(The Center Square) – As the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether it should be legal to use race as a factor in college admissions, new polling shows Americans oppose the idea.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 62% of Americans oppose higher education institutions using race as a factor when deciding who to admit. The majority of Americans favor diversity in higher education, but they don’t support using affirmative action policies to obtain it.
The analysis found 52% of minority respondents surveyed said they opposed using race as a factor.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the matter by June after one group filed suit against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill over their race-based admissions policy, pointing out they hurt other students.
As The Center Square previously reported, the schools argue that these policies have become common in their field.
“In recent years, surveys have reported that 41.5% of universities, and 60% of universities that admit 40% or fewer of applicants, consider race to some degree,” Harvard said in a legal filing.
Harvard and Carolina are the oldest private and public schools, respectively, in the country.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that colleges may consider race in admissions to help diversify their campuses.
That could change depending on the Supreme Court’s decision.
“But public schools have no legitimate interest in maintaining a precise racial balance, and they have no compelling interest in preventing minor dips in average SAT scores,” Students for Fair Admissions, a group that has led both challenges, wrote in a court filing. “The same Fourteenth Amendment that required public schools to dismantle segregation after Brown cannot be cowed by the diktats of university administrators. If California and Michigan can maintain elite public universities without sorting applicants by race, then North Carolina can, too.”
UNC defended itself in oral arguments, pointing out that it creates diversity across a range of metrics, including admitting more veterans and rural students.
Critics argue race-based affirmative action policies are inherently discriminatory and wrong.
“Since 2014, over 20,000 students, parents and others have joined our membership to help restore colorblind principles to our nation’s schools, colleges and universities,” Students for Fair Admissions said on its website.
At a time when the country needs the brightest and best our higher education system has been content to turn out mediocrity in the name of inclusivity and equity! Neither of which stress achievement or excellence but an artificial standard that is meaningless, ie. quotas. I recall someone appointed in the adminnistration thanked affirmative action for goving them the apportunity but obviously since that time they haven’t been much of an influence for the good. This should be no surprise as academics has now been staffed with the mediocre product of successive academic generations. The constancy of excellence and achievement has been lost, NO, it was destroyed by a society that wants evey person to feel good about themselves, that disappointmwnt is bad. The result of those unaffected by the restrictions they place on others instead of the freedom of persuit each should enjoy.
ITS Not that they are ‘content’ to turn it out. I HONESTLY THink they are WILLINGLY Turning out mediocracy, AS ITS EASIER TO control the dumb.
In 1964, Congress passed Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing.
So if woke colleges uses race as a requirement for admission, they are violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
SINCE when has the libtard left, EVER CARED IF the constitution says What they are doing is wrong?!?
How about some affirmative action of equal opportunity inn making these educational deadbeats pay up their student loans to the last penny. Just think how educational that would be to teach them that personal integrity and accountability is a potential for people of all races, but perhaps not for people of the religion of Democrat party secular socialism who view equal opportunity to turn all people into Marxist useful idiots.