TheGrio: Advocates debunk claims affirmative action discriminates against white, Asian students after Supreme Court hearing
Issues
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on November 4, 2022.
Rakim Brooks, president of the advocacy group, Alliance for Justice, told theGrio that affirmative action is “not discriminating against white Americans, Asian Americans,” or any other race of people. Instead, he said, it was implemented to prevent discrimination and create a diverse learning environment.
“Diversity is one of the key ways that we’re able to reduce biases and produce better outcomes. So, we have to then make the point that affirmative action is good for all of us because diversity is good for all of us,” said Brooks.
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Brooks said some conservatives who are anti-affirmative action tend to be hypocritical and have no issue supporting or even participating in legacy admissions.
“When we talk about something like legacy admissions, which are not under attack, those are fundamentally vestiges of white supremacy because only white people were admitted to any of these institutions,” he said.
He continued, “So to say that there can be a preference for someone whose parent or grandparent, great grandparent attended a public university, for instance, when those universities would not admit Black students is a racial preference. But they don’t see it as such, and I think they don’t see it as such because it’s an attack on their privilege.
[…]
If the high court does overturn Grutter v. Bollinger, Brooks said “for Black Americans, the short-term results will be somewhat disastrous, and so the question is how do we intend to respond to that? Will there be greater enrollment in HBCUs?”
He added that if Students for Fair Admissions prevails, there will be a mass exodus of Black enrollment at predominantly white institutions, which will greatly impact white and Asian Americans students.