What will happen without affirmative action in colleges? University leaders fear a lapse in diversity efforts. (The 19th)
Photo courtesy of Chip Somodevilla and Getty Images.
University presidents and education reform advocates are decrying the Supreme Court opinion, calling the decision "a true step back.
By Nadra Nittle, The 19th, June 29th 2023
Lee Bollinger never planned to be an affirmative action champion.
After starting as the University of Michigan’s president in 1996, he was named in two Supreme Court cases — Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger — targeting the institution’s race-conscious admissions policies. Those historic lawsuits led to him becoming a prominent affirmative action supporter, and he defends the practice in his new book with Geoffrey R. Stone, “A Legacy of Discrimination: The Essential Constitutionality of Affirmative Action.”
“Higher education is one institution, one sector of society, among many that have tried to create a fairer, more just society and overcome the invidious discrimination of slavery and Jim Crow and policies that disadvantaged African Americans,” Bollinger told The 19th. Affirmative action has “been very important, very beneficial for society.”
Bollinger, Columbia University’s outgoing president, is one of many higher education leaders voicing support for affirmative action as the Supreme Court issued a consolidated decision Thursday in two cases — Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College — that it is unconstitutional, reversing four decades of legal precedent.