to interact and to learn from each other.” Simmons was the Ivy League’s first Black president, and more recently led Prairie View A. & M., in Texas. Lee Bollinger, while leading the University of Michigan, was the defendant in Grutter v. Bollinger, a landmark case twenty years ago in which the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action. The Court’s current conservative majority is likely to overturn that precedent. Remnick also speaks with Femi Ogundele, the dean of undergraduate admissions at the University of California,Berkeley. Consideration of race in admissions at California state schools has been banned for nearly thirty years. “A lot of us are being kind of tapped on the shoulder and asked, ‘How are you doing what you’re doing in this new reality?’ ” he says. “I want to be very clear: I do not think there is any race-neutral alternative to creating diversity on a college campus,” Ogundele tells Remnick. “However, I do think we can do better than what we’ve done.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.2	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:13.7	We'll hear argument next in case 2011-99, students for fair admissions versus the president and fellows of Harvard College.
0:21.7	Sometime soon, in the next few months, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a landmark ruling
0:28.2	on the future of affirmative action. Boral arguments took place last October, and in one case,
0:35.2	an advocacy group has sued Harvard University saying that any consideration
0:40.0	of race violates part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
0:44.7	Here's the lead attorney for Harvard being questioned by Chief Justice Roberts.
0:49.3	There is no doubt that, as the testimony showed, that for applicants who are essentially
0:58.1	so strong on multiple dimensions that they are sort of on the bubble, that they might,
1:04.0	they are a real candidate for admission.
1:06.6	Being African American or being Hispanic or in some instances being Asian American can provide
1:14.7	one of many, many tips that will put you in.
1:18.2	People say that, yes, but you will have to concede that if it provides one of many, then in some
1:22.3	cases it will be determined.
1:23.6	I do.
1:24.6	I do concede that.
1:25.4	Okay, so we're talking about race as a determining factor in admission to Harvard.
1:30.2	20 years ago, the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action. The decision was written by Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican appointee.
1:38.8	Now in 2023, the conservative majority in the court is likely to reverse precedent as it did in Roe v. Wade
1:46.1	and end the practice of affirmative action.
1:50.1	Race for some highly qualified applicants can be the determinant factor just as being the, you know, an oboe player in a year in which the Harvard Bradcliffe orchestra
	...

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