Affirmative Action Repeal & Rising White Supremacy

The latest Harvard data is a daunting reminder that racist policies are not only systemic in our higher education systems—they're getting worse

The right wing assault on all things diversity related is full speed ahead. Whether its MAGA attacks on Critical Race Theory (CRT), Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), or Affirmative Action (AA)—right wing MAGAs have waged an all out culture war on anything that makes them uncomfortable.

More than 35 states have attempted to ban, or successfully banned CRT. More than 30 states are trying to do the same with DEI. And since the Supreme Court repealed Affirmative Action, we are now seeing some hard data from Harvard University on the devastatingly racist impact it is having on higher education. Let’s Address This.

Credit: https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/desegregation

New Data From Harvard Law

A new report shows that Harvard Law Black enrollment dropped by more than 50% since the Supreme Court banned affirmative action last year. Just 19 first-year Black students this fall, the lowest number since the 1960s. The Harvard Crimson reports:

According to the data, which was submitted to the American Bar Association, the number of Black students enrolled in HLS’s first-year class decreased from 43 students the previous year to 19. The number of Hispanic students also decreased from 63 to 32 students. Meanwhile, the number of Asian students in the 1L class climbed from 103 to 132 students.

First, a reminder that Asian plaintiffs, backed by right wing MAGA funders, pushed to repeal Affirmative Action, meritlessly arguing that it hurt their admission. This, despite the fact that evidence demonstrates that Affirmative Action helps Asian admissions.

Likewise, consider that the 29 student increase among Asian students admitted corresponded with a combined 53 student decrease among Black and Hispanic students. In other words, a net decrease of 24 non-white students, and a roughly net increase of 24 white students.

MAGAs will no doubt argue that this is the logical result of admission based on meritocracy as opposed to based on Affirmative Action. Anyone making this argument is either deliberately dishonest, or hopelessly misinformed. And here are the facts why.

Who Did Affirmative Action Benefit?

We must first understand the history of who Affirmative Action benefitted most—because it was not Black people. In reality, the demographic that benefitted most from Affirmative Action—more than Black, Indigenous, Latino, and Asian Americans combined—are white women. As TIME Magazine reports:

While people of color, individually and as groups, have been helped by affirmative action in the subsequent years, data and studies suggest women — white women in particular — have benefited disproportionately. According to one study, in 1995, 6 million women, the majority of whom were white, had jobs they wouldn’t have otherwise held but for affirmative action. Another study shows that women made [more than 7X] greater gains in employment at companies that do business with the federal government, which are therefore subject to federal affirmative-action requirements. Even in the private sector, the advancements of white women eclipse those of people of color.

Likewise, we must understand that Affirmative Action was never about accepting unqualified people (whether they were women or of color, or women of color). Affirmative Action was always about ensuring underrepresented qualified people also had a fair shot at acceptance.

What Was the Actual Purpose of Affirmative Action?

Prior to Affirmative Action, universities and corporations systemically discriminated against non-white applicants for the entirety of American history up through Jim Crow. This is why even post Civil War, Black Americans were forced to build Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to ensure Black children could attain education. When W.E.B. Dubois (1868-1963) made history in 1895 as the first Black PhD graduate of Harvard University, he famously and correctly said, “The honor, I assure you, was Harvard’s.”

Carl Van Vechten, © Van Vechten Trust. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

Affirmative Action required universities and corporations to finally also consider non-white applicants when making hiring decisions. To repeat, Affirmative Action did not force universities and corporations to accept unqualified women and Black people—it required them to also consider qualified women and Black people. And the ample data backs up how such diversity has historically benefitted the economy and innovation on a national and international level. And claims that we are somehow “post-racial” are backed not by facts or evidence, but meritless opinions.

Let’s ID the Real ‘Unqualified Admission’ Issue

Finally, if anyone truly objected to unqualified admissions or acceptances, they would have attacked and repealed Legacy Admissions, not Affirmative Action. The receipts make this clear. For example, while conservatives protested the 8% Black students at Harvard, Legacy Admissions and sports admissions accounted for 43% of white students accepted to Harvard. And shockingly, 75% of those students would not have qualified or been accepted on merit. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) confirms this, as does another by UCLA, which reports:

The UCR study cites research that found 43% of Harvard’s white students were admitted through what researchers termed an “ALDC” status (athletic, legacy, dean’s preferences, and children of faculty) between 2014 and 2019, and that 75% of these students would have been rejected without their ALDC status. Comparatively, less than 16% of Harvard’s Black, Asian American, and Latino student were ALDC students.

In other words, if the conservative outrage was truly about the lack of meritocracy, their exclusive target should have been Legacy Admissions. Even if we go with the false claim that every single Black person admitted was admitted due to Affirmative Action and was unqualified, the number of those admissions still dwarfs in comparison to the unqualified white Legacy students admitted.

Yet, complete silence from conservatives on this fact. I cannot imagine why.

Conclusion

The repeal of Affirmative Action is another step by right wing conservatives to revive white supremacy, and the latest admissions data from Harvard Law further backs this up. Indeed, the facts do not lie. The movement to repeal Affirmative Action, or ban DEI, or demonize CRT—was never about merit and was never about applicant qualifications. It was always about reviving Jim Crow white supremacy. The scariest part is—so far—it is working. This is one more reason we must continue stay informed, active, and organized as people across racial and economic backgrounds to reject this extremism and demand meaningful justice.