Episode description

In a landmark ruling, The United States Supreme Court rejected affirmative action at US colleges, determining that race should not be a factor in achieving educational diversity. The controversial decision is expected to lower the admission rates of black and hispanic students at elite universities. Many supporters of the court's decision believe that affirmative action - that is, policies that aim to increase opportunities provided to underrepresented members of society - should be based on class, not race. Focusing on the disadvantaged of all races would create a more fair environment that is based on real need. Furthermore, they argue, affirmative action in its current form lowers standards for black students applying to universities, promoting different criterions based on race and therefore perpetuating a system of racism and inequality on campus. Others argue that replacing race-based affirmative action with economic need will hurt black students more as they will now be judged against a much bigger population percentage of poor whites and asians. Affirmative action was introduced in the 1960’s in order to address the country’s history of systemic racism towards black Americans that victims of class-based inequalities did not face. The decision by SCOTUS reverses years of racial progress and ignores the reality of racism in modern America, because, as Justice Ketanji Jackson wrote in her descent, “deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”

Arguing for the motion is John McWhorter, Associate Professor of English at Columbia University, and the author of Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America

Arguing against the motion is Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law Professor and the author of For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law

SOURCES: Associated Press

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