After Republican-appointed justices on the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs in higher education, Donald Trump — who chose a third of the high court’s members — was among the many Republicans celebrating the ruling.
After claiming that this was the outcome that “everyone” was hoping to see — a ridiculous assertion, to sure — the former president wrote that university admissions will now be “all merit-based — and that’s the way it should be!”
There’s polling evidence to suggest such a sentiment is fairly popular. Though I disagree with the idea, I can appreciate why much of the public would see the superficial appeal of an admissions system that is “all merit-based.”
But what Trump chooses not to understand is that the demise of affirmative action programs in higher education does not, in fact, instantly create a meritocracy. On the contrary, the high court’s conservative justices decided to close one door, while leaving others wide open.
As the editorial board of The New York Times explained today, many schools continue to engage in a “particularly insidious form of wealth-based affirmative action: legacy admissions.”
The children of alumni — who are overwhelmingly white — enjoy a far better chance than other applicants of getting accepted to the nation’s top colleges and universities, which, as this board has argued, constitutes “a form of property transfer from one generation to another.” It has a far larger impact on the racial and socioeconomic makeup of student bodies than race-based affirmative action ever has.
The editorial went on to note that roughly one-in-seven students at Harvard are there at least in part because of a legacy, adding, “Reducing or eliminating this practice could create new opportunities for all kinds of students who normally don’t have a chance of getting into a top school.”
Or put another way, if the country is going to have a conversation about creating an “all merit-based” system, then that conversation should be honest and comprehensive.
It was against this backdrop that Punchbowl News reported last night that several congressional Democrats called on the Justice Department to respond to yesterday’s ruling by filing “legal challenges against any college or university that engages in discriminatory practices — including legacy admissions.”
Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the ranking member on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, issued a statement that read in part, “Race-conscious admissions policies provided a counterbalance to … discriminatory factors — such as inequitable K-12 schools, racially biased admissions tests, and developmental and legacy admissions — that all marginalize students of color. Now that the Court has invalidated that balance, I call on the Attorney General to start filing cases now against any current school practices that violate the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act because they have discriminatory impact.”
He was hardly alone. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted that if the conservative justices were “serious about their ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims, they would have abolished legacy admissions, aka affirmative action for the privileged.”
Democratic Rep. Marilyn Strickland of Washington added, “If we’re talking about fairness across the board, let’s look at everything.”
Before anyone assumes that Republicans will reflexively oppose any such conversation about “everything,” there is at least some evidence to the contrary. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, for example, has endorsed eliminating legacy-based admissions, and I was pleasantly surprised to see National Review publish a related argument last night.
I don’t seriously expect a groundswell of GOP support for the idea, but if some prominent voices on the right are sincere about an “all merit-based” system, perhaps this could be an area for bipartisan cooperation?
