☆ SCOTUS said “no” to affirmative action, but local colleges likely to exploit loopholes
Bay Area real estate broker Tony Xu is a board member at CA'ns for Equal Rights (CFER), the nonprofit that spearheaded the campaign against Prop 16 (which would have legalized race-based school admissions). In an Opp Now exclusive, Xu expresses that despite the Supreme Court's recent ruling against affirmative action, he expects CA universities to use workarounds to maintain discriminatory enrollment—until they're legally challenged.
As a leading task force against Prop 16 in 2020, CFER welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court. We read it is a positive move from the legal perspective. It will help Asian students' chances to enroll in colleges in the long run.
In the short term, however, we are cautiously watching how things are going. The ruling might have very minimal impacts on the current system. In other words, we will not see too much change in the next couple of years. Couple reasons:
As the SFFA v. Harvard case goes forward, we noticed the fact that Asian enrollment at Harvard has increased in recent years. Harvard actually already self-restricted using race as a determining factor. They will argue their current system already complied with the Supreme Court ruling.
In CA, even though Prop 16 was struck down, UC/Cal State still restrict the numbers of Asian students (they call it “more diversity”) by using techniques like getting rid of SAT scores. We suspect these approaches will be likely used by other colleges.
Thus, the current balance is hard to break. However, the ruling will put a stop to things turning worse because the colleges using those practices could be legally challenged based on this new precedent.
Read former CFER Outreach Director Marc Ang’s perspective on the SCOTUS ruling here.
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