They also argue that diversity on campuses improves the educational experience of all students. Proponents of affirmative action say that ending the practice will hurt historically underrepresented people in higher education and will reinforce inequities that left these communities underrepresented in the first place. Since then, there have been several high-profile lawsuits that have modified the Supreme Court’s position on affirmative action in limited ways. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges could use race as a factor in admissions, but could not use racial quota systems. 'Privileging some to the detriment of many others'Ĭolleges began enacting affirmative action policies in the 1960s and 1970s, aiming to add racial and gender diversity to college campuses, and opponents began challenging them shortly thereafter. Yet Wang’s willingness to share his disillusionment at his own college-admissions experience has helped push the already existing movement to where it is today. “I’m not anti-affirmative action,” he said. He believes colleges have unfairly used affirmative action to hold Asian Americans to higher standards than other applicants, and that policies that help some historically marginalized students but disadvantage others aren’t fair. Yes, he filed those complaints yes, he met with Edward Blum, the driving force behind opposition to race-based admissions, and agreed to speak publicly about his own situation, over and over and over again.Īffirmative action: Supreme Court signals skepticism of race-conscious college admissionsĮvery time Wang spoke out, however, he talked about remedying unfairness to Asian American students – not eliminating all racial considerations in admissions. And although he became a poster child for opposition to affirmative action, Wang’s concern was always more nuanced. Wang, who graduated from Williams College in 2017, is not named in either lawsuit. One alleges discrimination against Asian American applicants at Harvard, and another alleges discrimination against white and Asian American applicants at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on two affirmative action cases next month. Race-conscious admissions policies in the spotlight “Where we are now is not great, but I'm scared to see what’s going to happen in the future,” Wang, now 27, said in an interview with The Hechinger Report. With the potential end of race-conscious admissions looming, Wang isn’t sure if a world without affirmative action is better or worse than the world we live in now. More: The college-going gap between Black and white Americans was always bad. Between Black and White Americans, the college enrollment gap has been growing wider since 2010, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics and the National Student Clearinghouse. He’s concluded, he said, that “affirmative action is a Band-Aid to the cancer of systemic racism.”Īnd even after more than five decades of affirmative action in college admissions, dramatic inequities by race in college enrollment and degree attainment persist. In the 10 years since he sent the emails and filed the complaints, he’s come to feel that the issue is much bigger than just whether he got to attend Harvard College. Now, he said, “a part of me regrets what I’ve put forward.” Unknowingly, Wang helped set in motion the latest movement to end affirmative action on college campuses. Finding their boilerplate responses insufficient, he filed discrimination complaints against three universities with the federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. With near-perfect test scores, stellar grades and a pages-long resumé of extracurricular activities, he wanted to know why he had been rejected from the nation’s most prestigious universities. He asked how race played into their decisions, specifically for Asian American students like him. Back in 2013, as a senior in high school, Michael Wang sent a series of emails to admissions offices at the colleges that had rejected him.
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