Dec 9, 2002 2 min read

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to rule on whether race should be a deciding factor for college admissions. This decision is long past due. Whether one favors affirmative action or views it as a discriminatory practice, a ruling by the nation’s highest court should help settle a practice that has been fraught with controversy. Affirmative action was an outgrowth of the civil rights movement. Colleges and universities were given marching orders to prove that the institutions did not discriminate against minorities. Rather than color-blind policies that would ignore race and decide admissions based on applicants’ test scores and abilities, race-conscious policies (with lesser standards for minorities) were adopted at many schools. While outright quotas were banned by the Supreme Court in a split 1978 decision, little direction was given as to what is acceptable.

Both sides in the affirmative action debate want the court to make the rules clearer. Affirmative action is viewed by some as a necessary tool to help minorities lift themselves from poverty through easier access to higher education. Others see it as a thinly-veiled quota system that promotes reverse discrimination by keeping better qualified students out of some schools simply because they are not minorities. Some minorities also believe it demeaning in that they are viewed to advance simply because of their race and not by merit.

The case before the court involves white applicants to the University of Michigan and its law school who claim they were unconstitutionally rejected because of their race.

A decision by the court as to how much weight, if any, should be given to an applicant’s race is a sensitive topic, certain to upset one side or the other, but it is also necessary.