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Politics|Ruling Raises Uncertainty for High School Students Heading to College

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/us/politics/affirmative-action-students.html
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SUPREME COURT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION RULING

 * Updates
 * Read the Decision
 * Highlights From the Ruling
 * How Admissions Could Change
 * Other Key Rulings

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RULING RAISES UNCERTAINTY FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS HEADING TO COLLEGE

“I think this will alter my entire application process,” one student said. The
Supreme Court left open the possibility that colleges could consider discussions
of race in personal essays.

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Supporters of affirmative action protested near the Supreme Court building in
Washington after the ruling was announced. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York
Times


By Jenna Russell, Jacey Fortin, Beverly Ford and Emily Cataneo

Beverly Ford reported from Cambridge, Mass., and Emily Cataneo from Chapel Hill,
N.C.

 * June 29, 2023Updated 8:31 p.m. ET



The teenagers seeking shade as their tour groups crisscrossed leafy Harvard Yard
on Thursday knew that they would be among the first students to feel the effect
of the Supreme Court’s ruling on race-based admissions when they applied to
colleges.

What they didn’t know was exactly how it would affect their chances. But many
high school students, visiting Harvard University and beyond, said they were
concerned to see long-established admissions practices giving way to something
new and unfamiliar.

“It makes me more stressed about the whole concept of college,” said Danyael
Morales, 16, a rising senior of Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage at Boston
Latin Academy, a public school in Boston. “And with the whole agenda of not
seeing race, I feel like colleges are not going to see me.”

The court voted 6 to 3 to reject affirmative action programs at Harvard and the
University of North Carolina. The move is expected to lower the number of Black
and Latino students at elite college campuses.



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In Chapel Hill, N.C., most U.N.C. students are gone for the summer, but the
student union swarmed with high school hopefuls trying on Carolina sweatshirts
while their parents clutched admissions folders.


THE END OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION


IN A LANDMARK 6-3 DECISION, THE SUPREME COURT ENDED RACE-CONSCIOUS COLLEGE
ADMISSIONS NATIONWIDE.

 * Biden’s Reaction: In brief remarks after the decision, President Biden
   assailed the justices’ ruling on affirmative action, saying that this Supreme
   Court “is not a normal court.”
 * Americans’ Views: A recent Pew Research Center report showed that half of
   Americans do not support of colleges and universities taking race and
   ethnicity into account in admissions decisions.
 * Affirmative Action’s Legacy: Ahead of the ruling, Black and Hispanic college
   graduates who were directly shaped by race-conscious college admissions
   reflected on the policy’s effect on their lives.
 * Transparency on Costs: Looking for a way to preserve diversity at colleges?
   Tell people before they apply the true price they would have to pay to
   attend, our financial columnist writes.

William Walker, who is Black, was visiting from Minneapolis to settle his son,
an incoming freshman, at orientation. He discussed the decision with his family
after the news broke. His daughter, a high school student, said it made her
nervous about what college would be like for her, though Mr. Walker was not
concerned, given her high grades and Advanced Placement classes.

He said his family would do their best to adapt. “You just adjust the fight. If
Mike Tyson sends jabs to the gut, you rock and send uppercuts.”



Yosef Herrera, 16, a Hispanic high school student in Mercedes, Texas, said he
supported the Supreme Court decision because he thought that affirmative action
focused too much on race, often at the expense of other factors like ethnicity
or family income. The policy can hurt people by inflaming racial divisions, he
said.

When his time comes to apply to the Ivy League schools that he hopes to attend,
Mr. Herrera, who is a co-chair of the High School Republican National
Federation, said: “I think they’ll be fair. They’ll look at my application, and
they’ll see what I’ve done as a person.”



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Writing the majority opinion for the court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
said that universities could continue to consider the effect of race on the life
experiences of applicants who wrote about it in their essays, as long as it did
not become a substitute for affirmative action.



That adds another layer of difficulty to the already high-stress decision of
what to write in college essays, said Dan Rubin, director of school counseling
at Newton South High School in Newton, Mass. Mr. Rubin said he expected that
many students would feel conflicted.

“It’s forcing kids of color to make a choice about which story to tell — a story
about race, or about all the other things that make them a quality applicant,”
he said. “Do they want to sacrifice the opportunity to talk about interning in a
biotech lab?”

The essay was a concern for Mr. Morales, the Boston Latin Academy student. He
was born in the Dominican Republic, learned English as a second language and
hopes to attend Columbia University to study business. “I’ve already spent
months learning how to write a college essay,” he said, “and I think this will
alter my entire application process.”

Minhal Nazeer, 17, a high school student in Louisville, Ky., who plans to apply
to colleges including Harvard and the University of North Carolina, said she
would take advantage of the college essay to discuss her South Asian identity.



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“I will be talking about my race in my applications to schools,” said Ms.
Nazeer, whose parents immigrated from Pakistan. “And I hope they recognize that
as an integral part of my identity.”

Matthew Wilson, a rising senior at Princeton University, said the court’s
decision could lead to a better system, and more diversity. As it is, he said,
the vast majority of students on his campus share the same socioeconomic
background and ideological leanings — evidence that affirmative action has
failed to create a true mix of backgrounds and ideas.

“Colleges ought to take the opportunity to view diversity in a different way,
and look for more diverse upbringings and viewpoints,” said Mr. Wilson, whose
father is white and whose mother immigrated to the United States from China.

Khymani James, 19, a rising junior at Columbia University who was raised in
public housing in Boston by an immigrant mother from Jamaica, said he had braced
for the court’s decision for weeks, trying to imagine what college would look
like without affirmative action.

How, he wondered, would his recent history class on the Atlantic slave trade —
where Black and white students swapped diverse perspectives — have felt
different in a room where more people were white because of the end of
affirmative action?

“It’s another attempt to try and erase race and erase racism,” he said, “like it
doesn’t exist.”

Colbi Edmonds contributed reporting.



Jenna Russell is The Times’s New England bureau chief, based in Boston.
@jrusstimes

A version of this article appears in print on June 30, 2023, Section A, Page 15
of the New York edition with the headline: For High School Students on the Cusp
Of College, Ruling Raises Uncertainty. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper |
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