Law expert on how local colleges will circumvent aff action ban
While many celebrate the recent SCOTUS ruling against race-based school admissions, Cornell Law prof William A. Jacobson cautions advocates to cool their jets—for now. In Legal Insurrection, Jacobson explains six ways local universities (like in the UC/Cal State system) will continue covertly screening applicants for racial diversity.
[My recent] op-ed then goes on to talk about some of the work we have done at the Equal Protection Project fighting these trends, and lists six evasive moves that either already are underway or are anticipated:
1. “[A]lready schools like Harvard are suggesting they will skirt the ruling by considering applicants’ experience with race as opposed to the applicants’ race itself. These games are not surprising and have been in the works for months.”
2. “[T]he evidence of discrimination, not the discrimination itself, will be eliminated. Already, there is a trend to dispense with the standardized testing that proved the discrimination against students of Asian descent. Many universities have eliminated mandatory SAT testing, and professional schools are now toying with eliminating the LSATs and the MCATs. Without standardized testing to keep the process honest, discrimination will increasingly take place behind closed doors in higher education and elsewhere using “holistic” approaches similar to what Harvard developed in the 1920s to limit Jewish enrollment, and are now used against Asians.
3. “Offloading the discrimination onto third parties is yet another method to evade accountability. For example, we recently filed a civil rights complaint over SUNY-Albany’s participation in a Black-only fellowship program at the Albany Public Library using a private foundation grant. Similarly, we filed a complaint regarding a Providence new teacher loan forgiveness program open only to non-Whites funded by the Rhode Island Foundation, and a Missouri State University business boot camp supported by private funding that excluded only White males. Offloading discrimination is no legal excuse, but it’s become a favored maneuver.
4. “Another tactic is to disperse DEI programming in response to budget cuts or department elimination. At the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, there is an effort to transfer DEI personnel and programs to other areas of the university. DEI will still exist, but in a different form and place. Creating moving targets will become more common.
This article originally appeared in Legal Insurrection. Read the whole thing here.
Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity
Image by Wikimedia Commons
Opp Now enthusiastically welcomes smart, thoughtful, fair-minded, well-written comments from our readers. But be advised: we have zero interest in posting rants, ad hominems, poorly-argued screeds, transparently partisan yack, or the hateful name-calling often seen on other local websites. So if you've got a great idea that will add to the conversation, please send it in. If you're trolling or shilling for a candidate or initiative, forget it.