On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, declaring race cannot be a factor and forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.
Deeming race irrelevant does not make it so in life. America has been a country in denial about its past, a nation whose egalitarian rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence, has operated as a de facto whitesupremacist nation for most of its history. For years, we just slapped a band aid on this deep, open wound of institutional racism. Rejecting affirmative action laws will only be used to dismantle all the progress we have made in our multicultural and diverse democracy. This decision will be used to disenfranchise, to intimidate and wrest power from a growing multi-cultural, multi-diverse electorate.
In her dissent, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said it best when she wrote, “No one benefits from ignorance...race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better.”
She is right. Race gaps continue to exist in this country and we must face that ugly truth. Racist laws created “in the distant past” have harmed our society and it has created advantages (and disadvantages) based on race and they have been institutionalized and affected us down through the generations.
Affirmative action policies affect health equity, social mobility and social justice...for the better. Striking down affirmative action policies is not just aimed at education – for challenges will soon follow in all aspects of our society. This means all affirmative action policies are now targets.
I believe America desperately needs a great new surge of democracy in the face of fierce opposition from reactionary and corporate forces. America has never been about what one person can do for us but what WE, the people, can achieve together through the ebb and flow of self-governance.
WE have the capacity to shape our own destiny. I will continue to fight to ensure that we strive, that we become that egalitarian nation that we profess to be.
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