Just days after the Supreme Court of Justice end the call ‘affirmative action’ for higher education in the United States, A new battlefront was opened in this same field which is sure to cause new fissures in a divided country.
This Monday, a group of civil organizations, including several that represent Latinos in the country, filed a complaint with the Department of Education also asking to end another practice used by universities in the country under which the children of alumni are privileged in the admissions process and those who donate funds for educational centers.
The petitioners allege that it is another form of “positive discrimination”, but in this case to benefit the elites and those with more resources.
“Why are we rewarding children for the privileges and advantages accumulated by previous generations? Your family name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit and will not influence the college admissions process,” says Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Civil Rights Lawyers, who is in charge of the case.
Your family name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit.
Questions that have always existed, but are now seen in a new light after the decision of the highest court on Thursday of last week.
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That day, the Court overturned 45 years of precedent by ruling that Harvard and the University of North Carolina admissions programs were discriminatory against whites and others by allocating certain slots to people of African-American or Latino origin to promote diversity and expand opportunities for disadvantaged sectors.
A practice that had been authorized by another judgment of the Court of 1978 in which it considered that certain races have less access to higher education centers, especially the elite ones or “Ivy League Colleges”, given the high costs, its high demand, the low acceptance rates and the intrinsic discrimination in the system.
According to the Court, the determining factor for entering a university should be academic merit and not skin color.
A group of students rejected the US Supreme Court decision to eliminate affirmative action in the United States.
But for Espinoza-Madrigal, if merit is the new standard that the Supreme Court of Justice asks to apply, then You don’t have that universities privilege certain students just because your senses attended the same university.
In the specific case of Harvard, the documents that were presented before the Court for the study of the claim on affirmative action revealed the advantages that the children of alumni have to enter this prestigious educational center.
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According to the documents, the acceptance rate for them is close to 35 percent while that of the general public only reaches 6 percent.
Many of these educational centers, particularly private ones, defend the practice, claiming that it is a way of fostering ties between alumni, it is part of their traditions and is a source of funding as many alumni donate resources that are later used in student aid for people with fewer resources.
They also warn that meddling in this type of decision would violate their right to self-determine the nature of their business.
But public perception of the practice is very negative. According to two polls, one by the Washington Post and one by the PEW Center75 percent of Americans disagree with certain students being given preferential treatment just because their parents went to the same college.
75 percent of Americans disagree with certain students being given preferential treatment just because their parents went to the same college.
The complaint of civil organizations will be processed by the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education. And while the outcome is uncertain, the tone used by President Joe Biden last week indicates that an attempt will be made to reassess the policy.
“I have asked the education department to look at practices like legacy admissions and other systems that expand privilege rather than opportunity,” the president said.
I have asked the education department to look at practices like legacy admissions
While several states have begun to flirt with the idea, only one -Colorado- has prohibited the consideration of “legacy” as a criterion in the selection process for public universities.
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On an individual level, others such as Amherst College, Johns Hopkins, MIT, UCLA, and the universities of Michigan and Texas no longer use the practice. But both at the public and private level it is still a minimum.
But a decision similar to the one the court made on affirmative action could be far-reaching.
Supporters of affirmative action in the United States.
In the case of Amherst College, for example, the university maintains that since it eliminated affirmative action for elitesthe acceptance rate for children of alumni dropped to 6 percent while that of the general public or first-generation students rose to 19 percent.
A proportion inversely proportional to what existed before.
In other words, once only the merit of the students was desired, the number of acceptances of those who entered by “inheritance” plummeted.
Most likely, the case will eventually reach the Supreme Court of Justice, that he will have to decide if he applies the same standards that he obtained against affirmative action or privileges the individual right of the universities.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
WEATHER CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON
EN TWITTER: @SERGOM68
