On June 29, 2023, the United States Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, a practice used by universities that allowed an applicant’s race to be considered during college admissions. Central students applying to college have now finished the first cycle of post-affirmative action applications, and they are beginning to see the impacts of the court decision on the college admissions process.
When Central senior Shruti Garapati learned of the decision, she thought it was “kind of dumb” and “unnecessary.” “It felt like … like the Supreme Court, why is that what you’re spending your energy on?” Garapati asked.
“I don’t think it’ll make that big of a difference,” senior Hime Moore said of the decision’s effect on college enrollment. “I think it just adds [some] extra hurdles.”
The Register contacted multiple students for interviews about the affirmative action ban, and a significant number had no comment on its effect on their college application process.
Affirmative action, also known as “race conscious admissions,” resulted from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “Because talent lives everywhere, but opportunity does not, there are undoubtedly talented students with great academic potential who have simply not had the opportunity to attain the traditional indicia of merit that provide a competitive edge in the admissions process,” as the Harvard Student and Alumni Organizations put it.
Its implementation successfully resulted in admitting students who were historically excluded from selective universities, such as African Americans and Latinos. “This created unprecedented education and employment opportunities for marginalized ethnic communities, and studies published in the early 1990s also indicated white women were benefitting from affirmative action the most,” CNBC said.
The debate over affirmative action’s fairness has reached the Supreme Court several times. In 2003, Grutter v. Bollinger ruled that racial quotas were unconstitutional, but affirmative action could continue if race was merely one factor in a holistic review of an applicant’s file.
Twenty years later in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. President and Fellows of Harvard and SFFA v. University of North Carolina, the court declared that affirmative action violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI.
Garapati is also frustrated with the misconceptions people have about race conscious admissions. “There’s such a misunderstanding in the Asian community about what affirmative action does because so many of them are like, ‘Oh, I’m not getting in because I’m Asian,’ or they have this resentment toward it when they don’t really have a full understanding of it,” Garapati said.
Edward Blum, who brought the affirmative action-ending cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of SFFA, holds the same views as the students Garapati referenced. “There is no way to increase the percentage of Black and Latino students without decreasing the percentage of Asian American and white students,” Blum told The New York Times after the decision.
Garapati dislikes Blum’s argument, which discredits the accomplishments of Black and Latino students. “People act like affirmative action is this huge thing that’s just letting people in, when I’m like, they’re still way underrepresented in some of these top schools,” Garapati said. “They are very, very high achieving students, and that’s how you get [in] there.”
While an applicant’s race will no longer be directly shared with admissions officers, there are indirect methods for colleges to discover it, like supplemental essays. Most college applications require long-answer questions that are used to understand the personality, passions and background of potential students.
Moore explained that when colleges ask applicants about a hardship they have overcome or whether they’ve faced discrimination, “For most people, if you’re a person of color, it’s going to be tied back to that, so it’s hard to find a topic that stands out.”
Garapati expanded on the dilemma that students of color face when asked a race/culture-based question. “There is a certain level of privilege with applying to colleges or in the academic world that being Indian and Asian has,” Garapati said. “So, I felt like sometimes with applying to college, … they’re like, ‘Oh, if you’re Asian, don’t talk about these core experiences of being a child of immigrant parents.’”
“Just like, the tiptoeing around and having to answer more questions, then it’s like, do I answer it authentically? Do I also tiptoe around it?” Moore said.
Something Garapati has never been fond of, even before the 2024-25 college admissions cycle and affirmative action ban, is when an application questions her about topics that she feels are irrelevant to what she is applying for. She prefers questions that require applicants to channel their creativity or discuss their passions — questions she believes better reflect a person than asking about their circumstances, which don’t always define an applicant.
“If getting rid of affirmative action caused them to create more questions about your race and identity and stuff, then I feel like it’s definitely a negative effect of them not automatically knowing,” Garapati said.
Something admissions officers do automatically know, however, is whether an applicant is a “legacy.” Legacy admissions are when colleges give the children of alumni an increased chance of being accepted. Garapati pointed out that it was not long ago when many colleges would not admit students of color or women. “Some people’s grandparents could not have gotten into these schools,” Garapati said.
“Anything that has to do with race, they’ll scrutinize it super heavily, take it to the Supreme Court,” Garapati said. “But, legacy, because it’s not directly about race — even though race is heavily involved in it, won’t get the same treatment as affirmative action.”
The nation will begin to see the full impact of the recent Supreme Court ruling on admissions once college decisions come out in the spring and fall enrollment is finalized. For now, Garapati and Moore are hopeful that the decision will not negatively affect diversity in American universities.
