A warning for the Supreme Court

We wished we lived in a post racial society. But this is not the case. For this reason, the Supreme Court should uphold affirmative action and not undo decades of work to ensure that our universities remain accessible to marginalized communities.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to soon decide on whether affirmative action admission policies in colleges and universities should be changed.

The Court is ruling on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, in which a white student is challenging the university’s affirmative action plan. UT Austin, like other universities, considers race among many other criteria when reviewing applications. The plaintiff claims that this voluntary policy in turn limits access for economically disadvantaged whites, who can’t benefit from affirmative action policies.

Affirmative action emerged decades ago as a response to the racist but legal status quo against African-Americans, Latinos and others. It was an attempt to open the doors of colleges that rejected or were reluctant to accept anyone who wasn’t white.

Opponents of affirmative action believe that affirmative action is no longer relevant in a supposedly “post-racial” era. But today, more than ever, Latinos and African-Americans need policies that promote inclusion and attempt to even out conditions that would otherwise be unfair.

Staggering inequity remains persistent in public schools across the nation — a crisis that hinders access to higher education. And our schools have yet to reflect the promise of racial integration and diversity.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, an average white child in the U.S. today attends a school where 77% of the children are white and 32% of them live in poverty. On the other hand, Latino children attend schools where 57% of the kids are poor and 27% are white. Currently, one-third of black and Latino children are in classes where 90 to 100% of the kids are African-American or Latino.

As is, this does not bode well for diversity in colleges and universities nationwide. The existing disparities will only worsen if the Supreme Court dismisses its own legal precedents and pretends that affirmative action and diversity are optional.

Let’s be real: The pressure for socioeconomic diversity is coming from the fact that the middle class in this country is becoming poor and the cost of a college education keeps spiraling up. But the answer is not to eliminate or replace affirmative action when universities should be recruiting both students of color and those economically disadvantaged.

And the fundamental solution here is for government to ensure that a college education is in real reach, not just for the rich.