What is Affirmative Action?

Affirmative action is favoritism toward people whose race or culture is often discriminated against. In recent news, the supreme court might rule to terminate affirmative action. In two cases against the University of North Carolina and Harvard, the challenger, the SFFA (students for fair admissions) claimed a race-conscious admissions process. They want race to be irrelevant when selecting who gets into these schools.
The cases the SFFA made against the University of North Carolina claim that the school showed a preference for African American, Native American, and Hispanic applicants and discriminated against White and Asian American applicants. The cases against Harvard accused the academy of discriminating against Asian American applicants, though Harvard’s Lawyers argued that the conclusion came from an inadequate statistical analysis and denied the accusations.
The SFFA is a nonprofit group with over 20,000 people who believe that race being considered in admission processes is unconstitutional and unfair. This group’s goal is to have the supreme court change the law so race isn’t considered in admission processes.

Have there always been cases regarding Affirmative Action?

Since 1965 when Executive Order 11246 was put into action at the peak of the Civil Rights movement to level out the playing field. According to https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/executive-order-11246 , “Executive Order 11246 requires affirmative action and prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Contractors also are prohibited from discriminating against applicants or employees because they inquire about, discuss, or disclose their compensation or that of others, subject to certain limitations.” While this was supportive back then recently there has been talk on whether race should be considered in admissions processes. In earlier rulings, the supreme court has ruled it lawful and argued that considering race will help give colleges a more diverse community, and later it would give communities a diverse workforce. In recent cases dating up to 2016, the court has ruled in favor of Affirmative action. In time though the Jury has changed and the members of the court now seem to be in favor of ending this practice.

While it seems likely that the Supreme court will rule against Affirmative action in higher education schools it might take a while before Affirmative Action is obsolete!

Sources:
https://quillandscroll.org/15457/the-digital-quill/weekly-scroll/weekly-scroll-nov-3-2022/ https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/sffa-v-harvard-faq/#:~:text=SFFA%20v.-,Harvard%20and%20SFFA%20v.,consideration%20of%20race%20in%20admissions https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/politics/supreme-court-affirmative-action-harvard-unc.html
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/executive-order-11246
https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/