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Latin endings practice1/9/2024 ![]() ![]() A similar situation is currently unfolding at Tennessee State University. In 2021, Maryland paid $577 million to the state’s four HBCUs to settle a 15-year-old lawsuit alleging a discriminatory funding system that favored traditionally white schools. Recently, HBCUs have been working to correct those injustices. And while HBCUs saw their enrollment numbers increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, this upsurge may prove challenging as Black institutions-like Black people-are under-resourced due to past and present discrimination. HBCUs also enroll more than twice as many Pell Grant-eligible students as non-HBCUs. Although HBCUs represent only 3% of all four-year institutions, they account for 10% of all matriculating Black students, and awarded 17% of all bachelor’s degrees and 24% of all STEM-related bachelor’s degrees to Black students in 2019. With the Court’s decision likely to lead to Black enrollment declines at selective, predominately white institutions, HBCUs are positioned to step in. The University of North Carolina did not even accept Black applicants until the 1950s, and has yet to see its Black enrollment reach the same share as the state’s Black population, which is 22.3%. Harvard-the nation’s oldest higher education institution, founded in 1636- did not admit a Black student for over 200 years, and admitted Black female undergraduates only after the Supreme Court legalized affirmative action in 1978. For most of American history, postsecondary institutions have been exclusive. Students of color have been in this situation before. Without affirmative action to help students from underrepresented groups overcome these systemic barriers, fewer Americans will be able to maximize their participation in the economy and democracy. Systemic barriers such as underfunded schools, housing discrimination, and income inequality can prevent even the most talented students from attaining higher education. The end of affirmative action is, as colleges and universities have warned, a major blow to their ability to tap into the full spectrum of student talent. And now, minority enrollment is predicted to decrease by as much as 10% in highly selective colleges following the elimination of race-conscious admissions nationwide. School leaders in some of these states filed amicus briefs to the Supreme Court in support of affirmative action, stating that their schools’ Black enrollment has dropped and remained lower than pre-ban levels after more than a decade. One study found an immediate 1.6-percentage-point decrease in Black enrollment in the most selective schools after such state-level bans. Previous state-level affirmative action bans have shown that race-neutral admissions policies are ineffective at improving racial equity in higher education. But today’s ruling establishes that among the many factors that go into admissions decisions, the use of race “must comply with strict scrutiny, may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and must-at some point-end.” Harvard and UNC argued that they were exercising their constitutional and moral right to set diversity goals and consider race in admissions decisions in order to reach them. The case before the Supreme Court began in 2014, when a group called Students for Fair Admissions filed lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, claiming that the universities practice discriminatory quota systems that unfairly penalize Asian American and white students. Ending affirmative action erodes racial equity in higher education But for HBCUs to meet that demand, these systematically devalued institutions must receive greater investment. HBCUs have developed talent that other institutions turn a blind eye to, and in the face of the Court’s decision, society will demand that these schools educate even more students. Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) can help fill this gap. The decision will most likely result in declines in racial diversity among many public and private postsecondary institutions, which means that some of the most talented students of color will have to pursue a postsecondary degree elsewhere. This decision in favor of neutrality denies the nation’s history of racial injustice, and as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stated in her dissent, “condemns our society to never escape the past that explains how and why race matters to the very concept of who ‘merits’ admission.” In a 6-3 ruling, the majority used the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment-which was created to rectify the inequality faced by Black Americans-to disband the practice of race-conscious admissions. ![]() The June 29 Supreme Court decision on affirmative action effectively ends race-conscious admissions practices in higher education and erodes 40 years of precedent. ![]()
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