10 minute read
Education
Justices to hear challenge to race in college admissions
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press
The conservative-dominated Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the consideration of race in college admissions, adding affirmative action to major cases on abortion, guns, religion and COVID19 already on the agenda.
The court said it will take up lawsuits claiming that Harvard University, a private institution, and the University of North Carolina, a state school, discriminate against Asian American applicants. A decision against the schools could mean the end of affirmative action in college admissions.
Lower courts rejected the challenges, citing more than 40 years of high court rulings that allow colleges and universities to consider race in admissions decisions. But the colleges and universities must do so in a narrowly tailored way to promote diversity.
The court’s most recent pronouncement was in 2016, in a 4-3 decision upholding the admissions program at the University of Texas against a challenge brought by a white woman. But the composition of the court has changed since then, with the addition of three conservative justices who were appointed by then-President Donald Trump.
Two members of that four-justice majority are gone from the court: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020, and Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018.
The three dissenters in the case, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, remain on the court. Roberts, a moderating influence on some issues, has been a steadfast vote to limit the use of race in public programs, once writing, “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”
The court already has heard arguments in cases that could expand gun rights and religious rights and also roll back abortion rights in a direct challenge to the Roe v. Wade ruling from 1973.
Earlier this month, the justices weighed in for the first time on President Joe Biden’s vaccine policies, halting a rule requiring a vaccine or testing at large businesses while allowing a vaccine mandate for most of the nation’s health care workers.
The affirmative action case probably will be argued in the fall. Both suits were filed by Students for Fair Admissions, a Virginia-based group run by Edward Blum. He has worked for years to rid college admissions of racial considerations, and the court’s new lineup breathed new life into his project.
The group is calling on the court to overturn its 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the University of Michigan’s law school admissions program.
The Biden administration had urged the justices to stay away from the issue, writing in the Harvard case that the challenges “cannot justify that extraordinary step” of overruling the 2003 decision.
Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said that the Ivy League institution does not discriminate and vowed to continue defending its admissions plan. “Considering race as one factor among many in admissions decisions produces a more diverse student body which strengthens the learning environment for all,” Bacow said in a statement.
Blum voiced hope that the high court will order an end to taking account of race in college admissions. “Harvard and the University of North Carolina have racially gerrymandered their freshman classes in order to achieve prescribed racial quotas,” Blum said in a statement.
The Supreme Court has weighed in on college admissions several times over more than 40 years. The current dispute harks back to its first big affirmative action case in 1978, when Justice Lewis Powell set out the rationale for taking account of race even as the court barred the use of racial quotas in admissions.
In the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Powell approvingly cited Harvard as “an illuminating example” of a college that takes “race into account in achieving the educational diversity valued by the First Amendment.”
Twenty-five years later, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor likewise invoked the Harvard plan in her opinion in the Michigan law school case.
Now the Harvard program is under fire from opponents of race-based affirmative action.
Students for Fair Admissions claims that Harvard imposes a “racial penalty” on Asian American applicants by systematically scoring them lower in some categories than other applicants and awarding “massive preferences” to Black and Hispanic applicants.
Harvard flatly denies that it discriminates against Asian American applicants and says its consideration of race is limited, pointing out that lower courts agreed with the university.
In 2020, the federal appeals court in Boston ruled that Harvard looked at race in a limited way in line with Supreme Court precedents.
Harvard’s freshman class is roughly one-quarter Asian American, 16% Black and 13% Hispanic, Harvard says on its website. “If Harvard were to abandon race-conscious admissions, African American and Hispanic representation would decline by nearly half,” the school told the court in urging it to stay out of the case.
The Trump administration had backed Blum’s case against Harvard and filed its own lawsuit alleging discrimination against Asian American and white people at Yale University. The Biden administration dropped the Yale suit.
North Carolina’s flagship public university prevailed in a federal district court in October. U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs ruled that the school’s program was intended to produce a diverse student body and had shown the benefits of doing so.
The court accepted the North Carolina case for review even though it has not been heard by a federal appeals court. Blum filed a Supreme Court appeal with the hope that it would be bundled with the Harvard case so that the justices could rule on public and private colleges at the same time.
AmNews Staff Reports
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. National President Cheryl A. Hickmon has died. Sorority officials announced Hickmon passed away on Jan. 20 after a recent illness.
In a Facebook post, the sorority said, “She is remembered not only for her role as a leader but for being a colleague, friend, and most of all, sister.”
A native of Hartford, Conn., Hickmon was a member of Delta Sigma Theta since 1982 being initiated through the Alpha Xi Chapter at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, SC.
“The entire sisterhood of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated mourns the loss of President Hickmon,” the sorority said in a statement. “During this difficult time, we ask that you respect her family’s privacy and keep them in your prayers.”
Hickmon was employed at Montefiore’s Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Health in Hartsdale, N.Y. She supervised the In Vitro Fertilization Laboratories for Andrology and Endocrinology.
A licensed clinical laboratory technologist, Hickmon worked in the Reproductive Medical Laboratory for more than 30 years, specializing in Andrology and Endocrinology.
Along with her dedicated membership and leadership in Delta Sigma Theta, Hickmon was also a member of the NAACP, NCNW, National Brotherhood of Skiers, and St. Monica’s Episcopal Church.
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. was founded at Howard University in 1913. The organization has more than 350,000 members and 1,000 chapters worldwide.
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Working with Dr. Erica Tobia, executive superintendent, under the leadership of Alhassan Susso, we are planning to hold our first Bronxwide stakeholders strategy forum on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022, 6-8 p.m. in one of our public school auditoriums to be announced later. In the meantime, Bronxites can register their interests to join #BRONX2022 campaign by emailing us at: renterscoun-
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Taylor
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shelter, and Lisa would have likely joined those ranks. Instead, Lisa went to Astoria House, one of five Queensbased Hour Children communal residences.
“They helped so much when I was on the inside, and that didn’t stop when I got to the outside,” Lisa said. “Without them, I would’ve had nowhere to go.”
Six months later, Lisa is embarking on a new part of her journey. She is starting not one, but two jobs: one with The Fortune Society, and the second with Hour Children working with recently released women living in Hour community housing. In these roles, Lisa will be using many of the skills that she honed while working for Hour Children during her incarceration and at Hour Children’s employment services program, Hour Working Women Program (HWWP). She will oversee tasks such as requisitioning, supply budget management, and move-in and out logistics, but is most excited to be using her people skills to mediate and resolve conflicts, help women reach out to city entities for assistance, and offer parenting support and advice. Each day will be different, and Lisa feels committed to helping as many women turn their lives around as she can. “Hour Children advocates were friends and mentors to me,” explained Lisa, “and now I can take what I learned from them and be that mentor for other women.”
The vast majority of women in New York State’s prisons and jails will come home one day. When these women have a supportive place to go when they are released, a place that provides services that strengthens and challenges them to succeed, then they can— and will—be able to change their lives for the better, and for the betterment of their family. They can become fully employed and contributing members of the workforce and their community. Re-arrest is much less likely to happen when we journey with the women and help them utilize their gifts and talents and encourage them to develop new skills to be successful. In this way, together, we break the cycle, create new opportunities and foster healing, one family at a time.
*name has been changed
Dr. Alethea Taylor is the executive director of Hour Children, a leading provider of services to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women in New York State. She is a member of The Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform.
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