The Supreme Court of Justice of the United States eliminated the policy known as “affirmative action” that forced universities to take into account the racial factor in their admissions processes in order to guarantee greater diversity and representation in their student body.
A report from our correspondent in New York, Silvina Sterin Pencel.
The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States was reached last Thursday, June 29, by a vote of six magistrates in favor and three against.
Dr. Jose Higuera works at Lehman College in New York, where he directs the Institute for Mexican Studies. He tells RFI that he is not happy with the judges who ruled in favor of stamping out affirmative action.
“This group of people considers our society to be homogeneous and they are taking measures to ignore us, minorities and all who they consider to be others. They really don’t know that most of the United States is diverse,” says Higuera.
Kelly Landes studies literature at Fordham University and also works as a waitress. According to her, without her affirmative action, her college experience would be greatly affected. “We would lose so much creativity. We now have amazing students experiencing discrimination. This is a step back,” she comments.
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Luis Rivera is 21 years old and studies psychology. He says he’s frustrated. “It’s like telling minority students that they don’t matter. This decision assumes that a society where the color of your skin does not matter is possible ”, he highlights.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Jackson dissented. She maintained that society does make a difference based on color and that it was impossible to deny it.
“A Conservative Reversal”
For political science professor Victoria Murillo, who teaches at Columbia University, this Supreme Court reversal is rooted in the court’s conservative agenda.
“It is part of a kind of conservative reversal that this court is leading and that particularly affects the issue of race not only in affirmative action but also in other dimensions,” Murillo explained to RFI, adding that this trend worsened after the election of the first African-American president, Barack Obama.
Without affirmative action, admitting African American and Hispanic students will now be the responsibility of each university and no longer a federal requirement.
