In deciding to gut the use of affirmative action in higher education across the country, Chief Justice John Roberts said that eliminating racial discrimination meant “eliminating all of it.”
As part of its commitment to the common good, Bowdoin enrolls a student body comprising more than one-third students of color. Joel Page/Staff Photographer, File
Although strides toward equality have been made in recent years, this country is still lightyears away from eliminating racial discrimination. The weeks since the Supreme Court decision of June 29 have been marked by a familiar yet chilling feeling – that the fight for racial justice and equality might somehow be moving backward.
The ruling reversing affirmative action has been welcomed by some as evidence of progress towards a “color-blind” society.
A color-blind society sounds ideal enough. It could be argued that it’s what Martin Luther King Jr. so courageously visualized: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
I hate to be the bearer of bad news: We do not and cannot live in a color-blind society. Race undeniably colors many, if not most, aspects of American life; the pursuit of a color-blind society seems to me pointless as a result.
There is a common and perverse misconception that racism and racial discrimination in America are figments of the past. I solemnly expressed this view at a recent dinner. An acquaintance dismissed my remarks: “Surely you don’t really feel that way, do you? I mean, it’s 2023.”
On my walk home that same night, a man in a pickup truck stopped me on the sidewalk. He proceeded to call me a series of colorful racial slurs, spat at my feet and sped away. When you live this reality, any suggestion that America is a “post-racial” society feels like a slap to the face.
And this is only my narrative. Over the past three years, Black Lives Matter protests and other overdue confrontation of private and public forms of racism have made it abundantly clear that race drives many aspects of our world.
Rather than build a society where we attempt to ignore race, we should use it as a vehicle to celebrate our differences – and reap the advantages of that celebration.
College life aspires to mirror this utopian thinking.
As part of its commitment to the common good as enunciated in its Offer of the College, Bowdoin enrolls a student body comprising more than one-third students of color.
While it is still a predominantly white institution, affirmative action and other programs for diversity and inclusion have greatly enriched my life on campus. The school is nowhere near perfect, but I do find comfort in knowing I have resources and affinity groups at my fingertips.
Yes, college is about hitting the books and acing tests. But I have learned just as much from a diverse community of peers on Bowdoin’s campus as I have from my textbooks. Being exposed to people from all walks of life is educational in itself. I cannot imagine a Bowdoin without its firm commitment to inclusivity. This is why college campuses must have an obligation to respect diversity of race and class.
If merit is the concern of opponents to affirmative action, shouldn’t colleges work to tear down other historical privileges beyond race? This includes the enrollment of legacy students and the result of those big library donations we so often hear of.
Shouldn’t there be work done in learning to spot the staged “rowing” pictures that actress Lori Loughlin’s daughter used to cheat her way into college? That doesn’t sound like “merit” to me.
Affirmative action was never a cure-all solution to racial inequality. What it was was a powerful reminder of our country’s history of mistreatment of minorities, particularly African Americans, and an attempt to lessen racism’s intergenerational harm to students and their families.
In 1988, California voters effectively prohibited affirmative action. What did this mean for California’s college campuses? Well, enrollments of Black and Hispanic students at UCLA and Berkeley dropped 40%. To counteract this, colleges across the state began to find creative, awkward ways to define “who’s who” in the application process. Colleges around the country say they will now follow suit.
I was heartened to receive a strongly worded email from our college president. “It is clear and deeply disappointing that the court overturned more than forty years of precedent that has enhanced diversity in campus communities,” wrote Clayton Rose.
Colleges around the country sent similar messages to students. Although these serve an important purpose, without specific commitments to sustaining and improving diversity, they’re in danger of becoming empty platitudes. Colleges like mine need to codify new diversity initiatives and take them seriously.
It’s meaningless to paint websites with the shining faces of a diverse student body. We need to be sure that colleges will take a “boots on the ground” approach to diversity and inclusion. They need to reach out to underprivileged communities, ramp up scholarship opportunities and be true to their promises of inclusion.
I understand this will take time. I’m willing to wait.
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