The Winners and Losers From the Affirmative Action Decision
Dear Friends,
Given the volume of inquiries we’ve received on the topic, I wanted to share some thoughts on the secondary repercussions of the Supreme Court striking down Affirmative Action this past June. The question I keep hearing is whether this will open up more spots for White or Asian-American students who are fortunate to have “access”—for example, educated parents, high schools with resources, opportunities to cultivate rare interests outside of school, like building AI models, etc.
In answering, I point out that the Supreme Court decision came as no surprise to leaders in higher education, who have been prioritizing class diversity even more than race diversity ever since the 2003 Gratz v. Bollinger Supreme Court ruling limiting the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policy. Since, there have been high profile studies focused on class diversity, including Defining Access (2018) and Opportunity Insights (published this week), establishing not only the transformative power of higher education but also various strategies, test-optional chief among them, that have been successful in improving the socioeconomic diversity of admitted pools. These efforts are already bearing fruit: Harvard, for instance, has for the last few years been admitting record or near-record numbers of First Generation students—defined as the first in their families to go to college—and low income Pell Grant eligible students, at 20% and 19% of admitted classes, respectively.
As race is taken off the table, the dual mission of race diversity and class diversity will now consolidate around socioeconomic class, encouraging talented students from high adversity, low resource high schools to apply, and granting deserving credit to those students for earning top marks in rigorous courses, even if their SAT scores are absent. Extra consideration—known as “bumps”—can be attributed to growing up with parents who were not fortunate enough to attend college, belonging to a low-income household, or to a circumstance where the family depends on the student to work, to cook, or to care for younger siblings. Tools like the College Board’s Landscape lend further school and zip-code level color on adversity. Which is all to say that colleges have been prepared for this moment, with a process well established in making the transformative power of higher education more accessible.
So who will the winners and losers be in this race-agnostic shift?
Winners: students who are low income but not historically underrepresented minorities. Some of my company’s Lakhani Scholars—high achieving low-income students from across the U.S.—are case in point. All of these talented young people are deserving, having overcome parental deaths, having to translate tax forms for non-English speaking parents, and more—but in practice, we have historically seen more opportunities materialize for low-income students who are Black, Latino, or Native American, as opposed to say a daughter of low-income Vietnamese refugees. With the Supreme Court ruling, white, Asian and various immigrant low-income groups will benefit from race-blind class diversity.
Losers: among current Black and Brown admits, there would be an invisible distinction of whether the candidate received a bump based on race, based on class, or based on both. Many Black and Brown candidates would have been admitted regardless of any bump. The “losers”—as defined by students who may have been admitted before the Supreme Court ruling but would theoretically not be selected this year—will be those who received a race bump but not a class bump. These may be Black or Brown students who are fortunate to attend high schools with resources, have parents who’ve attended college, can afford enrichment summer programs, etc.
What about middle class or affluent White or Asian-American students?
It will be up to each college to decide how to “re-allocate” the number of spots that previously went to Black and Brown students who received race bumps but not class bumps. Based on 23 years working in selective admissions—and seeing the unflagging commitment of institutions like Princeton, Yale, Stanford, University of Chicago and others promoting class diversity—my money is on those spots being added to the now colorblind pool of class diversity.
Hafeez Lakhani is Founder and President of Lakhani Coaching, an education consulting firm advising students and families on selective admissions. Serving clients across the U.S. and in 16 countries worldwide, he has contributed educational commentary to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNBC.com, Business Insider, and Good Morning America, among other venues.