Equal education activist groups rallied in Washington, D.C., Sunday as the Supreme Court could be prepared to strike down a longstanding precedent of using race as a factor for admissions in the university system.
The high court will hear oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions vs. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday. The landmark suits argue that the universities unfairly discriminate against Asian American student applicants.
The two cases could put in jeopardy a 40-year practice by universities across the country.
A sign at the "Equal Education Rights for All" Rally, Oct. 30 in Washington D.C.
(Fox News Digital)
A TIMELINE OF SUPREME COURT CASES ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS
Asian American and educational rights organizations held an “Equal Education Rights for All” Rally” Sunday in support of the plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA).
“If the Supreme Court forbids the use of race and ethnicity in college admissions as it should, the opinion might begin the restoration of our nation’s constitutional colorblind legal covenant,” SFFA president Edward Blum said.
Rallygoers argued these policies were racist and discriminatory. Some carried signs that read, “Fix K-12, Do Not Scapegoat Asians,” “Judge By Content of Characters and Not Skin Color” and, “My Race Should Not Hurt Me in Admissions.”
Protesters called for an end to race-based discrimination at the "Equal Education Rights for All" rally.
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Ward Connerly, president of Californians for Equal Rights and the Americans for Civil Rights Institute, called the university system “the only public institution in our society that is allowed to discriminate.”
“That’s wrong. So I say to the court, do the right thing and correct your mistake,” he urged.
MAJORITY OF AMERICANS SUPPORT BANNING THE CONSIDERATION OF RACE DURING COLLEGE ADMISSIONS: POLL
Equal Education Rights for All rally, in Washington D.C. October 30, 2022.
(Fox News Digital)
Others accused universities of trying to cover up failing education standards in K-12 schools after the Nation’s Report Card revealed 30 percent of eighth graders are “functionally illiterate” and only 27 percent of students were proficient in math.
“It would [push] American society to focus on the real issue here, which is failing K-12 education in too many Black and Hispanic communities, that is the root cause of lack of racial diversity in higher education,” Yukong Zhao, president of the Asian-American Coalition for Education told Fox News Digital.
Elementary students wearing masks in the classroom
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Several speakers noted affirmative action policies were unpopular with minorities, citing a Pew Research Center poll last April which found “68% of Hispanics, 63% of Asian Americans and 59% of Blacks” believed race and ethnicity should not be a factor considered by colleges.
High school and college students shared how they had been negatively affected by affirmative action policies in their schools. But one anti-affirmative action “hactivist,” Vijay Jojo Chokal Ingam, received vast media attention in 2015 when he claimed he had used these practices to his advantage by pretending to be Black 20 years ago to gain entrance into an elite medical school, despite holding a lower GPA than the average incoming student.
PREVIEW ANALYSIS: SUPREME COURT TO HEAR CHALLENGE TO CONSIDERATION OF RACE IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS
Chokal Ingam has used his story to speak out against race-based admissions.
But he said it would take more than one Supreme Court decision to achieve their goals.
Rallygoers protested affirmative action practices in university admissions at the Supreme Court, October 30.
(Fox News Digital)
“The next battle is going to be enforcement,” Chokal Ingam said to Fox News Digital. He stressed the importance of getting support from Congress to pressure the Department of Justice and Department of Education to enforce any ruling by the court.
Several lawmakers and politicians have voiced support for SFFA’s cause.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and California U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Calif., led 80 of their colleagues to file an amicus brief in support of SFFA last May. During the rally, speakers also read statements of support from Lieutenant Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina and Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears of Virginia.
Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Huntington Beach, with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has filed an amicus brief with 80 of her colleagues in support of Students for Fair Admissions’ cases before the Supreme Court on Monday.
(Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
UNC-CHAPEL HILL DEFENDS RACE-BASED ADMISSIONS AHEAD OF SUPREME COURT REVIEW
However, not everyone agrees these practices should be stopped.
Over 100 Harvard students will travel to the Supreme Court Monday to show support for their school’s affirmative action policies, in a rally funded by the university’s Undergraduate Association and civil rights groups, the Crimson reported. These students say race-based admissions are necessary to maintain campus diversity.
Boston University Professor Jonathan Feingold called the current admission polices a “modest tool that promotes more neutral, objective, and merit-based admissions.”
He warned that if the court overruled the previous rulings upholding affirmative action, they would be symbolically lending “credence to the contestable claim that race doesn’t matter until the moment a university formally sees it and accounts for it.” He added this claim would “stigmatize anti-racist efforts to reckon with race in America.”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday temporarily prevented the House of Representatives from obtaining secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
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The battle over affirmative action in universities began in the 1970s. The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that schools could not use racial quotas in their admissions processes, in Regents of University of California v. Bakke.
Race criteria in admissions has long divided the court, George Washington University professor and legal scholar Jonathan Turley explained to Fox News Digital.
“Race criteria in admissions has long discomforted justices, even some who have voted to allow its limited use. Since Bakke, the court has handed down a series of fractured and often conflicting 5-4 or plurality decisions,” he said.
Turley added that the new 6-3 conservative majority could bring “greater clarity to several areas with long-standing 5-4 divisions,” citing the recent Dobbs ruling which overturned Roe v. Wade.
Monday the court will hear oral arguments from both universities and SFFA. They are expected to hand down their decisions on the consequential cases in 2023.
