2023-07-05 07:00:00
Just days after the Supreme Court of Justice ended the so-called ‘affirmative action’ for higher education in the United States, a new battlefront was opened in this same field that will surely cause new fissures in a divided country.
This Monday, a group of civil organizations, including several that represent Latinos in the country, filed a complaint with the Department of Education asking to also end another practice used by universities in the country under which privilege is given in the admissions process to the children of former students and those who donate funds for educational centers.
The petitioners allege that it is another form of “positive discrimination,” but in this case to benefit the elite and those with more resources.
“Why are we rewarding children for the privileges and advantages accumulated by previous generations? Your family name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit and should not influence the college admissions process,” says Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Civil Rights Lawyers, who is case charge.
Your family name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit.
Questions that have always existed, but are now seen in a new light after the decision of the highest court on Thursday of last week.
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On that day, the Court overturned 45 years of precedent by ruling that the admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina discriminated against whites and others by assigning certain slots to people of African-American or Latino origin to promote diversity and expand opportunities for less favored sectors.
A practice that had been authorized by another 1978 Court ruling in which it was conceptualized that certain races had less access to higher education centers, especially the elite ones or “Ivy League Colleges”, given the high costs, their high demand, low acceptance rates and intrinsic discrimination in the system.
According to the Court, the determining factor for entering a university must be academic merit and not skin color.
A group of students rejected the US Supreme Court decision to eliminate affirmative action in the United States.
But for Espinoza-Madrigal, if merit is the new standard that the Supreme Court of Justice asks to apply, then it makes no sense for universities to privilege certain students just because their parents attended the same university.
In the specific case of Harvard, the documents that were presented to the Court for the study of the claim on affirmative action revealed the advantages that the children of alumni have to enter this prestigious educational center.
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According to the documents, the acceptance rate for them is close to 35 percent while that of the general public only reaches 6 percent.
Many of these educational centers, particularly private ones, defend the practice, alleging that it is a way of fostering ties between alumni, it is part of their traditions, and it is a source of funding, since many alumni donate resources that are later used in student aid for people with fewer resources.
They also warn that meddling in this type of decision would violate their right to self-determine the nature of their business.
But public perception of the practice is very negative. According to two polls, one by the Washington Post and one by the PEW Center, 75 percent of Americans disagree with certain students being given preferential treatment just because their parents went to the same college.
75 percent of Americans disagree with certain students being given preferential treatment just because their parents went to the same college.
The complaint of civil organizations will be processed by the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education. And while the outcome is uncertain, the tone used by President Joe Biden last week indicates that an attempt will be made to reassess the policy.
“I have asked the education department to look at practices like legacy admissions and other systems that expand privilege rather than opportunity,” the president said.
I have asked the education department to look at practices like legacy admissions
While several states have begun to flirt with the idea, only one – Colorado – has prohibited “legacy” from being considered as a criteria in the selection process for public universities.
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On an individual level, others such as Amherst College, Johns Hopkins, MIT, UCLA, and the universities of Michigan and Texas no longer use the practice. But both publicly and privately they are still a minority.
But a decision similar to the one the court made on affirmative action could be far-reaching.
Supporters of affirmative action in the United States.
In the case of Amherst College, for example, the university maintains that since it eliminated positive discrimination for elites, the acceptance rate for children of alumni dropped to 6 percent while that of the general public or first-generation students rose to 19. percent.
A proportion inversely proportional to what existed before.
In other words, once only the merit of the students was considered, the number of acceptances of those who entered by “inheritance” plummeted.
Most likely, the case will reach the Supreme Court at some point, which will have to decide whether to apply the same standards that it used against affirmative action or to privilege the individual rights of universities.
SERGIO GÓMEZ MASERI
WEATHER CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON
EN TWITTER: @SERGOM68
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