2023-07-03 16:18:27
This Thursday (06/29), by six votes to three, the Supreme Court of the United States of America decided that American universities can no longer use race as a criterion to admit students. The decision came from the judgment of the action against the University of Harvard and North Carolina presented by the conservative and racist organization Students for Fair Admissions – SFFA (Students for Fair Admission).
By: Wagner Miquéias F. Damasceno, 7/1/2023
With this decision, the Supreme Court ends a policy of affirmative action in American higher education.
In little more than a year, the US judiciary strips away two emblematic rights of workers and the oppressed. This is because, in June of last year, the Supreme Court reversed the 1973 “Roe v. Wade” decision, which guaranteed women the right to abortion in the United States.
Contrary to what is commonly thought, in the US there is no quota policy, but an affirmative action policy that came into force in 1978. That policy arose, precisely, at the center of a Supreme Court decision on the case Regents of the University of California v. Allan Bake. At the time, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bakke, a 35-year-old white man who had twice been rejected from the University of California (UCLA) medical school, blaming the 16-seat pool—in a universe of 100 seats – for poor, black, indigenous, Latino and Asian students taken by UCLA.
But, despite declaring racial quota policies unconstitutional, in that same decision, the United States Supreme Court opened the possibility of using race as a criterion for admission to universities. Now, the decision made this Thursday revised that decision.
United States, a history of attacks on blacks
The United States of America is the richest and most powerful country in the world and they never tire of reaffirming it in the movies and series that we see out there. But what is said very little is that this wealth was built on the basis of the exploitation of enslaved blacks and workers.
And there, as in Brazil, after centuries of black slavery, there was no serious reparation policy for black men and women, with the end of slavery in 1865.[1]. On the contrary, what existed were decades of segregationist policies and laws that were only overturned in 1968, with the fight for civil rights. The reservations of seats for non-white students at universities like UCLA in the 1970s can only be understood as a result of these fights against racial segregation.
Yet even before Thursday’s decision, affirmative action policies had already been repealed in several states, including California in 1996, Florida in 2000, and Arizona in 2010. And in states where affirmative action policies were removed, the decline the participation of blacks, Latinos and Asians in universities and in the labor market.
A privatized and exclusive university system
The American university system is also, historically, exclusive. The college admissions process is far from objective because, in addition to tests, things like letters of recommendation and cover letters are required. And students admitted to American colleges and universities, whether public or private, must pay [mucho] money.
By the way, the privatization and elitistization of the university system contributed to the 2008 crisis: many workers in the US went into debt and mortgaged their properties to pay for their children’s studies.
In order to pay for their studies, young people and workers resort to large financial loans. The result is that, today, more than 45 million Americans have student debt that, together, totals $1.6 trillion.
And this indebtedness is higher among black men and women. After all, the combination of racism, machismo, and capitalism pushes blacks into the worst jobs and black women to the bottom of the wage pyramid. According to recent data, from 2015 to 2020, the average debt of Black students grew 51%, compared to increases of 24% for White students, 18% for Asian students, and 16% for Latino students. [2].
But the day after striking down the affirmative action policy, the Supreme Court struck down the forgiveness of $400 billion in student finance debt.
Some reformist analysts explain all these attacks by the conservative and even reactionary nature of the current composition of the United States Supreme Court, which is not a lie. After all, in addition to his naturally bourgeois and conservative character, Republican Donald Trump did his part by appointing three more judges aligned with him. However, the problem with this type of explanation is that, in addition to being biased, it protects the Democratic president, Joe Biden, from criticism and attacks.
In the case of student debts, the project sent by Joe Biden to the Supreme Court contemplated the suspension of only 25% of the total of US$ 1.6 trillion. It is important to remember that the suspension of student debts was one of the flags of American black youth during the elections that gave victory to Joe Biden. In addition, Biden kept intact the privatist nature of American public higher education, remembering his co-religionist Barack Obama, who did not confront the Health conglomerates and reneged on one of his great campaign promises to create a public health system.
These two recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States reveal, once again, the class character of justice and that, under capitalism, no right is untouchable for the workers and oppressed. Faced with this, young Black, Latino and Asian students, in unity with the working class, must take to the streets not only to protest the Supreme Court but also to denounce the inaction and betrayals of the Joe Biden government.
– Down with the US Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action policies!
– For a policy of racial quotas in the United States, now!
– For amnesty of all student finance debt in the United States, now!
[1] “Andrew Johnson – with the fragmentation of the coalition led by the Republican Party – denied any redress to black men and women, which included the expulsion of the lands occupied by ex-slaves and the ban on voting. In 1867, the so-called radical republicans managed to print a program of radical reconstructionwith the passage of the 14th Amendment in response to calls black codes of the Southern States that curtailed the liberties of blacks. They expand access to education and voting rights for black men and women. However, the congruence of economic and territorial interests between the capitalists of the North and the landowners of the South, as well as the fear of revolts by poor whites and blacks after the great depression of 1873, made Democrats and Republicans bury the Reconstruction, sin effectively grant a policy of reparation to blacks for centuries of slavery on American soil. Thus the way was opened for the strengthening of the Democratic Party in the South and for the rise of the terrorist and supremacist organization Ku Klux Klan”. See: . Accessed June 30, 2023.
[2] See: https://www.science.org/content/article/black-students-take-more-debt-and-get-fewer-slots-grants-data-show . Accessed June 30, 2023.
* Wagner Miquéias F. Damasceno is a member of the National Secretariat of Blacks and Negroes of PSTU Brazil.
Article published in www.pstu.org.br
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
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