Toward Affirmative, Unambiguously Prioritized, and Sustainable Action

Photo Credit: The New York Times

If one takes a nihilistic stance, is reactionary, or is underinformed about the nature of the recent Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decision about Affirmative Action, the response to the decision feels personal or oppressive, even further evidence of anti-black, systemic/institutional racism.

Conversely, being differently informed and influenced leads to a greater likelihood of framing the decision as an inevitable outcome of a policy meant to be released. Thus presenting organizations and institutions with an opportunity to create systems that can serve all Americans and inspire humanity, adding another rung to American progress that inspires beyond her borders.

I sit in between these two stances. I grew up in Topeka, Kansas (USA). My family history heavily influences my ambivalence.

My mother is a (retired) educator/administrator, Ph.D. trained, and her parents (my grandparents) hailed from families who were land owners, entrepreneurs, and activists starting in the 19th century. They migrated across the USA and built businesses and communities in cities like Boley, Oklahoma, parts of California, and later in Kansas. Many of my folks are center-right in their political philosophy. Most African-Americans post-reconstruction held a similar stance, and many still do. They voted for George W. Bush or George H.W. Bush at least once and Ronald Regan twice. They also voted for Obama and against Trump.

My ancestors, dealing with some of the most vicious, violent, and physically threatening forms of racism, were always, and for now, strong advocates for personal and community agency.

I grew up believing that my family and those with whom we most often associated had the capacity and capabilities to shape the structures that could help us fulfill our intentions and purpose in the world.

My father, a mortician and community standard bearer of integrity and dignity in Topeka, KS, reinforced this notion through his family lineage. His family had relatively fewer material resources but believed in faith, family, hard work, business ownership, and dealing with white people as individuals. Not doing so naively or with expectations of always-on benevolence, but case by case nonetheless. And, being self-aware of humans’ inconsistency and, at times, their tendency to compromise their integrity of conscience, my family members were equally discerning with everyone, without regard to race.

Thus, my family comprises engineers, physicians, PhDs, MBAs, JDs, world travelers, a MacArthur Genius, business owners, investors, land owners, horse trainers, and accountants.

My family has also experienced imprisonment, drug addiction, drug trafficking, HIV/AIDS, premature death due to other causes (including murder), long life (many living to over 90 years), and limb loss due to severe injury. Our diversity presents itself in a variety of ways.

My lack of one-sidedness in reacting to the SCOTUS decision is also influenced by how I have practiced and theorized my work in DEI. To create systems that make inclusion normative, accessible to all, unambiguously prioritized, and purpose aligned, we must explore ideas truthfully. Systems require more than the simple redress of symptoms. And we must make DEI about creating the conditions for everyone to thrive and make their best contributions to the mission of the organizations they are part of.

Reconstruction is about truth and reconciliation, acknowledging past inequities, and building trust through respectful and principled collaborative actions across our myriads. Affirmative Action has been one attempt; it was a necessity at a time in history. While it could be a permanent salve for a handful of elite institutions, there are more long-term ways to address persistent inequality.

“Institutionalizing the practice of preferential affirmative action when assessing African-Americans for selection into highly competitive arenas—in other words, using different standards when judging the fitness of blacks competing with others for access to certain venues—is inconsistent with the goal of racial equality. It invites us to become liars—to pretend that false things are true.

It invites us to look the other way. It’s not equality; it’s the opposite of equality. Knowing that I’m being judged by standards that are different and less rigorous by virtue of the fact that my ancestors suffered some indignity is itself undignified.”

- Glenn Loury, Professor of Economics, Brown University

After decades of studying and writing about racial inequality, Professor Loury vehemently believes that the time for Affirmative Action to end was past due.

How has Affirmative Action (AA) shaped my experience? My undergraduate alma mater, Morehouse College, is a Historically Black College (HBCU). No Affirmative Action there. However, at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, I could have been a recipient of Affirmative admissions policies.

I declared I wanted to work in public health during my sophomore year. I took public health-related undergraduate courses and volunteered to do health education related to HIV-AIDS via our local public health student group (“Don’t ‘Sleep’ Until You Get the Facts”). Along with countless other Atlanta University Center students who aspired to practice public health, we were guided, mentored, and coached by one of the greatest and most influential epidemiologists in history, Dr. Bill Jenkins.

I completed two public health-related internships, scored in the 90th percentile on the GRE, and had a B+/A college GPA. Emory is a highly competitive, elite school. Perhaps, I benefitted directly (more likely indirectly) from Affirmative Action.

My graduate school acceptance came after the Grutter v Bollinger. I was an above-average student academically but could have been more outstanding. After leaving Emory, I have been a good and dutiful alum. If my admission resulted from race-based positive action, I am appreciative.

I can't say with 100% confidence what economist Walter Williams said: “I often tell people that I am very, very happy that I got all of my education before it became fashionable for white people to like black people. What that meant was that when I got a ‘C’ it was an honest-to-God, ‘C’. And, when I got an ‘A’ it was an honest-to-God, ‘A’. They weren’t practicing affirmative action and didn’t give a damn about my self-esteem.” Walter Williams, Walter Williams: Suffer No Fools.

But, I am confident that I received no preferential treatment after acceptance. The scholarship was rigorous. I had to accept when I didn’t know something and seek out the help that seemed to always be there in the form of willing fellow students and faculty.

Even in my blindness to knowing about Affirmative Action's benefits for me, I think we have been relatively shallow in our understanding of the construct. For those committed to making DEI accessible (to all), actionable (unambiguously prioritized), and sustainable (purposed aligned), which I assume all practitioners, passionate, and pragmatics are, I think it is necessary to do the following as we think about what’s next now that race-based affirmative action is no longer a thing for higher education:

1. Deeply explore the history of Affirmative Action, including a reading of the entire SCOTUS decision.

2. Consider who benefits from a conversation that pits so-called AA supporters and opponents against one another.

3. Be in dialogue about the potential agential shifts possible due to this ruling.

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1. Deeply explore Affirmative Action history. Read the SCOTUS 2023 syllabus for Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and v. University of North Carolina.

When reading the decision, a few things stood out to me that were in contrast to the potential doomsday scenarios in my social media timelines referring to the decision. These not-so-subtle reactions included opinions from famous figures like Ibram X. Kendi and his co-author Uma Mazyck Jayakumar.

The central premise comes in their article's title in The Atlantic, ‘Race Neutral’ Is the New ‘Separate but Equal.’ They claim that this decision is akin to the beginning of the United States returning to a time when black and white people existed in parallel universes regarding access to opportunities and treatment. They begin with a 1927 story about a Chinese girl kicked out of a majority-white school. The doctrine from Plessy v. Ferguson justified the decision.

They conclude the article: “The Court stated in today’s ruling, “By 1950, the inevitable truth of the Fourteenth Amendment had thus begun to reemerge: Separate cannot be equal.” But it still does not want to acknowledge another inevitable truth of the Fourteenth Amendment that has emerged today: Race cannot be neutral. “‘Separate but equal’ then. ‘Race neutral’ now.”

Kendi, known for his wildly popular How to Be an Anti-Racist, firmly adheres to his brand. Race neutrality is racist or non-racist (you choose). And, if you read the entirety of the SCOTUS syllabus, the notion of race neutrality does not resemble this assertion. No applicant applying to Harvard or institutions along the elite spectrum will be materially harmed by a policy that doesn’t account for their racial identity.

They will not be removed from the first class section of a plane or train and arrested due to their skin color. The idea is, at best, hyperbole. If Harvard does not accept them, these students will likely get into another elite or reputationally extraordinary school, as most of the other 92%-96% of applicants do.

The brand of their other fancy school acceptance may yield them a salary 10-15% less than what Harvard grads secure. Maybe. And much of that depends on their academic major, accumulated experiences and skills, and the networks they develop. Harvard can help with such networks. So can LinkedIn. So can the other fancy and slightly less fancy schools they will likely attend.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who recused herself from the Harvard case, stated in her dissent: “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat,” she wrote. “But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that UNC and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems.”

To claim that colorblindness (i.e., conceptually, not the absence of seeing particular colors in the spectrum and, in the case of racialization, recognizing the history that darker-skinned people have been adversely subjected to) is not a solution to all the ills that have historically burdened black people (including as it relates to affirmative action) is (as one would expect from the Venerable Justice Brown Jackson) accurate.

In a country with a history of racialization and its cousin, dehumanizing racism that generally enters the door quickly after that, we won’t achieve the goal of equal opportunity without the acknowledgment of the reality that there are still decisions made, systems crafted, and networks are woven that have left people out, particularly the racialized and people experiencing poverty.

And, if we are ever to go beyond responding to racialization with interventions that reinforce racialization, even with positive intent, the notion that the racialized require perpetual supplementation could quietly grow into or reinforce the subtle resentment often interpreted as microinequities or institutional racism.