Asian-Americans torn over use of race in college admissions and impact of looming US Supreme Court decision
- The US Supreme Court will soon issue a ruling that could end or weaken the practice of affirmative action at colleges and universities
- One of the cases heard by the high court involves the additional question of whether Harvard University intentionally discriminated against Asian-Americans
“You don’t talk about being Asian. You don’t talk about how your Asianness has othered you,” said Anna Y of Charlotte, North Carolina, describing the advice she got before applying to universities last fall.
This advice came from all over, including TikTok influencers of Asian descent at elite US colleges.
Anna, who has Korean and white parents and will be attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall, said she was watching the upcoming Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action closely for its impact on Asian-Americans. She also has a 14-year-old brother who will start the college application process in a few years.
This month, the US Supreme Court will issue its ruling on how race can be used in university admissions. The matter has deeply divided Asian-Americans in nuanced ways that can’t easily be captured by polling or partisan lines, and the decision will likely have wide-ranging implications for a process many see as the gateway to success in American society.
The two cases heard by the court, one against Harvard University and the other against UNC-Chapel Hill, were brought in 2014 by the advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), which argued that racial classifications and preferences cement racial divisions and unfairly disadvantage certain groups. It wants universities to employ “race-neutral” alternatives like socioeconomic status to achieve diversity goals.
Affirmative action, or the practice of preferentially admitting people from under-represented and underprivileged groups, began in US colleges in the 1960s as they worked to undo decades of racism and other forms of discrimination. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges could use race as a factor in admissions because diversity in higher education was a “compelling” interest, but could not institute racial quotas.