The United States Supreme Court accepted, this Monday (24), to discuss a case that proposes the end of affirmative action based on skin color for admission to undergraduate courses at Harvard and North Carolina Universities (UNC, in the acronym in English).
The demand, filed in 2014 by an activist, had already been rejected in regional courts, but will now be analyzed by the highest instance of Justice, which currently has a conservative majority.
If the court agrees with the plaintiffs’ arguments, the ruling could have a ripple effect, with affirmative action being overturned at other US institutions of higher learning. The case is expected to be on the Supreme Court’s agenda between October this year and June 2023.
In the US, universities began to adopt affirmative action of the type in 1965, but 13 years later, the Court prohibited institutions from implementing racial quotas in selective processes. Today, public and private centers in several states maintain inclusion actions, without using quota systems or bonuses.
In the suit accepted on Monday, the group Students for Fair Admissions, founded by conservative activist Edward Blum, accuses universities of racially discriminating against candidates for undergraduate positions, which would violate federal laws. In the case of Harvard, the authors allege that the institution harms people of Asian descent, while the UNC would also discriminate against whites.
Blum’s group cites an excerpt from the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “on the basis of race, color or nationality” in any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance, which is the case with Harvard, a private institution. founded in 1636 with headquarters in Massachusetts.
UNC at Chapel Hill, founded in 1789, is North Carolina’s premier public university — in this case, the authors cite a section of the Constitution that provides for equal rights.
According to the organization, Harvard’s policies limit Asians to 20% of undergraduate classes and make them less likely to be admitted than white, black and Hispanic applicants with similar qualifications.
Universities claim that racial criteria are only one factor in a series of individualized assessments and that an eventual elimination of the parameter would result in a significant drop in the number of students of color, Hispanic and other underrepresented groups on campuses.
Following the Supreme Court’s announcement, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said the ruling “jeopardizes 40 years of legal precedent that grants colleges the freedom and flexibility to create diverse communities.” […], which strengthens the learning environment for all”.
Blum praised the court’s decision and said, “In a multiracial and multiethnic nation like ours, the college admission barrier cannot be raised for some ethnic groups.” “Our nation cannot remedy past discrimination with new discrimination,” he argued.
US conservatives have long been opposed to affirmative action programs in areas such as hiring professionals and admitting students. In 2016, the Supreme Court rejected the arguments of a white student supported by Blum and ruled the racial criteria adopted in the selection program at the University of Texas at Austin legal.
Prior to that, in 2003, the court had granted the University of Michigan Law School the right to consider racial criteria as an admissions factor, due to its interest in creating a diverse student body. At the time, Republican-appointed then-Judge Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that she hoped the use of these actions would “no longer be necessary” by 2028.
Since 2020, when then-President Donald Trump managed to appoint the third judge in his term to the highest instance of American justice, the court’s decisions have come to reflect its conservative majority. In December, for example, the court indicated that it could change its understanding of the right to abortion, which would mean a historic reversal of the jurisprudence in force for almost 50 years.
The administration of Joe Biden has clashed with many recent judgments, which could be repeated in the case announced this Monday. When the lawsuit was still in lower courts, the White House had already asked judges not to proceed with the case.
About a quarter of countries have some form of affirmative action to increase diversity in higher education, either by federal law or by choice of universities. Policies vary across socioeconomic, racial and ethnic criteria. India, which has had policies similar to Brazil’s since the 1950s, has the longest history of caste- or class-based affirmative action. Universities in South Africa and Malaysia also have policies to include students from groups with a history of repression.
In Brazil, the 2012 Quota Law changed the profile of public higher education. A study by Ursula Mello, from the Institute for Economic Analysis, in Barcelona, ​​in partnership with Adriano Senkevics, a doctoral student in education at USP, shows that from 2012 to 2016, the participation of young people aged between 18 and 24, black, brown and indigenous, and of low income at federal universities went from 33.9% to 42.7% of new entrants.
The survey also points to a change in the profile of the most popular courses, such as medicine, electrical engineering and law. In the three cases, the presence of non-white students, coming from public and low-income schools was between 10% and 20% of those entering in 2012. In 2016, it was between 20% and 40%.
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