What Now for Elite College Admissions?
Creating a Compassionate Meritocracy after Affirmative Action
The United States Supreme Court held in a 6-3 landmark decision last Thursday that the affirmative action programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The ruling effectively ends the systematic use of race-conscious affirmative action admission policies in American colleges and universities.
“Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This Nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,” writes Chief Justice Roberts.
While many Americans will continue to debate the pros and cons of the Supreme Court’s decision, few would disagree that racial discrimination and its consequences persist in this country. So how does America ensure equality of opportunity for deserving young Americans of all races trying to gain admission to our nation’s elite universities?
The answer lies in the 18 years before opening the Common App.
Providing stronger support for parenting and the two-parent home, dramatically improving sub-standard K-12 education, and changing elite admissions policies can help disadvantaged minority students enjoy a fairer shot at admission and succeed once admitted – with or without affirmative action.
We must provide stronger support for responsible parenting and the two-parent home.
To give children the best chances for long-term personal and academic success, they need stable and supportive homes. That means homes that have sufficient economic means and two caring and responsible parents.
Too many American children do not have either.
We know that poverty can shape a child’s life in tragic and dramatic ways and single-parenthood often accompanies that poverty. “Children in poverty are more likely to have physical, mental and behavioral health problems, disrupted brain development, shorter educational trajectories, contact with the child welfare and justice systems, employment challenges in adulthood and more,” according to a report published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
And poverty is correlated with having only one parent at home. “Single-parent families — and especially mother-only households — are more likely to live in poverty compared to married-parent households,” the report found. In 2022, 45.6% of black youth and 24.5% of children of Hispanic ethnicity lived with their mother in single-parent households as compared to 16.7% of white youth.
Growing up without the presence of two loving parents and experiencing the various types of poverty associated with that family structure can make it difficult for many black and Hispanic children to compete for admission to top universities.
Policymakers, business and religious leaders, the entertainment industry, the educational community, and frankly all societal stakeholders can help support the flourishing of two-parent families in poor communities. For example, government and business leaders could work together to intentionally make having one parent at home economically possible, ensuring the excessive pursuit of profits does not exacerbate the already difficult challenge of raising children well. In short, that would mean providing wages that allow one parent to stay at home raising children if desired or avoid having to work two or three jobs to make ends meet – leaving them with little time or energy for their kids.
The entertainment community, for their part, could do a better job of celebrating and elevating images of responsible fatherhood among men of all backgrounds. Hollywood could also promote the type of love, romance, and commitment that more often leads to prosperous homes and children who thrive: marrying and establishing economic security before bringing children into the world.
Improve K-12 education.
We know that children in low-income minority communities often receive a sub-standard public education.
And that is unacceptable.
Enduring inferior schooling year after year hurts children and erodes opportunity – including chances for admission to a top college. “Perhaps the gravest injustice of our time is the imprisonment of minority kids in substandard public schools,” wrote The Wall Street Journal Editorial Boards’ Allysia Finley last fall. According to the 2022 Nation’s Report Card, in Los Angeles, 18% of black fourth-graders and 16% of Hispanics scored proficient or higher in reading, compared with 62% of white students. As Finley noted, similar gaps exist elsewhere in the nation. Statewide in Illinois, only 8% of black eighth-graders and 14% of Hispanics were rated proficient or better in math compared to 36% of white students.
The Illinois Department of Education reported that in 33 Chicago public schools, not a single student was proficient in math. In 22 Chicago public schools, zero students met grade level proficiency for reading.
In 2022, the Maryland State Department of Education reported that in Baltimore’s 23 public schools, not a single student was proficient in math.
Not a single student.
“For all intents and purposes, no one cares about these children,” wrote Douglas McKinnon, former Reagan and Bush speechwriter in an op-ed in The Hill in February. “Republicans don’t care because they believe these communities are loyal to the Democrats; Democrats don’t care because they have long since taken these communities for granted.”
Tragically, Mr. McKinnon might just be right, and both Republicans and Democrats need to set partisan self-interest aside and help these children because it’s the right thing to do.
Reform elite admissions policies.
Finally, elite colleges can change their admissions policies to reward the bright, diligent, and deserving disadvantaged students who make the most of the meager resources available to them. Former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers suggests elite colleges and universities “eliminate preferences for legacy applicants” and “take a hard look at admissions preferences for those who excel in ‘aristocrat sports.’” Such a policy would open up slots for others.
As one idea, elite state flagship universities could adopt a top 5% automatic admission policy for every public high school in their states, which would provide the top students from both wealthy and disadvantaged districts with access to a top-flight education. This would also provide states with an additional means of assessing the performance of their public schools, guiding resource allocations and overdue interventions.
Summers also emphasizes that admissions decision makers “resist being impressed by those who have benefited from high-priced coaching through the admissions process.”
Admissions committees could require applicants to indicate the nature and cost of the consulting and coaching services they have received – from SAT Prep courses to full-suite application and essay consulting.
Expect the test-prep industry and others to lobby against such an approach, but such information would help admissions committees make better decisions.
“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his decision. That is an absolutely worthy goal, which we will never attain if we don’t spend more time helping disadvantaged minority students in the first eighteen years of life, long before they reach college age.
Until the next post,
Antonette