Race, Merit, College Admissions, and the Long Ghost of San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez.
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On October 31, 2022, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. The issue before the court is, first, whether the Supreme Court should overrule Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions. The second is whether Harvard College is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by penalizing Asian American applicants based on personality scores as part of its admissions process. SFFA asserts that Black and Brown student admissions are the reason that Asian American students are being denied admission. It is worth pointing out that the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, Edward Blum, has repeatedly filed suits trying to get race struck down in college admissions, including Fisher v. University of Texas in 2016, and that the majority of Asian Americans support race being considered as part of undergraduate admissions.
This case has generated a great deal of debate over affirmative action. As a curriculum theorist, a current professor, and a former K-12 teacher, I realize that education is a subject most Americans feel confident debating because nearly everyone in the country attended K-12 school, and millions of others attended college. Yet, there are many often ignored realities that people do not consider in forming their opinions largely because they are unaware of the realities that frame education in the United States.
First and foremost, it is important to note that, despite what many people assume, affirmative action does not mean racial quotas. The Supreme Court ruled that racial quotas in education were unconstitutional in the 1978 case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. The current standard for the use of race in college admissions was established in Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003 and held that race could be considered as a factor, among others, while also reaffirming that racial quotas were unconstitutional. In short, race currently can be considered as a factor in a holistic admissions process alongside other factors such as region and proximity to the poverty line. Some may ask why we should consider race at all, considering the long history of race being used to deny people rights in the United States. This question is perfectly reasonable and valid. The answer requires people to turn their gaze from higher education to K-12 education and to ask the question, “How do we determine merit?”
The harsh reality about K-12 education that is germane to any discussion about considering race as part of holistic college admissions is that the Supreme Court ruled in the 1973 case San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez that there is no constitutional right to an equitable education as defined by equitable funding. As a result, wealthy school districts continue to have more money to spend on facilities, services, and curriculum; poorer districts do not. This includes the sorts of classes and standardized test preparation that make students stand out to admissions officers at elite colleges such as Harvard.
In addition to there being no right to an equitable education, the Supreme Court later all but gutted the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in the 1974 case Milliken v. Bradley. In that case, the court’s majority ruled that desegregation bussing was unconstitutional and that de jure, meaning by law, segregation was unconstitutional, while de facto, meaning by custom, segregation was permitted. The sum of this is a K-12 education system in the United States that is highly segregated by race and class. This is the context for every undergraduate college applicant, regardless of their GPA or test scores. Ultimately, the admissions process penalizes teenagers who have no say in the educational environment they find themselves in. Taken as a whole, K-12 education is structurally inequitable.
Regarding merit, it is a complicated conversation because it is largely subjective. It requires considering the totality of a student rather than picking two metrics, such as GPA and standardized test scores, and calling it equitable despite knowing these metrics are contextual. Holistic admissions recognize the reality of K-12 admissions. It considers factors such as how the strong correlation between race and proximity to the poverty line impacts a student’s GPA and standardized test scores which are further complicated by regional variations in education funding.
I respect the opinion of those who wish to see race removed as a factor in admissions in favor of a narrow focus on GPA and test scores, but I find their position to be shortsighted and will lead to unintended consequences for one reason. If race is banned as a factor in admissions, schools will likely attempt to use proxies such as region or proximity to the poverty line. When this happens, the same people trying to tear down affirmative action will come for these other categories. In this case, poor whites from the Midwest, Plains states, and the South will also be shut out alongside their peers of color.
But let’s assume that admissions at elite universities like Harvard were determined by GPA and test scores like so many advocates want. Elite universities cannot accept everyone who applies, so how should they decide who to admit if everyone has perfect grades and scores? Logically, the university would look at things like extracurriculars and AP classes. But what if one of the students was from a school district in Louisiana or Wyoming where they didn’t offer AP classes? Is it fair to deny them admission simply because they came from poorer states compared to a student from Connecticut or Washington state? What does merit look like here?
Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules, the question of how we determine merit will not go away. People will try to define it in the narrowest terms for political reasons and because they think that GPA and test scores tell a student’s whole story. They do not know what teachers know; test scores only represent how a young person navigated a situation they were born into to the best of their ability.
In the end, it will fall to teachers as the professionals who prepare students for college in the long shadow of San Antonio ISD vs. Rodriguez to advocate for a better system. University admission offices must consider the whole student when determining who merits admission to the most elite universities in the country. This is because, as every teacher knows, GPA and test scores are meaningless without recognizing the context in which they emerged.
Nicholas Mitchell is a former middle and high school teacher and currently is an assistant professor of curriculum studies at the University of Kansas. He is a curriculum theorist whose scholarship focuses on the intersection of education theory, policy and practice.
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