In the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger case, Barbara Grutter filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan Law School on the basis that she was denied acceptance to the law school because she was not a member of a minority. Grutter claimed that the University was using race as the deciding factor in its application process, and that minority students had a higher chance of acceptance. The case made its way to the United States Supreme Court where it was ruled that the University’s use of race was constitutional.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the majority ruling for the Supreme Court stating that using race in the application process was constitutional because it was a “tailored use.” She rationalized that the University was accepting a group of students (without establishing a specific quota) that would create a comfortable learning environment for “underrepresented minority students.”
In dissent, Chief Justice William Rehnquist found that the University’s policy was unconstitutional because the number of minority students accepted appeared to create a quota because it was “far too precise to be dismissed as merely the result of the school paying ‘some attention to numbers.’” In other words, based on the consistent amount of minority students accepted, it was clear that race was a determining factor for the University in violation of the United States Constitution.
I think that the entire college and post-collegiate application process, in an attempt to create equality between and among races, has actually started to segregate the races. When applying for college, I could not help but notice several signs of this segregation. First, the applications specifically asked for my race. Yet, I do not believe that an application should even have an area about race. Race should not be a factor in any college or university’s decision about whether to accept a potential student. This decision should be based on grades, extracurricular activities, volunteer work and experiences. Second, the fact that additional scholarships are made available based on one’s race is clearly discriminatory. An African American or Asian student should not be able to receive a scholarship for which a Caucasian student could not apply. Simply put, additional school financial aid support and scholarships, in the same manner as acceptance, should not be based on race. Who is to say that someone who is African American or Asian has a lesser ability to pay for his or her education?
Overall, I think colleges and universities are walking a fine line in their application process. I think eventually everyone will move to a process where race is not involved. At that point, the student body will be composed solely of people qualified to attend the school and not people simply filling a diversity profile created by a social engineer.
I agree that it is unfair for some students to get into certain colleges because of what race they are or are not; however, without doing so, how do the underprivileged get a chance? If there is a black neighborhood that is poorer and in a school district that is not as competitive as the rich, white, upper-class private schools, how are they going to have any shot at getting into college? Some black students might be just as smart as some of the kids from the wealthier, white neighborhoods but because their school may not offer as many AP classes or have the proper resources for SAT prep classes, their grades and scores will be lower causing him to get rejected from colleges. That is not to say that a student should be accepted solely based on race, but perhaps background should be some sort of factor in the application process.
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