By Godfrey J. Dillard Sr. Esq.
It is not surprising that Donald Trump is opposed to affirmative action policies. His support of Asian-Americans claims of racial discrimination in their case against Harvard (Student For Fair Admissions vs. Harvard College) appears at odds with his current and past views. Why is he using the power of the Presidency in support of a claim of discrimination based on race, by people of color, against an esteemed, white institution?
Presidents seem to cherish railing against affirmative action policies. Never mind that affirmative action has been an unimaginable success, opening the doors of power to people of color. One need only look at the near universal smashing of heretofore guarded glass ceilings of power: POTUS, SCT, Congress, and Fortune 500 companies. Yes, it does matter where you go to school.
Ever since Bakke, the 1978 Supreme Court decision striking down the University of California’s affirmative action admission program as a “quota,” affirmative action has become a term which, for some, emits an odor of inferiority. After overcoming the rigors of academia, even some affirmative action graduates are left to wonder whether they have the right stuff.
Conservative evangelists argue affirmative action destroys one of America’s most noble values: individual merit. Replacing it with an un-fair, race-based process. Their zero-sum analysis becomes the bulwark against the acceptance of affirmative action as a needed racial reform. They elevate an “extraordinary” grade point average (GPA) and SAT combination score as the most the equitable and fair method of deciding who gets into prestigious institutions of higher education, like Harvard. They go-on to evoke empathetic stories of more deserving and hard-working white candidates, some poor, being denied admission simply because he or she is not the right color.
But the idea of merit is a much more complex equation than a magical, statistically generated number. Does not an individual assessment of a “high” GPA and SAT combined score supplemented with overcoming poverty, racial and social disabilities, and extraordinary service to others have a place in the computation? Thus, Blacks under the current SCT individual assessment standard are “qualified” for admission. The mission of institutions favoring affirmative action has never been to admit unqualified students.
Against this backdrop, the current federal case of Asian-Americans against Harvard is unquestionably unique. For sure, it does not fit the classic affirmative action case profile. By example, white students claiming they are the victims of reverse discrimination in admission policies, which favor people of color.
Rather, it is a classic racial discrimination case. Asian-Americans, as people of color, are arguing they are being denied admission because of their race.
In an ironic twist, the statistical combination of GPA and SAT score once again becomes the fundamental evidence and proof of discrimination. But this time, the focus is not on Black candidates for admission; it is on the white candidates for admission. The fact is Asian- Americans have overwhelming superior combination GPA and SAT scores than whites. Yet, they are not being admitted into Harvard in corollary numbers. Their admission rates are significantly lower than whites.
At first blush, the support of Trump and other conservatives in favor of Asian- American’s claims of racial discrimination seems odd. It is not. Understand, it is just the launching of a new, “collateral strategy” destined for the SCT to strike down affirmative action, after failing to do so “directly” in Bakke, the UM, and Texas affirmative action cases.
If the Asian-Americans win, the statistical combination of GPA and SAT score may become the “numéraire of fairness and constitutionality,” not the current individual assessment standard favored by affirmative action acolytes. This new and disguised back-game may prove to be successful. The lawyers representing the few Plaintiff Asian-American students are the same lawyers who represented white students in the Michigan and Texas affirmative action cases. The lawyers attest affirmative action as the “original sin” of the US Constitution.
With conservatives having a 6-3 advantage at the SCT, affirmative action will be back on the guillotine. Make no mistake. This c se is an existential threat to the progress Blacks have made
in America over the past 40-years.